Feathery Birthday

We have a new challenge this week on the Waltzingmouse Fanatics challenge and it's a really simple sketch that can be layered or simple.

I used the gorgeous peacock feather from the Funky Feathers set and stamped it with a couple of shades of ink before painting the centres with luminarte shimmer paint and stamping the dark blue centre over the top when dry.  I used the matching cut file to cut the feathers on my silhouette machine and cut a mat just larger in gold using a feature on the machine to make an outline larger than the original shape.   I decided a simple strip of dark blue card would set of the images well and paired it with a sentiment from Compact Sentiments using the same blue ink to finish.

Do pop on over to the blog and have a go at the challenge - we even have a set of stamps to give away as a prize this weekend.   http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Waltzingmouse PJ Party Part 2

I didn't get time to play along with the bedtime story sketch on Friday night and we've been out and about a lot on our week off, but as we've been waiting in today for a delivery I've had a little time to play so here's my take on the sketch.  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/pajama-party.html

I used the cut files on my cameo to cut out the sprigs and flowers in white card before using the Two Step Sprig and Flowers sets with shades of orange, yellow and green inks.  I die cut an oval of white card and inked up a sentiment from Compact Sentiments in black before mounting onto some papermania DP with a strip of teal card from my snippets box.  Once I'd layered up the leaves and flowers to follow the sketch, I added a little frame and butterfly made using the modge podge melts that Claire is stocking.  The frame should have more detail but I tried to emboss it (as shown in the product you tube video) but man do you need to be careful or it all just melts!  I liked the effect though so went with it.  For the butterfly I played it safe and coloured it with nail varnish for a quick but shiny effect.  I finished with a few orange gems for added sparkle.

Hope you like it.

Doilies

It's Blog Party day over at Waltzingmouse again - sometimes the 17th creeps up on me and I have rush to make a project last minute, but not this month, oh no sirree not me!  I have not one, but two doily creations all ready to share with you.  I had a couple of birthdays this week just gone that I thought a doily card would be suitable for so I made them in advance and saved the blogging of them ready for today :-)

This is the "academic year" that my school friends and I reach one of those milestone birthdays we'd rather all forget!  Mine was last year, but I have a number of friends who ares till to take their turn and this one was for Vikki.  I die cut the doily using a cut file from the silhouette store from DP and using the offset function created a matching mat to layer it on.  The centre was again cut on my silhouette cameo and I distressed the edges of it.  I stamped the greeting using two sentiments from Compact Sentiments and added a subtle 40 in the corner using Woodenheart Alphabet both in crumbcake ink from SU.  I carefully (very carefully with my sharpest pointiest scissors!) cropped the word "sweet" from the beginning of the Birthday wishes stamp (sorry Claire!) - it still goes back together perfectly for when I want to use it but it gives me a little more diversity from the stamp set when I don't ;-)  I finished the card with some washi tape stripes and a little pool party inking around the panel onto which I mounted my doily - deliberately hanging it over the edge and trimming it off flush.

The second card was for my second Valentine's Day birthday - two of my friends were born that day - and I found another cute cut file in the silhouette store to make this adorable doily banner.  I swapped out the line and bows from the cut file for some twine to give it a more real feel.  I used DP from Craftwork Cards and embossed it with a spellbinders double folder.  I added a doily-style border (spellbinders die) across the bottom and fussy cut the Eiffel Tower from another sheet of DP (which bearly shows in the photo but does IRL).  The sentiment uses my trimmed Compact Sentiment again but this time I shadow stamped it using pool party and cocoa brilliance inks onto a die cut kraft label.  I used pool party ink to stamp one of the labels from Very Vintage labels No 10 onto the edge and finished with a couple of soft pool pearls.  In hindsight, I should have used a little distress ink on the edges of the DP for more definition and a more vintage feel.

Can't wait to waltz around and see what doily creations everyone else has come up with - I'm off to get a cuppa and a slice of cake - on a plate with a doily naturally :-)

La Blackboard Francais

Ok, so I don't know the French for Blackboard, but if you say it with a French accent just like allo allo, then obviously you'll be understood but you must say it only wunz!   So enough with the 80s TV references and back to the card making.  The blackboard references all came about from this little challenge that the Head Mouse herself set over on the Waltzingmouse blog yesterday http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/monday-morning-make-technique-challenge.html to try out the blackboard technique that is popping up all over the internet.

I'd seen it before, but wasn't really sure it was for me - I was blackboard monitor at school and hated when I found a blackboard that hadn't been properly cleaned so the idea of deliberately smearing the pristinely stamped black card was a little difficult for me to get my head around.  However, I do love all things from the House of Mouse so I decided to jump in feet first, swim the channel to Paris and this is what I created:

I used the Eiffel Tower and the bracket swirl from Paris Nouveau and a couple of appropriately French sentiments from Compact Sentiments - stamped and embossed in detail white and then shadow stamped again using brilliance moonlight white ink.  I die cut using a large nestie and emphasised the embossed edge with a white pencil.  I added a few pink highlights around the images with a bright pink pencil and then very tentatively rubbed around the edges and under the words with a tissue and the white ink.  I mounted onto some love heart paper and mounted that onto black using a reverse corner rounder on both and added some contrasting dotted paper and ribbon in the middle.

The whole process was actually a lot less painful and much more enjoyable than I'd feared so thanks for forcing me into scary territory Claire!