Wooooah, flower alert!

Well you can't say I didn't warn you.......

I think I've overdosed on petals now. It's a set of 4 ATCs, made in a connect 4 style, so that they work together as a whole, and hopefully individually. Most, if not all of the stamps are Stampin' Up, on a background that's sprayed with diluted inks. I've added definitions from an old encyclopaedia, and some cute little insects. 

The leaves are hand drawn with black fineliner and coloured green. Final touches were yellow stickles and white gel pen. I quite like the slightly faded, old look of these ATCs, which comes from the pale colours in the background.

The Stamp Man challenge- Curls and Swirls

OK, so this fortnight's Stamp Man challenge is right up my street. We want you to use Curls and Swirls.

 Now, as my crafting buddies will tell you, I'm a swirl-a-holic. I can't resist buying swirly stamps and use them on far too many projects...... 

This time around I've made a little ATC box. Regular readers will know that I love making and swapping ATCs- can anyone guess what I made this little box out of? I've made it to take to a crafting meet I'm attending soon, where we always do lots of ATC swapping.

The background was made with lots of ink splodging and swooshing, sponging through flower and swirl stencils (actually left over negatives from punching out swirls and flowers), and through sequin waste. Then I stamped over in a lovely dark green in with the swirl from the Aspects of Design 40 Dragonfly Dreams stamp plate. I stamped and cut out the butterflies from the same set. They're really cute, especially as the outline is separate from the solid butterfly, a little bit of versatile 2 step stamping.

I added orange flowers; ribbons and brads to hold the lid together and lots of Stickles of course!!!

Now there's a fantabulous prize to be had from The Stamp Man- as ever- so why don't you get swirling and curling and have a go!

Ingredients
Stamps- Aspects of Design 40 Dragonfly Dreams
Inks- Distress ink in Spiced Marmalade and Peeled Paint, Impress ink Emerald green
Stash- Ribbon, Brads, Stickles in Orange Peel, Flowers, White card

Stripy ATCs for my crafty girls

I don't know if I mentioned it before (old age, y'know!!!) but I am part of a little group of 4 who regularly take it in turn to set each other ATC challenges. It started as a way to make sure we were using our new or uninked up stamps, but it's turned into a little bit of an institution for the 4 of us.

Well, this was my challenge theme- to use a previously unused stamp and incorporate stripes. I had a smashing afternoon yesterday catching up on my trashy TV watching and making these....

I think the yellow one is my favourite. The backgrounds are cut from a sheet of waste card used under some cosmic shimmering.

Ingredients

Stamps- Stampendous Petal Plus

Inks- Versafine Onyx Black

Stickles- Christmas red, Turquoise, Yellow

Ice cream colours....yum

This card started with the backing paper. This is a piece I've been saving for ages just because I liked it. You know that feeling right? Keeping some piece of card, or paper or stash because you like it too much? Well I'm fighting the urge and using my stash at the moment. I've got waaaaay too much, so I have to use some before I get any more.

The flowers are punched, and I used brown to make the colour scheme a little bit less sickly, lol.

Ingredients
Stamp- Sweet Pea's Purple Woods
Promarkers- Vanilla, Ivory, Saffron, Cool Grey 1 &2,  Pastel Pink, Cocktail Pink, Antique Pink, Cocoa, Terracotta, Buttercup, Tulip Yellow
Papers, pearls and ribbon from stash

I'm entering this into:

Papertake Weekly challenge- Ice cream colours (neopolitan!!!)
Sweet Pea Stampers- Sketch
Ooh La La- Flourishes and pearls

Tuesday's crafting session

I'm really, really lucky, because I have a couple of friends who live close by who like to craft (and stamp in particular). Most Tuesdays see Kay, Michelle and myself geting together for a craft session of some sort. We all 3 have little girls of about the same age so they play while we get inky!!

Yesterday's session was at Kay's- it's always lovely to visit someone else's stamp stash- and a lovely time was had by all, despite Michelle not being able to make it. I made 3 ATCs, pictured below.

ATC Reflection

I made the Reflection ATC first, stamping off the piece of card at the edges. I then cut up the scrap card I was working on to make the backgrounds for the other 2! Waste not, want not, as they say!!

ATC Bzzz bloom

ATC Flutter blossom

I think Flutter blossom is my favourite- the dragonfly wings are stamped onto pink vellum, and only attached at the body, so they do flutter a little bit.

Wonder what I'll make next time?