For a Friend

Welcome Nomad followers and friends.  Thanks for joining me.  It's always nice to have a bit of company on my journey.  

I have been working a little CAS this evening.  It should have been quick but the ideas just never seemed to gel.  Sometimes you pick some elements you really want to use and try and build a project but it just won't come together.  Then you change just one thing and a whole new vista opens up.  Sigh of contentment.  

I started working on a piece of off white card with a shimmer finish.  I tore a piece of paper and masked off the 2/4 of the card width.  Then I used Tando Distorted Harlequin mask and applied DI Dusty Concord top and bottom and DI Picked Raspberry in the middle.  This gave this quite attractive stripe.  

 

I applied a chipboard sticker from Basic Grey Indian Summer set and then stamped the sentiment with a stamp from Crafty Individuals set CI-277  with black ink.  

Entering this for 

Basic Grey Challenges - CAS

Artful Times Challenge 27 - Stencils/Masks 

Thanks for dropping by.  Any comments you feel inclined to leave always make me smile.  

Be warm, be safe, be crafty.....

Finally Spring

Hello hello everyone.  Thank you all for your very kind comments.  They are little rays of sunshine in my day.  Finally Spring appears to have arrived.  Hurrah.  Yesterday was wet and wild but with the storm came some warmth and today suddenly there's crocus and I even saw some daffodils in a sheltered spot.  Not in my garden yet but soon, soon........

Everybody seems to be thinking spring and flowers and April showers and I have been playing around with a project or two.  Felt I wanted some bright colours and motifs and what brighter than a balloon.

This is Distress Chipped Sapphire on glossy card, spritzed with water and then blotted.  I used this as my base card.  Usually I blot with tissue paper but I wondered if I could use a piece of paper instead and grabbed a piece of watercolour paper.  The result is below.  

A much more open effect.  I added a variety of Distress inks working in stripes from the corner in the colours of the rainbow.  Then I edged with DI Ocean Spray and mounted it on the base card leaving a small amount of the base card showing.

 

  
The balloon was cut from gold mirror card and free paper from a magazine using DoCrafts Vintage Balloon Dies and Cheery Lynn Pixie Guardian die for the basket.  The saying is from the same free papers and seemed appropriate.  I got a bit stuck here until I saw the challenge over at Ett Trykk where they are looking back at various techniques and wanted us to use homemade or bought foam stamps.  I decided to cut a butterfly stamp from funky foam using Cheery Lynn Mini Dimensional Butterflies.

Here's a photo of three butterflies I cut from foam.  The one I used in this project I mounted on an offcut from a rubber sheet and used on an acrylic block.

Very pleased with my stamp.  I really should cut myself some more from all these lovely dies I have.  I stamped the butterflies in DI Dusty Concord.

Entering this for the following challenges
Ett Trykk Jubileumsutfordringer - Skumstempler (used foam butterfly stamp)
Simon Says Stamps - April Showers
Stampotique Designers Challenge 95 - April Showers Bring May Flowers
Dies to Die For - Spring

 Happy crafting everyone.  Thanks for dropping by.

Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Blitzen

Hello Blogland.  Hope everyone is having a sunny, crafty, relaxing Saturday.  This is a real quick post and a real quick make.  Working on my Alpha Dictionary for The Craft Barn Challenge and this fortnight R was the one.  I had a few options here and was going to go Raven/Ravn but after making a bird themed P I thought I would look elsewhere.  So here we go with Reindeer/Rein....

I cut my reindeer using the Sizzix die and then embossed with the matching folder.  I added a hint of black ink to the die cuts and stuck them on the My Minds Eye card stock.  The letters are Sizzix Ida Lou's Flowerbox dies and the definition comes from Wikipeadia.  

Sometime simple is best and since it's sunny out I'm off to do a bit of weeding.  

Entering this for
The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - R

Have a great weekend everyone.  Thanks for all your lovely comments and for dropping by. 

Nitro and Morphine

Hello, hello, bloggers, followers and friends.  It's been a funny old week.  I can't believe it's Friday already and on the craft front I have started much and finished little.  It's still holding cold here so the garden is taking only a fraction of the time I should be putting in.  I have only been blogging since last October so I have yet to see how I can portion my time so I still manage to craft when it's light outside and the garden is full speed ahead.  Usually at this time I am outside all the daylight hours, and there are quite a few of those already.  We are in southern Norway so in the summer we aren't midnight sun, maybe only 11pm sun!!  Looking forward to that.  May have to work on a portable craft area so it can join me outside......

This week over at PaperArtsy it's Helen Chilton's last week as DT and what a week.  I have been dabbling at this Helen inspired project for days, turning things, tinting things, obliterating everything with white paint!!  Brave horrors....  This project is based on Helen's second day this week. 

