Made some Magpie ATCs using the number stamps Susan Renshaw sent me.  I don't have any magpie stamps and couldn't find any to buy, so used clip art magpies, printed out and stuck on.  Brusho backgrounds, with some faint stamping in the background also.

 

A panel on the theme of achievement.  Quite an achievement just making this as I'm on holiday in the Greek Islands without much crafting stuff.   I bought the beads here to spell out FLY and HIGH.  Most of the rest came from a craft magazine I brought with me.  I don't think I'd have used this praying image if I had had access to more stamps/images.  But it gives me the idea of aiming high, doing your best, all with the help of prayer.

Path of Positivity - Desire 2

I was thinking of the desire to do something positive in life, however small, and love this Indigoblu sentiment.  I made a background of timepieces, and added a small sparkly dragonfly as an illustration of a breath-taking moment.

Path of Positivity - Desire 1

For the older married couples among us, I thought is sentiment from Visible Image was great, and it goes well with a vintage heart stamp by PaperArtsy.  The couple in the heart remind me slightly of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, now our Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, whose marriage has lasted an amazingly long time.  Distress ink background, stazon stamping, with sakura pen on the roses, gold pen around the heart and distress sparkles over the heart.

Block printing

Made a card using acrylic block printing technique - lots of interesting texture but I found it hard to show this in the photo.  I stamped a bit of small text around the edge, and stamped the Craft Stamper flowers onto another printed sheet. Left the tag with the sentiment plain so it would show up well.Very messy and great fun!

Embossing background

Played with the Craft Stamper Magazine's embossing background idea.  I thought I would make an ATC but I backed it onto black card so its too big.  As I did not have very many coloured embossing powders, I used dull silver, dull gold and pink, then the stencil was embossed with silver pearl, which added texture but not colour, then I put a bit of sparkly gold on using my finger to add the versamark ink, and the stamping was embossed in black.  I love the way the images slide around a bit, adding to the distressed look. The final layer of the background was to add some sprinkles of sparkly gold powder, without any ink, and heat from below to melt them.  Mind you, I got a similar effect on the flowers I made, by adding gold glitter glue, but still... it was embossing!  I made a few matching flowers separately, and put them on with sticky pads.  Nice idea, I'll try it again sometime.  I like the fact that it looks a lot more textured than it is, although the background is not completely flat.

Some cards

Never seem to have enough time to blog, but I have done quite a bit of crafting this year though I forget to photograph most of it.  Anyway, here are a few pictures.  I made some inchie cards inpsired by a Craft Stamper mag article a few motnhs ago.   I'm still managing the daily art journal - see pictures of the calendar on my other blog.