Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woollen Mittens for Fashionable Stamping Challenges.......

Good morning!

Busy busy busy here making inspirational pieces for our current theme over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges of "The Sound of Music" or "Your Favourite Things".

This first piece was great fun, although at first it doesn't look like it's a very busy card, it's when you see the stamped out die cuts on that background that you see the work that has gone in to this one.

I started here by sponging on some orange and yellow distress inks and splattering some water off of my fingers on there and dabbing off to remove some colour (like dribbles or spillages typically from cups, kettles and teapots!).  I didn't have a cup or teapot stamp so my brain had to get thinking here.  I did have two dies by Tonic though, one a cup and one a teapot so I cut those out of funky foam, attached to an acrylic block and stamped away in the orange colour!!! If you then look closely, you will see that those little shrink plastic tea cups are the same stamped image on to shrink plastic, cut out and heated to make them much smaller.

The Kettles were stamped direct on to the card and on to clear acetate (so that I could reverse two of them).  I coloured the kettles in Indigoblu luscious powder to give me that perfect copper colour and shine.

The sentiment has been die cut from a Sue Wilson alphabet and placed to look like the words are pouring from the kettles.

How is that for improvising!

This time it's a simple tag with the only mittens stamps I own (which came on a sheet free with a magazine).

This was simply done using a distress ink background and stamping the mittens.  I drew cords on the mittens as I always used to put my daughters mittens on elastic that I threaded through their coat so that they didn't lose them - do you remember those days??!!!

Some white embossed snowflakes and a sentiment of warm wishes.

I added some nice lace and ribbon for a tassel to the tag - perfect for Christmas.

Now you can have a go too and join us at Fashionable Stamping Challenges for our current theme of "The Sound of Music" or "My favourite Things"!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope that you've enjoyed your visit,

Leanne xx

Let Your Heart Be Still and Hear The Whisper of Wings......

Good morning!!

Here is my offering for the current challenge over at Country View Challenges "Inspired by Tim Holtz".

I got straight on with this one so didn't take photo's along the way but I'll talk you through how I got there.

I started with a piece of Sheena Stamping card and used two distress inks and simply swiped them across the page - effective isn't it?.

I then stamped the nest and to stop it looking like it was completely floating I extended the branches with a micron pen.

Now, the eggs caused me a slight dilemma simply down to their size!  So I thought that I would stamp one of them three times on to shrink plastic and shrink them down to fit the nest! I cut a slit in the nest with my craft knife and popped them in there with some glue.

So, bringing you back to the main image, my eggs are now sitting nicely in the nest! I stamped my birds, the one on the left is stamped with versafine ink straight on to the card stock and the one on the right has been reversed by stamping it on to tissue paper first and then attached to the artwork with decoupage glue and then tinted in.

I stamped my sentiment which I thought was perfect for this piece.

The main mat has been stamped with the egg (full size) and the feather that comes in the same Stampers Anonymous set again using the same distress inks.

I finished with some feathers that coordinated with the colour scheme and just tinted the very outside edge of the card with the distress ink.

Yet another card that would be suitable for both a female or male recipient !

I would like to enter this in to the Country View Challenges "Inspired by Tim Holtz":-

http://countryviewchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/march-2017-inspired-by-tim-holtz.html

and Stamping Sensations "Close to Nature":-
http://sirstampalotchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/march-close-to-nature.html

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xx

Seasons Greetings.....

Good morning!

An extra blog this week!  I completed a milestone a few days ago - I completed my 2016 new years resolution!!!!! (5 Christmas cards a month.....and I did it having got ahead and did Decembers five too!!!!! yay!!!!!). I will feel really good knowing that they are all done.

OK, this is one of the cards made for Christmas - I wanted a tree just like the one I have here at home at Christmastime - nice and big, fat, fluffy and bushy!!!! I took some photo's of how I got there so lets go on our usual journey shall we?

Started with my usual piece of Sheena stamping card and started to stamp the arms of my tree with a couple of different colour distress inks using a pine branch stamp by Stamps by Chloe. So as you will see, this tree started and continued to form from just one, the same one straight pine branch stamp.

Here we go! By now I have added the same stamp with white embossing powder for some of the branches.

Now I have added some stencilling to the background and some die cut ivy hanging down (ivy makes me think of Christmas as it's always evergreen and always there at Christmastime).

ooooh, looking good!!! You will notice now that I have "knocked back" the background to bring the tree forwards to the foreground (so that the tree doesn't get lost in all the colours).  I have stamped an angel (Crafty Individuals) on to some shrink plastic and heated her to shrink her right down for the top of the tree and the baubles are also on shrink plastic from much larger ones by Stamps by Chloe and some glitter has been added to the baubles and the angel.

With some small hole punch circles of mirror card and some Nuvo pearl drops, a stand and some ribbon we were done! Oh, have you spotted the secret ingredient? - yes, matching feather pieces - perfect!

Mat and layered.

I got the exact effect that I wanted, a nice, fat, bushy and fluffy tree!

Hope you like it too,

I would like to enter this in to the Try It On Tuesday challenge "Trees are green... or any other colour":-

http://tuesdaytaggers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/trees-are-green-or-any-other-colour-at.html

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xx