Halloween high jinks

I've been having a great time this weekend making a birthday card for my youngest daughter who's going to be 13! I bought some Halloween Cherry Pie Art stamps from Scrapz and have been dying to use them as I love all the ghoulish stuff and the swirly designs. She's off to Fright Night at Thorpe Park with her older brother and sister on Saturday so I thought I'd get her in the mood!I die cut the house and stuck some orange paper behind it and then really went town with the background. The swirls are Basic Grey Flourish Edges coloured in (just out of interest, does anyone else find these don't work very well with Stazon? they sort of 'stick'.) Then all the other stamps are Cherry Pie. The gravestones are great because they're quite a grey stamp and so appear to be in the background. there's also a cat and a mouse if you lok carefully. The blue and orange papers are from Kaisercraft Esperance collection - I've used this set of papers so much - and the sun comes from Cosmo Cricket Get Happy .Inside I went a bit mad:The tombstones are die cut again as is the web (that took about three goes!) Then I wanted the skeletons to hang so suspended them on some chain!I got so carried away I decorated the top layer as well:I'm not sure where we'll write our names, but never mind! Here's a flat view of the whole inside: Now I'm off to make some Stampbord Skeletons for bag charms!

Cheers!

Helen

A Fairy Happy Birthday!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged this week but I seem to have been very busy. I've had my mum staying for a few days. We went to the Royal Pavilion in Brighton on Saturday - absolutely fantastic! I'm sure they've extended the tour as last time I went about 5 years ago, it only took about half an hour.
Talking of my mum, I've been making a card for her birthday and decided to play around with the fairy stamps from Elusive Images-there's going to be a C & C TV show with these on 16 November. I started by stamping the fairies in a row onto glossy white card: and then added a background using the Wild Meadow themeplate, masking off just the wings:Then I added colour using just three dye inkpads, red, yellow and blue. Usually I try to keep the colours fairly separate so as not to muddy them, but this time, I got a bit carried away and kept on adding more and more and discovered it produces really rich colours (a happy accident):I then added a little colour to the wings because they were too white:and finished the card off by layering onto a piece of Scrapperdashery paper - (I used 'If', part of the poetry range, lovely double-sided sheets of 12 x 12, with various colours, watermarks and quotes from poems, Shakespeareplays etc. the colours seem to coordinate with the Adirondack Earthtones range of inkpads.)Then I stamped round the edge of the panel with one of the Autumn Leaves 'On the Edge' stamps:Now I've just got to do the inside!

Cheers!

Helen

Blog Candy alert!!!

Get yourself over to the Elusive Images Design Team blog as there is a major Blog Candy giveaway.It's really easy - all you have to do is leave a comment on the prizes. You've got 'til this Friday 17 October.

Good Luck!

Helen

Ready to Go

Well, in the end I chose the plain blue paper - well, not quite plain blue as it has green and white in it:I stamped around the edge with a harlequin border from the Prima Paris set and the card ended up like this:Then I thought I'd add some detail to the insert just to finish it off:

Et voila! Ready to go!

Helen

Birthday Greetings

Just as a while back I was making the photo montage for my brother (all finished now and rolled up ready to travel), I've also been making him a birthday card.
I chose a Tim Holtz stamp - Boy with Dog (not that we had dogs as children - we used to pick up stray cats and give them very un-pc names from what I remember!). I used Adirondack Denim and Lettuce inkpads to add the colour and then stamped the extra numbers using the Art Warehouse Limited Edition Big Numbers stamps: I added a frame with one of the Prima Build a Frame sets then I dug out some Hambly rub-ons in white and used these to add extra details. These rub-ons are really good - they just fall off the sheet, not like some that should perhaps be called rub-throughs as that's what happens to the paper when you try to use them!After that I had to decide how to layer it up. I knew I wanted to use scrapbook paper as that adds another dimension, but oh the choice! Eventually I narrowed it down to Kaisercraft, about 3 different double - sided sheets, Summer Breeze, Sea Spray, Sand Dune. See what you think!



I'll show you next time how I finished it!

Helen

Tree time again!

I promised I'd post a couple more tree cards - well these are the last two! This one uses Scrapbook paper again - actually not the colours I'd originally thought of at all, but just what seemed to work! I really like black/white papers at the moment, and this one's from My Mind's Eye:It's double sided, so I've used the other side to make a strip across the top and bottom of the card. I've also rubbed it with the same inkpad I used to stamp the trees as the dots were a bit too white. The shiny baubles are stickers from Paperchase that I picked up one time I was there and have used a lot. I added the red piece of ribbon to tie in with the red baubles.

Materials:
Stamps used:Elusive Images Madonna and Trees, Angel and Trees
My Mind's Eye paper - Our Son collection

This next card was a bit of a happy accident!The pink tree on its own didn't have enough 'oomph' so I stamped the exact same but smaller tree in black in the middle.The background layers are all sprayed with the Moulin Rouge Glimmer Mists and then overstamped with various of the tree stamps sideways on (make great backgrounds!) You can see some of the layers in this close-up:
Materials :
Stamps used: Elusive Images Madonna and Trees, Angel and Trees, Christmas Reflections, Christmas Foliage
Glimmer Mists - Moulin Rouge set

Enjoy!

Helen

Winter Trees

Now that the new Winter Glimmer Create and Craft show has been recorded and the new Elusive Images Christmas stamps have been revealed, I can post some of the samples I've been working on.
This card used several of the trees, the berry sprig and some text:It's easy to make but effective:
Step by Step:

1. Colour some white glossy card with bright coloured dye inkpads, overlapping the ink to make more colours. I tend to use a yellow or light green for the focal point.
2. Stamp the text all over the background using the same colours:
3. Stamp the solid trees in black and the finer spiral tree behind:
4. Add the Berry Sprig round the edges to make a frame. Add dotted highlights with a white pen:
5. Edge the panel with the dye inkpads, layer onto a piece of light green card and then a top fold black card. And here it is again:

Materials used:
Elusive Images Christmas stamps
Glossy white cardstock
Adirondack dye inkpads - Lettuce, Cranberry, Denim
Ranger Inkssentials white pen

Personally, I love the trees on these two plates (Madonna and Trees, Angel and Trees)because you can achieve so many different looks with them. This next card almost has a retro feel to it:I just stamped and cut out the trees and added the background. I added a dot of colour to the stars with a cotton bud.

In the next sample, I used scrapbook paper to create a ready made background. This is My Mind's Eye paper and the beauty of it is that it's double sided, so I stamped the tree on the other coordinating side. I layered all the paper up and over stamped with silver embossing tinsel to pull it all together:
Look out for some more samples over the next few days!

Helen