RSS challenge - week 2

I have managed to do the new Ready Steady Stamp (RSS) challenge. It is every 2 weeks, and gives 5 ingrediants to be included in your card/art/scrapbook page/ATC/whatever you make.
As you can see, this week's ingrediants are :


Having just returned from hot and sunny Portugal, I decided to go with a very bright and summery feel (well, the theme is SUN)! To be honest, I am not sure if I like my card or not, so I do hope you will comment and let me know what you think.

1. As you can see the sun is in the sky (as it should be LOL)
2. I have plenty of yellow on the card
3. I have a blue ribbon on the card
4. I created an abstract triangle (bottom left) using an inkpad (I got this idea from Hermine Koster)
5. Finally the acetate is over the picture, to look like glass (you can't really see it in a photo).

The stamps are from Art Specially and Katzelkraft
The picture and frame are from Crafty Individuals

Trying new techniques

Here is another card I made with my father when he was here. I got the technique from the July issue of Craft Stamper magazine.
Basically, use glossy card and stamp the flowers with black stazon, then colour with adirondak inks and finally when it is dry, emboss the butterflies in white.
I really love the effect!

Christmas cards

I have not posted for ages, I have just been too busy! I have had my father here, and we made quite a few cards together, then he and my Mom headed for Portugal to meet the rest of the family for 2 weeks in a beautiful villa. Dave and I joined them for a few days.
It was a hot and fun break for us all.

Here are some of the cards my Dad and I made :

This is just a simple card, coloured with distress ink, and highlighted with icicle stickles.

In the next 2 cards I used a technique I learnt from Hermine Koster at the Art Specially event (in the Netherlands) earlier this year. Start with glossy card, and stamp with Stazon ink. Then use ditress ink or Adiromdak ink over. Finally highlight with white pen and glitter glue.

For the last Christmas card I tried my hand at metal work, using the Ten Second Studio tools to create a frame. I got the technique from Leandra Franich of PaperArtsy, the article was in the July 2009 Craft Stamper magazine. The photo does not really do the metal justice.

Thank you for looking, and for any comments you leave.

Another ISMAKI attempt

So this is what happens when it is too hot to sleep... I lay in bed last night and dreamt up a Christmas card using this week's ISMAKI sketch.
This is a tribute to grunge (as you can see) and I had great fun with it.
The red background papers are made by wiping Fired Brick Distress Ink onto a craft sheet, then spraying it with water mixed with gold Perfect Pearls, and pressing the card onto the wet ink to create the colour. (Thank you to Tim Holtz for his tutorial on this technique)
The green is done the same, using Pine Needles Distress Ink, without the Perfect Pearls (just sprayed with water). I then sprayed it with gold Glimmer Mist.
The gold edge of the main card, and the strip of gold card in the background are made by dabbing the gold Ranger paint dabber on the card to get the texture.
Finally I stamped it all up using Inkadinkadoo (Winter Birds) and Stampington stamps
For the option this week (5 embelishments the same), I added the 5 gold brads on the small squares.

Thank you for looking.

Final ISMAKI 29/06 Kiki

Sadly this is the last ISMAKI challenge. I have really enjoyed taking part in the challenges, and even won one! I shall miss them a lot.
Thanks to the ISMAKI team for all their hard work, it was really appreciated.
They have said they will be back later in the year with a new and exciting concept, and I look forward to that!
This week the sketch is by Kiki, and the option is to have 5 embellishments the same (I chose buttons)