12 Days of Christmas Swap

I prepared for this swap last year by biying all my toppers in advance ...... took some time to find them but I managed.

I thought that I would use the gelli plate again for the backgrounds so today I settled down with paints, mark makers, card and gelli plate.

I sorted out all my Christmas words stamps ready to go, deciding to add some of the clear ones to one acrylic block.  
I used the brayer to apply two shades of red and green paints to the gelli, printing off one sheet.
I added a tiny bit more paint and printed off again.  I thought these were a bit brighter than I wanted so I brayered some paint on again and used a mark maker to draw a pattern before printing. 
I then used a brush to brush out two of the colours on a separate sheet of paper.  
I decided to spritz some gold and silver onto the surfaces, even using a distress ink on one of them.
Thinking that the black ink maybe too dark, I used gold embossing powder on one corner of the paper.  Feeling very pleased with the outcome I then used some silver embossing powder, in another area I used a 'black with green' powder and finished up with a 'black with some glitter' powder.  
I wish I knew the makes of these powders as they are soooo good .... I bought them back in the 90s when I first started making cards.  Back then the powders were in packets and one had to transfer them into small pots .... in my case tiny jam pots!! The jars are labelled only with the colours.

Now I have one completed background, let's hope I can complete the other sheets and send out my cards.

WOYWW #386

This is What'sOnYourWorkdeskWednesday - if you want to find out more then checkout the WOYWW tab at the top of the page - and our thanks go to Julia for hosting this weekly meet up.

Another week, another Wednesday, another desk.  Well, no actually it's the same desk just different!
I managed to complete my cards and ATC from last week, although I haven't managed to post them yet!
After visiting Solihull with PJ and Little Soldier - to fit in a visit with my CRUNCH group - I popped into Tiger in the shopping arcade as Steph had told us Tiger had some punches for sale ............
Shouldn't have done that!!
Came back home with some packs of stamps, which you can see centre top, and lots of presents for Christmas ....... it's such a lovely shop and, being Danish, has a different design mind.

I have just finished updating the stamp folder so the boxes of stamps are still piled up.  The other stamps are on my desk because I want to redo the ATCs which were lost in the post (here).
I don't know when I will be able to do these cards so my thinking is ..... if I have five minutes then I can do a bit ... stamp, cut, fold, stick ... you get the idea?!?
So that's my desk for this week, could be the same next week as we catch up with all the jobs - Autumn, leaves collecting, plants bringing in to greenhouse, last clear up of garden ..... jobs that are on hold as we have Little Soldier while the house move is completed.
Talking of whom ..... we collected him from his old flat and took him home to his new house last night ......

He's visited lots of times, but never stayed overnight ....I'll update later as to how he slept!  lol

UPDATE: Little Soldier slept through his first night in his new home, life for him has continued as normal .... just his parents who are living in chaos!!!

Have a good week everyone and I will catch up with you all later..........

November Colour Swap

Orange and Yellow
I thought of using diecuts for this swap, it will be good to try out some of my relatively new ones.

I attached some yellow and orange washi tape across the base card.  I cut the jigsaw pieces from orange, yellow and some orange glitter papers.  Once the papers were cut, I mixed up the pieces and rearranged them on the card.  I decided to make one piece stand proud. 

I did not stamp any of the cards until they were all 'finished'.  For this card, I used various butterfly stamps - mainly from sets bought at The Works - and stamped them with Versafine Onyx ink, one to each jigsaw piece, adding a sentiment from another set.

I daubed some yellow distress ink across the second basecard and set it to dry.  After I had diecut some balloon shapes and flower shapes from the same papers as before, I attached the flower shapes along the lower edge.  The sentiment (Little Claire) was stamped using the Vesafine ink and set to dry.  I wanted the balloons to stand proud and have the 'strings' tied along the lower edge.  I cut three embroidery threads and attached them, one to each balloon, to the card using 3D foam pads on the front and DST on the back.  I then added the balloons to the foam pads.  


I used the two largest dies from the Hexagon freebie set for the last card, using the same papers again.  I mixed the cutouts and rearranged them on the card.  I used flower stamps from various sets, the largest in the centre with smaller flowers around it.  I felt something was needed to  'finish' it.  I found a sentiment from one of the Little Claire sets, chopped it into three pieces, lined up the words I wanted on the clear block and stamped just beneath the central flowers.




The papers are very much brighter in real life, sunglasses are recommended!!!  lol

UPDATE:

I have received the following cards .....



Lots of bright yellow here.
Thank you Gerry.

Beautiful papers used here.

Thank you Margaret.

