Mirabelle easel card

I had another family birthday recently. They are hard to keep up with at the moment. This was for a great niece who was 11.

 

It was pretty tough to get a decent pic of this card before it got posted. My main image is one of the new Leanne Ellis Mirabelle stamps from Trim Craft, coloured with Prisma pencils. I cut her our carefully and mounted her within an arch made by embossing a gorgeous Stamp Camp stamp in gold on purple card. This stamp was purchased on my one and only trip up to Port Sunlight to Happy Stampers in September 2012 and I think this was its first inking which is shameful for such a beautiful image.

The backing paper for the main image is from the Prima Firefly range, an offcut from another project. I also stamped the sentiment onto the same paper, the stamp is designed by Leesa Gibbons for Prima. This time I  embossed in purple moonglow powder and matted onto a scalloped oval die cut that had been embossed around the edge in gold. The finishing touches were some Prima paper hydrangeas a recent purchase at Sandown Park craft show.

Thank you for leaving comments, they are very much appreciated, all comments give me so much encouragement.

Elaine x

Valentine's day

I saw this Memory Box die in the sale at The Glitterpot and it had to fall into my basket. We have had a tandem for many years as I can't ride a bike on my own! So we have some fun memories of our bicycles! I have so say it is while since ours has been out of the shed though!

This is a really simple design because my OH isn't keen on lots of fussy stuff!!! The tree behind the die cut is a Stamp Camp stamp, I coloured the little hearts with a Distress Ink Barn Door marker. The sentiment is from a new Chocolate Baroque set of clear Macintosh sentiments to work alongside their new Macintosh inspired stamps - you can find them here

Elaine

Ally Pally

In September I made my regular pilgrimage to Alexandra Palace for the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show. I love this show, it is always a special time as I get the chance to catch up with special crafty friends from around the country, to do some fabulous shopping and enjoy the setting in a really special building. This year I had to dash off to the show the day after I got back from holiday and the strain showed when I got up late and had a massive dash! This pic shows the stash I managed to amass at the show, but also during holiday shopping at The Glitterpot and The Craft Barn. I was a very lucky girl!

 

I bought some bookmark tags from Inkylicious and here are my first two efforts. The main stamp image on the orange tag is an Inkylicious stamp called Tree of Life. The sentiment is from Stamp Camp, which I really love, what great rules to live by! I added shading with a Crafter's Workshop stencil. 

 

 

The blue bookmark uses one of the new Kaisercraft sentiment stamps with a pattern added from another Crafter's Workshop stencil. These words mean a lot to a friend of mine and me and I couldn't miss this stamp. I plan to make some more of these to add into Christmas pressies.

 

Elaine x

A purple birthday

It was my special crafty friend Judith's birthday recently. She has been having lots of celebrations lately and keeping us busy on the card making front. This is the card I made for her birthday and she loves purple!

I started on a black base and layered up a deckle edged Laurence Llewellyn Bowen paper, topped with an art nouveau themed Joanna Sheen paper that Judith actually gave to me so I knew she would like it, The stamps I used were the gorgeous Crafty Individuals tag, with the little girl image that in our little group of crafty friends we called the Shirley Temple stamp. I stamped in my favourite Versafine in Imperial Purple and shaded with Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord DIs.

The berries and leaf stamp is from Stamp Camp, embossed in a coppery Moonshadow powder. I used the same stamp as a watermark on the sentiment panel which uses a stamp I bought from Rubbernecker at Ally Pally on my last visit. This sentiment is especially appropriate for Judith as I always call her the Queen of Flowers because she often adds beautiful handmade flowers to her cards. I finished with some grosgrain ribbon, purple arum lilies (also a gift from Judith) and two little metal earrings, that I bought especially, to incorporate into a project for Judith some time.  

Thanks to Judith for taking the picture for me as I was so pushed to get this in the post I didn't have time to snap it myself.



Have a good weekend!

Elaine x

Deco lady

I saw the stamped image on this card in the Aug/Sept 2010 issue of Stampers Sampler and felt one of the strongest yearnings I had ever had for a stamp. Recently my crafty friend Judith picked up this and some other Stamp Camp stamps for me at the Happy Stampers show in Port Sunlight. I was a very happy bunny.

I decided to let this striking image speak for itself and keep the overall card layout simple, so just stamped it in black archival, added some shading with Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. I mounted the panel onto a gorgeous dusky mauve My Mind's Eye paper. The final touch was some gems on the eyelid. I cannot take any credit for this idea for embellishing the image. This touch was added in the original project by Hedy Husarzewski in the magazine article I orginally saw. I have tried to see if Hedy has a blog, but haven't been able to find one so I haven't been able to thank her for her inspiration, but I want to acknowledge it here.

It's nice to have something else to blog again and my OH said he liked the card too, that's a once in a blue moon event! 

Elaine x