Do what you Love, Love what you do

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge form last week is: tic tac toe.
It took me a while to decide on whic row, and I think I ended up using two by chance, I mixed them up in my head.

I used the top row and the middle vertical row

For my card I sprayed glue through a stencil and then foiled it with Wow! fabfoil and a laminator.
I doodled around the leaves, more at the bottom and fading towards the top, I hope you can see that.
I heat embossed the sentiment with Wow! gold embossing powder, the stamp is from Viva Decor (Sprüche). I diecut the sentiment with a stitched border die and mounted it with foam. By chance my scissors were entangled in a piece of blue embroidery thread I was working with earlier this week and so I used it behind the sentiment panel and that decided on which color sequins to use.

I cut the foiled panel smaller than the cardbase (1cm) and also mounted it with foam tape to the cardbase.

I like the result with the spray glue, in some areas it's really sharp and in others it went under the stencil I guess and you can see the spray pattern, also the foil was a bit damaged by nails I think, so it all adds to the vintage look..by mistake lol ;-)

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, see this.

Colours of your kitchen, stringart revisited

Some of you might remember my entry from a few weeks ago, based on a sketch, and to honour the sketch I stamped a bunch of hearts above my stringart heart.
I didn't like it as much as some of the commenters on the blog, so I thought I should make another version, more my style. Also I sued all red thread now and that defines the heartshape more than the bakerstwine in my opinion.

 So bigger heart and on a matte.

The Less is More Challenge #283 is: use the colours of your kitchen.
I also used the cabinets as inspiration for the raised element.

I once collected everything Coca Cola, although I used to drink Pepsi ;-) But I liked the red in the Coca Cola stuff... so I painted one wall red and adhered these metal signs, some have faded since they went up 13 years ago or so, but as they're glued to the wall I ain;t taking them down lol.

The rest of the kitchen is  a mess, I mean standard rental unit white cabinets. I had a do at our allotment and as I organized it, all the washing up is in other pictures haha...also all the bags with drinks, cutlery and so on.

These windowed cabinets are actually Billy bookcases from IKEA, but hey that won't stop me.
Half glass to display pretty stuff, mostly vintage crockery and half the doors are blinded to hinde all the usual kitchen utensils, you don't really want to see.

So onto the card:
I used a heartshaped die and traced the shape onto heavy weight cardstock, pierced it and then used DMC embroidery thread to do the stringart.
I cut the panel into a square and mounted it on foamtape.
The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday and I stamped it with Versafine black onyx ink on the cardbase.



Old card:

For more information on the Less is More Challenge: see this

It's a kind of magic! with video

Do you know that song?
I made this magic card, I don't know if they have a proper name, I call it magic.

I think any kid would be so enthralled by this, I know I was when I saw them first. Apparently I'm also 3 years late to the party, but hey still fabulous.

The Wednesday Challenge over at Simon Says Stamp is anything goes with Art Impressions.

It so happened I used an Art Impression stamp called Wildly cute and I Stamped with Memento black in onto Copic X-press blending card. Colored it with Spectrum Noir markers.

I also made two videos for it, a coloring one and an assembly one.
It's a bit hard to explain it in words, so if you're

interested, please check out the videos.

I like my cards CAS and this is the ultimate CAS card I think, all white, you can change that with a color or patterned paper ofcourse.

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, see this










Video for the assemble of the card:

Video for the coloring of the image: 

How to choose patterned paper, with video

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, is: use patterned paper.
The Virginia's view challgen is: make it colorful.


I'm not 100% sure if colorful means all the colors of the rainbow or just bright and cheerful colors like my card, a nice lime green background and a pop of orange, I think that's colorful ;-)
Still CAS ofcourse haha, sorry!


I used the Simon Says Stamp painted Hello and diecut it from a panel.
Then cut a green panel with small daisies to fit the cardbase and adhered it with tape runner.
I mounted the panel with lots and lots of foam squares and placed it on top.

I wanted something powerful, but not too busy, I m ade a video on how I choose my patterned paper this week, and used that very method for this card. Too pale a background it wouldn't make the sentiment pop, but too busy a paper the sentiment would become illegible, so I went through my stash twice and then chose these two, generic brand ones.

I used the Simon Says stamp butterfly die with the orange paper with butterflies and glitter, only put tape runner in the middle so I could pop up the wings a little.

Homemade enameldots.

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, see this
For more informtion on the Virginia's view challenge, see this

rainbow hello

The Simon says Stamp Wednesday challenge, is: add some shimmer with Lindsy's stamp gang.
The Less is More Challenge #282 is: use a stencil.