  

I started by stamping the Tall Ship Lady from PaperArtsy LPC001 on glossy card using Distress Ink Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn.  I inked and stamped three times then stamped twice on a different sheet.  Re-ink and repeat and you get the one above and the one below......

This is my background for the main stamp image.  I stamped the Shiplady in black archival...

Photo a bit out of focus.  Then I fussy cut her.  At this point I regretted not picking one of the less ornate stamps.  It was a bit fiddly.....

Back to my background and I decided I would use it with the stamp images upright.  No, no upside down.  No, on the side.  Oh happy accident but yes!  I did some doodling.  I was pleased with it but it was a bit sharp.  Was it was Helen who says if it doesn't blend then cover it with white pain?  Horror.  Am I so brave??  Yeah, what ever, it's only an hour or so if it all goes horribly pear shaped.  But actually friends, followers and small furries it worked......

I decided my Lady didn't stand out enough and backed her with black card which necessitated more cutting.  At this point I have wildly exceeded my fussiness threshold but after investing so much time and feeling the emergence of Art I kept on keeping on.  A little addition of some metal pynt from Korthobby and a couple of brads and she is as near perfection as I could want.  That metal flower garland from Korthobby seems made for her.  Must stock up on these.  The size was perfect and it frames her face gorgeously.

I mounted the background and the Lady on some bright pink card I had rounded the corners and then run a line of lace round before sticking everything down.   The blue behind is scrap that got inked during another project and it may be reincarnated at a blog near you soon......

The banner reads 'Til Konfirmanten' and is a stamp from Kort og Godt.  I stamped it on a piece of cotton fabric which I had tinted with Distress inks and frayed the edge.  Confirmation is a BIG deal in Scandinavia.  This is definitely an unconventional confirmation card but I am sure there are some unconventional young ladies out there.  The corners are cut using the Sizzix ATC and Corners die.  These are becoming a regular thing as well.  I tried different colours but the plain chipboard worked best. 

I am sharing this with challenges at
PaperArtsy - Welcome Back Helen Chilton
Korthobby Utfordring April - Konfirmasjon 
Sir Stamp a Lot Challenge - Special Occasions

Take care and thanks for dropping by.  No bleach was used in the making of this project.....

Fancy That

Good evening blog friends and followers.  Oh, maybe that's good morning.  I don't know where the time goes.  Since we shifted to summer time my personal clock seems to be a bit haywire and I am perpetually surprised by the hour.  I always seem to be a bit late, rarely a bit early and never on time.  Ah well, craft on and craft away good friends. 

I was thinking what fun it is to do challenges.  They make you tackle things you otherwise would not and make you think outside the box.  I've gone a bit 3D for my latest submission to the Cheery Lynn Challenge where this week it's Back to Nature. 

I made a big piece of background by spreading Distress Ink Chipped Sapphire on white card, spritzing with water and taking off the excess water with a tissue.  Sounds familiar I know, I used this on my last project, but this time I made a big sheet cos it's lovely.  From this sheet I cut a Cheery Lynn Spring Flower Burst Doily, tinted it with VersaMagic Night Sky and Ocean Depth, cut out the centre, quartered it and stuck a quarter in each of the corners of my card.  Sounds complicated but looks like this.....

 

I cut another doily from blue glitter card.  I cut 6 Cheery Lynn Snowflake 2 in white, folded them in half and then stuck them back to back to make a 3d snowflake.  I mounted this in the centre of the card and added a Cheery Lynn Hummingbird cut from gold card.  I used a little tab to mount him so the card can be flattened to post and then he hops right back up again.  I added lots of Cheery Lynn Mini Dimensional Butterflies cut from gold card, went around the edge of the card with VersaMagic Night Sky and then mounted the whole thing onto a slightly larger piece of the same background card.  Glad I made lots!!

This is a slightly out of focus picture hopefully showing the height I achieved for the hummingbird and also you can see the snowflake better.  

This is what it looks like folded flat.  Excuse my finger, it wouldn't stay flat unless I held it down.  A great pop up device!!

Entering this for
Cheery Lynn Designs Challenge - Back to Nature
That Craft Place - Animal Challenge
Country View Challenges - Butterflies
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything goes

Hope you have enjoyed looking.  This was such a fun make.  Take care, thanks for dropping by.

The Girl With the Starfish Earring

Greeting blog followers and friends and a special hello to my new followers.  I have decided that names are important.  I always used to call my roosters Hans.  It made it easy to remember and there was only ever one we were keeping at a time, so no problems.  Then year before last we hatched a beautiful black fellow who seemed to be getting on well with his dad, Hans, so we decided to keep him.  I named him Ninja.  At one year old Ninja decided he had waited long enough and beat the stuffing out of poor Hans.  My man says survival of the fittest so Hans became a very tasty stew and Ninja rules the roost.  Too late to rename him now but I shall be sticking to Hans at the next rooster exchange.

