Fiddly stamp-colouring

It's been a bit of a rough weekend, but thankfully it took a turn for the better today. Lack of sleep really messes with me. But upwards and onwards is the way to go. So I have baked a chocolate bundt cake and a fudge loaf. And made this card.

Today's card is inspired by the absolutely awesome colour combo over at ColourQ. It's no secret I love pink and purple, and gold is growing on me. It wasn't originally my favourite metallic, I used to be a total silver girl. But I have to admit I'm using gold more and more. I was also inspired by yet again a great sketch over at RetroSketches. I'm also playing along at both the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers (poor poor Edna looks like she's had a worse weekend than I did...) and The Card Concept, both with the theme "Get Well Soon" (in the style Clean and Layered for The Card Concept). I also want to link up at Allsorts Challenge because their badge is so delicious looking, and also because the theme this week is to use some purple.

I love the big central panel in the sketch. It was just a question of what stamp to use to fill it. I have made a similar panel using the same stamp in monochrome blue before, you can see it here. But that was a bit easy, so I thought I could colour it with markers in many colours instead, resulting in quite a bit of fiddly colouring. Half way thorough I almost lost my patience, but thankfully persevered as I think it turned out quite nice. I matted it onto mirri card. The banner is made from a scrap piece of card I made using Distress Paints. Sometimes it's worth saving all those scrap pieces, eventually there will be some place where they fit in. I heat embossed the sentiment in gold on vellum and added three adhesive gems to finish. First I didn't like that the stamping was a bit uneven due to the marker colouring, but after looking at it for a while, I think it's actually quite a nice look.

Card: White 300 gsm card, mirri card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium vellum

Stamps: Stampin' Up Fresh Vintage, From the Farm

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Write markers Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry, Wisteria Wonder

Other: Scrap piece of Distress Paint coloured card from my endless stash, Papermania adhesive gems, gold embossing powder.

Viva La Verve One Sheet Wonder 3

I hope you all are enjoying a wonderful break, enjoying good company, good food, or whatever else it is you choose to do over the holidays. I was spoiled with too many presents, despite the "no presents" policy, which no-one can abide by, year after year. I got a beautiful silver horse necklace and some dishcloths with piggies on. They are adorable!!! I am stuffed full of good food and will soon move on from my Mum's place to spend a few days with Dad and his side of the family. Then I will meet up with a big bunch of old friends right before we head back home. It has been wonderful to see all my old friends and my family, but I can't wait to get home to my craft room. Two weeks without crafting is very hard. I bet I will not leave my craft room for at least 24 hours when we get home. 

This is what it looks like here right now
(well, about 10 minutes ago)

Today I'm showing you my third Viva La Verve December One Sheet Wonder Challenge. You can see my previous cards here and here. I really love the colour combo of brown, kraft and shades of turquoise. I know I have said it before, and I will say it again and again, but Tim Holtz Vintage Photo is the most amazing brown colour ever. The man is simply a genius. I'm also entering the following challenges in addition to Viva La Verve:
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge Blog - #208 Anything Goes
Creative Moments - #58 Anything Goes, non-traditional Christmas Colours
Fresh Brewed Designs - Anything Goes Christmas 

I stamped the sentiment inside the card.

Card: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake

Stamps: Stampin' Up Ornament Keepsakes and matching dies, KaiserCraft Merry Christmas stamp

Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo

Paper: Stampin' Up All is Calm DSP

Other: Stampin' Up Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, All Occasions Snowflakes dies, Stampin' Up Basic pearls

Fresh Vintage in Fresh Colours

I own my fair share of embossing folders, but don't get around to using them nearly enough. So for my last few cards, I have tried to incorporate dry embossing. It does give great texture to backgrounds which would be boring otherwise. I have also tried to spend some more time on each card and stamp something inside the card and on the envelope as well to give the whole set a more elaborate finish.

I absolutely loved the colours and photo from this week's ColourQ challenge, and the photo immediately inspired me to use the Fresh Vintage stamp set, it's perfect for colouring using markers. And I decided that a large background panel in Strawberry Slush would be perfect when embossed with a flowery folder. Strawberry Slush is one of my absolute favourite Stampin' Up Colours, it's simply the perfect shade of pink so I was thrilled to have it incorporated in the colour challenge. For the layout I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch for inspiration. I am also submitting the card to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is Stamp It to celebrate Stamptember and the STAMPlorations September challenge where the theme is Stamps and Markers as I coloured the stamp using markers.

Cardstock: Coloured 240 gsm kraft card in Navy, Stampin' Up card in Strawberry Slush, Bermuda Bay and Whisper White
Stamps: Stampin' Up Fresh Vintage, Bloomin' Marvelous
Ink: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay, Pacific Point, Pear Pizzazz and Strawberry Slush
Other: Stampin' Up Basic Pearls coloured with Sharpies, Embossing folder Spellbinders M-Bossabilities Enchanted 

Swallowtail and Color throwdown #284

I was really inspired by this week's Color Throwdown challenge. And based on the amazing creations from both the DT and participating crafters, so were many others. I just love the colour combo of dark blue and purple, this time with a bit of turquoise to brighten it up. The It turns out I don't have any of the three colours in the challenge this week, but that's ok as you are allowed to use anything you have in your stash that comes close.