Lots of beautiful items and the fibres sheltering behind the cellophane butterfly.

Thank you Liz.

November Theme Swap

Fairies!
These are the Day for Daisies fairies that I bought back in July (here's the posting) and entered into their Challenge.  I only needed to post about them so the cards remained in my 'pot'.
Now I can enter them into the swap......
I loved painting these images, but then most of DFD images are gorgeous enough to make you want to get the watercolours out!!!
May I present to you Fairy Queens ........ Primrose, Ruby, Scarlet and Violet ......... not necessarily in that order!



Beautiful Ladies!























I am including an extra one this swap for our Hostess Jan.  
Jan not only hosts these monthly swaps but also adds in extras to encourage us ...... the choice of card is hers to make.  Thank you Jan for all you do.

UPDATE:
I have received the following cards .....


The Blackthorn Fairy.
Thank you JanS.

Another flower Fairy!

Thank you JanS.

 A real cutie.

Thank you Pat.

WOYWW #385

This is What'sOnYourWorkdeskWednesday - if you want to find out more then checkout the WOYWW tab at the top of the page - and our thanks go to Julia for hosting this weekly meet up.

One busy week flown past my gaze!!  I didn't think that DDC moving house would cause chaos in mine but ......

I managed to get a few hours last week and sourced out my paperwork ready for my October cardmaking swaps. 

Here is the desk, with DST, sticky foam pads, scissors, printouts and pencils/paints. 

The feathers are from our chickens....... the chickens are moulting and seem to be leaving their feathers all over the place!

I hope to be able to make a start by the weekend and the results will appear on my other blog.

Have a great WOYWWeek, take care ............

Resist Stamping Swap

Another ATCs For All Swap!  The by-line reads:

Resist Stamping/stencils Technique ATC Swap
The technique of resist stamping is always fun to do and you can create such beautiful images! You can resist with Versa Mark ink or embossing powder, stencils and rubber cement, Gesso…the list goes on! After you create the resist, you color or paint the background.

This sounds like a brilliant challenge, and interesting, one which I can use for good practice with my stamping.
Oh what fun! 
Took me ages to produce four half decent cards!  I used wax tapers, heat embossing, Versa Mark ink ...... I watched video and video on YouTube, hoping to be inspired.  
I became very discouraged so put them to one side till after my holiday break.  When I came home I couldn't find where I had put them!  
Safe aka unknown!  
Eventually I found the two cards I had finished but I really wasn't thrilled with them.  
I sat and looked at them .... 'time to try again' I thought.
So I tried a few more techniques and eventually managed to get four cards to send off for the swap. 


I used the sewing machine stamp on plain sketch paper, heat clear embossing it then using watercolour paints and mica paints to colour in the background and image respectively. 
I used some blue chalk ink to stamp the sentiment.

I used a small background stamp on this card, clear heat embossed the image and then wiped with Brown Distress Ink.This was really good!  The ink came off the image.  I then stamped the whole image with Versafine Black ink.

I used this Butterfly Stamp, once with clear embossing powder and once with a golden embossing powder.  I used a Versacolour ink to wipe some colour onto the cards.  I liked the Clear embossed one best so overstamped it with the sentiment.



I decided to use a music background stamp for the next card.  In actual fact, this was one of the first cards I made for this swap!!!  I heat embossed with clear embossing powder and then set to one side.  I decided to rub some distress ink over this image but then .......... it lacked something ...... I rubbed some of the brown ink down one side and along the lower edge ... a tree? 
I stamped the owl with Versafine Sepia then clear embossed it.  I used a cotton bud to colour the image with brown and orange inks.  

This has been a really enjoyable experience, thank you Lisa, I hope that my stamping has improved!

UPDATE:-
I received the following cards;


Clear embossing with Distress stains.
Thank you donnacr.

Very prettycrayon resist - love pink!

Thank you Pennydoodles.

Paste through Stencils with watercolour.

Thank you sarat.

Thank you ThouArtDelyrias for another great swap.

October Colour Swap - Blue

I searched the web for a few ideas and then adapted them to my way of thinking.

I brayered some shades of blue acrylic paints on a sheet of sketch paper and rollered the paint on to the spare sheet.  Once the paint had dried, I then stamped my image in black ink,and a 2nd generation onto the spare sheet.  
I cut the background to ATC size and attached it to the card.

I decided to bring in some Steampunk!!  yeah!!

I used a background stamp with Distress ink - never done this before so it was quite an experiment.  I 2nd generation stamped onto the spare sheet an then spritzed the stamp with water and stamped again.  Interesting!

