Spoil Yourself...

I seem to be having a little craze on Penny Black images at the moment.  This is another card using an image and sentiment stamp from one of the Penny Black T for transparent stamp sets.  The spotty paper is a magazine freebie and I've teamed it with a textured fabric type of paper from my stash. 

The layout of the card came from this week's challenge at Sketch Saturday.  I really love the triangular mat idea and will be using that again in the near future.

I'm keeping up with my resolution of doing the dreaded inners at the same time as my card even if they are very simple ones.

It's probably a good way to use up some of the millions of peel offs that somebody bought over the years.  Who me?  Never!

Other Challenges...

• Passion for Promarkers - Anything Goes (ends tomorrow- 429 entries - oh my!)- image is coloured using Promarkers
• Crazy4 Challenges - Celebrate something
• Simon Says - Time to Party - Celebrate

 Enjoy your day everyone.

* Note added on Tuesday - do not look at the date on my card - some fool is still typing 2010 - sheesh what am I like?

Penny Black Birthday Card...

Oh how lovely to be able to do some crafting again instead of just trying to sort out my craft supplies and bring some order into all my stuff.  It's an impossible task anyway so I really don't know why I even try.

Today I had a little search through my Penny Black stamps and found this cute hedgie that I haven't used before.  Had a little panic midway through this card (as you do) as when it came to cutting the blue mat for the image I hadn't enough blue card left.  Eeek!  There was enough to the oval you can see, but no larger.  Anyway to cut a long story short the image had to be trimmed and a silver peel off butterfly added to replace the one chopped off during the trimming process.  Saved by the skin of my teeth as they say.

The papers are from a magazine and have been teamed with a pale blue pearlescent.  After such a long break from crafting I got a little bit carried away and even did the inner at the same time.  Yikes, that has got to be a first.

Nothing too fancy, but I think it does make the card a little bit more special.  My card was made with the following challenges in mind...

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday - I used their amazing sketch for the base of my card.
• Penny Black Saturday - 3 papers, 1 ribbon and 1 charm

Hope everyone is having a great start to their year.  Thank you for visiting and for all the fantastic comments I receive.  So kind.

Ann xxx

The Stamp Man Best Project Challenge...

The current challenge at The Stamp Man  involves looking at work you've done over the past year and trying to pull out something you think deserves a second mention on your blog.  Strangely, the projects I'm most proud of are perhaps not my best projects in the normal sense of the word and yet Im really thrilled by my first Encaustic Art creations.   

On my 'Under the Sea' card the seahorses were stamped on to acetate and then laid over the encaustic art work.  The full write up can be found here.

Another encaustic art creation I was pleased with is this 'Winter Wonderland' one.

I'll be honest here and admit that this one came about via the happy accident route in that I applied so much wax trying to get things to look right that when I polished the wax (rather too heavily) most it came off leaving me with a lovely misty background to stamp on.  Don't you just love it when a disaster turns out good in the end?

This is my first encaustic work and sadly it's still waiting to be made up into something.  I haven't fully decided whether it's going to be a card or a journal cover.

The unicorn was printed on to acetate and then mounted over the wax painted background using brads.

When creating the seahorse birthday card I was left with a strip of 'sea' type background that just seemed too good to throw away.  I had it mind that it would make a pretty good bookmark, but didn't get round to doing anything about it till today.

 

It just didn't feel right entering a challenge with only old creations and seeing as I'm an avid reader an extra bookmark is always useful.  
This time the seahorse and shells were die cut using a Cuttlebug die I picked up really cheaply at the NEC.  The acetate is a proper bookmark sleeve with a ready done hole to add a tassle or ribbon.

I'm so glad I didn't throw this strip away as I'm really pleased with the results.  One of my New Year Resolutions is to do some more encaustic work.  I bought the tools and waxes as an early Christmas present to myself so I really have no excuse.

Watch this space, but not too carefully as I have some gorgeous new LOTV stamps to use and one or two more fabulous Christmas presents too..

Thanks for looking and reading my strange ramblings.  Do pop over to The Stamp Man blog to check out other people's favourite work and join the challenge. There are some fabulous prizes and stunning inspiration from the DT.

Hugs and Smiles 

Ann xxx