Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 250

250 challenges! Where has the time gone? My first challenge for this design team was challenge 25. That was way back in 2009. The amazing thing is that so many of my craft supplies date from then. (A lot are more recent, of course. But things do last!)

Right. on to the challenge. The theme is All You Need is Love. And I've made a Valentine card.

 I recently did a session for my crafts group on rubber stamping. Now, I definitely don't consider myself to be an expert, despite having been trying since well before 2009, but the group is very mixed in terms of experience, and none of them had tried stamping before and they were particularly interested in heat embossing. So, I put together some stamps, inks, and samples of different techniques and let them play. I made a point of looking out all my old mounted stamps as if you've got lots of people trying things out, it seemed like a simpler option than having to have a lot of acrylic blocks. This card was one of my samples - showing heat embossing on coloured card. The stamp I used here is very old, and, unusually for mounted stamps, doesn't have a manufacturer's label, so I don't know who to credit. Despite the rose, I've tried to keep it from being too 'girly' as it's for my husband who, as I've mentioned many times on this blog, prefers things uncluttered and plain.

The background paper is from a pad I bought second hand from someone who was getting out of cardmaking. It's a strange size, and the paper is a lot rougher than most commercial pads, but it's got some lovely patterns, and this is one of them.

I do hope you can join us this time.