Better late than never........

well I am running a little late today with my posting of my design team piece for our challenge this week at Crafts4eternity,  out theme this week is 

HEAVY METAL

to show something metal on your project ie charms,brads,pins,staples etc etc.

Time has not been on my side this week, with all my current work commitments, so even though I am a little late with it I am pleased that I at least managed to make something.............

The theme for my card is "Once upon a time" which is a metal sentiment band, I have no idea by whom as I have had this ages. I have also been playing around with stencils and paste again this time using Sweet Poppy dandelion stencil. I have used white gloss paste that has actually absorbed some of the distress ink which actually softens the look. these bring back memories of blowing them to tell the time. The background I originally made to use as a fathers day card. and didn't. It has been made with a mixture of brown colours of distress inks and Tims clock stencil, then the pocket watch stamped with walnut stain distress ink. A bit of ripped dictionary depicting the definition of Child and the black and white stamped images are from Art Journey. I have cut the hand so that it will hold the watch face, my 2nd addition of something metal.

Anyway we would love you to join us and show us your Heavy Metal projects so why not pop over Here and play along.

One randomly selected winner will receive a choice of 4 images from Sassy Studio's gorgeous collection.
I am also entering this card into simon says stamps challenge where they have an Anything Goes Challenge

See you all soon

Love

Amanda X

Be Unique!

I am writing this whilst a small fan heater is warming my feet, I am sure this is not the usual antics for a late June evening? but I suppose it is England!!! Summer where have you gone???? Weather that at least keeps us from wanting to go outside gives us great reasons to abandon all and escape into our craft rooms. I thought I would have a play with my recent purchase of Sweet Poppy glossy black paste (I am not the best at pushing product through stencils).

I have made an 8 x 8 card and used warming colours of orange,yellow and greens all from dylusion sprays. I stenciled the black paste through Andy Skinners Baroque stencil and then matted onto black card. the remaining card that I had I cut into strips and edged each strip with spiced marmalade (I don't like to see the colour of the original card). I then arranged them in a randomly striped effect and to add interest also included film strip washi tape stripes.  The sentiment "Be Unique" is from Steampunk shoes set by Creative Expressions. I have stamped it with versamark and embossed with detail white embossing powder.

Here you can see the gloss of the paste, I love the effect. There is quite a lot of dimension to the piece using pinflair silicone.

I would like to enter this card into the current challenge over at Simon Says Stamp & Show. where this weeks theme is Stripes.

thanks for stopping by I really appreciate your visit

thanks

Amanda X

And now for something completely different......

Hi everyone, for me today's post is something totally different from my current run of inky,painty creations, time to get down and dirty with cute!!

This weeks challenge at Crafts4eternity is 

"SPOTS & STRIPES"

and I have linked this theme in with a card I have made to celebrate a little girls (my friends daughter) 11th birthday.

I have brushed the dust of my Magnolia Stamps and made a card featuring"Tilda" with glasses, (because it looks like Millie who the card is for).

I have started with a shaped card blank and covered is paper, cut round it, then sanded the edges (got to add a touch of grunge). I have layered up a piece of cheesecloth, Tim Holtz postage stamp die cut in coordinating papers, the centre of one I have embossed with a Happy Birthday folder. On the edge alterations butterfly die, butterflies sanded with a bit of bling added. Name and numbers cut using Alterations Word Play die and highlighted with stickles. Then sitting on one of the stamps little Tilda.

 

Tilda has been coloured using distress markers as water colour paints. I have added a little pinflair craft glaze to the glasses to make them look more real.

sometimes you just cant beat a little bit of cute.......

Come on over to Crafts4eternity and show us your creations using spots and stripes. One lucky, randomly chosen winner will win their choice of 3 digi stamps from the Crafts4eternity collection,

There is also time to put yourself forward to join this lovely design team,details can be found on the blog.

Hope to see you pop along and join in with us.

See you all soon

Love

Amanda XX

Be Strong.......

Be strong, Trust your heart..........This is the sentiment on my latest make.

 I was asked to make it by a friend of mine who saw a card I made last year and wanted me to copy it. I didn't copy it as I wanted to make something different (actually turned out totally different) but along the same lines.

