International Art and Soul Challenge 61

Our challenge for this fortnight is to use stars and/or stripes in your creation.

I opted to use some stars, and came up with this - an early Christmas card.

I started by stamping the central image. It's a stamp I bought which I believe is from Creative Expressions/U Mount. I coloured the letters with Promarkers. Then, I masked around the sentiment and added some Distress Ink in Scattered Straw and Wild Honey. I stamed some stars: they're mainly from another Creative Expressions set, but the patterned one comes from a magazine freebie from quite a long time ago. The outline stamps were stamped with Memento ink and coloured with Promarkers. The solid stars were stamped with Versamark ink and then I added some Perfect Pearl in gold. To add a little more texture, I added a little more blue ink using a Creative Expressions stamp, and finished the background using an embossing pen and more Perfect Pearl.

I hope you can join us this time.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 236

For this fortnight's challenge we want to see anything but a card. Apart from that, it's 'anything goes'!

Years ago, I saw a tutorial on decorating a candle using an image stamped onto tissue paper. I always fancied having a go, but never did. (To be honest, I don't use many candles as my husband can't abide them!) Anyway, a craft group of which I'm a member was looking for some ideas for things they hadn't tried before, and I suggested candle decoration. But, never having tried it before, I found a tutorial and had a go in advance.

The video I found is this one from Lavinia Stamps.

And this was the result:

Not a Lavinia stamp, but one of the gorgeous set of Macintoshesque stamps from Clarity. I stamped the image onto tissue paper using Memento ink and coloured with Promarkers. Beware if trying this: like all alcohol markers, Promarkers have a tendency to leak through paper, but this is much more significant with tissue paper. Fortunately, I had some copy paper under my tissue paper. Once I'd trimmed around the image, I wrapped some wax paper around it and used my heat gun to gently melt the tissue paper into the candle. I was fairly impressed with the result!

But, a pretty candle needs a box, doesn't it? I checked, and the square Tonic Kaleidoscope box is just about the right size for this candle. (Its just s smidge small, but I managed to get it to work.)

 So, I stamped the same panel onto Crafter's Companion Neenah card and again, coloured with Promarkers. I assembled a box to fit - but I only have the two shortest sets of sides, so I had to fudge the side panels. I cut the longer of the two I had, leaving the end cut line over the edge of the cutting plate, and then continued the cuts with a trimmer, and extended the crease lines.

And here's the completed set.

I'm going to do the another one using the Snowdrops stamp from the same range so I've got a 'matching' set, but I'll wait and do that at the craft group.

I do hope you can join us this time.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 235

The theme of the challenge for this fortnight is Masculine. And like many cardmakers, this is a theme I always find difficult.

I started with some basic copy paper, a gelli plate, stencils and some acrylic paint. I added some further detail using silver gilding wax and another stencil.

The sentiment is stamped (but I don't have a record of the manufacturer. I think it might be Personal Expressions, but I'm really not sure. I do know it''s a stamp set I bought a number of years ago and it includes many different sentiments. The die is from Sizzix.

The result is a card for my husband. He likes green, and doesn't like things which are heavily embellished, so I hope this will appeal.

I hope you can join us this time.