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/

Rustling feathers

It's time for another Waltzingmouse Fanatics challenge and this time around we have another sketch for you - pop on over to the challenge to see it http://waltzingmousefanaticschallenge.blogspot.com/2014/01/challenge-10-sketch.html

My take on it is very loose but I think you still get the idea of the shape of it.

I created a simple one layer card by stamping 3 feathers from Fine Feathers in shades of green into the shape on the sketch.  The sentiment is from Funky Feathers and simply stamped in a darker shade of greeny-blue.

I do hope you'll join us - we'd love to see how you interpret the sketch.

I'm also linking it up to STAMPlorations challenge which is all about feathers http://craftilicious-yorkshire.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/rustling-feathers.html

Corn Colours

It's colour week at Less is More this week and when I saw the colour choices I was less than thrilled as they didn't really inspire me - sorry Chris and Jen!  In truth, it's not the colours per-se, it's just I find these colour challenges really difficult with any colours out of my comfort zone of blues and greens!   However I am involved with a soon to be launched challenge (a secret for now but watch this space for details soon!) that will involve regular choices like these so I forced my self to be creative with it and do you know what - I made what I think is my best card in ages!

The tree shape in the photo lead me to dig out my Waltzingmouse fine feathers again - I do love feathers!  This time I opted for ombre embossing on vellum and fussy cutting which I think makes for a striking effect.  Simply mounted on a double grey panel with some mustard twine and a grey button.  The sentiment is from the funky feathers set and I made a simple banner with it on kraft card and tucked it just behind the feather.  A little corner rounding to finish - et voila!   As Ms Waltzingmouse herself would say - hope it tickles!

Waltzingmouse Inaugural PJ Party!

Are you in your PJ's and ready to party?  I'm not a PJ girl but I do like a Pajama party - especially if we get ice-cream for a midnight feast ;-)  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/wms-pajama-party.html

I played with a couple of the "get ahead" challenges last week - Firstly "Tickle Me Silly" - to make a card with one of the new feather sets.  I went with Fine Feathers and tried a layered vellum technique I learnt in the online card class I just took.  I stamped two large feathers in wet cement shadow ink onto white cardstock and then added a layer of vellum.  I stamped the smaller feathers from the set but the inks I chose were too pale so I embossed them - one with "cricket" and one with teal opaque and teal glitter powders.  I added a matching sentiment with pewter powder and hid the glue line where I attached the vellum with some strands of Waltzingmouse twine.

I hadn't had enough of feathers though, so decided to use Funky Feathers to enter the "In the Background" challenge.  I stamped two rows of the solid feather using the new pistachio ink from SU to create a chevron pattern.  I stamped over the bottom row with the matching open feather stamp with versafine deep lagoon and repeated it on top row with versafine olive.  I stamped a couple of elements from Country Labels 14 onto a corresponding green scrap and die cut before adding a deep teal border.

Right the party must have started now - time to see who's in their PJs!