WOYWW #404

Well, here we are, two months down already. Time flying past, and to be honest, not a lot yet happening this end, other than a bit of organising.Did get one gorgeous piece of Happy Mail, from our lovely Debbbie, of Tattered Rocks.
 Isn't it just awesome?
















Next on  my desk are these- water soluble oil pastels. I've seen a lot of good things written about these, people comparing them very favourably to Tim Holtz's Distress Crayons, and to Gelatos as well. Notice these are water soluble ones, not just bog standard oil pastels. This pack of 24 cost me £8.50 from Amazon, plus shipping.So a lot less than the other two products mentioned.

Nice range of colours too, so I'm intending to have a play with them in my practice journal and see what happens.

As you can see, with a bit of a water spritz, they do indeed blend really well.

Last thing for this week, the Distress Oxide pads arrived. I'm going to see what I think of these, and whether they are different enough to justify the outlay when more come out. The one thing that really caught my eye so far was how even the palest colours show up on dark cardstock, even black, when they dry. So that will be an interesting experiment with some scrap black cardstock.
 Well then, time to link up with our Julia, at The Stamping Ground, and I'll be visiting in between naps, lol.

Card for a New Home.

Right,I made this card a few weeks ago, and with waiting for it to arrive, then going into hospital, I've just realised that I hadn't blogged it.

The main stamp is by Hobby Art, from a set called 'Hares'. We spotted this at The Happy Stampers Festival last year, and as Doug pointed out, it would be perfect for anything for LLJ, as she is known for her love of Hares. So when Jan announced they were moving to Wales, and that they had a date for moving in, I remembered this stamp set.

This is the journal I was trying out some scenes using Card-io stamps in a while back, and I can't figure why I've never done this before, instead of winging it and hoping for the best. I've always got a stack of scrap paper under my work, and have occasionally done a test imprint on that, but never tried figuring out placement and colour.
 Anyhow, first off I stamped him in black, then built up the grasses around him using an assortment of green dye inkpads, and some stamps from an Inkylicious set called 'Essential Grasses'. Which it is, I think. A great selection of types of grass.








I didn't think I liked the black version, so instead tried it in Archival Rich Cocoa, which is what I went with for the card.
 When I stamped him onto the card base, I also stamped another onto Post-its, so I could mask him when I wanted to add the sky.
 The hare was coloured with Distress Markers in Antique Linen, and Walnut stain, using a waterbrush to drag the colour.

Bit of a jump here to the finished scene, when I realised I'd forgotten to take any 'in the process' pictures!
 I stamped the hare in Archival Rich Cocoa, then the grasses surrounding him in Adirondack Meadow and Lettuce.
 Tearing some scrap paper into hill shapes, I used a soft brush to create the hills with the Adirondack greens again.
Using Adirondack Sunshine Yellow and Sunset Orange, along with a dry baby wipe, I created a sunrise behind the hills, then put the mask over the hare.
Again using a soft brush I applied Adirondack Stonewashed all over the sky area, then added Sailboat Blue onto the upper portion of the sky, to get a sort of mottled look.
 A portion of fencing from another Hobby Art set was stamped in Archival Black onto one hilltop, then an Inkylicious Flock of Birds, and a butterfly added.


 The corners were rounded off- this little rounder from X-Cut is actually really good, better than other cheap ones I've had. I do have the Corner Chompers, but this one was handy.

 I matted the image onto dark blue cardstock, then rounded those corners too.
 Next it needed a sentiment, and one of the Phill Martin sets I've bought recently, Mini Baroque Occasions Set, has a New Home one in it.
 That was stamped in Archival Cobalt in the upper left of the scene.
I mounted the image onto a 7" square card base, then tied a blue and white spotted chiffon ribbon along the bottom.
 And then it was done.

