Graphicus April Challenge Card

Here is my card for the Graphicus April Challenge (theme - blossom, colour palette - pink & green). I have used stamps from 3 different Elusive Images themeplates for this card. The leaves (square image in centre of card) and the small blossoms cut out and stuck onto the leafy image are both stamps from the Texture Blocks themeplate. They are stamped onto glossy cardstock with Graphite Black Brilliance ink . The cardstock was first coloured with various pink and green inks (Stazon, Brilliance, ColorBox). The flowers in top left and bottom right hand corners are from the Funky Doodles Fresh themeplate. I used pink and green inks to stamp the flowers, cut them out, and misted them with pink and green spray inks from the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Fairy Blossom set. The torn paper on the right of my card is from the Graphicus Guild paper pack. I finished off my card by highlighting the small blossoms with some dimensional glaze and a little bit of pink glitter and sticking on small pink and green seed beads to form a stem for the Funky Doodle flowers and added a small pink bow.

GRAPHICUS JANUARY CHALLENGE

Well I have finally had some time to relax and craft as the pressure is off a little since the job offer on Thursday. Hopefully I will get written confirmation soon. Here are the items I have made for the new Graphicus monthly challenge, using inks, stamps and embellishments from the Graphicus online store.

The colour scheme challenge is plum and gold and my entry is a pendant and bracelet set made from stampbord. I have used various inks in shades of plum and gold (Black Cherry Glimmer Mist, Pearlescent Purple & Galaxy Gold Brilliance, Colorbox Cats Eye, Royal Purple Stazon) with stamps from the new Elusive Images Harlequin Rose themeplate, plus ribbon, wire and beads from my stash.

For the Celebrate challenge I decided to make a new baby card in vibrant colours as a change from the traditional pastels. The mother and child is from the Elusive Images Madonna & Trees themeplate (minus the halos!) stamped onto white card using a Kaleidacolor Baby Powder inkpad. I then rubbed Glimmer Chalks over the stamped image and mounted it onto a piece of card, which also started off white before I spritzed it with Black Cherry, Sunflower and Candy Apple Glimmer Mists, and ran it through the Cuttlebug with the D'Vine Swirl embossing folder. The stamped image and mats are fixed to the base card with foam tape to add dimension.

To make the flowers I again took white card and used Versamark ink to stamp patterns from the Elusive Images Texture Blocks themeplate and heat embossed them with clear powder. I sprayed the stamped patterns with Glimmer Mists (previously mentioned colours plus Jazz Blue and Meadow Green) and when dry I removed the clear powder with an iron to leave a flat surface on the cardstock. I then used my Cuttlebug to die cut the flowers on the right side of my card. These are layered and differ in height but it's difficult to tell from my photo.

To finish off my card I added a Creative Acrylics new baby sentiment coloured with Glimmer Chalk, threaded onto Maya Road Soho Candy ribbon together with a Candy Paisley slide.

More Glimmer!

Here is another card using glimmer mists and the Harlequin rose stamp by Elusive Images. The frame on the sentiment is also an Elusive Images stamp, I just added the words. The embossing is courtesy of my Cuttlebug and the green cardstock is Coredinations. I think the ribbon is by Anna Griffin. This card is for a friend's birthday and I must make the insert NOW! (hate doing inserts).

GLIMMER MIST ROSE

Today I was bored and fed up to say the least so I got out the papers I sprayed with glimmer mist last week and used some of them to make cards. Here is one I made from paper sprayed with Creme de Chocolat and thanks to Wendy for reminding me to enter the new Craft Stamper Challenge - Get Glam with Glimmer!

The image is stamped in Sepia Versafine and it is from the lovely new Elusive Images Harlequin Rose themeplate which I believe will be generally available soon (this was a Graphicus Guild member's offer).

I used a very weak solution of pink and green glimmer mists to paint the petals and leaves, matted the image onto purple cardstock and tied matching ribbon around and used foam pads to stick it to my cream card blank.

The coffee coloured cardstock is Coredinations run through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and I used the same coffee and purple card for the sentiment, simply cutting the lower edge with scallop scissors and adding 3 lilac gems. Sorry that I haven't done a very good job of capturing the glimmer mist shimmer in this photo (hence the 2 shots)!

Family Birthday Cards

Here are my 2 latest cards. The woodpecker card is for my son's birthday (he is 28 today) and the red and white doggy card was for my husband's birthday yesterday.

The woodpecker image is a Joanna Sheen stamp coloured with lyra crayons. The tree pattern paper was made using Glimmer Mists over a Glimmer Screen.

The dog stamps are by various companies (2 unknown but the two on the right are by Magnolia and Penny Black). The only colour I used on the images was black marker and red Stickles as I wanted to keep it fairly simple.

Competition Entries

I haven't been in the mood for crafting this week (again!) but quite miss blogging so I have decided to post pictures of 2 items I made recently for competitions.

The arch is for Sugar Lump Studios "Yuletide" Gothic Arch Contest at Gothic Arches. I think the closing date for entries is this weekend. I used Glimmer Mist for the background plus a vintage santa stamp and the cute little boy is from a collage sheet by Lisa's Altered Art.

The card was made using stamps from Elusive Image's Madonna themeplate (madonna & child, star and trees for the corners of my triangular shaped card. I also used sparkly embossing powder, irridescent spray inks, my Cuttlebug embossing folder, jump rings, rub ons and Glossy Accents. This particular card was my entry for the Graphicus Website October Card Competition and although I did not win a prize I enjoyed entering and the winning card is just gorgeous. Here is a link so you can see it.

Mojo Surfing!

When I came across another challenge site which is new to me - This Thursday It's All About - I was intrigued to see their latest challenge was Mojo surfing. That mystified me initially but I read the explanation and clicked on one of the blog links on the challenge site 'Altered Art & Stuff' and followed 5 further blog links, ending up at Dutch Stamptramp's blog. Nellie has some wonderful colourful work on her blog covering a wide variety of styles so I thought I would take my inspiration from her and try to create something using various techniques.

My main image of the vintage lady with Christmas presents is from Joanna Sheen's Fashion Boutique CD. I mounted the image onto a handcut tag made from green cardstock spritzed with Black Cherry Glimmer Mist over a Glimmer Screen. I also added some purple paper embossed with the Cuttlebug Script folder to my tag after inking it with Versafine Purple ink. I used my Cropadile to punch and set the eyelet and threaded through some burgundy ribbon.

I then inked a rectangular piece of cardstock with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tattered Rose and Versafine Purple, rounded the corners and stuck on a piece of patterned paper I made by spritzing it with Green Glimmer Mist. I distressed this paper with the Tattered Rose inkpad and randomly stamped snowflakes with Versafine Purple ink. I mounted my tag onto the 2 colour mat using foam pads and attached it to my deep purple base card with foam tape.

I stamped the sentiment onto a leftover piece of card I had used for the tag using Versamark heat embossed in Copper to finish off my card.

Magic & Mystery

I have finally finished the card I have been struggling with for Rainbow Lady's Magic & Mystery challenge. This has been a saga as I have found the stamped image difficult to colour in!!! Finally managed it with a mixture of Lyra watercolour crayons and H2O paints. The backing paper was a lot easier as I used blue and green Glimmer mists which are a joy to use and create lovely shimmery effects. The butterfly was made with a 2 part Cuttlebug die and I just added peeloff borders, blue and green gems and a length of green sequin ribbon. Hopefully the photo isn't too blurred!!!!