STAMPlorations Inspiration

How are you today? Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Are you starting to accommodate to this new normal of isolation and social distancing? I have not left the house for anything else than my daily walk/jog for a few weeks now. I'm ever so grateful we have a big garden and our house borders on fields with footpaths so I can go out for relatively isolated walks, although I have to say I have never met as many people on my walks/jogs as I have in the last few weeks. It seems like the whole world has suddenly taken up walking. Luckily I get to see my colleagues every day on video conferencing too, and we have online boardgames nights, Friday drinks and daily coffee breaks. And of course, there is always the craft room.  

And talking of crafting, it's time for another STAMPlorations Inspiration post. I was inspired by the daffodils in the garden to create this springtime card. I started by stamping the Narcissus - Large twice, masking for the second round of stamping. I then coloured the flowers with watercolour pencils and added a green sentiment using Everyday Sentiments dies. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Narcissus - Large
Dies: CUTploratoins Everyday Sentiments
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils

October STAMPlorations CAS Challenge - Black

After a summer break, the STAMPlorations CAS challenge is back! I'm so excited to get back to making CAS inspired creations and seeing what you create. The rules are the same as they always were, you can create using any product you want as long as you create a CAS card. Remeber to link back to the main challenge post on the STAMPlorations blog and to include the challenge graphic in your post to be eligible to win the monthly prizes. 

This year we are doing things a bit differently as we will no longer have a mid-month inspiration post, just the main post on the first Thursday of every month. Just as there has always been, you will find an optional colour twist which I love using just to push myself a bit.

This time the optional colour twist is black, and I thought why not change things up a bit and use black card. I have bought a small set of Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, inspired by all your fabulous pencil colouring out there on the Interwebs. I used to admire other people's beautiful colouring on black card, but the non-brand colouring pencils I had didn't really work on black card and I used to wonder what I was doing wrong. Well, I can tell you that using real artist's pencils is what made the difference! These work like a dream, although I still need to learn to use them... I'm already dreaming of a bigger set as I only have 12 colours at my disposal at the moment. But that is just about enough to colour the beautiful Blossom Sprays #1 stamp, and I heat embossed a sentiment from Noteworthy 2 in white.

Card: Black 200 gsm card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Dee's Artsy Impressions Blossom Sprays #1, Noteworthy 2

Ink and Colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Faber Castell Polychromos

Other: Wow Opaque Bright White Super Fine embossing powder 

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.