monster birthday

I had a lot of fun yesterday morning making an inky painty background for this card. The monster stamp is from Stampotique. I had seen these stamps used by Kate Crane in Craft Stamper and loved them. They are cute but quirky with it and not overly sweet. However, I could not find a stockist in the UK so was then thrilled to find the stamp attic which you can find here stock them. On Kates blog which you can find here she has a card which uses this stamp made for her nephews birthday. Well, it is my nephews birthday today, so I took inspiration from that to make my own version. I used a crafters workshop template with distress inks for my background. I only used part of the template. I then found some more plastic stencils which I`d forgotten I even had and used that to stipple paint through for the swirls. I also used the edge of a credit card to make lines and a bottle top for some more circles. It was such fun to just go with the flow and see how things progressed with no aim in mind. The monster is coloured in with copics and I stamped happy birthday onto his sign. The sign is blank on the stamp which is really useful as you could stamp any message in there. I found an old piece of dictionary paper for my `mountain` which he is standing on. That was that, I mounted the whole thing onto a turquoise card blank which I felt matched my blue monster and made the orange background stand out. I will definately be making more cards like this again and big thanks to Kate for the inspiration. x Lavinia

Tim Holtz March tag

This is my take on Tim Holtzs` March tag. He has decided to do a tag for each month instead of the 12 tags of Christmas. February completely passed me by I am afraid so March it is then !. The main technique he showed for this tag was how to make the mosaic butterfly. I have not got the mover and shaper butterfly die he used so I used my spellbinder one. I die cut and did two butterflies but they were a bit too big to both fit on my tag. I used some thickish cardboard with the wondertape adhered to it. I haven`t got the embossing powder he used either so used opaque black. In hindsight I think I should have gone for a more colourful background on my tag to make the butterfly pop, I`m not sure the grungy background tag really matches my butterfly. Shall try another background with the other one. I did really enjoy trying this out however and would definately do this again as it was fairly easy albeit fiddly to do. Thanks for looking x Lavinia

Alphatag swaps for Chocolate Baroque

I really do not know where the days go, here we are in March already. I haven`t shared anything lately though I don`t think I have been that productive either. I`ve moved all my crafting things into the dinning room to hopefully give me more space to work. The only thing is I need to go and buy a blind for the window because there are no curtains up and my dinning room faces onto the street outside - its like sitting in a goldfish bowl Lol. I have been taking part in a Alphatag swap on the Chocolate Baroque ning group. Each month we make two or three tags for the letter of the alphabet given and send them in to be swapped over. We have already done letters A through to D. However, I forgot to scan mine before I sent them off. This month it is letters E, F and G. The above tag is my E for England using the new Crafty Indivuals stamps. I used distress inks in chipped sapphire, stormy sky and barn door for my background then overstamped the sayings in versafine. I cut out some of the elements and embossed them for the main image.

The next tag is F for Floral. Probably not the most original intereptation but never mind. I used a floral stamp from Chocolate Baroque for this one stamped onto a background paper which is also a Chocolate Baroque one.

The last one is G for green, gold and grass. I used a crafters workshop template for my background with glimmer mist. I really like these stencils, only bought two to try but definately will invest in some more. This pattern is blazonry. I then overstamped with Chocolate Baroque stamps from the Nature theme stampset in two shades of green ink. I also stamped some leaves in gold and embossed them at the top of the tag as it looked a bit bare. I need to go play with all the other stash I`ve bought now as I have been really naughty this month ! too many tempting new things comming into the shops at this time of year. x Lavinia