Another "not perfect" picture of this. The trouble with dark nights & full time jobs, they disrupt your social/craft life!!
Fantastic theme for this week's Wednesday Stamper challenge.
Brilliant challenge today, squares. I got this stamp 5 or 6 weeks ago, & although I have stamped it a few times, I have never used it in its entirety. Each time that I have used it, it has been in black & to be cut up into 9 individual tiny images to be then cut diagonally to be used as photo corners, page corners or even squares mounted on foam as elements instead of pebbles. So today I got the chance to stamp the whole thing & use my new Versamagic chalk ink, tea leaves. I wanted a simple ornate card that would suit every occasion as right now, I have every Xmas card made that I need (they are even all written & enveloped ready for 1st Dec!!) & today has been spent making gifts for people, which obviously I can't blog until after 25th Dec. No peaking allowed!
TMTA prompt this week is Headwear. As I said, I have no ink so I had to search through my images box to see if anyone was wearing a hat!! I was fortunate to come across this gorgeous vintage Christmas image. So I set to work punching mini snowflakes with a punch I bought for 75p from Tesco. I stamped the tree & the holly in evergreen, versacolour ink. The tree edges are overstamped in briliance moonlight white. The berries are Heidi Swapp gems. Paper is an offcut from another project I can't share until Feb 2008. It's one of the new Papermania single sheets, but can't find the name strip I cut off it!!(They are entries in my teamies CJ's)
I managed 7 hours sleep last night which is an absolute miracle. The nose is still really blocked & all decongestants do is make me worse. But, I woke refreshed & had one of those "light bulb" moments. I figured out how to get photos of my artwork when its dark. I stand them at the base of a reasonably tall table lamp that is switched on & then using the flash to balance out the yellow light it appears to work. If they are still a touch yellow, my photo editing program sorts it out! Lets see if it works tonight at 5pm. It did these two at 8.30am!!!
This tag fits the theme Thursday challenge as well as the DCM card does as they both have chalked areas. The saturday Stamper challenge was to include diamonds/friendship/buttons/button wisdom/chalk. 
Get me, three posts in one day!! but, as I'm on the course all day tomorrow, there'll be no nipping home lunch time! This card is for a commission. The family wanted a personalised card to celebrate their brother receiving an MBE. The background 7Gypsies diamond paper is stamped with corner scrolls & fleur de lis. The medal is a photo from the net. Very bad quality but the best they could get me. I thought it fit well with this weeks' theme at Wednesday Stampers & it happens to be my favourite paper. I plan to buy a diamond stamp in the New Year from Crafty Individuals.
Somehow this card looks far prettier than the picture, but it is getting quite dark. The 3 girls are mounted on pale ribbon & another piece goes along the side. I used the striped paper from DCWV luxury Stack. The other side is stamped with script in lilac, embossed with siver pearl powder & then over inked in blues & lilacs for a shimmer look. I finished it off by tying ice white & lilac glitter fibres round the card, knotting them at the top & letting the ends hang free. 
All About Eve challenge is love your body!!! Well this was hard to do, but harder still to photograph!!! It is a touch blurred. I tried not to use the flash as it makes the pink rather psychedelic! Pink Bazzill, BG paper, Scarlets Letter, hand scalloped with corner rounder by EK success. Pink distressed ghost frame, pink spotty tape, speech marks, Heidi Swapp kit. Stamps, Design Objective. Ribbon, The Range. Title stamped with papermania foam stamps & the word face spelt using American Crafts Thickers, cream soda white.
Papers for this are all offcuts from another project, DCWV Once Upon a Time. Stamps, Hampton Art & Studio G.
DCM LE this week is pile of parcels. I desperately wanted to use these stamps I have & keep it a bit simple. Some people don't like fussy designs, prefering the less is more style. I tried that for a while at home (lasted a week) I love my bits & pieces. Not cluttered but displayed together things I have collected that represent who I am & what I like.
Arty Girlz - Hearts. there are a fair few all over this card.
Tonight I have the DCM LE to complete & the AJ card, as Em has been poorly & couldn't post on Monday. So I will be back hopefully later. 
This week's theme is Tag It. I love tags, especially on cards but this one hasn't turned out how I envisaged. For a start I made a mistake by printing onto the shiny paper & forgetting to alter the printer. So it rubbed off a bit & although it doesn't look bad, I wanted it clearer! I desperately wanted to use my angels again from Crafty Individuals & this holly from an Inkadinkado Christmas kit. I used rub on alphabets to put the bit of verse from Mary's Boy Child (my fav version is actually the Boney M hit!) I wanted to keep this an antique Christmas card but didn't have the suitable red in paper so it is done in green & gold with red touches being Mill Hill seed beads (from my cross stitch days) & a red pipe cleaner & brad. Edges inked with my fab, Timber Brown, Stazon. 
