One of my Elusive Images Design Team entries

One of the reasons things got a bit slow on here for a while was that I couldn't show the cards I made for my DT entry. This was one of my favourites, using - surprise, surprise a nature theme!!

The main panel is made by using a real fern leaf as a mask, with colour added with a shaving brush. I then overstamped with an EI fern stamp from the lovely Wild Meadow set - one of my absolute faves! I then stamped the moths from the Daisy Collage sheet onto green vellum in black perfect medium and embossed in what I think was Angel Wings Gold Moonshadow EP. I cut out the moths and placed them onto the panel using adhesive microdots. I also stamped the EI sentiment onto more of the fern background and then mounted the whole thing onto a green Artylicious paper from my Graphicus Guild pack, adding some gorgeous lime green lace, deep green ribbon, green flowers embellished with metal charms and lime green jewel centres. I do love green!!

This is how I did my fern leaf panel.

I started by choosing a nice fern leaf. I chose three green dye ink pads, in this case Willow, Citrus and Lettuce. I started by sponging the two lighter colours over the white card with Cut 'n' Dry foam, more or less covering the background.

Then I added the darkest colour with a shaving brush to stipple around the fern leaf. Placing the leaf in the centre of the panel and working around either full or part leaves working across the card to fill the background.

The end result is a panel with varied depth and texture. I chose the best part to make the panel for my card and overstamped with the fern stamp.

I am thrilled this card was judged to be good enough to get me on the team - now I hope I can live up to expectations!!

Some really exciting news!

Well, I am delighted to be able to share some really exciting news that I have had to keep secret for the last couple of weeks. I am not one for adding lots of gadgets and images in my side bar, I like to keep things quite uncluttered around here. BUT, as you can see from the side bar, I have something to display that I am enormously proud and not a little bit awestruck by - I have been chosen to be part of the Elusive Images Design Team - to echo my counterpart and good friend Lesley - Wow and Double Wow!

It is almost exactly 3 years since I started making cards as I fancied doing something creative again after a break of a few years from sewing and other crafts. Little did I realise just what a compelling and addictive pastime it was to become. Towards the end of 2007 I found Elusive Images stamps, and since becoming a customer and a member of the Graphicus Guild I have learnt so much from the Glenda, Lynn and the rest of the very talented team. I have also found some wonderful and special crafty friends through the Guild, two are fellow members of the DT with me.

Can I just say a very big thank you to Glenda for having such faith in me and to my fellow new members of the DT - big congratulations - go girls! I will do my best to live up to expectations and have some hopefully good things cooking in my craft shed where I have a very messy craft desk right now. So watch this space for some big reveals in the not too distant future.

Elaine x

A little book

When we were on our mini retreat I found this lovely set of two papier mache boxes in the shape of books. I thought one would make a great alternative to a birthday card for my OH who is absolutely addicted to books.

I wasn't sure how to colour the box at first, I had planned to paint it, but found that Distress Inks in my favourite Vintage Photo gave it a great faux leather look with very little effort. I added a gold embossed image from the Inkadinkado Utopiary set, to try and make it look like a tooled leather cover. Then I added some of my favourite metal corners.

I added some gold rubbing paste on the spine and edged the box with some gold paper I had marked with the finest embossing tool I had to make it look like pages.

I lined the box with a 6 x 6 Webster's Pages paper that I thought looked like a book end paper design and added a greeting - this is one of my favourite Elusive Images designs, I love art nouveau and use it a lot, plus a little calender from the new Tim Holtz Lost and Found pad. I added the greeting on another tag later. I would normally decorate the inside of the box with many more bits and pieces, but my OH is not one for lots of fussy detail, so that didn't seem appropriate this time.

I think it looks a little ragged round the edges, but maybe that is OK for an old book!!

Thanks for popping by and I hope you are having a good weekend.

Elaine xx

A pretty frock!

I saw these gorgeous B Line dress stamps being demoed by Linda Brown and Linda Elbourne at the LB Craft stand at the Ally Pally show in April and had to add them to my wish list. When we visited LB in June as part of our mini Retreat trip to Bedfordshire, I had to buy them. You may have spotted them in a recent issue of Craft Stamper in an article by Linda Brown.

