Halloween Cupboard

I few months back I found a fantastic company called Calico Craft Parts they sell wood and MDF shapes, plaques and craft blanks. Not only are their products excellent quality they are also really inexpensive.

I started by gluing most of the pieces together before painting the outside with green crackle paint and the inside with matt grey acrylic.
I wanted to add lots of "mystical" items to create a wizards cupboard, I struggled a bit because I had an idea of what I wanted and I needed it to be just right.
The crystal ball is actually a glass marble stuck on top of two metal bead caps, the glass jar is full of plastic skull beads, the large skull bead has a painted mdf crow on top of it (also available from Calico Craft Parts)

I toyed with the idea of books on the top shelf and even printed off some mini book covers, but I had a sudden flash of inspiration and thought scrolls which much more fitting for a wizened old wizard.
All I need now was the front of the cupboard, this had been painted black and the spider and webs touched up with a bit of silver gilding wax. The 'spooky' was a separate word that I painted silver so it wuld stand out from the rest of the front.

This now stands pride of place on my mantle at home.

Achieve Greatness

This was a little experiment I tried with a shaving foam background and some of my more unusual stamps.
I started with a tray of shaving foam and added a few different coloured mica sprays, I then dropped my watercolour card onto the top of the inky foam. I love messy crafting and this is one of my favourites, not only do you get a fantastic finish on your card but it smells quite nice too.
Next I used black archival ink to stamp the Grungey man from Viva Las VegaStamps, I wish he had come out blacker but because it was on watercolour card the uneven surface didn't take the ink to well.
Finally I used the Banksy Greatness words from the fantastic Bee Crafty who have a brilliant range of Banksy art work stamps.
I really like how this card turned out even though I would have liked the stamp images to be darker.                                                                                                                             

Little box of secrets

This is an older piece that I had totally forgotten about. Once again I have used an Alice In Wonderland stamp from Visible Image.

The box top is a piece of square Stampbord, I lightly inked the whole thing using various blue Distress inks, then I used a keyhole mask with a darker blue. I stamped Alice onto the dried background, then took the colour back on her tights, apron and skin, I finally added a pale pink onto her skin to give her a bit of colour.

I painted the entire box pale blue and added the Good Times onto the side using another Visible Image stamp and some white WOW embossing powder.

.....and they lived happily ever after

I was asked to make an engagement card for a couple at work, wow was that difficult.
First of all it needed to be pink and girlie, these people have met me right!
Ok so I started with the big pink heart with the wings on, this is a Marianne die set that comes with both the heart and wings.

So I cut the heart in pink pearl card and the wings in white pearl card.

Next I cut a piece of pink pearl card slightly smaller than 7x7 and a piece of white pearl card slightly smaller than the pink. I used a heart design embossing folder on the white card to create my background and mounted both pieces onto my card blank.

Finally I stamped and embossed the words onto another piece of white pearl before mounting that onto a piece of pink pearl. After assembling my card I locked myself in a dark room to recover from all the pink and romance.

Victoria and her octopus

I had some fantastic stamps a while back and have finally had the chance to use them on a card. May I introduce Victoria and Otto from the brilliant Brian Kesinger.

This steampunk card was made for a friend of mine who has very similar taste to me so I knew she would love it.

I stamped each image onto white card and gave each image a wash effect colour using distress ink, then mounted them onto purple card.

I cut a piece of the same purple card slightly smaller than my card blank, then a piece of green slightly smaller than that. I stamped the tentacle onto each side of the green card using Versamark and embossed with clear powder, this made the image slightly darker than the background card without overtaking the whole card.

After sticking the two pieces of card to my blank I placed the stamped images in the centre so the tentacles appear to be slithering out from behind them.
Next I cut two Cheery Lynn steampunk corners from white card using Versamark ink and metallic brass WOW embossing powder to create the metal effect.

On the top right hand corner I stuck three metal cogs and on the bottom left hand corner I stuck two metal cogs and three paper flowers.

For more adventures of Victoria and Otto you can visit Brian Kesinger's website here

Beautiful butterfly

This is a simple but very effective card using the two different size butterfly stamps from Visible Image.

I stamped the two butterflies in Versamark ink directly onto the card blank, which was the most difficult bit because it's really hard to see where you have been. Next I used several colours of Cosmic Shimmer mica powders to create a rainbow effect over the stamped images.

I stampedand embossed the words using WOW embossing powder, then mounted the words onto a small piece of lilac card.

To buy more Visible Image stamps why not visit their website

Just the way you are.

So I'm beginning to think I only use one brand of stamps now, yes here's another Visible Image stamp.
First of all the background was done by spritzing a piece of water colour card then sprinkling with different coloured Brushos. I love Brushos because no two pieces ever look the same and you can get some brilliant effects with the.
So this is an easy card with just two stamps, both from Visible Image, stamped straight onto the water colour card and embossed in black WOW powder.

For more Visible Image stamps why not pop over to their website here

The course of true love.

I find making wedding cards a bit of a trauma to be honest, I don't like fussy cards so none of the frills and fluff for me.
So two lovely people were getting married and they just so happen to make some of the best stamps ever. Helen and Mark owners of Visible Image got married last year and for some reason I haven't posted an image of the card I made them, until now.
All of the stamps used are from Visible Image, however some of them have now been retired unfortunately.

I started by stamping the Heart INKognito stamp onto my card blank in Versamark, then I lightly dusted of the images using a pale pink Cosmic Shimmer mica powder.

 The two characters were stamped onto white card and coloured using Promarkers, then I used stickles over the cloak to give it some sparkle.

This is Edward who was retired last year.

This is Isabella who was also retired last year.

The roses, which are part of the Isabella set, have been stamped several times, cut up and layered to create a 3D flower, I then added stickles to the edges.

Finally I added the Love from the Isabella set and Is Forever from the Edward set, thus creating the perfect partnership.

Although only the Heart INKognito stamp is available now Visible Image still have a fantastic range of stamps in their shop.