The 4x4 Friday challenge is Faces. I love this little girl's face. She is on the stamp in my tag below. The stamp CI. I stamped the corners of the 4in square card with these floral stamps in purple & then inked the rest of the page in gold & touches of orange. The girl is stamped onto a jigsaw piece. These 4x4 inc pieces are not cards, just a square which at later dates I might add to the front of 5in cards or larger as toppers. Or I might make a minibook of them all, the possibilities are endless I just need to feel better.
This week's theme for THTH as I call it now, is Number 1. Use the number one somewhere on your artwork. Well I ended up using it twice as the first one isn't very visible. (It's above the first image)I added a page pebble to one flower on the top girl & that's not very obvious either. Tag is just a standard luggage from WHSmith. Papers are 7Gypsies, diamonds & flowers, DCWV sanded so a lot of the pattern is distressed. Inked with Rangers Jet Black archival. Lace, from market. Girls from a stamp of four by Crafty Individuals. (Im in love with all of them!) Fibre, wool shop. Rub on alphabets, WHSmith.
Arty Girlz Bling! Well we girlz always love a bit of bling but I tried for something sophisticated. The paper is from DCWV Luxury stack. (An offcut from a page Im making in a mini Xmas starbook. To be revealed in the next week or so) The floral design is stamped using my corner stamps & blossoms attached with a big jewel brad. I cut a section off the front of the card so the inside could be viewed & stamped more corner detail & drew lines with silver gel pen. I added tiny bling to them & bigger ones down the side. I carried the lines right across on the inside & also on the paper on the front.
TMTA theme for today is birds. I am sadly lacking in bird stamps, although I have seen some stunners. I love birds & am quite dismayed that no one seems to make a Robin stamp for Xmas. In fact, at the weekend I was looking through endless Xmas supplies at my local craft shop & not even ribbons, stickers or brads feature this cute guy!! To me they are a symbol of Xmas & winter. So I chose to stamp a floral corner in moonlight white brilliance ink & clear emboss it onto green pearlised paper from DCWV, Luxury stack. I added a gorgeous drawing of a Robin in the snow & added a soft fluffly feather to emphasise the snow at his feet. You may have to click on the picture to see it better. It looks gorgeous IRL.
Collage, one of my fav things these days. I couldn't get it right so shied away but somewhere along the line I grasped the concept & now it features heavily on my creations. 
Here is my idol... Nigel. He died 3 years ago, this August of Acute Myloid Leukaemia. He was my BIL, but treated me as his sister & friend. He helped me so much over the ten years he was in my life & often just by talking me through stuff, like how to paint walls etc.. I learnt new skills & had the pleasure of the reward of doing it myself, something else he taught me too. He loved my cardmaking & crafts. 
4x4 Friday challenge this week is Faux Postage. I stamped a 4x4in piece of white card randomly with various script & post related stamps from my travel collections. Then I blended several shades of blue inks all over the card. Adding a touch of silver to give some depth. Then, as I am still really not well, I dipped into my bit box for some stamped images to colour. I picked these two floral ones, both are Crafty Individual stamps, no.113 & no.115. They both have postal marks in the design so I thought they were fitting for this piece. I really do love palying with my inked backgrounds!! 
I had a rotten day yesterday & was awake at 2am in the morning totally unable to breathe. How I got through to 4pm I just don't know. My immune system is low & this is about the 4th cold virus I have caught. I can't fight them but the blood tests are all okay, so its not that Im lacking in anything. I am told I just need to rest & if things are no better by mid week then I might have to go down the antibiotic route, which I hate!! I collapsed into bed at 8pm last night & for the first time in 4 weeks, I didn't wake up until 7am! A miracle! thanks for all the well wishes, it means a lot. I am getting there. I don't have to be back at work again until Wednesday, so I have lots of time & am doing jobs that can be done sat down!! The recylce paper bin doesn't know what has hit it after I have cleared out over 10 years of craft magazines, keeping only the pages of interest...very cleansing feeling. Right, I have a layout to complete for AAE.
I stumbled on this new challenge blog this afternoon & really fancied playing along. Theme Thursday. The challenge is script. I adore script, whether it is on paper, or made by stamping. I made this card by first stamping the lady, one of my new stamps from Crafty Individuals, onto matt photo paper. It is gorgeous smooth stuff which loves colour & never bleeds. It is also relativley inexpensive, I buy mine from Tesco. I colured the image using pigment inks & make up applicators. Then I made my background. I stamped script over the card in jet black. Then I randomly stamped floral images in lilac & pink. Once these were dry, I sponged pigment inks all over & sprinkled on some hollographic embossing powder & heated it up for some shimmer. I glued my image on & fixed a small piece of knotted ribbon underneath.
I had so much fun making this card & the colours grow on me each time I look at it. It is a very cheap & pretty way to decorate a card without using paper.
Well I suddenly had a brain wave about 11am this morning sat at work & made this in my lunch hour!
The poster is Jesse James, famous outlaw. I used K&Co patterned paper at the bottom of the card & lining paper for walls at the top. I stamped script & maps all over it. Stickers are also K&Co, my alpha stamps were just too big for this design.
