First challenge success!

I entered my very first challenge last week. Perhaps they wanted to encourage me on my first try, but either way, I got selected as a "fabulous fashionista". Hilarious if you could see how I dress most days, but so exciting nonetheless.

I'm inspired to have a go at more challenges now, and not be so apologetic about my cards.

Thanks, Runway Inspired Challenge

I've also been making a few more cards. This one has been sent to my nephew who celebrates his 17th birthday on the other side of Australia.

Runway inspired challenge

Well, this is my first time to get brave and enter a challenge, and I'm a little unsure about what I'm doing, but when I saw the lovely combination of florals with black and white on the runway, I knew what I wanted to do. So, here it is. My take on the runway inspired challenge number 67. Hope you like it!

I laid down a rough watercolour background before stamping the magnolia image from altenew, and finishing off with a couple of rounded corners and some black and white washi tape.

Hello friend

To wind up the Stretch Your Stamps class, we had a play day. I however, have been working too hard to play until tonight. I bought some beautiful new shiny threads which I was dying to use, and I got a chance to combine them with the Technique Tuesday 'Hello Friend' stamp and a a wood grain background from Eclectic Images. Here's the result, photographed quickly in a room that's probably a bit too dark, but you can get the general sense. I hope everybody else enjoyed the class as much as I did.

DIY floral builder stamps

I don't own the lovely W+9 floral builder stamps, but I do own a couple of floral stamps, namely paper smooches botanicals 2and simon says stamp favourite flowers.so I grabbed a couple of stamps and stamped like crazy onto scrap paper, and practiced my 'scribbling'. I also don't own the special stamping paper that was used in the online card classes, so my stamps are not smudged, 

BUT, I was able to get almost the same effect all the same.

This really is a lot of fun!

Ladybird card

I've been getting creative with Avery Elle's rounded diamonds. I was making a border with orange inks, when it reminded me of ladybirds. So I thought I'd give it a red hot go, and this is the result. The eyes and legs are hand drawn, and the spots were stamped with the eraser from the end of a pencil.

Hope you like it!

Graphic stamps

Cards for boys! That's what I see when I look at this stamp. Having said that, two of the cards I made today are definitely quite girly.

Firstly, here's  a card I made before classes started. It took me ages to decide which way up this print should go. If you look at it up side down, you get a completely different view. Try it!

I made two cards using Laura Bassen's idea. On the first one, I used the rough side of a linen paper to give me the broken lines. I pressed lightly, and left the stamp on for a few seconds for the ink to soak in. I  would have liked the blue on the right to be more even, but I'm too chicken to go back over it, in case I muck it up!

For the next card, I ran a double line of coordinating washi tape along the top and bottom of the card. This one was stamped onto art spectrum watercolour paper.

Finally, a rather crowded version of Debby Hughes' card. The sentiment is a little Heidi swap one that I picked up cheaply, and then, for the cards above and below, bent almost beyond its ability to cling to the stamp block!

Today's cards were all very quick to make, which was perfect, as I've been wrangling 14 year olds all day, and don't have a lot of my zing left. So after a good sleep, and some more inspiring ideas, who knows what I'll be able to do tomorrow?

Outline stamps

Just one card today, made with clearly besotted's fresh flowers. I inked the stamp with distress markers, and stamped before painting over it with water to spread the ink. Again, this was a technique from online card classes' stretch your stamps class.
To construct the card, I made a watercolour swatch in matching colours, and stamped a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp's handwritten borders. I love these soft colours, and I love how quickly and easily this card came together.