Cards- I love you, you weirdo!

You know those scraps from scrapbooking? Those little strips and off-cuts that look too substantial to throw away, but they're really not a lot of use? Well I used some up. Go me!

I'd watercoloured a few Stampotique images too, so they got added.

 

And my favourite little alphabet stamps came out to play. I take these everywhere, they're really versatile.

Thanks for looking!

Top tips video- fussy cutting

Hi, another top tips video to share with you all, using the same gorgeous Stampotique images that I coloured in my last video a couple of days ago.

This time I'm showing you how I fussy cut images, sounds kinda basic, but hopefully there are a few new ideas in there for you! If you like it, give it a thumbs up!

Thanks for looking!

Top tips video- using watercolour pencils and stamped images.

Hello! I have a little video to share with you today.

I spent a bit of time colouring some stamped images and thought I'd show you how I use my watercolour pencils to make really brightly coloured pieces.

Hope you enjoy watching it, if you do please give me a thumbs up and let me know what you think!

Thanks for looking :)

Naughty faces- TN

I adore my traveller's notebook. Its a great size to work on, and seems to lend itself to stamping and mixed media stuff a bit more than larger 12x12 pages. This page was one I've always intended to do- I'd taken 2 photos of my children on holiday a couple of years ago. One was a beautifully angelic photo, with both of them looking gorgeous. The other, taken seconds later shows 2 really mischievous, naughty faces. They're a couple of my all time favourite photos. 

Here's the 2 pages together. I'd made the Adventure one a few weeks ago, so the time was right to add the naughty faces to the TN!

There are aa couple of layers of papers, and then a row of Stampotique monsters to match my 2 monster. I watercoloured these, and made a little video on how I did it, hopefully I'll upload it to my YouTube channel soon!

Thanks for looking!

Bzzzzzzzzzzz

Bz bzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I read a superb book recently called The Bees by Laline Paull, click on the picture for an Amazon link. It was fascinating and strange and compelling and unnerving all at once. 

Made me want to get my big bee stamp out! So I did.

Background created with the help of my daughter, from Distress Inks, punchinella, stamps and splodges.

Bee courtesy of Stampotique.

I'm entering this into the Simon Says Wednesday challenge- things that fly.

Stampotique Christmas houses

I bought these little Tando houses on a whim. So glad I did!

Christmas houses with my beloved Stampotique boys!

The houses are covered with paper, lot of stickles bling on the snowy eaves. The boys are watercoloured, with extra corpse green around the eyes......

The edge of each roof is stamped and embossed with another Stampotique image- white embossing powder and then a few snowy pearls for added texture. 

And of course they all needed a few words to finish them off!

The Stampotique designer challenge this month is anything goes, so I'm off to enter :)

Notebooks, and a new crafty club

My lovely friend mentioned a couple of weeks back that she was going to a fortnightly local craft club- being slightly cheeky, I invited myself along. How lovely to spend a couple of hours chatting and crafting with people who were sewing and knitting and crocheting and..... well, all sorts of crafts were going on!

I started the covers for these little notebooks-

The baby cthulu is very cute isn't he? 

I got a bit doodly.....

And then there's the monster, with his useful sign.

A few snippets of an old book for a bit of texture.

I'm entering the first one, and the last one into the Stampotique Designers challenge- favourite colour combination challenge- I love bright pink, blue and yellow. 

I'm also entering these into the Crafting Musketeers' anything but a card challenge.

Twisted firestarter

I think I was channeling the Prodigy when this card happened.....

The heart is painted through a stencil.

How handsome!

I'm entering this into Papertake's Black and white and one other colour challenge

Ghouls, ghouls, ghouls!

Oh my it's been a while..... ah well, crashing on.....

I've been taking part in a series of ATC swaps over on the Stampotique Facebook page, ooh I've had some fabulous swaps!!!

Here's a couple of mine, for last month's Naughty theme.

The backgrounds are zentangled, which I love to do. 

I'm hoping these will also fit in with the Stampotique Designers challenge, which is Ghouls and Goblins and all things Halloween!

My black heart

Yay, splodging paint is fun!

I'm not sure Hunk really has a black heart, he's too horribly cute.

