Indigo Blu Challenge # 26 - Off The Edge

Hello! Today's card was made for a friend who likes cars, whose birthday is also today. I am also entering it in the Indigo Blu challenge # 26 - Off The Edge (I'm hoping it qualifies since the map images are stamped over the edge on my background). You can see all the details of the challenge on the Indigo Blu blog here .

I started by stamping the large Indigo Blu Map Background four times onto smooth white card using Watering can Archival ink, to give the impression of a much larger map. I then carefully watercoloured the entire map with Tumbled Glass, Antique Linen, Shabby Shutters and Bundled Sage Distress Ink markers (by scribbling ink onto an acrylic block and picking it up with a water brush). 

The car image and fun sentiment are from the Indigo Blu Little Voice stamp set and were stamped directly onto the map with Black Archival ink. I then stamped the car again four times onto some dark green card and fussy cut the layers to decoupage using clear foam pads. I used Spring Moss card and ribbon to mount my stamped images onto a 5" x 7" white landscape card blank. Finally the bodywork of the car was emphasised with a thick layer of Glossy Accents to make it nice and shiny! The photo below shows the car in more detail, with it's traditional racing green bodywork. I hope my friend Arthur likes his new car!

Thank you for looking and for your lovely comments!

Lynn

Heartfelt Poppies

This is my second post today - please scroll down to read my Pink Roses and Sequins post.

The image on this card is a beautiful heart shaped poppy stamp from Indigo Blu. As today is the seventh anniversary of my dear Dad's passing this seems very appropriate, since poppies traditionally signify remembrance. I have fond memories of my Dad and miss him very much, but he loved his garden so I'm sure he'd have approved of this card.

I stamped the image onto smooth white card with black ink and coloured it with Distress Markers. I also stamped it onto some masking paper and fussy cut it out as close to the image as possible, so that I could mask the coloured image without having a white halo around it. Then I got busy with my Tim Holtz distress marker spritzer and the same markers that I'd used to colour the poppy image. This gave an air-brushed effect with tiny splatters providing lots of texture - and it was lots of fun to do too! I matted the panel onto poppy red card then onto green striped paper and a white card blank and it was finished. I decided to keep it simple and not to add any embellishments as I wanted this to be a sympathy card and have posted this to a dear friend who has just lost her lifelong friend.

I am entering this into the Indigo Blu Challenge no 21: Magical Masking - you can see all the details here on the Indigo Blu challenge blog. 

I'm also entering this on the Artful Times Challenge Blog for challenge 67: Poppies. 

Thanks for looking and don't forget to take time to remember a loved one.

Lynn

Cupcakes galore and Happy Stampers at Port Sunlight.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight on Saturday. I was really excited as I hadn't been to a show for ages and was missing seeing all my friends. An added bonus was the fact that Waltzingmouse Stamps were exhibiting there for the first time and I was looking forward to meeting the owner, Claire Brennan. I was also thrilled that my good friend Penny was able to attend for the first time, as she had recently moved up to the north west from the south coast and I hadn't seen her for about four years. Apologies for the large number of photos in this post, but I have lots to show you!

The day before (and inspired by the Great British Bake Off), I decided to make some cakes to take with me as gifts. I started by making a batch of carrot and walnut cakes with cream cheese frosting.

Then I made a big batch of toffee and date cupcakes, which were topped with buttercream, chocolate crunchies and Thornton's fudge.

I packed a tin full of cakes to give to the lovely ladies of the Happy Stampers club, in appreciation of all their hard work (as volunteers) in organising the show at Port Sunlight twice a year. The labels were made with Waltzingmouse stamps from the Rescue Remedies set stamped with Memento dye inks and cut with Spellbinders Labels Four dies.

The photo below shows the reverse of the labels. I used Waltzingmouse Stamps - Country Labels 4, a sentiment from Tag Collection 1, the smallest cupcake from Frame It and the question from the Eat Cake set. The tops of the tags were completed with the addition of pairs of tiny grommets cut from the folding tag die set by Waltzingmouse Cutting Edge Dies. My lovely personalised tree stamp was a birthday gift from my daughter Jessica and was made by My Rubber Stamp in Texas, USA.

