The Koi

Another Sweet Pea Stamps card from me, this time using Ching Chou Kuik's The Koi:

 

 

I coloured the image with my Prismacolor pencils....

 

 

...and added detail with a white gel pen and some Stickles glitter glue.

 

 

I decorated an easel card with seaside-theme papers from Crafty Individuals and added gemstones and paper blossoms.

 

 

You can find this beautiful stamp in digi or red rubber format at the Sweet Pea Stamps store... and don't forget, until 7 March all Ching Chou Kuik digi stamps are on sale at 25% off.

Mermaids everywhere!!

They do seem to be something of a recurring theme in my crafting atm... this is, what, my third mermaid card in just over 2 weeks? :lol:

However, I'm blaming this one squarely on Julie. I loved her DT card for this weeks "At the Beach" challenge at Passion for Promarkers so much that I had to head over to her blog for a closer look... and then I had to go and have a look at where she got the cute mermaid in a jar image from... and that was me falling in love with and buying a bunch of A Day For Daisies digi stamps then! Including the one I used on this card:

I coloured her with Promarkers and added some Stickles highlights and even a bit of real sand ("borrowed" from my daughters' sandpit! :D). I used scrummy paper from the Crafty Individuals "The Seaside" 6x6 paper pad and some pearlescent cardstock for matting. I added a ruffle of turquoise chiffon ribbon and, for a real seaside touch, a couple of pieces of real Scottish sea glass, sent to me by my good friend Lisa. :)

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - At the Beach

Inky Impressions - Ribbon
Crafts and Me - Use a Digi
Emerald Fairies - Bling
Avadares - Anything Goes

Spring is in the air...

Yeah. I wish. It's still cold and grey and miserable here.

But... to counteract the gloom, here's a pretty, shimmery card in bright, spring colours. :)

I spritzed and splattered a background with Dylusions spray inks in bright, cheerful shades of yellow, pink and green and stamped over it with a Crafty Individuals stamp. I then stamped the flower parts of the stamp again onto off-cuts of the spritzed background card, cut them out and painted some extra detail (and added a bit more glitz and shimmer) with Dylusions mica sprays.

I matted Basic Grey Stella Ruby paper onto vibrant green Basic Grey cardstock and attached to a white card blank. I cut a strip of the Basic Grey cardstock and punched along one edge with a Martha Stewart edge punch and layered this across the card and added a piece of Making Memories crocheted flower ribbon on top. The stamped image was matted onto more Basic Grey cardstock and attached to the card with foam pads and the flower sections were laid over the main image again with foam pads. To finish I stamped a couple of cute little bees (from an Artemio stamp set) onto more spritzed card off-cuts, cut them out and attached.

And there you have it, a pretty floral card in fresh, spring colours. I'm entering this card into blog challenges at the Crafty Individuals blog (theme: Spring) and the Stampalot Challenge blog (theme: In The Garden.

Bright and Beautiful...

...is the theme of this month's challenge over on the Crafty Individuals blog.

I had lots of inky fun making my entry:

I decided to really go with the "bright" part of the theme and had a play with some lovely bright coloured alcohol inks. I dripped the inks onto glossy card and used a straw to blow them out into brightly coloured, overlapping splotches. I cut out a section of the coloured card and stamped over it in black Archival ink with CI-182 for a lovely flourish. I matted this piece of card onto black card and attached to the right-hand side of a white card blank. I also stamped CI-108 onto the alcohol ink coloured card and cut out just the wings section, then stamped her again onto plain white card and cut out just the lady. I painted her dress and hair using alcohol inks and glued the cut-out, coloured wings section in place behind her before attaching her to the card using foam pads. To finish, I added a stamped sentiment to the card base and used my SU embosslits die to cut some little butterflies from more of the alcohol ink-coloured card, bending the wings up and attaching to the card with a dab of Glossy Accents. Et voila. :)

I love how this card turned out. It's really vibrant and unusual and a bit different from the "look" I usually go for when using Crafty Individuals stamps... just goes to show how versatile they are, eh? :)

Vintage Tag

Had a play last night with some of my yummy Crafty Individuals stamps and made this tag:

Stamps are CI-306 and I used Distress Inkpads in Spun Sugar, Tattered Rose and Tea Dye for the background and Sepia Archival Ink for the stamped designs and used the Tattered Rose inkpad to paint in the corset and parasol. I added a piece of cream lace and stitched a border with brown cotton thread.

I'm entering this tag for the monthly Crafty Individuals challenge (pink,cream and brown colour scheme) and also the weekly Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge (stitching). :)