The Stamp Man Curls 'n' Swirls Challenge

Hi everyone.  Today is the start of a brand new challenge over on The Stamp Man's Challenge Blog and this time around we would like to see entries incorporating Curls 'n' Swirls!  I've got to admit that this is right up my street as I love all the swirly elements and stamps that are around at the moment!

This is a book that I did earlier this year to store some of my Nesties in using both my Funky Flowers (Aspects of Design No.56) and my Fancy Flourishes (Aspects of Design No.58) un-mounted stamp sheets along with the Cuttlebug Stylized Flower embossing folder which is just full of swirly bits! (All available from The Stamp Man.) As you can see I punched out some extra swirls too in order to embellish it further.

For the main flower panel I built up an arrangement of flowers, leaves and swirly bits using some of the elements from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet and then watercoloured them using Sakura Stardust pens which gives them such a delicate look as well as adding some gorgeous shimmer!  Then using a light blue chalk inkpad I stamped one of the flourishes (from the Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet) around the flowers then used a silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder around the edges of the panel.

For the inside of the book I cut up some magnetic sheets and stuck them either side of some square bits of mountboard. To separate the pages of the magnetic sheets I added some sheets of plasma and stuck pieces of DP on the bottom of the plasma to make pockets.  I then bound it altogether using the Bind It All machine.

Then as you can see I photocopied part of the front of the matching Nestabilities leaflet and popped it into the pocket.

Hope you like it and that you will play along with the Curls 'n' Swirls Challenge. Don't forget to hop on over to The Stamp Man's Challenge blog to see all the other gorgeous creations that the rest of the DT have made!

Have a great weekend everyone!

(NB The magnetic sheets and Sakura Stardust pens are not listed on The Stamp Man's website but they can be purchased from The Stamp Man's bricks and mortar shop/unit.) 

The Stamp Man's Second Challenge

Hi everyone. Today is the start of The Stamp Man's 2nd Challenge which is Take Two Colours. As you can see from my card I opted for some nice bright colours of purple and green which I thought would make a nice fresh looking card. 

For the background I used the Cuttlebug Stylized Flowers embossing folder and some plain vellum. After I'd embossed it I coloured the reverse side of the vellum with some markers in order to pick out the detail of the embossing.

For the main panel I used one of my stamps from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet and coloured this using Coloursoft pencils and Sansador in order to give it a soft muted feel.  I then took one of the flourishes from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and stamped and embossed around the flowers using Versamark and Crystal embossing powder.

The birthday wording is from my Funky Frames stamp sheet.

I really hope you like the card and fancy having a go at submitting a card of your own into our challenge. Click here to go and visit the Challenge blog and find out what you need to do to enter.

Enjoy your weekend!

The Stamp Man's First Fortnightly Challenge

Hi everyone.  Today is the start of The Stamp Man's new Fortnightly Challenges over on their new Challenge Blog. Click here to head on over and find out what you need to do to enter and don't forget to read the few rules that we have whilst you are there.

The first theme to get us up and running is Anything Goes which means that you can make anything you like!

Here's what I came up with for this challenge.  First of all I used my Nestabilities Blossom die to get my centre piece and then stamped components from my Funky Flowers stamp sheet to make up my own arrangement within the die-cut - just like I showed how to do in the May 2010 issue of Craft Stamper.  The beige background papers were stamped with two Hero Arts cling stamps (Flowing Flowers and Leaves and Reversed Flowers and Leaves) and a Distress Inkpad in Antique Linen. I then stamped over this using my fine flourish from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and Walnut Stain Distress inkpad.

The brown swirls and squares were punched out of brown Bazzill card using a medium square punch from Woodware and an EK Success Flourish punch from The Hobby House.

I coloured my main image using Sakura Stardust pens and a water brush which gives a lovely soft shimmer to them. Once I'd done this I took the dotty stamp from the Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and a light green inkpad and stamped all around the edge of the die-cut to give the speckled effect. I then used this same inkpad to stamp the leafy flourish from the Flourish stamp sheet at the base of the flower stems to add a subtle background.

I hope you like it and that you now feel inspired to join us for our Anything Goes Challenge!

The Other Half!

Hi everyone.  I hope that you all had a good weekend.  We have got lovely bright sunshine here today which is very welcome!  Well as promised here is the other half of Mum's Mother's Day card.  Yesterday I showed you the first side of it.  Well this is now the reverse side.

As you can see I kept the colour scheme the same on this side.  Instead of using the Blossom Nestabilities die I chose to use Labels Three for this side but I kept the rest of the elements the same so that it would correspond seamlessly with the other side. 

Here's a close up of the first panel on this side. Once again I used stamps from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet to create the backgrounds and then stamped elements from my Funky Flowers stamp sheet onto the die-cut and also some extra corresponding flower heads which I used for embellishments. I used my Floral Lace Martha Stewart punch to add some interest to the background panel. (Just love this punch!!  Well I would really wouldn't I as it is daisies!!)

Here's a closer look at that central panel. Once again I used light coloured Copics to colour the flowers and leaves and then added corresponding colours of Sakura Stardust pens over the top which I softened using a water brush. You'll see that I lightly stamped around the flowers as well using one of my flourishes and a light blue inkpad just to take away the starkness of the white background.

Onto the middle panel now. The layout for this I kept quite similar to the layout on the other side as this kept it balanced. Again the stamped wording was taken from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the cut out letters were from the Cuttlebug Curls 'n' Swirls alphabet set.  As you can see I stamped three flower heads from my Funky Flowers stamp sheet and cut them out and layered them over my new sprig punch that I bought from The Hobby House. (Just love this punch already and I know that it is going to get a lot of use!  You can't tell very well from this photo but the bottom part of this panel lifts up and that is where I wrote my greeting to Mum.

Onto the last panel now which I stamped using the same flourish stamps and used the same shades of Bazzill card as for the first panel, but altered the layout slightly.  As you can see I used my Floral Lace Martha Stewart punch again as well. Plus I used some cut out flower heads too to act as embellishments just like I did for the first panel in order to keep it all matching.

And here is a close up of that centre panel where you can see I stamped the centre flower head first and masked it so that I could then stamp the other flower heads either side of it.  I then drew in some stems with a fine black pen and stamped the leaves either side of them.  I've got to say that I had great fun using the different elements off of the Funky Flowers stamp sheet and ended up making far more panels than I needed as I just couldn't stop!  Still they will come in handy for some other cards!

Once again all the materials I used on this card came from The Craft Barn apart from that sprig punch which came from The Hobby House.  If any of you have already got these stamp sheets I hope that it has given you some ideas!

Happy Mother's Day

Hi guys. First of all I just want to wish all you Mums out there a very happy Mother's Day.  I am lucky enough to still have my Mum around as some of you already know from reading previous posts.  So today I thought I would share with you half of the card that I made her this year.  Yes I did say 'half'!  I made Mum a concertina card and for you to see it all properly it would be a mega long post so I thought it would be easier to show you half of it today and the other half tomorrow.  I have got to admit that I am not the quickest card maker in the world but this took me a week to make as I kept tearing it apart and starting it again where I just wasn't happy with it!

Anyway without further ado here is the box that I made to put it into.

I made the box from thick white card and then decorated the top of it to match the card inside.  The panels were stamped and decorated using stamps from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the top left panel was embossed using the Cuttlebug Stylized Flower embossing folder. The main panel was stamped using some of the elements from my Funky Flowers stamp sheet and then coloured using Copics and Sakura Stardust pens.  The 'Mum' wording was die cut using the Cuttlebug Curls 'n' Swirls alphabet.

Here is the first side of the card. To make the concertina card all I did was stick two 14.5x14.5cm square white cards together. This saves you buying a large piece of thick white card as doing it this way you can stick as many pieces together as you like and also makes it nice and sturdy.

Here's a better look at that first panel.  Again I have used flourishes from my stamp sheet to decorate the background panels and also that Stylized Flower embossing folder. For the main panel I cut a blossom nestabilities from white card and then stamped elements onto it from my Funky Flowers stamp sheet and just drew in the stems using a fine black pen.

Here's a better look at that centre panel.  The colouring was achieved by using light Copics first and then Sakura Stardust pens over the top along with a water brush.  This gives a delicate shimmery effect.  You can also see that I subtlety stamped the background of the die-cut using a flourish and a light blue chalk inkpad.

Onto the second panel now using the same two stamp sheets to create the background and also the daisy flower element. This time I chose to cut out the flowers after stamping them to use them as an accent.  To keep the flower theme going I also used my Martha Stewart Floral Lace edging punch too.  The stamped wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the die-cuts were done using that Cuttlebug Curls 'n' Swirls alphabet.

And here is that third panel which I did to match the first one but just changed the panels around.  Again I stamped the elements from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet onto my blossom nestabilities die-cut to create my main panel and stamped out extra flower heads which I cut out to use as embellishments.

Here's another close up for you so you can see that I achieved this layout by doing some simple masking of the large central flower.  This is what I had in mind when I first designed the Funky Flowers stamp sheet as I thought it would be great fun to be able to stamp your own designs to fit perfectly into all the different nestabilities dies.

Thankfully after all that work my Mum did like the card!  Tomorrow I will show you the other side of it.

All the materials used on this card can be purchased from The Craft Barn.

Blue Funky Flowers

Here is the last of the cards that we did the other week at The Craft Barn using that Funky Flowers stamp sheet again.  This card was a little bit more involved than the one I showed you the other day as there was a little bit of masking involved.  We started off by stamping the larger (pink) flower head onto the white panel, then stamped it again onto a post it note. The post it note flower was cut out and placed over the original stamped flower so that we could then stamp the different flower head to the right and slightly behind that first flower head.  You can see that we also needed to make a mask for that third flower so that we could stamp the leaf behind it. (To see all the different components on this sheet check out my sidebar.)

As I said before these stamps were all designed to interact with one another so the amount of different compositions you can create is endless and it is entirely up to you how intricate and involved you want to make them.

Once I've gone to the trouble of making masks for any of my flower heads or leaves I then store them on a piece of acetate and slip it into the folder that I keep my stamps in so that they are always together and ready for next time.

The background for this card was created using my Fancy Flourish stamp sheet.  Both of these stamp sheets can be purchased from The Craft Barn.

The colouring was done using a combination of Copic Ciaos and Sakura Stardust pens which again The Craft Barn stock.