I diecut two butterflies from the original printed sheet and put them to one side.  

I cut a Craftworks Cards background paper for this card and then added the butterflies.

I used the stamp from this diecut set on text paper which I then added to the base card.

I coloured the butterfly with Intense colour pencils in varying shades of blue.

When all the cards were dry, I added some sentiments which I had printed onto Vellum, they may not be intense sentiments or matching the image ..... just funny!
I swiped an inkpad round the edges of each card in shades of blue to match the design colours.

Another set of cards I am pleased with.

I received the following cards as swaps ......




Tastefully arranged diecuts.
Thank you SueF.

Beautiful shimmery star.

Thank you Margaret.

Thoughtful use of threads, jewels and diecuts.

Thank you JanS.

WOYWW #384

This is What'sOnYourWorkdeskWednesday - if you want to find out more then checkout the WOYWW tab at the top of the page - and our thanks go to Julia for hosting this weekly meet up.

This is a very quick link up today as Little Soldier will be round a bit earlier ...... house to clean ready for moving in .......... not child friendly ........... so Grandma gets a bit extra luvvy time .........

The desk is prepped ready to continue have another go at my Resist ATCs.  I have been quite successful with the wax taper but didn't like the paper I used, very successful with heat embossing and now I am going to have another try with the wax taper.  The card on my desk is another dismal failure!  I think I was trying the embossing ink but even though I left it to dry there is 'no' resist there.  More Utube watching is in order methinks!!!

But that is for another day!  there are gardens to clear & tidy so this desk will have to wait until the weekend when, hopefully, I will be able to complete my swap.  lol

Thank you for visiting my desk last week, I'm sorry I didn't manage to get round to everyone but will try to do better this week.
Have a good WOYWWeek.
x

Gelli Plate Plus! Swap

All my sheets gathered together... except my perfect one ..... and I started cutting ATC sized (9 x 6.25 cms) pieces from all the sheets.  

My thinking was that if I try to cut really arty pieces then I could be here all day and no cards would be created.

So under the guillotine went my beautiful prints.


I chose my four backgrounds and four stamps.


I used my Chinese Dragon stamp with Versafine black ink.  The writing down the left hand side of the card is part of the print stamp, which took some measuring before stamping.


On my second card, I used a Magazine free stamp which I coloured with Distress inks.  After I printed the stamp, I used the same inks to colour in the image with a very fine brush.


I used one of the Gelli prints with blues for my next card.  I printed the butterfly with Distress ink, then used other colours and a fine brush to paint the butterfly.

I looked through all my cards as I wanted one that would work as a grungy sort of background.  I stamped the Old Steam Locomotive along the lower edge of the card.  I used a dark grey ink to print out the Loco and printed extra smoke trailing behind the chimney stack.  I used a fine paint brush to extend the line ..... no derailments round here!!!

Now to pop them into the post.

UPDATE:
Some more wonderful returns.....



I just love this cat!
Thank you Pithier.

Great colours and stamps.

Thank you sharlene54.

Superb elephant - I love elephants!
Thank you NancyL.

Two wonderful Thank You sheets.

Thank you ThouArt Delyrias for another wonderful swap.

Gelli Print swap part one

Drum roll please!!
I have sorted out my Gelli plate!!!  
This was bought for me for my birthday last year and has stayed in its wrapper ever since.  
Now I have a swap on ATCs For All Group - For this swap create a beautiful Gelli Plate background and then Stamp, Colour, and/or Zentangle on top!  - just have to find where I put the Gelli when I moved rooms!!

Cos I am slightly - in my opinion - pernikety, my Gelli is in one of my mushroom baskets, which has been labelled, and has the stamps to go with it.  
How sad am I?! Don't answer that!  
I have also put a pack of white card in there as well!
PJ bought me this stamp to go with the Gelli Plate, I am so looking forward to using it.
I also purchased some Reverse stamps ............ that made you stop and think!!!  
They can be used on the Gelli Plate and when you print off ..... the words are the right way round ..... not like the stamp opposite!



So here are the afternoon's efforts .....

....... I have had a superb few hours .....

.......... I did manage to print and stamp exactly how I envisioned the final print out.

I also used the reverse stamps .... Love Lives Here ...... but I wasn't really very good with the stamping so I only completed one sheet.

As an afterthought, I used some blue acrylic paint on the XXL stamp and spritzed it with water and printed.  
Can't say as I was impressed.   
After the paper was dry, and while using the stamp with the black Versafine ink,  I ghost printed over the blueprintout.  
Now I am impressed!

 I have to choose which printouts to use for my ATCs ............that's maybe tomorrow ......