Inkylicious colour blending

Hi everyone, and welcome to my new followers, Mary Mac and Crafty Debs - I appreciate you adding me to your blog favourites!

This card is one of my designs featured in this months (May '13) edition of Making Cards.  Poor pic, I know - really need to work on the photography skills!

The base card is 8" square, the panel dies used are Spellbinders Mega Curved Rectangles, decorated with Joy crafts flourishes 6002/0020 & 6002/0033 and memory Box Butterfly dies Vivienne & Darla.  The stamp set used is my current favourite, 'Oriental Awakenings' from Inkylicious.

All the inks used are Distress Inks, applied with Inklyicious Ink Dusters to give a lovely soft finish.

The colours are actually much softer than they look in this pic, but my rubbish photography has flattened and darkened the colours - must try harder lol!!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

It's wedding season!

 Hi blog-hoppers! I've had a few commissions lately for cards on wedding themes, so thought I would share them with you.  The first one uses ready made tag toppers I've had in my stash for ages, and the colour theme was just right for this request. The die cuts are Spellbinders Grand Labels 4.  

The background layer is an old Hunky Dory Whispers pearl embossed card, and I ran the white top layer through an embossing folder - I love this particular one, which is swirling vines - think it's Crafts Too.  I added some punched swirls and a few gems to finish it off.

The second one uses a freebie download I've had since last year, from one of the crafting mags, think it was Papercraft Inspirations but not sure! Anyway, I've used it a lot!

This one was matted and layered on more Hunky Dory card, the darker layer is gold embossed, and the lighter layer is the whisper pearl again. Then I cut out a bunch of Kanban flowers I've had in my stash for years, curled and layerd them and added gems. The colour theme for this wedding was metallic turquoise, and I added Stickles glitter glue to the tiny flowers on the topper and all over the skirt of the dress - hard to see unless you look really close, but so pretty!

I have a class in Chandlers Ford this afternoon and another tomorrow night, and this is what we will be making - I got carried away with the flower theme after the wedding card!!

The Grand Labels 4 die came out again - Labels 4 has to be my most used die, it's brilliant! the larger flowers are made from cutting spiral circles, and I've added different sizes of spirals for interest, plus punched flowers, swirls and leaves.

OK, time to go pack the craft box! Thanks for stopping by, and happy crafting :-)

Debs x

WOYWW 144 - and frustration with sticky stuff!

Happy WOYWW everyone, if you aren't sure what that means then click here to visit Julia's Stamping Ground for a peek into craft desks across the world!

I missed WOYWW last week, cos I was rather busy (see yesterday's post!) and didn't visit anyone, so will try to do better this week :-)

This is my desk - in my lovely new craft room [happy sigh]

I have everything I need in one place (on the shelves behind me that you can see in yesterday's post!), electrical sockets for my heat gun/glue gun etc, and s-p-a-c-e!! Of course, Deb's law of crafting states that 'you will expand to fill all available space' lol!

The frustration in the title of my post comes from the pile of dies you can see on the kitchen roll on my chair. I bought some lovely new cogs dies at Farnborough, and this is my first opportunity to try them out. They were stuck to the inside of the packaging with something akin to super glue, and the residue was stuck all over the dies, causing them in turn to stick to my Cuttlebug C plate. I had to use my craft knife to pry them off!  So they have been liberally bathed in Stick away, and rinsed in the sink, so that I can actually use the blasted things again!  Grrr......rant over!

And this is Barney investigating my new crafting space.....just cos he can!

Sorry for the cat butt in shot - he's not the best trained moggy and tends to flash everyone, witness his shameless sunbathing in the unseasonably warm weather this week.......and yes, he is fast asleep lol!!

Looking forward to seeing some of the goodies created by you lovely WOYWW'ers, probably take me a few days, but I will visit as many as I can before next week.

Also, if anyone is planning a visit to the NEC on Friday 23/3, come and say hi, I will be demo'ing on the WOW embossing stand all afternoon from 1pm and would love to meet some WOYWW'ers.

Thanks for stopping  by

Debs x

Distress Inks Demo - Hobbycraft 24/7

For some reason, my demo's at Hobbycraft this summer have all fallen on sunny days! WE get naff weather all week, out comes the sun and I'm packing the car and driving off to my demo leaving Hubby to his lazy Sunday.......

Yesterday's demo was to show how you can use Distress Inks to achieve different effects. This first card is made up of 3 panels I did yesterday, and today I made them up into a card, adding some background stamping, an extra layer to the focal point and some die cuts. Didn't plan this, it just happened - can you tell I'm into the autumn colours at the mo??????

Lots of people have asked me where I got the bare trees stamp, and sadly I think it's a retired image from Komodo. Creative Expressions still list it as in stock, but no retailers appear to have it - shame, cos it's really beautiful.
The background and top left panel are made with this really sweet Ivy Border from Personal Impressions, and the larger base panel uses the Ivy Border and a Clarity Stamps mini fern.

I am entering this card in the follwoing Challenges:

• Stamp Man challenge 'Anything by Tim'
• The Crafty Pad 'Embossing Heat or Dry'
• AIFActory 'Layer it up'

So now I need to go get my kit together for Wednesday night's class - the last one before my hols - I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to think about the holiday (a real break for the bank balance, cos I haven't bought a ton of new clothes LOL :-))

Thanks for dropping by

Debs x

Mr Droopy Drawers!

Hi everyone.  People seemed to like this stamped image when I posted my WOYWW pic earlier this week, so I thought I would show him made up into a card - which my brother in law will be receiving (sssshhhh!!!!!)

The card is made using Funky Hands backing papers from the Friday Night Out collection on the Funky Daze CD (my absolute fave for backing papers - something on there to suit every colour possible). The main image has been die cut using Spellbinders Scalloped Circles, and the sentiment using Spellbinders Labels 4, both edged with Barn Door Distress Ink.  The image and sentiment are from the Creative Expressions Murray and Ethel Stamp Set

I used this image in recent classes on Pro Markers, where I was showing how to get realistic skin tones. Here are a couple of close ups to show what we were working on

Aren't these images great?!? I love the quirkiness of the oldies - they make fun cards for grown ups, and there are some really fun sentiments on the stamp set too. I couldn't resist giving the Bikini Babe a little sunburn! When I get my act together I will post a Pro Marker tutorial..................

I am entering Mr Droopy Drawers in the following Challenges:

• Get Funky - Boys Boys
• Sweet Stampin -  One for the Boys
• Crafters Companion -  One for the Boys
• Sarah Hurley 'Colouring' Challenge 

Thanks for stopping by - off now to tidy the craft table (not a hope!!!)

Debs x