This card was born out of a bit of a stamping accident to be honest. I had some problems getting a good stamp with the Swallowtail stamp that I was planning to use for a completely different card. But I didn't want to abandon these half successful attempts at stamping, so I decided to colour them and cut out the parts of the butterfly that looked good. I always get a sense of achievement when I manage to save something from going straight into the bin (which is why I tend to hold onto every little scrap and unsuccessful attempt at crafting, in case I need it one day. Have you seen the program about hoarders? I'm the crafting equivalent...). I made two very different cards, one for the challenge, and one CAS. I always have trouble with CAS, I just want to go on adding stuff to them, but this time I just decided I will put the card away quickly so I can't add anything else to it. By the way, I got myself a new white cardstock to try out to make the card base from, after a bit of research I settled on teh Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm card as I wanted a really sturdy cardstock. So far so good, I really like it although it's a bit tricky to fold neatly because of it's thickness, so I may have to go back to 300 gsm eventually although I love love love the quality feel of the really thick card.

The card for the challenge is above, I coloured it with Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Evergreen Bough. I stamped the swallowtail again in Rich Razzleberry onto Rich Razzleberry cardstock and matted it onto Bermuda Bay cardstock. I stamped the sentiment from Chalk Talk in Pacific Point and matted it onto Chipped Sapphire cardstock.

For the other card, I coloured the butterfly using Tim Holtz seasonals markers (I got the whole set of all 12 seasonal markers as I just love the bright colours and use them a lot). I matted onto yellow carstock and stamped a sentiment from the Yippee-Skippee! set added a stamp from Fresh Vintage. It is a bit on the simple side, but it's good to challenge yourself and make different things to keep an open mind.

Cardstock: Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry, Bermuda Bay, Very Vanilla, Tim Holtz Distress collection Chipped Sapphire, Hobbycraft Three Shades of Yellow 160 gsm cardstock, Leonardo Stationery Smooth White Card 350 gsm. 
Inks: Stampin Up Early Espresso, Pacific Point, Rich Razzleberry, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Peacock Feathers
Markers: Tim Holtz Distress Markers Peacock Feathers, Evergreen Bough, Mowed Lawn, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Shaded Lilac, Squeezed Lemonade
Stamps: Stampin' Up Chalk Talk, Fresh Vintage, Swallowtail, Yippee-Skippee!

Fresh Vintage Thank You

This card was inspired by this pin I found when I was doing a search for Fresh Vintage ideas. I coloured the stamp using Stampin Up' Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Pumpkin Pie and Melon Mambo markers and stamped twice onto cream cardstock. The stamps in the corners are stamped with Tangerine Tango. I fussy cut the banner from Tangerine Tango cardstock and stamped the sentiment onto cream cardstock and used a corner rounder to clip the corners. I matted everything onto a DSP from Sycamore street and then Tangerine tango cardstock. the card was attached to Kraft card and to finish it all off, I coloured two adhesive gems with my orange sharpie. This is a colour combo I rarely use, but I think it turned out quite good in the end.

Stamps: Stampin' Up Fresh Vintage, Hobbycraft Clear Stamps General Sentiments
Inks: Stampin' Up markers Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Melon Mambo and Pumpkin Pie, Stampin' Up Tangerine Tango inkpad
Cardstock: Hobbycraft cream 160 gsm cardstock, Stampin' Up Tangerine Tango, Kraft card
Crafting paper: Stampin' Up Sycamore Street DSP
Other: Stampin' Up adhesive gems, 80's glam Sharpies

Blue Birthday Card

Why does it always rain on Thursdays? Friday is our bin day, and I have a recollection that for as long as I can remember, I have been dragging those bins around in the pouring rain. I cannot wait for this dreary cold wet darkness to end. The reason I love papercrafting is because it makes me forget all my worries. It takes me away from my normal life and helps me forget everything that is troubling me. I just stamp or colour and empty my head of all thoughts that aren't about crafting. This card was born almost by mistake when I was playing around with the Stampin' Up Fresh Vintage stamp set, just stamping away. 

The card is monochrome in Stampin' Up Pacific Point. I made the background by stamping two different stamps from the Fresh Vintage set freehand on white cardstock. I matted it onto Pacific Point cardstock. I used two stamps from the Chalk Talk stamp set for the sentiment, I stamped the background onto Pacific Point cardstock using Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Ink and heat embossed using white embossing powder. I stamped the "Happy Big Day" sentiment onto white cardstock in Pacific point. I fussy cut both stamps using scissors. For a finishing touch, I added some blue ribbon from my stash and added three adhesive gems. Sometimes random stamping can give really nice results!

Ink: Stampin' Up Pacific Point, Tim Holtz distress embossing ink

Stamps: Stampin' Up Fresh Vintage for the background, Chalk Talk for the sentiment

Cardstock: Hobbycraft white 160 gsm cardstock, Stampin' Up Pacific Point cardstock, Kraft card

Other: Blue ribbon from stash, Stampin' Up Basic Rhinestones, Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder