Faerie Birthday

A piece of white card was brayered with Adirondack Lemonade, Sunshine Yellow & Citrus. Lavinia Stamps Faery House was stamped in Black Versafine then heat embossed with a black sparkle powder. 

I also stamped off onto a post-it note, then cut out the mask. I put the mask in place then overstamped with the Faery words plate ( Lavinia stamps) in Plum Archival ink. Leaf Trail ( Lavinia Stamps) was stamped in Olympia Green Versafine, using first & second impressions, and a variety of small foliage stamps stamped along the bottom. 

A small dragonfly stamp was added in a couple of places. This was trimmed down to size and matted onto dark green card. I took a square card blank and covered it with a sheet from the Dovecraft 8x8 designer pack 'Fantasy'. 

The stamped image was then mounted onto the front with sticky fixer pads. A wide black and a narrow green organza ribbon were wrapped around the spine and tied in a bow. 

The sentiment tag was made from an offcut of the brayered sheet. I overstamped it with Artifacts Darting Dragonflies u/m stamp, from The Stamp Bug, using Versafine Frost. Sentiment was stamped in Olympia Green Versafine, then an eyelet added to thread some twine through. 

A small dragonfly embellishment was added to the tag.

Pink Birthday

Made for our niece, who is very into pink! Its also a version of the monochrome card further down. All the stamp credits are the same, with the exception of the Happy Birthday, which is from Butterfly Kisses,Art Collage clear 2 you sheet. Stamped it twice, on one I just coloured in the letter with an embossing pen, added embossing powder & heated, then coloured the surround in pink marvy marker, went over it with the embossing pen then with pink embossing powder.The embossing folder is Cuttlebug Birds & Swirls, and this I put through the Cuttlebug upside down, so the image is debossed, rather than embossed. This is a useful way to get some variety from your embossing folders, and works with anything that does not contain words.
The tartan panel was stamped with Distress ink, Worn Lipstick.

Mulan

This was named after the film that gave me the inspiration. Its an Asian cinema film, and if you don't like subtitled films, it's not for you.It seems that the modern dog-tags worn by soldiers are predated by the chinese army by a couple of thousand years- I assume they were made of bamboo, but carried the name of the soldier, so he could be identified. In a scene in the film, Mulan is washing these tags taken from dead soldiers, to remove the blood, before they are returned to their families. The main tag was made by painting dark brown acrylic paint & crackle glaze onto card, then a lighter brown for the top layer. The Asian lettering is from a Great Impressions stamp(#K50), and the warrior from Non Sequiteur plate 67C.Both were stamped in Staz-on Black. I dabbed some red ink onto the stamped tag.The medium tag was made by triple embossing a tag dabbed with black ink, then stamping in Kanji characters in gold Encore. The red tag had oriental letters stamped in black on a red background, triple embossed then a different Kanji stamped into it. I chose the Kanji's for Strength, Honor and Courage, as these seemed most appropriate.Kanji stamps by Stamp & Go (SIEWKFS01B.). The base paper is a torn piece of snakeskin effect paper, which reminded me of the texture of the armour.A small coin, a couple of bits of cocktail stick and two pieces of raffia combined for the final embellishment. Oh, I threaded some thick cord through the tags, and made a small bead out of Black Fimo to thread on to it. The base card was stamped with a Bamboo motif, in Versamark. I have entered this in the 'Cards for Men' challenge at The Stamp Man Blog.

WOYWW

This is my WOYWW for this week- in the middle of making a card for my niece's birthday- she's very into pink. Definitely outside my comfort zone- I do NOT do pink! But I think it all worked out in the end.

Ist Wedding Anniversary card

This is the card made for my Beloved Husband, for our first wedding anniversary today. Triple embossed hearts,which were first coated with Distress ink Fired Brick.The second layer of embossing powder had some skeleton leaves added to it.The last layer was imprinted with two swirl designs ( large heart S1838 Florentine Swirl, Hero Arts: small heart 2636K Scroll Pattern, Penny Black) in Gold encore ink.The small swirl was also repeated on the black mulberry paper, which was layered onto burgundy mulberry paper. 2 feathers in red & black added with silicone glue. A fancy edge was cut using a paper trimmer.

My First Ever Award.......

I was given this award by the extremely talented Donna H from Splitcoast Stampers forum. I love this forum- there are threads for absolutely anything you can think of, everyone is so friendly, there is always someone who knows the answer to a problem and the wealth of talent in the Galleries will take your breath away.
The rules for this award are:

1. Thank the person that passed it to you.

2. Copy the award to your blog.
3. Share three things about yourself that you enjoy doing.
4. Pass the award to 5 others.

So first, Donna...Thank you so much- my first ever award, you have made my day, week, month..... 

 Next my 3 shares are:

 1.  Rubber stamping, of course 
 2.   Reading: Fantasy fiction in particular,
 3.   Listening to Heavy Metal

And the 5 ladies that I am passing this award onto are:
 1.    Marg     (Silvercrafter)    My co- Mother -in-Law and very good friend
 2.    Tina       (Scrapdiva)
3.     Cammi   (Cuttin up)
4.    Alison   (Crafty-Bake)   Cardmaking AND Cake- what more could anyone want?
5.    Diane Clark   (Stampin ldglfr62)

Apart from Marg, all these ladies I have found on SCS, and lose many a happy hour (and more) just going round checking out the blogs, so I want to say a huge thank you to all of you for being so inspiring, so creative, and most of all for sharing what you do with all of us.And trying to pick just 5 is so hard- every blog I see I find work that I love...