I had bought some pretty cake boxes from Morrisons supermarket. Each held four cakes and I tied them up with plum and pink organza ribbon and made the co-ordinating tags as above.

I hardly slept that night, but I was up bright and early to set off to Port Sunlight. I travelled by tram and bus to Manchester then a train to Liverpool, followed by a second train to the pretty village of Port Sunlight. Even the railway station below looked pretty!

The village of Port Sunlight was built by the philanthropist William Hesketh Lever (later Viscount Leverhulme) at the end of the 19th century in order to house workers from the nearby Lever Brothers soap factory (now the global company Unilever). Over thirty architects were employed to build the model village, resulting in buildings that were both beautiful and unique. The half timbered building below is used as the local tea rooms and is directly opposite the railway station.

The red brick building below has an unusual octagonal shaped tower and is situated to the far end of the road at the right of the photo above. 

Opposite, this lovely building has plenty of character, with leaded windows and black pebbles inset in rendered panels between the stonework. The surrounding hydrangeas looked beautiful too. 

This row of half timbered houses leads down towards Bolton Road, where Hulme Hall (the historical venue for the stamping show) is located. Unfortunately in my excitement to meet up with Penny and go inside I forgot to take any photos of Hulme Hall itself.

Once inside I distributed cupcakes to the Happy Stampers, a box to Jill and Sarah at The Stamp Man and a box to Claire and Sandie at Waltzingmouse Stamps. Now I had room in my bag to shop!

The photo below is of the lovely Claire from Waltzingmouse stamps and myself, which Penny kindly took for me. (This one is especially for you Jeanne)! Then I put my camera away and promptly forgot all about taking any more photos as we were so busy catching up, chatting and of course shopping!

I had the best time ever and really enjoyed the company, talking stamping all day and acquiring lots of new and interesting products to add to my stash! All the artwork samples were outstanding and there were plenty of demos to watch too. We loved what Sarah Anderson was doing with the Frantage kits at The Stamp Man and Penny and I bought a set each so that we can try it at home ourselves.

The rest of the photos below show my crafty haul from the show (there are quite a few of them, but please don't tell my husband)! First we have four packs of A4 pearlescent card, an 8" square Christmas paper collection, Graphic 45's 12" Twelve days of Christmas paper pad (at a bargain price) and four of the gorgeous Lili of the Valley NitWit collection pads.

These are the dies (Lawn Fawn, Impression Obsession and Spellbinders), alphabet stencil (Tim Holtz) and tree skyline mask (Clarity) that I bought. 

Below are a set of transport stamps and matching dies from Clearly Besotted - our eldest Grandson will love these as he is fascinated by planes and helicopters. The pack of ribbons was a freebie form Clearly Besotted too. On the right are the Zigzag background and Splat That stamps which I bought from Waltzingmouse. Claire added a lolly and some love hearts to my bag - you've got to love free sweeties!

Those of you who know me well will also know that I love Waltzingmouse stamps very much - so you may be thinking that I was very restrained in only buying two stamps from there. However, you would be wrong, as I have to confess to placing an order for the new releases just last Sunday and they arrived on Tuesday - see below! 

Other stamping purchases included the new Merry Christmas stamp and Chocolate gilding flakes from Kay at Indigo Blu, a JustRite Butterfly vines background stamp which I had been coveting since it was released and a very large and deeply textured Impression Obsession seashell and starfish background stamp. 

Our next visit was to Lavinia stamps where I bought two packs of SceneScapes background cards and two very detailed stamps. I can't wait to use the tree branch stamp together with the new squirrel dies for an autumnal card!

We both bought a spray to assist with die cutting intricate shapes (I hope it works). I also got a new Archival inkpad, a Gelatos set (reduced) and the Frantage encrusted jewel kit that I mentioned earlier.

