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!!

The Last of Jill's Cards

Morning everyone. I am already behind this morning as I just did not want to get up after doing my classes yesterday at The Glitter Pot. I nearly fell asleep again on the settee last night but just about managed to hold it together!! I think that everyone enjoyed the classes yesterday - the feedback that I got was certainly very positive which always makes it really worthwhile so thanks guys!

I will begin loading up the cards that we did tomorrow so you can see what we got up to. Meanwhile here is the last of the cards that I sent to Jill, who as I type this will be busy at the Doncaster show. If anyone out there reads this blog and goes to this show do let me know what you think of the cards in real life. I have got to say that this is probably my least favourite of the ones that I did for Jill as again I thought I would try a different colour scheme and didn't really like this one but then just because I don't like it doesn't mean that other people won't so I decided to include it. The background on the left of the card was done with a couple of colours from the Mayday Meadow Starburst Stain set and then was stamped with different flourishes and inkpads. The panel that you see on the right of the card was a piece of plain green textured card that I just stamped over with those flourishes again. The dragonflies/butterflies are from the Funky Frames stamp sheet. Perhaps you guys can help me out with this? I originally drew these insects as being dragonflies but now I can't make up my mind whether they look like dragonflies or butterflies!! What do you think???

Pastel Funky Flowers

Here is another card that is now on its way to Jill in Yorkshire. For this card I stamped an image from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet and then used the flourishes and wording stamps from the Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet. On the flourish sheet you get absolutely loads of stamps as I wanted a nice range of wording and flourishes and they really mix together very well.

The background panel on the left of the card was done with the Icicle Creek set of Starburst Stains and then I stamped different flourishes and dots over the top once it had dried. The actual card base was stamped and embossed with flourishes along the right-hand edge and then the fine flourish was overstamped with Graphite Black Brilliance. The flourishes that you see in the top left and bottom right corners of the flower panel were stamped with Starlite Black Brilliance. The flowers were coloured with Copics which gave them a nice, fresh, clean look.

More tomorrow............

Pretty In Peach

I know that you have all been eagerly awaiting to see what I have created using my new stamp sheets so I have decided to carry on showing you what I will be sending on up to Jill.

For this one I have made my own backgrounds. The background on the left was made first of all with Mermaid Seashells Starburst Stains and allowed to dry. Then it was trimmed to size and stuck to the left side of a plain Bazzill green panel. Next using stamps from my flourish sheet I first randomly stamped and embossed a flourish all over the panels using Versamark and Crystal embossing powder, then I stamped a different flourish around the top left and bottom right corners of the card using Timber Brown StazOn. I stamped little dots (from the Flourish sheet) onto the Mermaid Seashell panel only, using the same inkpad, stamping 2 or 3 times before re-inking so as to get lighter and darker dots. Then finally using the delicate flourish I stamped this in Brilliance Graphite Black around the edge of the card. The Timber Brown inkpad was then used to ink the edges of the card.

The flowers (from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet) were stamped onto white card with Brilliance Graphite Black and coloured. Once all the colouring had been done I took one of the flourishes (from the Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet) and repeatedly stamped all over the flowers and surrounding white area with Versamark and embossed with Crystal embossing powder. In the top left and bottom right corners of the panel I stamped a different flourish using Brilliance Starlight Black.

Once again you are not getting the effect of both the Crystal glitter glue that I added to the flower panel or the Crystal embossing powder so it does look prettier in real life. As Jill said in her comment under yesterday's post if anyone is attending the Doncaster show next weekend, Jill will have the cards up on display for you to see them in real life.

(By the way I haven't finished showing you all the cards yet that I did for Stamp Addicts and I will continue showing these to you as well inbetween showing these latest cards.)