A Box of Inspiration

Showing you this one feels a bit like baring my soul. There's a lot of me in this box, so I hope you like it.

"A box of inspiration"

There are so many gorgeous quotes stamps about, but my favourites are these from IndigoBlu.

"Let Your Soul and Spirit Fly"

This little box helps me out when I'm feeling sorry for myself.

"Love to Create"

It started out as a cheap £3 blank wooden treasure chest.

"Discover Your Passion"

It's coloured with distress stains, overstamped in archival inks, then has inked diecuts stuck on (I love this tree in the corner). The whole thing was finally coated in multiple layers of clear embossing powder. Originally, I'd intended to embed gems and seed beads into the embossing, but I changed my mind and left it like this, just inking the edges with a gold aquamarker and adding some glass pebbles for feet.

"Inside"

The inside of the box is decorated but not embossed.

"Inspiration"

And here's my inspiration... "Courage, Determination, Strength. That's What Little Girls are Made of".

Ingredients:

IndigoBlu stamp set "Discover Your Passion"

Marianne dies: Bird with Branch (small), Bird with Branch (large), tree

Distress Stains - including Tumbled Glass, Picket Fence

Distress Ink Pads - Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Peacock Feathers

Archival Ink Pad -  Cobalt Blue

Versamark Ink Pad

gold aquamarker

UTEE

glass pebbles

adhesives: Glossy accents, Claudine Hellmuth matt multi-medium

cheap, wooden treasure chest

Entered for the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Quotable
IndigoBlu - Words and Phrases

Simon Says Stamp and Show... Water

Last Sunday was St. Patrick's day and to celebrate we spent a wonderful weekend on the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal. On the Sunday morning we drove up to the car park at Malin Head and I fished out a cheap set of watercolours and had my first go at painting.

Now Malin Head is about as remote a part of this island as you can get and Tom and I were just wondering what we were going to do about lunch when the strangest thing happened. A man with a van turned up. He opened up the side of the van and there was a state of the art espresso machine, complete with oodles of handbaked fresh cakes. Next thing, cars arrived out of nowhere and soon the whole place was buzzing. MMmmm, I can honestly say that was the best cappuchino I ever tasted, and his homemade ginger cake was glorious. Can't promise the man will be there every Sunday, but if you're ever in the area it's worth a try :-)

"Water - a Weekend in Donegal"

So back to today's card. When I saw this week's theme at SSS&S was water, I had to make use of one of my "paintings" of Donegal (I use the term in the loosest sense of the word lol!). I scanned the one I liked the best and printed it twice onto A6 card (roughly 6" x 4" for my American friends ;-)).

"View from car park at Malin Head"

What with the arrival of the coffee, I never got time to finish the painting, so my white bits were added onto the print before matting on silver and sticking to the left hand side of a book card blank.

"Lighthouse"

The other copy was overstamped with this fabulous lighthouse scene from Chocolate Baroque using archival ink and carefully lining up the horizons. I stamped a second copy of the scene onto watercolour paper and watercoloured with distress inks, cutting out the lighthouse and sailing ship and adhering over the stamped images in the print using Pinflair glue for some added dimension. Distress inks and a white gel pen were used to add colour and detail to the picture, then I gilded the whole of the foreground and the frame of the bookcard using IndigoBlu flitter glu and gilding flakes. Lastly, lashings of Pinflair dimensional glue were dribbled along the bottom of the book card and I added loads of sequins (mostly silver with a few blue), followed by more glue and lots of seed beads.

Pebbles that you pick up off the beach are always prettier when they are wet with the sea water than when you get them home and they've dried out don't you think? I hope I've captured the feeling of a wet seashore. I could add lots more to this card, but thought I'd leave this one simple for once.

Ingredients:

watercolour set and a weekend in Donegal, or you can nick my "painting" below ;-)

Chocolate Baroque stamp set: Seashore Scenes

distress ink markers (I used a lot, but including Pumice Stone and Tumbled Glass)

IndigoBlu flitter glu and Winter Dawn gilding flakes

Pinflair dimensional glue

sequins & seed beads

bailer twine for card closure

cardstock: grey 300gsm, white 220gsm, watercolour paper

"St. Patrick's day off Malin Head" by Izzwizz

My first ever painting

Entered for the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp and Show... Water

Tim Holtz' 12 Tags of 2013... March

This is my take on Tim's March tag.