Finally, I visited Paper Artsy just before the show closed and added to my collection of Fresco paints and Treasure Gold waxes - Spanish Topaz (top), White Fire (middle) and limited edition Lilac (bottom). The stamp and swivel clip were freebies from Mark and Leandra :) 

I suspect that I shall be on a stash ban for the foreseeable future, but I have plenty of new goodies to play work with and I am inspired to start creating again as soon as possible. If you have managed to read this far - thank you very much! 

Lynn

Indigo Blu Challenge # 14 - Spring Flowers

The current challenge on the Indigo Blu blog is to make something using some of the lovely Indigo Blu stamps with the theme of spring flowers - check it out here http://indigoblublogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/challenge-14-spring-blossoms.html

I decided to use the beautiful Anemone Corner stamp (AC 1) together with the sentiment from the Poppy Meadow set (PM 1) to make this pretty spring themed card.

Click on the photo for an enlarged view.

 

I started with a five and a half inch square lavender coloured card blank and added a layer of purple card and then pale green card. I used Memento Pistachio dye ink to stamp the Anemone corner onto smooth white card and trimmed it to fit. The sentiment was stamped with Memento Grape Jelly dye ink. I die cut three of the small Spellbinders lattice corners from purple card and attached them to the front of my card with a small amount of Ranger's Glossy Accents.

 

The three anemone flowers were coloured with Copic Ciao markers - I used BV00, BV02, RV29, V17 & V09. I stamped them again onto smooth white card, coloured them in to match those on the card front and fussy cut them out. I moulded the petals into shape by wrapping them around the handle of a small paintbrush then I stuck the flowers to the card with silicone, so that they would hold their shape. You can see the flowers in more detail in the photo below.

 

 

 

I am very pleased with the finished card and will be sending it to one of my friends who has a birthday later this week. 

Indigo Blu Challenge no 9 - Chocolate Orange.

This is my entry for the ninth challenge over at the Indigo Blu Challenge Blog  http://indigoblublogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/challenge-9-chocolate-orange.html .
This month's challenge was "Chocolate Orange" and I used the "Bare Forest 1" stamp (Code:BF 1) and the "Little Voice" stamp set (Code: LV) to stamp the Get Well Soon sentiment. I had to use separate words and letters from two of the sentiment stamps as I didn't have an Indigo Blu stamp with the message that I wanted!

 

 

The embossed panel on the right was a piece of Core'dinations Chocolate Box card stock which I embossed with one of the Tim Holtz Textured Leaves embossing folders from the Alterations Texture Fades collection by Sizzix, before sanding to reveal the orange core beneath.

 

The panel on the left was a piece of Indigo Blue perfect pastel smooth card stock which I coloured using Yellow Ochre Tint, Orange Tint and Orange Pan Pastels. I then stamped the lovely Bare Forest trees over the top with Memento Rich Cocoa ink. Both panels were layered onto Orange Zest and Chocolate Brown card stock, and an orange grosgrain ribbon was added before mounting onto a white card blank.

 

The collection of autumn leaves were die cut from the leftover card scraps using Impression Obsession leaf dies. The tiny leaves were cut using a Memory Box die. The leaves were all stuck on with foam pads of varying thickness to give a more dimensional look.

 

Not content with making just one card, I came up with a similar version for our nephew's birthday next week. The sentiment was stamped using Waltzingmouse "Compact Sentiments" and "Compact Family" stamps as I didn't have the appropriate Indigo Blu sentiment stamps.

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed using my Pan Pastels and the Bare Forest stamp is gorgeous, so I shall definitely be trying this again (maybe wintery colours would look nice - possibly with a touch of snow).

 

 

EDITED to add that I had problems linking up my blog to the Indigo Blu Challenge blog (my stupid laptop decided to install some updates and then freeze just as I was using the inklinkz widget) - so I'm not sure if  I've actually managed to enter the challenge or not! Never mind - at least I have made two cards that I needed!