Iron-Off Embossing......

It's another beautiful Spring day - blue sky and sunshine!  I should be out gardening but the call of my crafting was far greater and I needed to get my homework done for the One Layer Card 3 online course that I'm currently doing at Online Card Classes.  

So here goes!  This card is using the iron-off embossing technique.  I love the effect of the water colouring.  I have established that to make it work better for me I need to .... practise more!  My first attempt was with textured water colour paper and I could get the embossing powder off the card with the iron so I need some flat card.  My second attempt was better but the embossing powder I have is not very fine and I think the stamp I used needed finer powder to work.  Anyhow I have put the card together and I guess someone will enjoy receiving it!!

The edges aren't as crisp as I would like.

I used the following:

Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks
Clearly Besotted Dandelion Dreams Stamp set.

Enjoy!

Masks and stencils ...

It has been a beautiful day - the sun has been shining and the blossom is just starting to bloom on my Cherry Blossom tree.  It's enough to make you smile and realise that Spring has arrived and the days are getting longer providing more light to craft by!

I've struggled again today with my card making. I had planned to try out one of the new techniques that I've been learning through the online course but everything I tried just didn't work for me.  I'm a little hampered by the lack of resources I have and my imagination deserted me in exchange for a migraine!  I decided to leave the homework to one side.  I'll try again tomorrow!

This evening my migraine has passed so I had a go at creating a card for this week's challenge over at "Less is More" - the challenge asks for Masking or Stencilling.  Eventually I came up with this card - it involves both masking and stencilling, hopefully this will not disqualify my entry!

I'm not sure that the card ranks as the most inspiring card I've ever made but it was the best of today's bad bunch!!  Migraines really interfere with inspiration - actually they interfere with most things.

I masked off a circle and laid down a layer of Peacock Feathers Distress Ink (my favourite) then placed the stencil over the top and laid down a layer of Salty Ocean Distress Ink to colour the negative space.  Added a couple of brads to the centre of the flowers, a layered sentiment and that was that.  The card lacks something ......

Enjoy!

Clearly Balloons ...

Today's card is again inspired by the "One Layer Cards 3" course that I mentioned in my post on Wednesday.  I seem to be working backwards though as this card is based on the technique of "Faux Layered Die Cuts" which was the Day One technique (we're now on Day Five!!).  Hopefully the weekend will help me catch up with my homework!

This card is created with products from one of my favourite places - Clearly Besotted I just love all of the stamp sets.  They also have a challenge running at the moment with the theme of "In Flight" - so I'm going to enter my red delight!

This looks like a single layer until you look very closely and realise that the balloons have first been die cut out of the card base, the red balloons have been cut from red card and then placed in the holes.

I used the following:

Clearly Besotted - Make A Wish stamp set and dies

Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black

Stampin Up - Riding Hood Red ink.

Enjoy!

In search of my mojo....

I've been struggling to design cards that are new and different.  It seems to take ages to come up with an idea and when it comes to creating male cards I have even more problems.  I decided this week that I would 'bite the bullet' and join an online class to see if I could find inspiration - so I have joined One Layer Card 3 organised by onlinecardclasses.  It is a mixture of video tutorials and PDFs - so far so good - today is day 3 and this card is inspired by the masking and stamping technique.  I have also taken on board the colour challenge over at The Male Room Challenge Blog where you need to produce a male card using Blue, Green and Brown and will enter the challenge with this:

I used the following:

Stampin Up inks - Not Quite Navy, Pistachio Pudding and Baked Brown Sugar
Distress Ink - Pine Needles
Inkadinkado Clear Stamps - Steam Punk
Docrafts Papermania Chronology Stamps

Enjoy!

Such fun ...

What a weekend!! A trip home to Lincoln to visit family then to Nottingham on Saturday evening to see Miranda Hart Live at the Capital FM Arena!  It was a brilliant show - two hours of solid laughter!

Back to reality this morning with work as usual.

I have managed to put together a card this evening for this week's challenge at "Less is More" - the challenge is for a One Layer Card with the subject of Spring Flowers. 

The stitching is actually lime green

I used the following:

JOFY 09 stamps by PaperArtsy
Not Quite Navy ink from Stampin Up
Sentiment from Dandelion Dreams stamp set from Clearly Besotted
Derwent Artists Pencils

Enjoy!

Simply green and purple ...

This evening I've managed to complete another card in Green and Purple for the challenge over at Inkspirational.  This one is very different to last night's entry that you can see here.  It took me far longer to complete - I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide how to colour the image!

Here it is:

I used:

Jofy 09 stamps by PaperArtsy
Ranger Archival Black Ink
Derwent Inktense Pencils

Enjoy!

Simply Purple and Green ....

I made this card with no real purpose in mind except for a total obsession with single layer cards.  I then remembered that the challenge at Inkspirational is to use Green, Purple and white (any combination of these).

Its a super quick card, just a little stamping. 

This is a combination of Uniko Studio "Round in Circles" and Stampin Up "Off the Grid"

Enjoy!