True Friends are like diamonds...

Following on with the sketch from the ladies over at Less is More another card that I made was with I think the very first stamp I ever bought.  I very rarely buy stamps that are pure text, but this one I really liked from the moment I spotted it.  I teamed my stamp with part of a embossed tree... have I mentioned how much I love trees, well trees and elephants, actually trees, elephants and the colour red!!  I find it really hard to find tree stamps that I love, but luckily I found the embossing folder and whilst it is a little more fiddly to decorate I really do love the simplistic look of the tree.

This card has all of the two of the three things that I love.  At a later date I will do a post on my elephant cards as I am just finishing off a couple :O)

Here is the card - True friends are like diamonds....

The angle of the photograph makes the card look a little askew.. oh well!


Here are a couple more cards which I have made using the same embossing folder.

Copper Dust - Flowers and Swirls

Here is the second copper dust card that I have created, that is layered onto my lovely metallic copper card.

  The above photograph shows more of a mat finish, but below with the aid of the flash, you start to see some of that lovely shimmer of the copper dust and metallic card :o)

I know that I will be playing further with the copper combination.

Copper Dust - Daisy

I love the colour of copper, there is just something about it.  A few years ago I bought some beautiful copper card, it is a nice and heavy card stock and beautifully metallic.  In hindsight I should have bought a LOT more of it but luckily I still have a bit left.

Tonight have have made a couple of cards using some copper dust.  The cards I am going to enter into the Less Is More sketch challenge which is due to close in a couple of hours.

As each entry has to have it's own post I will split the two cards.

Here is the first copper dust card - Single Daisy

The photograph unfortunately doesn't really capture the beautiful shimmer of the copper dust and metallic card.

The flower card collection

Over at LIM the challenge this week is a sketch challenge. The challenge is to create a card which is rectangular, has a vertical panel with the layout being landscape.  As the ladies are all about keeping clean and simple the idea is to have as much white space on your card as possible.  Lots of layers and embellishments are a no no.

Here is one entry for this weeks LIM challenge, its called 'Have a fabulous day'.  I absolutely love this stamp, so simple, so clean and just lovely!

So you may wonder where the collection of cards come in?  Well I love this stamp and the way I work is that I tend to stamp lots of images at once and then make them into cards later on.

So here is my collection, so far!

Fun with alcohol inks!

I didn't manage to post last week or take part in any challenges but that is not to say that I wasn't having a crafty moment or two.  I had great fun last weekend playing with alcohol inks and actually normal inks, I will come to that a little later.  Give me ink, a straw and some card or acetate and I can play for hours :o)  Trying the different colours and ways of blowing and dripping the ink was really fun, as my mother informed me over Skype, I was recapturing my youth! OK as a child I wasn't given inks, but I do remember doing the same thing with paints... in fact I have a piece of art that I made for my grandparents by blowing paints.

So I only have a few alcohol inks at the moment, but I do have quite a few bottles of printer ink and who said you can't play with them both.  The inks react so differently on different papers, it was trial and error and great fun.  Should I mention the mess...wow the ink goes everywhere of course!! I soon created an ink shield to stop it going places that I didn't want, namely everywhere on my desk!  It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I took a look at my hands hahaha what can I say, wow its a good job that I do not work in a client facing role haha.

I really had a great time playing with the inks, they even helped reduce the stress after a couple of really crappy days at work... nothing like blowing ink around a bit of paper as a therapy session.. hey maybe I can market that?!?   Therapy by ink!?!

So what did I create :)   I have only made two cards out of my creations so far the rest will come later on.

This by far is my favourite card, I am calling it Poppy Red.


I am entering this into the LIM week 52 sketch challenge

When blowing the inks on the acetate it started to look like a flower, so that is what I went with.


The second card I have made is 'All about the pink'  I love the brightness of the pink with the black! Ink blowing is so much fun!  Again this was ink on acetate and than placed on white card and then layered on black card to get a very thin border.

I find it totally amazing the great colours and patterns you can get.  The only thing is if you create something that you really like, chances are that you will not be able to recreate it.

Here are the other creations that are waiting to be made into cards or something else.

The other two cards and ideas

Whilst working on the LIM challenge, the Peacock theme really did stay with me!  One of the ideas I was playing with is Peacock feathers, I still haven't dismissed the idea, I might play further with them this week.

Along with the other two cards that I made, are the sketches of the feathers. I really like the using the black card,  I am not sure where the idea will take me, but I am thinking of keeping it very simple.

Here are the two cards and sketches.


Thanks for looking! Emma.

A Blue Peacock

Pufff where has the week gone it is Sunday night again and it feels like I have blinked and missed the weekend :o)  Such a feeling makes it hard to drag myself out of bed for work on the Monday morning hahaha.

I haven't really had too much time to craft as I would like and I saw the challenge over at LIM and wasn't sure if this one was for me.  The theme is Birds and I know that in my small collection of stamps I only have two very small ones that are not that special.  Sure there are some great Digistamps and probably stamps in my local shop that I could purchase, but I have decided that I am going to use what I have, which includes my own imagination and a pen and paper if necessary to create my own images :o)  Two weeks in a row I have managed to draw my own images, OK they are not as good as a stamp or Digistamps, but I have stuck to my promise hahaha.

I have been inspired and made three cards, the one that I will submit to 'Week 50 one layer card, Bird'  challenge is the Blue Peacock, I think if I have time this week I may revisit it as I would like to do more of a cute card.

I have also submitted this card to the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge blog challenge, which is 'Anything goes with blue' and The Craft Garden 'monochrome' challenge.

Hand drawn Peacock in Turquoise ink.  The head and upper body has been coloured in water colour pencils. Simple ink half border with three sparkles added in the top left, and one in the bottom right hand corner.

 Close up of the Peacock.

                                  

The Peacock is such a lovely bird, really beautiful feathers, the strange thing is that one of my Grandmothers used to have Peacock feathers in a vase on a windowsill as you walked up her spiral staircase and as a child they would freak me out a little.  Now I see them for what they are, works of art.  I am always amazed by the beautiful colours, lines and shapes of nature.