A bit of sparkle

Wow, my internet is still working, can you believe it? For anyone who hasn't been following along - my broadband connection has been on again, off again (mainly off) for nearly a month and so I've been grabbing internet time here and there in coffee shops. So ... what have I missed sharing with you?

I went to see Laughter in the Rain at the Lyceum last week. It's the Neil Sedaka story and was absolutely excellent. I love musicals anyway but I was most impressed at the energy of the performers, especially the male lead, on what was a really hot and muggy night. Less impressive was the service at the restaurant we went to before the show. We tried Ego, next to the Winter Gardens. Despite having made reservations and explaining that we were going to the theatre, it took an hour to get served, then we waited ages for our puds and nearly missed the beginning of the show. The desserts were delicious but the main courses were rather bland. Won't be going there again.

Friday I had a stand at a local School Fayre and it was also DH's birthday. My mojo has been missing and so he got a Blue Peter card (here's one I made earlier), poor thing. In the evening we went to the Blanc Brasserie in Leeds. It's a Raymond Blanc chain of restaurants and not too badly priced ... until you have starter, main course, dessert, wine and after dinner drinks (and a bottle of french cider to take home for DH as well) and then it adds up a little bit. On the other hand the service couldn't have been better and the food was excellent. They even put a birthday candle on DH's Tarte au Citron, lol. This one we will be going back to again ... when we've saved up.

Well I think that's the fun things caught up now, so on to the cardmaking.

I started this card last night but had to wait for some elements to dry and so couldn't finish it and post until this evening.

Recipe

Stamp sets: Touch of Nature, All a Flutter

Textured Cardstock: Sage Shadow

Plain Cardstock: Whisper White

Ink: Sage Shadow, Regal Rose, Black Stazon

Punch: Boho Blossoms

Other: Flower and Rhinestone Brad (both Pretties Kit), Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint, Crystal Effects, Fine Galaxy Glitter, Medium Window Sheet

I started by dragging my Regal Rose ink pad across the large flower to colour it and then used an aquapainter dipped in Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint to paint it all over. This gives a lovely golden shimmer to the flower and it also changes the shade of pink quite considerably to a more orangey shade. The flower was then left to dry. I stamped the All a Flutter butterfly in Black Stazon onto Medium Window Sheet. (You could use the butterfly from the Touch of Nature set instead but at this stage I hadn't decided on my background and I think I prefer this size butterfly with the flower anyway). This was "coloured in" on the reverse of the stamped window sheet by adding Crystal Effects and Fine Galaxy Glitter in sections, letting each colour dry before adding the next. I used Black for the body and Champagne and Silver for the wings. Once completely dry, I cut out the butterfly leaving a margin all around and a strip at the top for the "dangle". To complete the card this evening I created a 4x4 card blank from textured Sage Shadow. A mat and a scrap of Whisper White were both stamped with the fern from the Touch of Nature set in Sage Shadow. I then punched a large flower from stamped scrap using the Boho Blossoms punch to create the flower centre. A large Rhinestone Brad completed it. The dangle strip for the butterfly was adhered behind the mat before popping up on dimensionals on the card front.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sara xx

A melon butterfly for the ILWS sketch challenge

Our sketch challenge this month over at ILWS is this:

Now my All a Flutter butterfly has been underused but I decided it wasn't large enough to fill the space on its own and so added another element:

Recipe

Stamp sets: All a Flutter, Bloomin' with Beauty

Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Whisper White

Ink: Black Stazon, Melon Mambo, SU Markers, Stampin' Pastels

DSP: Bashful Blue Patterns

Other: Crystal Effects, Blender Pen

I stamped the butterfly with Black Stazon onto Whisper White card. As we don't yet have the Melon Mambo marker, I squeezed my Melon Mambo inkpad together and picked up ink from the lid on a Blender Pen to colour my butterfly. After cutting out and shaping the butterfly I added Crystal Effects over the top. Next, using the stamp-a-ma-jig for positioning, I stamped just the hydrangea head from the Bloomin' with Beauty stamp onto the corner of a Whisper White mat using Black Stazon. The flowers were coloured with Bashful Blue marker and a hint of Tempting Turquoise in the centres and shaded areas. I dusted Bashful Blue chalk around the empty spaces to take the edge off the white. The DSP and flower image were matted and layered and the butterfly popped up on a sliver of dimensional to finish.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to leave me a comment and let me know if you have any underused stamp sets.

Sara xx

April recipe challenge at In Love With Stamping

I hope that you're having a restful Good Friday and making the most of our long weekend.

Hopefully you might find time to join in the monthly challenges we have for you over at In Love With Stamping. There are four in total and the one I'm sharing with you today is the Recipe challenge. The recipe is two brads, two buttons and only one image stamp.

This year's Mini Catalogue has introduced single stamps for the first time and this butterfly stamp has fabulous detail.

I chose it for my one image stamp and decided to combine it with one of our three new shimmer paints for maximum effect:

Recipe

Stamp set: All a Flutter

Cardstock: Basic Black, Tempting Turquoise

Ink: Versamark, Taken with Teal

DSP: Pink Flamingo

Other: White EP, Frost White Shimmer Paint, Latte Designer Buttons, Filigree Brads, Circle Ice Brads, Silver Elastic Cord

The card base is Basic Black card cut to a 5" square. A 4-1/2" square of the turquoise flower paper from the Pink Flamingo collection was stuck flat to the base.

The butterfly was stamped in Versamark on a 2-1/5" square of Basic Black card and heat embossed with White EP. A drop of Taken with Teal ink was put on some scrap acetate (or an old tile or similar) and an aquapainter loaded with Frost White Shimmer paint, painted onto the scrap next to it. The two were mixed little by little on the acetate to get the desired depth of colour. This mixture was then painted onto the butterfly. If done carefully, it will pool between the embossed lines. After allowing to dry (if painted on thinly then this is about the same amount of time as drying Versamark ink), this was stuck onto a 2-3/4" square of Tempting Turquoise card and stuck to the centre of the card with dimensionals.

Silver elastic cord was threaded and tied to the two white flower buttons from the Latte Designer collection and they were added to the card with glue dots.

The small filigree flower brad outers were added to the opposite corner with small turquoise brads from the Circle Ice collection.

Now I'm off to prepare for tomorrow's open day.

Sara xx