"Easter Bunny"

The larger Bunny Bigz die is used to cut the aperture, and the card is then passed through the Ornamental M&S die to shape the top and bottom edges before inking and stamping. Images from the Seasonal stash paper pad are fixed benhind the aperture and this piece mounted with foam for extra dimension. The background paper is cut to size and the edges inked, then various diecuts are inked to match and fixed to the bottom edge of the card. A couple of paper flowers are added to the right hand side, their stalks glued in with glossy accents.

"Easter Card"

I liked the first one, but wanted to make one with an Easter sentiment so moved things round a bit and made another! Have a good weekend, and happy St. Patrick's day on Sunday. xx

Ingredients:

Tim SizzixHoltz Bigz Bunny & Ornamental M&S

Tim Holtz paper stash: Seasonal, Lost and Found

Tim Holtz distress inks: Spun Sugar, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Bundled Sage, Peeled Paint, Chipped Sapphire

Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Spring Sprung

Spellbinders Die D-Lites: Cattails, Flower Burst, Poppy Patch, Fancy Tags

Entered for the Tim Holtz gallery

Pop Butterflies

The Justrite challenge this fortnight is to make it pop. With Spring in the air, I couldn't resist the butterflies!

"Pop Butterflies"

The large butterfly is diecut from A5 card. A second piece of card is coloured and stamped and placed beneath the aperture. The two pieces of card are adhered with foam tape, and the diecut butterfly is coloured, stamped and replaced in the aperture, lifting the wings for extra dimension. A couple of stick pins are constructed with beads and glued into place to make antennae.

"Side view showing dimension"

The top butterfly is stamped onto the card and again on scrap card, cutting out the second butterfly, colouring and adhering the centre part only, lining up with the original stamped image. The wings are again lifted for added dimension. Small gems are added to the antennae and along the spine of the butterfly.

"Justrite sentiment and frame"

The sentiment and frame are stamped in black archival and heat-embossed with clear, holographic powder before cutting out with the matching die and adhering to the card with foam pads. The flowers are diecut and just the bottom edges layered onto the card with foam pads so the tops are free, can be shaped and look more realistic.

Ingredients:

Justrite stamp set: Grand Sentiments

Technique Tuesday stamp set: Get in Gear

Spellbinders: Resplendent Rectangles

Spellbinders Die D-Lites: Flower Burst

Distress Inks: Peacock Feathers, Shaded Lilac, Squeezed Lemonade

Archival Ink: Jet Black

Embossing powder: Stampendous Kaleidoscope Clear

stickpins, beads

gems

adhesives: foam pads & tape, glossy accents

Entered for the following challenge:
Justrite Friday Challenge 92 - Make it Pop

It's a Love Thang

This week, Simon Says Stamp and Show... Chic to be Shabby. This wall hanging is a bit more shabby and a bit less chic, but I enjoyed making it and thought I'd take the opportunity to share it with you.

"It's a love thang"

The IndigoBlu stamp is stamped five times onto white card using different colours of archival ink each time and heat-embossing with clear, holographic powder. The four panels are then coloured by sponging with distress inks and diecut with different dies, most of them nature-themed.

The frame was originally part of a pack to make windows for dollshouses that I picked up in a charity shop. I sponged it with distress inks and added gold embossing powder to make it look as if the gold had rubbed off in places. I just use up odds and ends of embossing powder for this sort of job, it doesn't need to be pristine.

"Side view showing dimension"

The diecuts are carefully layered to preserve the design so that all the words can be read, and glued with Pinflair for lots of dimension. Finally, the whole thing is lightly sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to tie the layers together.

