Grungy Christmas at PaperArtsy....

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to say I have a post this evening over on the PaperArtsy blog, the current challenge topic is 'foiling'  I love foiling and I've been playing with some of Seth Apter's new stamps and created some Christmas cards with a grungy twist! Hop across for all the details and also click on the foiling link for lots of inspiration. Here's a sneaky peek...

Hope you enjoy. Ruth xx

Red and Gold

Hi, firstly thanks for all your lovely comments on recent posts, I'm really lucky to have such wonderful visitors :-) ....so what have I been up to now? Well I've been playing with some newly acquired brushos in my journal, and created something for the challenge over at Kristin's blog. It's week 4 of SOC which is 1 Red +1 Red + 1 Metallic challenge. I do like a challenge and red isn't a colour I often use in my creations.

I used some absorbent ground in my journal then added brushos and probably too much water and then hoped for the best! Sorry the photo is a bit blurred.

I've used a stencil with white gelato and stamps, silk glaze in crimson and gold fab foil.

I found and used what I thought was an apt Ernest Hemingway quote 'For her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color.'

Hope you get chance to join in. Thanks for visiting and have an enjoyable and hopefully crafty weekend! 

Flora..

Following on from the 3 leaf cards I posted yesterday...a quick post to show the remaining 2 cards I made.

 I added some stamping and further colour to the flowers....

...and some gold embossing to the centres.

Edited...Just realised it qualifies for SOC here, so I'm linking the above card in!

This last card is a 21st...it may not be traditional but I hope she'll like it.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I read and appreciate all your comments. Hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Baby wipes part 2

Hi, following on from my Stamps and Stencils post here, just thought I'd share a few of the CAS cards I made with the leaves...

below...

One of the lovely things about this is that you have a choice of the reverse, although blue leaves may be slightly odd!

All 3 cards have a milled lavender swiped background, some gold fab foil on to stamp and bond and a sentiment in spanish moss versafine.

I also added a little more colour to the leaves.

I tried to capture the shine from the foil...which is why they are all taken at the same angle.

I made a couple more cards in the same style using the baby wipe flowers and I'll post them tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy creating!

'Bleach blocking'

The Take it, Make it Challenge over at Craft Stamper this month is all about Bleach Blocking. I thought I'd combine it with Artistic Stamper June challenge which has a Red theme.

I cut the foam to leave a square and a rectangle and got so carried away with the technique (see pg 28 July issue, Hels Sheridan) that although I liked what I had made...I was stuck as to what I was going to do next. It reminded me a little bit of Mondrians work at this stage with all the squares and rectangles....it just reminded me (I wouldn't dare to say it was remotely like his work). I came back to it after a few days and decided to go with pattern building with squares and circles. I've used Ellen Vargo stamps for the background in archival black and versafine crimson.

I then wanted to lift it, and embossing powder wouldn't do. I remembered I had some fab foil that I'd bought when I was inspired by a Birgit Koopsen post last year for Creative Jumpstart. 

I used another stamp from the EEV06 set and applied bonding powder to it, heated it and then applied the foil.

I'm hoping you can see the shine and reflection you get when the light hits it.

I used the Create stamp from The Artistic Stamper on another piece of of the bleach blocked card and mounted it on some black card on foam pads, I felt the lines coming off this word worked really well with the background. It was then mounted on a white card blank and I added a few black dots with a Posca pen. I hope you might be inspired to have a go at bleach blocking.....it's fun. Thanks for stopping by.