The challenge at A Step in the Dark is anything goes- but on the darker side...... hope this fits.

Black and white

The challenge at the Stampotique challenge blog is to use music as inspiration. Which fits perfectly with a couple of ATCs I made for a Stampotique swap. The theme was black and white, and the Michael Jackson song of the same name kept popping into my mind.

Going postal

Last month's ATC swap on the Stampotique Facebook group was Stamp it- using a real postage stamp. Fab challenge...... I sat down at my desk with out a clue (usual state of affairs), got out my little tub of used postage stamps, that I dutifully tear off every missive that postie brings........ and then, an hour or two later this had happened!

Oh these do make me happy :D

Boooooooooringgggggg!

Sometimes I forget how much fun ATCs are.

Then I remember. 

Wings heat embossed in white on black card.

Images all Stampotique.

Dummy

Hello! I've been playing around with this tag for a couple of weeks now, and it's been sat on my desk waiting for inspiration to strike......... but I think I've finished it now!

It's Dum, from the Octopode Tweedledum and tweedledee stamp, but he looked a bit lost without his twin, so I gave him a little dummy.

The background is Distress inked with a fab Ditzzie Design stamp called Honeycomb wire, available from That Craft Place heat embossed in silver. 

I'm entering this into the Simon Says Wednesday challenge- anything goes,

and also into the A Sprinkle of Imagination challenge, which is also anything goes!

Bla bla bla

Lately I'm in the mood for colour, and lots of it- I went a bit mad with the Distress Inks- Pickled Raspberry is my absolute favourite- over some heat embossed hearts. I got the heat gun back out for the bla text and neon green splats. Then I attached the gorgeous wings to Head (Stampotique, what else?), and added some freestyle gilding.

It sounds a bit more complicated than it was to be truthful!

I'm entering this into the A Sprinkle of Imagination anything goes challenge.

It's just a jump to the left......

.....and then a step to the ri-i-iiiight.

Made for an ATC swap with the theme of Timewarp.

Had to be done.

Gobby Lin with a jump to the left

Carrot with a step to the right

And all join in to do the time warp.....hurray!

I'm entering this into the Stampotique Designers challenge #141- a bit of humour.

.....and things to do......

The challenge at Stampotique Designer's Blog this week is vintage. 

So I spent a little time yesterday altering this little notebook.

Like my new suitcases stamp? I do!

France Papillion's stacked suitcases and birdy Stampotique stamps are stamped onto a book page, then pencil watercoloured. The background is splodged Distress Inks and doodling!

Shut up!

Now here's something I hadn't taken into account when taking photos of my creations. I quite often lie my makes down on some interesting paper as a nice background. Well, when I did it with my wise owl....... it didn't look quite right.

It fights with the background. Now compare it to this.....

Now I think that makes old owlie pop out a bit.

I'm thinking of blowing this up to A1 size and hanging it over my desk at work. Yes, it's been that sort of week. Already.

I'm entering this into the Stampotique Designer's challenge 137- Textured backgrounds. I made this using the Distress Ink, spritz and dunk technique, for lots of foliage type texture in the background. Plus some background stamping. I also like to stamp over a dark background with white ink for a spot more impact.

Anyway, better take my owl's advice, eh? Shut up Lisa!

Chatterbox the angel

Dontcha just love it when a background just works?

I did a spot of splodging Distress Inks onto my craft mat- you know the drill, water spritz, dunk the card, repeat until happy........

I went for greens mainly with a touch of blue on this ATC. Then I remembered that the latest Stampotique Designer's challenge is to use green, so.......Mort had to have green clothes. He looked kinda sad, so I found him a spare pair of wings and promoted him to angel.

Anyone wanna swap?

Freakin' awesome!

I'm typing with inky fingers, yay! Always a sign of a day well spent. 

I wanted to enter the colour challenge at a sprinkle of imagination, I really fancied stamping onto grey card, just for a change you know.....

This little ATC makes me smile! The Stampin' Up flower is heat embossed in a lush green powder that I'd forgotten all about until today. Great on the black isn't it? 

Hunk is stamped onto pale grey card, but I have washed his ace with a touch of green to give him that proper Igor glow......

I used ink black, vivid green, slate blue and pale grey from the suggested colour palette.