Stamps Used:
 Hobby Art, March Hares
Hobby Art, Woodland Glade( Hillside fence)
Inkylicious, Essential Grasses
Inkylicious Take Flight( lots of bird flocks)
Inkylicious Playful Cats ( Butterfly)
 Phill Martin Mini Baroque Occasions Sentiment Set.

WOYWW #403

Another week further into the year, and time for linking up again with our favourite Hostess, Julia, over at The Stamping Ground.
 Not much going on over here, I seem to spend a lot of time sleeping, and doing very little else. We did go out to buy some meat last weekend, and the farm shop we get our meat from is conveniently right next door to our local craft shop!

The two handfuls of stuff followed me home- love that Impression Obsession snowman, really cute.
 The Thinlits die is one of Tims latest releases, and to be honest,is one of the few items that grabbed me this time around.

Some wooden snowflakes in two sizes, and some metal embellishments made up my shopping.






Earlier in the week I'd had some more stamps arrive- some of the latest releases from Visible Image.

 Bottom right is a face mask/stencil, to work with the eyes stamp set next to it.
 Well, I'll be around to visit in a while, in between naps, lol.

The Making Of a Valentines Card

Well, I promised a blog post on it, so here it is.  It all came together fairly quickly, as the general idea had rattled around in my head over the weekend. Of course, the smart thing would to have got it made before I went into hospital, but lets not go there, hey?
 Kept it simple in colours- Black, White & Silver, with a small splash of red at the end.
 We bought the word stamp at the Hobbycrafts NEC last year, as it's a phrase special to us, we use it between us often.

  My Supplies: Silver Encore Pigment pad, Black Memento ink,- there was also silver EP and Black detail EP not in the picture- A Moon stamp from Lavinia Stamps,  and the word stamp from Inkylicious. The notebook was to try out the positioning of the moon & words, to make sure I could stamp it and die cut it with a heart shaped die.
 I had a 7" square card base as a starter, and cut a silver cardstock square to fit the front, then cut a black pearl layer to sit on top of that.
 Next came the stamping, and I first stamped the words in Memento Tuxedo Black, and then heat embossed with Black detail Powder, onto white pearl card.
 Positioning the Moon stamp needed a bit of care, as I wanted it to fit easily into the heart, but not obscure the wording.

Here you can see I had positioned the heart die I was going to use after I'd stamped the words, and drawn lightly around the outer edge of the heart, to give me a guideline.  

 I stamped the Moon using Silver Encore Pigment Ink, then heat embossed using Silver EP. That did actually cover the lettering in a couple of places, but I used a finepoint Black marker to bring the letters back.

The heart shape is from a set by Nellie Snellen, and is the largest die of the set.

I was intending to add a white card layer slightly smaller than the black one, to leave a narrow border, but then I looked at the white offcut that I had die cut the focal heart from, and it made a pleasing layout with  a larger black border, so I went with that.
I'd already pictured that I wanted a sort of sweep of hearts from one corner to the opposite one, so set about sorting some out. There are a various sizes, some punched, some small die cuts, all from oddments of glitter card/ stamped card or paper and vellum.
 I lay out my small hearts,roughly lining them up to opposite corners, then used some dabs of silicone glue to adhere them, so I didn't have to unassemble everything. Finally added the main Focal Point on top, using some foam pads.

WOYWW #402

And as most of you will know from following all the updates, I'm out of hospital, and starting to get back to my desk. Doing everything very slowly, trying to gradually build myself up again, and bolstering myself with painkillers along the way. Another week, and another WOYWW, over at Julia's place, The Stamping Ground.
  A balloon decorating the back of my PC desk chair!
 A huge bunch of flowers were waiting for me when I got downstairs, from my Beloved Hubby.

I'll blog this card I made for Hubby in the next couple of days- one of those that all sort of came together in my head, then everything went where it was supposed to!

I'll be round visiting on and off, I still can't sit too long in one position or my side hurts, so I end up going off for a lie down every now and then.
 But it's wonderful to be back home with Beloved Hubby, and to be able to visit all my Blogging friends.