Lovely ladies

Elusive Images have released some new stamps that are a little different, three A5 plates of ladies in dramatic evening dresses . The girls on the Design Team worked on these designs last month and the results of all the hard work helped to launch the stamps last weekend. The stamps can be used to make beautiful wedding cards, to send a message for someone going to their prom or for any occasion where a posh frock is the order of the day.

For one of my submissions, I did something a bit different. Using the skirt from the main Belle Dame image, I stamped it 6 times in black archival ink to make huge petals. Then I coloured the images with Adirondack dye inks, Coloursoft pencils and an orange Copic Spica pen to add some sparkle. I added jewels in amber and yellow to highlight the design. I mounted the petals onto an 8 x 8 card covered in black velvet paper and added a flower from the very useful Big Flowers plate in the centre, coloured and bejewelled in the same way.  I think I am stuck in a little groove with these autumn colours!! Some people have described this design as looking like a kaleidoscope, which come to think of it, it does rather. Maybe not suprising as I was always fascinated by them as a child (and even an adult if I am honest!).

To see the stamps in all their detail, go over to the Design Team blog and you can see what the other girls have been up to. Glenda is doing a random giveaway of all three of these new stamp sets so leave a comment on the post on the Design Team blog (rather than just here) to have a chance of winning one of the sets. It's a random draw, so everyone has an equal chance of winning.

I will be posting playing card number 2 in a couple of days.

Elaine x

Back again!

I have been a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks as we were away in Brittany for a week's holiday and I have been playing catch up since.

Apart from rather mixed weather we had a great week and saw some great places that gave me lots of artisitc inspiration too. The highlight for me has to be the Abbey on Mont St Michel. I had visited before, but not been into the Abbey, it is an amazing place, on a huge scale, even more impressive because of it's location and how difficult it must have been to build. My favourite thing though had to be the gorgeous cloister garden. I have already mentioned my love of cloisters and they inspired one of my projects on the blog I share. I just wish there hadn't been so many people there! I would have loved to just soak up the peace!

We also saw some dramatic coastline.

Near Cap Frehel lighthouse people had built lots of little cairns out of the rose granite. Some were 2 - 3 feet high .....

......while this one was only about 4 inches high!

I also spotted some rather lovely shop and restaurant signs ....

........... some interesting shop windows ............ had Tim Holtz visited maybe?

and some great srchitectural details - this has shades of Harry Potter I thought!

While I was away I made a start on a new project I had the idea for a while back when I saw some giant playing cards in the 99p shop! Stupidly I didn't buy them at the time, so ended up finding some on line.

My idea was to make a set of cards with positive and affirming messages for myself. I liked the idea of using playing cards because it gave me 52 cards, one for each week of the year. I have had a difficult summer one way and another and need to focus on the positives on life whenever I can. I keep meaning to try journalling, but am so critical of my work it sort of defeats the object. This approach felt like a great alternative and a chance to do a manageable craft project just for me. I also decided that I am going to allow these cards to be less than perfect, so if the odd mis-stamp or blob or blotch happens, I have given myself permission to let it go for once!!

The first card uses the Don't Worry, Be Happy from the Words of Wisdom stamps from Elusive Images and the wonderful bees by Jo Capper-Sandon, which are a complete joy to use. The message seemed very appropriate for the first card in my set. The images are stamped in black archival ink, shaded with Colourosft pencils and the wings made to glimmer with a Sakura Stardust pen. The card is then finished off with shading in Wild Honey Distress ink.

Let's hope I manage to keep up making one card a week!

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x