I needed a birthday card.  Actually since it's April I need a lot of birthday cards!  Does everyone have a month like that when it seems there are so many birthdays?  I always forget someone because they come thick and fast.  After checking out the happenings over at PaperArtsy I decided I could be inspired by Michelle Webb and cover a few challenges at the same time.  Sometimes ideas come together and as soon as I saw Michelle's stamping on masking tape I knew it was something I wanted to try. It went well with an article on mosaic cards in Ett Trykk magazine.

I stuck some strips of masking tape onto an old cutting mat.  I took small stamps from PaperArtsy Ding Dong SIDD5 and Lynne Perrella Collection 001 and stuck them on an acryllic block.  I inked them using Versa Magic Aegean Blue, Night Sky and Ocean Depth and stamped until my tape was covered.  

I randomly took up the tape pieces and stuck them to a piece of card to create a mosaic.  Kind of steampunkty?  Then I blended on some Distress Ink Salty Ocean and spritzed with water.  The ink nicely coloured the tape edges and filled some of the white space.  

I blended DI Chipped Sapphire onto two pieces of card, spritzed with water and then used a tissue to mop up creating this lovely watermark effect.  Then I stamped one of the ladies from LPC001 onto one piece of card and cut her out.  

I suspended a couple of metal charms from Korthobby from her hat, OK not quite earrings!! and mounted her on sticky pads.  

I tore an aperture in the second piece of card, stamped using the small shell stamp LPC001 in Memento London Fog around the edge and then highlighted the torn edge and the frame with Brilliance Galaxy Gold.  Regretted that after as it made photographing a nightmare but the shimmer looks fab in the flesh, so to speak.  I stamped the sentiment from SIDD05 using black ink onto the watermarked card and tore round the edges.  I edged the card with DI Salty Ocean. 

Entering this for 
PaperArtsy - Michelle Webb
Ett Trykk- Mosaikk Kort
Simon Says Stamps - Happy Birthday

Quite pleased with this although this one definitely looks better in real life that in the photos.  True for many things I suppose.  Anyway, off to try and put something else together.  Thanks for dropping by.  I appreciate your support so leave a comment so I know you was here.  Take care, keep warm, hope for spring and craft on.......

Walking the Fish

Good evening good folk of Blogland.  I hope you all had a wonderfully relaxing and chocco filled Easter.  Back to the same old same old.  I had a break from the craft and the blog while my sister was visiting. It's always nice to spend time with them from the Old Country.

It's still sunny and cold here in Norway.  We had hardly any rain last month and we are on fire alert.  The mountain across the fjord caught fire last weekend and we had ringside seats for the three day it took them to put it out.  The flames at night were amazing but we were at a safe distance so just exciting for us.  No such fun for those closer to the action.  No-one hurt, just a burnt mountain.  Luckily there was no wind and the ground is still so frozen that it seems only the surface vegetation was burnt and it may green up again in the summer.  Nature is a wonderful thing.  OK, back to the craft.  Over at Joanna Sheen Challenge Blog they want weather related things.

I have been playing with tissue paper and acrylic paint.

I scrunched my tissue paper, stuck it to a piece of chipboard and then splashed on some blue acrylic paint.

I made a mask using Sizzix original Music Notes die and worked in some purple acrylic.

Here's what it looked like without the mask.

Then I dry brushed on some white acrylic and dribbled some dark blue down the page (sorry didn't photo that bit).  Then I found a bit I liked and cut an ATC using Sizzix ATC and Corners die.  You know I always though it was a bit silly to buy a die to cut rectangles but since becomming an ATC fan I decided this would save loads of time.  And it gives nice rounded corners.  Very professional.

I embossed Umbrella Man from the Artful Muse embosssing folder set onto black card and sanded.  This card has a white core so I got a nice effect.  Then I fussy cut him and stuck him onto the ATC.  The words are computer generated with a bit of a doodle and I edged the ATC with Distress Ink Walnut Stain.  Don't forget the fish.  A lovely little charm from Korthobby.  You heard of it raining cats and dogs??  Well, I am sure they would eat the fish so Umbrella Man has him safe under the umbrella.  

Entering this for
Joanna Sheen Challenge - Come Rain or Shine
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Very Strict Challenge
That Craft Place - Animal Challenge (one man and his fish)

Have a fun and wacky evening everyone.  Off to find an aeroplane........  Thanks for dropping by.