Ingredients:

IndigoBlu stamp: TrulyMadlyDeeply

Archival inks: Jet Black, Cobalt, Crimson, Coffee

Distress ink pads: Tattered Rose, Tumbled Glass, Bundled Sage, Antique Linen, Plum

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist: Coffee Shop

Spellbinders: Labels Four, Mix'd Media Elements, Foliage, Fanciful Flight

frame

embossing powders: Stampendous Kaleidoscope Transparent, gold

cardstock: white 200g

Entered for the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp and Show...Chic to be Shabby

Happy Mother's Day

First of all, I want to thank those lovely people at the Simon Says Stamp and Show for picking my "His 'n' Hers" cards for the top three this week. I'm thrilled! Since you all seemed to like the design so much, I thought I'd share a similar one that I made for my Mum for Mother's Day tomorrow. For any confused American readers, here in the UK we have Mother's Day on a different day of the year to you :-)

"Happy Mother's Day"

I used a soft, pastel colour palette which seems apt for a Spring card, and followed the usual construction method in my tutorial. For these landscape cards, the cover is often made from two pieces of card glued together along the spine with PVA. This is simply because I tend to work with A4 card (approx 9" x 11") which isn't quite big enough to cut in one piece.

"Left inside panel"

The background scene for both the inside panels is stamped repeatedly using olive archival ink and coloured with distress inks and a water brush. The bottom part of the left hand panel is finished with sponged distress ink and overstamped with grasses using the same colour (Bundled Sage). The sentiment was from a pack that came free with a magazine, just cut out, the corners rounded and raised on some foam pads. I wanted to keep the sentiment simple since the background is so ornate; it draws the eye better.

"Dimensional panel"

The diecuts are cut from thick white card and sponged with distress inks. The flowers are lightly embossed with clear holographic powder before gluing in place with glossy accents (it's a great glue for this since it sticks virtually straight away and the thin nozzle makes it easy to get it in the right place). The embossing gives all the flowers the sparkle look of morning dew, but it doesn't really show up in the photo unfortunately. Both panels are edged with lace sponged with distress stain to match the project. The lace flowers are cut from a wider strip of lace, the leftover strips are used to make the closure, gluing inbetween the panels and the covers.

"Front cover"

For the front cover, I watercoloured a brick background using distress inks, edged with a diecut, and added a stamped and diecut window, also coloured with distress inks. A glimpse of a third version of the inside background stamping can be seen through the window to give a taste of what's inside.

Ingredients:

Heartfelt Creations Chateau Gate die and matching stamp sets HCPC 3447 Window Accents & HCPC 3445 Mystic Hideaway

IndigoBlu stamp set: Nature 1

Spellbinders Decorative Labels Eight

Spellbinders Die D-Lites: Fantastic Flourish One, Poppy Patch, Flower Burst, Cattails

cardstock: white 220gsm, red 300gsm

distress inks (pads, markers, stains, reinkers): Tumbled Glass, Bundled Sage, Tattered Rose, Spun Sugar, Milled Lavender, Antique Linen

archival ink pads: Olive, Coffee

lace

sentiment

adhesives: PVA, Glossy Accents, foam tape

Entered for the following challenge:
Country View Challenges - Pick 'n' Mix

Mellow Yellow Birthday

Another day, another birthday! This one is for a lady that I visit in a home and she is 87 this week. Wouldn't it be amazing to have lived that long; imagine how much the world has changed since she grew up a farmer's daughter with sacking cloth aprons and buckets to milk the cows.

"Mellow Yellow"

The smaller layers are diecut and the edges inked with distress ink. The outer layers are cut rectangular and the corners rounded with a punch. Layers are cut from white card or patterned yellow card. I used a scrap of glittered daisy cardstock that has been in my stash for ages and you can just make out the flowers peeping out around the edge (click on the photo to enlarge it if you want a closer look). The inner layers are mounted using foam tape for extra dimension and a few gems add a touch of sparkle to the finished card.

"Sentiment"

The Justrite sentiment is stamped in black archival and heat-embossed in clear. The frame is stamped in versamark and heat-embossed in white, then diecut with the matching die, coloured lightly with distress ink (the embossing resists the ink) and also dry embossed using the smaller frame die for extra dimension.

"Bow, stickpins & UTEE embellishment"

The stickpins are made using some gorgeous beads given to me by my good friend Lee aka craftyloops, queen of bookbinding (I kid you not, have you checked out her amazing videos?). You might recognise the UTEE embellishment from the batch I made a couple of weeks ago using my own handmade moulds. A light dusting of perfect pearls on the warm UTEE gives a pretty, pearlescent finish.

Entered for the following challenge:
Justrite Friday Challenge 091 - Colour Challenge