So for my card I made a stencil with a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die (660220). I cut it twice from some printer paper so it would cover the whole front of the card.

I then sponged through Distress inks with the mini blending tool in a rainbow order ( candied apple, carved pumpkin, squeezed lemonade, twisted citron, mowed lawn, mermaid lagoon and wilted violet).
I covered them with Perfect Pearls to give it shimmer, you can't see much of in the photo :-(

I diecut a butterfly from Joy! crafts from black cardstock backed with stick it.
I then took my Versamark marker to add some Lindsy's stamp gang  embossing powder (imperial crown purple

gold). I wanted a distressed looking butterfly, like it's rusting (purple rust that would be fab!)

I also diecut the Simon Says Stamp painted hello from the same black cardstock with Stick it.
Cut the panel slightly smaller than the cardfront and adhered it with tape runner.

If I had used a thicker cardstock I could have used the leftover stencil as a card too, but it's too flimsy now.

I've been really busy in my allotment garden,

weeds everywhere! too much rain then sun and heat made it all explode! So last week I skipped almost all the challenges I usually take part in and this week I had to choose. But look what I made yesterday with all homegrown produce (english cucumber, peas, haricot verts, green and red pepper and garlic) and store cupboard stuff like pasta and pesto.

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, see this
For more information on the Less is More

Challenge, see this

Watercolored cats

Over at Simon Says Stamp, the Wednesday Challenge is animal magic with Paper Smooches.

I saw that Simon Says Stamp now Carries Royal Talens ecoline..woot for you!
So I used my ecoline.
I've onlyused three colors ( magenta 337, deep ochre 407 and black 700)
I usually transfer color from the glass bottles to the icecube trays you can see in the photo.
One it's easier to take with you, glass is fragile and two because I don't want to contaminate the color in the bottles.
They do dry up in the icecube trays, but you can reactivate them with water, if anything the colors become even more vibrant than they already are.

Big reason I love them so much is the transparency and vibrancy of their colors. I've had mine for many decades,

I kid you not. I didn't use them all the time, but now and then ;-)

Ok let me say I'm not being paid for this ;-) I just love them and I am happy that  my Amercian friends can now also get them easily.

Onto the card:
I've used Simon Says Stamp furry kisses 3x4 for the cats and I stamped them with My Favorite Things hybrid black ink onto Schut 300grams watercolorpaper with the use of the MISTI and the SSS MISTI grid.

I used Ecoline to color them and also for the splatter that I thought might look like confetti.

The sentiment is from Paper Smooches (fun and flitry) and I stamped it with Versafine black ink.
I've mounted the panel with foamt tape and added a few enamel dots.


I almost did two black cats as mine are, but I thought it might look a bit boring on a card, so that's why one is in ochre ;-)

For more information on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, see this

foiled splatter

The theme over at Less is More #280 is: one layer and splatter.

Now I had big troubles with this card.
First I tried it on panels to see how it would look.
The first idea was to do negative splatter, by splattering liquid frisket onto watercolour paper and them spraying it with Distress spray stain.
I think in the back of my head I knew it wouldn't work with the cheaper watercolourpaper. I use this for backgrounds and or techniques, usually doesn't matter, but I saw the spray stain was seeping underneath the frisket as the paper is very open in structure and the splatter effect dissapeared completely on the small dots and upon peeling up the frisket I tore off the upper layer :-(.


Then I tried the reactive mist for foiling from Heidi Swapp. I used the nozzle to splatter.
I let it dry all day and when I came to laminate them the blue still kinda dragged the medium, I guess the dots were too big/fat. One panel I foiled the backside and so the glue reheated in the laminator and got stuck to the carrier paper. I don't have the carrier sheets from Minc, but I'd advise not to use it anyway, you might ruin it with rogue spray ;-)...

it wasn't a great crafty day for my yesterday ;-)....

But I like the lookof this foiled thing, it must be more CAS though.
So I redid the splatter but I masked off the upperhalf of the cardand the backside and to deifne the space further I wrapped a ribbon around the card and onto the inside, I used tape runner to keep it in place.
The sentiment is from Impression Obsession and I

stamped it with Versafine black onyx.

I let this splatter dry all night and all today, just until now, so about 24 hours! I think the reactive mist needs that. Infact I've found a panel from 2 weeks ago and it still foiled (not in the picture).

I'm glad I did test runs on panels before commiting a whole card. This is normal cardstock by the way 300grams.
The foil is from Wow! (fab foil purple) and the ribbon is a generic brand.



For more information on the Less is More Challenge, see this