The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge

Well it is Friday which means that it is time for another Stamp Man challenge.  This time around we want to see some oriental cards - click here to go to the Challenge Blog and find out all about it as well as see the stunning cards that the rest of the DT have made to inspire you.

As some of you are aware I do have my own range of oriental stamps so this was the ideal time to dust them off and use them!  Normally the first thing that pops into my head when I think of oriental are the colours red, gold and black but I thought that I would steer clear of these and go for pretty colours instead to show that oriental can look great in delicate colours too.

So here is what I finally came up with using my Japanese Plum Blossom set but as you can see I couldn't resist adding some black accents to it!

The background for the card was made using one of the beautiful Starburst Stains called Frosted Forget-Me-Nots which is available to buy on its own or if you have the Icicle Creek Starburst Stain set you'll find it in there too.  I then simply stamped the panels using stamps from the Japanese Plum Blossom sheet and a Stormy Sky Distress inkpad.  As you can see I couldn't resist using my Floral Lace Martha Stewart edging punch on the bottom panel as I thought this went so well with my main image!  The wording was stamped using a black Tombow pen (as this is infact all one stamp), so I just inked up the 'friends' part first and stamped it at the top of the card, cleaned my stamp before inking up the rest of the sentiment and stamping it near the base of the card.  The accent strips of paper were off-cuts from the background that I stamped with the plum blossom branch and a black inkpad before trimming to size and adding to the card.

I stamped the main image using black StazOn and then watercoloured the flowers and branches using Tombow pens and then painted the background with the Frosted Forget-Me-Not stain.

In order to add a touch of gold to the card I then used a glue pen in the centres and stamens of the flowers, allowed the glue to turn clear and then applied gold leaf to it which when it catches the light really lights up.

Anyway I hope you like the card and feel inspired to give The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge a go!  Good luck!!

A Couple of Challenges!!

Hi everyone.  I have two cards to share with you this time as I thought I'd play along with a couple of challenges before the time is up!

Now as some of you already know my Mum loves to do quilling but she never actually does anything with the pieces she makes up.  Ages ago I did promise her that I would have a go at making some cards up for her if she quilled some snowflakes.  I had no idea that she would then go absolutely beserk and quill an enormous amount!!!  I ended up making 9 cards for her using her quilled snowflakes - each of them based on the same layout but all slightly different.  I will show you the rest of them next week as all the snowflakes that she quilled were individual and no two were the same. (She did actually quill a whole lot more than 9 so I have some more cards to do for her when time allows.)  I thought it might be fun though to enter our shared card into the current Sir Stampalot challenge - A Winters Tale.

So without further ado here's the card I've chosen to submit for this challenge!  I created the background using the Papermania snowflake embossing folder along with an Inkadinkado Winter Trails stamp set, Silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder.  The 'winter' wording came from a rather old Impression Obsession wording stamp set.

Here's a closer look at Mum's marvellous snowflake that she did out of strips of white paper.  As you can see I simply stuck the snowflake onto nestabilities die-cuts before sticking it to the main card.

Onto the second card and I would like to enter this into the Penny Black at Allsorts challenge - All You Need Is Love.  Ok I realise that this isn't a traditional lovey dovey stamp but it is VERY sweet and they do look as if they are almost kissing so I think this counts - lol!!  This particular stamp is called Hedgy Gift which I coloured using Copic markers.  The flourishes and wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the lacey edging was done with the Doily Lace Martha Stewart punch.

Here's a closer look at the colouring for you.  Can't remember the colours off-hand that I used but I'll see if I can find my notes and edit this later for you!

I'll be back on Friday with The Stamp Man's latest challenge so hopefully see you then!

A Mammoth Post!!

Hi guys!  I cannot believe how quick the time has flown past since Christmas and also that this is my first post for 2011!!  Oops!!  Have you missed me????

To make up for being absent for so long this is going to be quite a long post so I hope you are comfortable!  I'm afraid that I never did get around to loading up all those Christmas cards that I made last year so I have saved them and will load them up later on this year once we all start thinking about Christmas again.

Today I thought I'd share a 'special' card with you that I made last year for my Mum's birthday using the adorable 'Sisters' stamp by Belles'n'Whistles.  When I see this stamp it reminds me of stories that Mum has told me about her and her big sister so I thought it quite appropriate!  The card itself is quite large at 20x20cm so I was able to fit quite a bit onto it!  The pretty background paper was from the Kioshi collection by Basic Grey.  The wording stamps are from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet apart from the letters spelling out 'MUM' which came from a clear Hero Arts stamp sheet.  The lovely delicate flourish stamp that I've used around the main card and the Sisters panel is one of my favourite flourish stamps of all time by Penny Black called Scrolling Along.

As you can see I chose to add some interest to the main card using two Martha Stewart punches - Garden Trellis and Doily Lace Trim along with some Prima flowers from the E Line range, some pearl sprays from my own stash, punched out daisies, self-adhesive pearls, brads and spacers.

I stamped my main image using black Versafine ink onto watercolour card and used Distress inkpads to colour in my image,to stamp my wording with and the Scrolling Along flourish.  Lots of Diamond and Platinum glitter glue was then added to the card to make it sparkle!

As this was a special card for a 'special Mum' I chose to decorate the inside of the card too.  This is a picture of the whole of the inside of the card before I wrote in it.  As you can see I used the same papers as for the front of the card as well as some light green Bazzill card and used my Labels Nine Nestabilities dies for my centre panels.

Here's a closer look at the left side of the inner card.  You can see that I decorated the plain green panel by stamping it with the Scrolling Along stamp using a pale green inkpad and then used a darker green inkpad to stamp it again along the top and bottom.  I used another of my Martha Stewart punches - Floral Vine to provide some decoration along with some punched out squares, self-adhesive pearls and nailheads and of course lots of glitter glue!

I stamped the Belles 'n' Whistles Tea Time stamp into the Labels Nine die-cut and watercoloured the image using Distress inkpads.  Then I popped the corresponding Nestabilities back over the die cut and used my blending tool  along with a Bundled Sage Distress inkpad to softly ink around the edges of the die cut.

I also did this for this panel too which I then wrote in afterwards.  The wording used on these inner pages of the card came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet.

I'd like to enter this card into the current Belles 'n' Whistles challenge Anything But Winter.

So are you still with me?  I did warn you that it was going to be a loooooooong post!!  I did make a box for this card to go in which I decorated too but I never got around to taking a photo of it.

I hope you liked this card - Mum did!  I'll try and do another post soon!!  Meanwhile a Happy New Year to you all.