It is made using one of my all time favourite stamps (and one of the first I bought) "Diffusion by Hampton Arts. All the colour is courtesy of Dylusions Sprays.

Here you can see a close up. Other stamps include Life Creates text stamp (on background) and the brilliant Trickling water set by designs by Ryn.

All the white highlights have been done with a white posca pen,

The sentimient "Be Strong, trust your heart"

is from empowered Words - Donna Downey by Unity Stamp Co.

I have embossed it with white embossing powder so it really stands out.

Thanks for stopping by for a look and I hope you like it.

Love

Amanda X

Claiming my Blog for Bloglovin

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5512535/?claim=c6fbaydx7tq">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>  

As others are doing, due to Google making changes, i am just setting myself up on Bloglovin, if I can work it out there will be a follow me button soon (I am however a bit of a technophobe) 

Love

Amanda x

Ps just to let you know I did it, I now have a bloglovin "follow me" button on my blog and working. I am even more impressed with myself as I managed it all from my ipad!! 

Resurfacing after 2 Weeks!!

Hi to everyone, sorry I haven't been around for the last couple of weeks but chaos arrived!! The lane I live on had a scheduled (I got a letter) routine power outage which ended in total catastrophe!!! Every house on the lane experienced a major power surge, which in turn took out most of everyones household appliances, heating systems etc etc. I now have many of my worldly goods in the hands of a repair company, on behalf of my electricity supplier, and am awaiting return of or replacement. My crafting has therefore taken a back seat to all of that going on. Whilst that continues to be sorted, my life has at least returned to some semblance of normality, and I thankfully have got back into my craftroom. 

So called normality means I can now post my design team piece for this weeks challenge over at

crafts4eternity 

this weeks challenge is a colour challenge 

 

I have used the following:- Tim Holtz "The Girls" stamp set stamped with white EP. Dylusions sprays, distress paints, mbossibilities folder,Tim Holtz butterfly movers & shapers, paperartsy background plate 5, free stamp from this months Craft Stamper magazine, paper ruler, crown is from a zip puller.

My card has been inspired by these colours

So to join us this week just use these colours (or some of them) on any type of project, and come and join us at crafts4eternity

One randomly chosen winner can choose 3 digi stamps from this weeks sponsor

Crafty Sentiments Designs.

And Finally, over at Crafts4eternity, we are looking to expand the design team so if you are interested in joining us please email me and include a link to your blog,

Thanks for visiting and see you all soon

Love 

Amanda X

 

 

The Same Letter

The same Letter 

This is our challenge for the week at Crafts4eternity.   The rules of this weeks challenge is to use 3 things starting with the same letter, for example my design team piece includes:-  

Paris, Printed Paper and Pink

My Paris theme is by stamping the I Love Paris stamp by Stampendous onto a manila tag. I stamped it again onto white paper and coloured them with Pink  Prismacolour pencils and cut them out. Once I had stuck them over the image I covered them in glossy accents.

There is some stenciling of a hot air balloon in the background (bit difficult to see)

I have coloured the tag using distress inks antique linen,walnut stain & weathered wood. I have torn strips of french text Paper and added to my tag.

Other items used include T.H. film ribbon, chit chat stickers saying wonderful memories and silver Eiffel Tower charm.

So why not head over and join in with us? 

One randomly selected winner will receive a choice of 3 digital stamps from the C4E collection.

Hope to see you there

Love

Amanda X

It's all gone a little Magical Mystery Tour!!

I just got playing today with the new "Sunshine" background stamp from Darkroom Door and this is where it took me, it just reminded me of The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. I think I am going through a bright colours phase..........

To make this card I have used the following:-

Darkroom Door background stamp - Sunshine coloured with Kaleidacolor baby powder rainbow ink pad.

Tim Holtz - Psychedelic grunge circles with white embossing powder

Clarity Stamps - Annabel coloured with Copics

sentiment - Indigoblu

Sentiment stamped with Kaleidacolor baby powder rainbow and embossed with clear embossing powder. 

I am entering this card into This weeks challenge at Simon Says Stamp Challenge this weeks theme is "Anything Goes"

Thanks for popping by and hopefully this Beatles song isn't lodged in your mind lol!

see you soon

Love

Amanda X

Something I haven't done for ages!!

