Lucky, lucky, lucky

December must be my lucky month! Not only was it my birthday and I received some beautiful cards, gifts and good wishes from my family and friends, including a gorgeous sewing box from my very good friend Sue. I also was lucky enough to win a box of amazing artisan lampwork beads from Sarah at FlameForceFive, thank you Sarah : )

Then I was so pleased to discover that I’d won the Artist of the Month challenge over on the UK Beaders forum with my Dark Twist necklace! As well as all that, my Enchanted Earrings project is in the latest issue of Bead Magazine (issue 19). I haven’t been too good healthwise lately with one thing and another, so all of this has cheered me up immensely : )

It’s been a while since I made any cards but I got the urge to make some this week. I’ve stuck to a very simple style; stamped Pollycraft Winter Elves and a polar bear by Anita’s coloured with Promarkers and glittered, Shabby Princess backing papers, some ribbon and sentiments printed on the computer. Hope you like them.

And here’s another of my Fairground Attraction pendants that sold before I had a chance to show you! I adore the colour combination in this one, based around the shades in the mix of cubes called Serenity, consisting of blue, purple, green and white.

EZ-Mount tip

Yesterday I decided that it was time to finish what I started and put the rest of my rubber stamps onto EZ-Mount foam. As usual I ran out – I think one more sheet should do it – but rather than throw the ’useless’ scraps away I thought of a way to make use of them.

Cut them up into more manageable shapes, peel off the backing and make a mosaic of them on an acrylic block…..but make sure you have the tacky side up! Then put a rubber stamp on the top, peel the whole thing off the block and cut around as usual.

It’s not pretty but it does the job, the stamps print just as well and you save a little bit of money too. I got an extra four stamps mounted this way!

Excuse my awful cutting, I’m so rubbish at it!

Dutch Dare challenge and great news!

The new April/May issue of Bead is in the shops now and I’m very pleased to say that my floral charm bracelet is on page 14 – my very first published project! I’m not sure if I’m allowed to show the page so here’s a photo of the bracelet instead.

 

Here’s my card for this week’s Dutch Dare challenge. I’ve used a Paper Artsy stamp, DCWV floral papers and some Auntie Sarah’s Bloomers.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge

Here’s my card for the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge, where this week you have to use your favourite colour scheme. I’ve chosen purple and green which is one of my all time favourites and made a card for my Nan for Mother’s Day. I’ve used a gorgeous Wendie Rhodes stamp coloured with Promarkers, Papermania papers, some Auntie Sarah’s Bloomers with some more flowers, brads and ribbon from my stash.

Ismaki and Colour Create challenges

This card is for the Colour Create challenge, which is red and green with a wings option, and I’ve used this weeks Ismaki sketch with the flower option. The papers are Pink Petticoat and Papermania, I’ve coloured the butterfly images with Promarkers and cut and embossed my ‘flower’ with a Nestabilities die  and Swiss Dots in the Cuttlebug.

Sorted…..almost

I’ve spent the last few days sorting out my stamps. Like many stampers I’ve got a huge collection and limited space so storage is a real problem for me. Until now they’ve been in four large plastic drawers but while they’re divided into categories, I still have trouble finding a stamp when I need it. But most of all, I worry about them getting damaged. So I decided it was time for a serious sortout. I really like the way Paper Artsy send their stamps, cling mounted and attached to a laminated piece of card with the images on the other side. So when I saw a pretty basket filled with these in Craft Stamper magazine this month I thought ‘this is the storage for me’!

First off, I have to admit that I hate wood mounted stamps! So the first job was to remove the ones I did have from the wood, this didn’t take too long because most of my stamps are unmounted anyway. Same goes for the black foam mounted stamps, I think I dislike them even more than the wooden ones!  Next was to mount the stamps onto EZ Mount foam and I can tell you, that was one sticky afternoon! Then I had fun stamping them onto  pieces of white card before laminating them. I’ve never used a laminator before and I’d spent ages on the ‘net looking for info on what kind of laminator I’d need and how many microns the pouches should be. Didn’t find a scrap of info that helped so I just crossed my fingers and bought a cheap one…..it worked like a dream! For anyone wanting to do this, I used a Texet hot laminator which I got for around £12 and used A4 150 micron laminating pouches. Four pieces of 14cm x 10cm lightweight card fitted into an A4 pouch perfectly.

I still have a lot of stamps left to do – my Fairies/Ladies collection is enormous! And I also need to find some pretty baskets or boxes to keep them in. Maybe I’ll make something. Anyway here’s some photos of the stamps I’ve done so far (please excuse my dirty stamps, as you can see I’m a bit lax at cleaning them!). This is two drawers worth condensed into one pretty little pile : )