It took me until yesterday to get around to using these stamps and I made a card for a friend. I'm sorry the picture is a little out of focus, I only took one quick snap before I needed to get the card in the post.

I stamped the images in Ranger jet black archival ink on a sheet of K & Co matting card that had a natured themed design. This is actually textured card, so not the best surface for getting a really sharp image, but hopefully good enough to show the final result. I added more stamping from a Crafty Individuals set, the flourish is from the Tecnnique Tuesday Whirly Words set that had been on my wish list for ages and I finally got at Ally Pally in April. The sentiment is from the B Line dress set. I cut out and edged the dress with Shabby Shutters DI and mounted the whole thing onto dark green card, that I folded and cut out into a dress shaped card and just added a little wooden button.

I really enjoyed christening this delightful set of stamps.

Elaine xx

New Quartet Project

Well I am last off the starting blocks with this month's project post for our shared blog, but after my leaky bucket disaster previously mentioned do please pop over to see the full details here.

I have been making a couple of cards with the freebie stamps from Craft Stamper. This one uses the flower from the latest issue, cut out and mounted on a background stamped with the Prima Notary stamp. This is brilliant value for a script background sized 4" x 6". I coloured the images with Sunshine Yellow Adirondack dye ink, Spiced Marmalade DI and Cranberry Adirondack. I added a little heart button and some orange sparkles. The whole card is tiny, only just over 2" square.

I have been having a long overdue sort out of our house and look at this delightful little vintage travel iron I found. I think I found it at a car boot sale. I am thinking it could have good potential for crafty uses as it has a really heavy sole plate, once it has been tested for electrical safety of course!!

Thanks for dropping by!

Elaine xx

Butterfly girl

July is a busy month for birthdays in our families, so I have loads of cards to make. I made this one as a real quicky this morning for a 3 year old.

The gorgeous stamp is from Imagination Stamps see here. I bought the stamp at the Alexandra Palace show in April, I am ashamed to say this is the first time I have used it, but I knew I had to have it! I stamped the main image in black archival ink and then rubbed over the whole image with a little pale blue Viva Paper Soft Colour. Then I used a Cosmic Swirl stencil template (Imagination also sell these) and sponged a darker blue around the central image taking care to avoid the face. The butterflies are stickers. They are a little glittery and not the sort of thing I usually use, but they seemed appropriate for a little girl's card.

I need to get back to finiishing my flag book now, I am the last to go posting this month - Judith has just posted her gorgeous rainbow garden project here,

There's a hole in my bucket, Dear Liza!

I really can't believe that is has really been 2 weeks since I last blogged. I have been crafting, but there are a few things I haven't been able to post yet, for various reasons and a couple of cards I made in such a hurry to catch the post I even forgot to take photos!!

This post is really a sneeky peek for the next project I am working on for the blog I share with Jo, Judith and Lesley. I am rather behind the others (again), but this time with quite good reason and there is a moral in this tale!

I like nice quirky bits and pieces in my shed and the other day I spotted this little bucket in a gift shop! It is about 3 inches high and I thought it would make a nice little water pot for when I was painting. However I have since learnt that not all buckets are equal when it comes to holding water and this was obviously supposed to be a purely decorative item!

I made the nine flags needed for my flag book, this was three layers of dye ink on each side, two colours (willow and citrus) sponged on with Cut 'n Dry and the top colour (lettuce) stippled on using my leafy background technique. As you can imagine this took me some time, needing to cover 18 sides on all! I then did a little painting on another project with some H2Os, by which time it was time for me to cook the dinner. I didn't clear up behind myself and empty my water pot, but left it on my craft desk with my nicely inked flags all laid out to dry ready for stamping!

However, this was the sight that greeted me next day ........... nine inked flags all water damaged - the dratted bucket had leaked all it's water across my desk! So the first set all ended up in the bin!

This afternoon, I have made a replacement set, ready for overstamping during the week, hopefully I will be able to post the results on the other blog by next weekend. Ever get a feeling of deja vue? This time, I have made sure there is no water nearby, I should be fine unless the roof leaks!!

In the meantime, do pop over and see what the other girls have already posted here, Jo and Lesley have both done gorgeous Parisian themed books. I am still in my comfort zone and going for another nature themed project.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine xx