I have done something today that I haven't done for ages!! and that something is playing with alcohol inks, I blew the dust off the tin and ventured in....... I got myself a piece of glossy card and dropped splashes of varies colours from a great height onto the card and then did the same with blending solution. I stopped when I liked the effect that I achieved.

I have been waiting to use "Designs by Ryn - Trickling Water" stamps and have stamped them in black archival directly onto the inked card and highlighted with white Posca pen. I stamped, again in archival black, onto a separate sheet of white card an image from "Art Journey - silhouette 2" set and from "Art Journey - Hands" stamping the sentiment relax into the blank space. Both were then cut out and stuck to the inked card. For the  final touches I added some flowers which were left over from a previous project and a butterfly punched out of black card (Martha Stewart). All was then matted and layered in black and white.

Thanks for popping by,  I really appreciate you visiting my little space in crafty blogland. Please feel free to leave a comment so I can pop over to you.
Love
Amanda X

Still Playing

Back to work tomorrow and all through the bank holiday weekend so really my last chance to get into my craft room today. I have spent a good chunk of the day sorting through piles of rubber stamps that needed organising back into the boxes that they had been taken from, needless to say hours later they still aren't put away. It's a bit like sorting through photographs, nothing really happens as you just end up looking at them!! such was the case here!!!
I did make a card though

I have stamped the Indigoblu stamp "I Spy" (I have it in both sizes) coloured lightly with vintage photo and then mounted into slide mounts cut using sizzix die, I have highlighted the lenses on the googles with pinflair craft glaze. The card I cut them from was a piece that I had used to collect leftover inks from my craft mat, then distress inks belended on top.
I then added rub ons to the slides from Tim Holtz "words" rub ons. The main sentiment is again a rub on but from Kaisercraft "Inner self" set.
These were then mounted onto burlap strip, Graphic 45 paper edged in walnut stain DI, and 3 candi dots.
Right off now to do some long overdue ironing.......dull!!!

I am also entering this card into Simon says Stamp challenge - theme Take a picture, anything photograph/camera/film related, which for this make are the slide mounts.

Have a super bank holiday weekend and see you all soon
love
Amanda X

Play!!

At last a day off and I don't care about the list of jobs that need doing I am going to play in my craftroom. I now have a chance to play with my new stamps that I received last week from Art Journey. The first set I have had a play with is "Chess". I have also used one of my gelli plate backgrounds that I created a couple of weeks ago that has been sitting around my craftroom.

Matching the colours of my previously made gelli print, the 3 colours I have used are mustard seed, broken china and fired brick in distress inks and distress paints. I first stamped my image 3 times and punched out with a circle punch sections of the image to allow me to then construct it all again in several circular layers, each circle has been edged in one of the above distress ink colours.

The background, I first splatted distress paint using the 3 colours above, then, using 3 different sized circle punches cut out my gelli print. They were then mounted onto my background using silicone to give depth to them all. My main image was then constructed, again using silicone for depth. I have then, from the stamp plate, added the word PLAY.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
Collage Obsession Challenge - Choose one word (focal point or as an element)
Anything Goes Challenge Blog - Handmade Background
Crafts and Me challenge - Lots of Layers

Thanks for stopping by
Love
Amanda X

Fastest make ever

This week has been all work,work,work and then more work, I haven't had time to even walk into my craft room. However as it is friday and the start of a new challenge at Crafts4eternity I have managed to find about 45 mins to make a really quick card which supports this weeks theme which is 

"SWEET TOOTH"

A project featuring cake,chocolate,sweets,puddings etc

this in its self a huge challenge for me to find anything that I had that related to the theme.

The only thing I could think of that I owned was the mini Tim Holtz blueprint stamp set which included the cupcake.

So this is a really quick card that I put together to support our theme this week.

Image has been stamped onto Kraft card and lightly coloured with prisma color pencils.

Sentiment from Tim Holtz, bit of bakers twine and a love heart which has been coloured with picked raspberry distress ink to make the lettering stand out.

Any of you that enter our challenge this week will get the chance to be randomly picked out as the winner of 3 Digital Stamps

courtesy of

Crafty Sentiments Designs

So why not come and play along with us this week.

See you all soon, as hopefully, my current madness can't last!!

Love

Amanda X