Gingersnaps - burgundy, black and ivory

My entry for this week's Gingersnaps challenge. Follow the link to see what my talented teamies made with this striking colour scheme. The stamp is Penny Black and coloured with my fave Coloursoft pencils. The background is simply a piece of card Cuttlebugged (Textile Texture folder) and scrap of book page (a nod towards the altered book theme running through Gingersnaps this month).

Hope you like :). I love this poppy stamp muchly :).

I cut it up!

Yep, I finally cut up my Basic Grey Origins, which I must have had at least 3 months... I was inspired to make that first cut after seeing some lovely LOs using these papers on my friend Isabelle's blog.

Simple LO using a picture I took of chipmunk in New England. I thought these little critters were so adorable and cute (I am sure they are so common as to be unexceptional in the US but I'd only seen one once before in California so for me it was interesting enough to get out the camera!). I must say I do like the spring-like colours of these papers. No stamping on this LO for once - I just used the BG papers and stickers apart from the lettering

We had an amazing day yesterday at the Birdland zoo. I took loads of pics with my new compact camera (bday pressie from my dearest darling) so plenty of scrapping opportunities there!

(ETA I took this pic in the garden and it appears a small bug has alighted on my page! That isn't part of the design LOL).

WOYWW - oh the shame.........

I've never participated in WOYWW before although I know lots of peeps who do. Why you ask? Well, because my workdesk generally looks like this - i.e. like a bomb has gone off... Also on a Wed I work from home so am often working on stuff for publication that I can't show (but honestly, mostly the first one...).

I am thinking that perhaps publically shaming myself might encourage me to tidy it up!! Also trying to make a 12x12 scrapbook page on 5" of desk can be a wee bit tricky......

Perhaps next week it will be pristine. Or perhaps not....

A quick card

Just a really quick birthday card for a work colleague today. Stamps are a mix - borders are Autumn Leaves and flowers are ISC and Basic Grey. Basically I stamped the borders, masked them with Post-Its and then stamped the flowers. Added a bit of colour and glittered the flowers and that was it!

I can't take any credit for this as it's a blatent rip off of a lovely card I received for my own birthday from my dear friend Gemma.

Entering this for Papertake Weekly (sparkly theme, used glitter) and Stamp Something for which the theme is celebrate.

Katy x

Gingersnaps Challenge - Pencils

The theme for this week’s Gingersnaps challenge is ‘Pencils’. I have to say I absolutely love my Coloursoft pencils. I used to really dislike colouring in but since I discovered these it’s a joy! They really do blend effortlessly and the colours give excellent coverage, even on coloured card like the Kraft base I’ve used here.

For my sample this week, I’ve use the pencils in two different ways. Here’s what I did.

Ingredients:
Stamps: Inkadinkado Morphic Bugs
Cardstock: Kraft; brown; white
Coloursoft (or Prismacolor) pencils, Sansodor and blending stumps
Distress Ink: Brushed Corduroy
Archival Ink: Coffee
Corrugated card
Sequin waste
Mini brads
Papermania brad making kit

1 Stamp the bee (Inkadinkado) in Coffee ink onto Kraft card. Colour the body of the bee and the honeycomb using the Coloursoft pencils. Use two colours on the bee and blend. For the two circles at the centre of the images colour just around the outline with dark orange, then using the Sansodor and a blending stump, blend the colour from the edges to the centre using circular motions. This creates a lovely graduated effect.

2 To make the bee ‘pop’ colour over his body with dark brown and black pencils, blend with a fine pointed stump taking care not to muddy the yellow areas.

3 For the background panel, take three coloured pencils and randomly scribble them over a piece of white card. I used a less sharp pencil for the main colour (yellow) and a sharp one for the dark orange so the latter created more obvious lines. Go over the whole background with Sansodor (keep dipping so the application is generous). Add more pencil and blend again if required.

4 Sponge brown in through a piece of sequin waste in places to look like honeycomb.

5 Assemble card as shown. I stamped and coloured part of the bee again to make a co-ordinating centre for my brad and sprayed the strip of corrugated card with Glimmer Mist.

Why not have a go at these techniques for the challenge? Do pop over and see what the rest of the Gingersnappers made too – loads of inspiration awaits you!

The story of the orange bone

Just another simple layout today. Papers are MME, pic is my gorgeous baby dog as usual! I used my 7 Gypsies Disclaimer stamps again - these are some of my faves. I keep reaching for them - this time I used the phrase 'Results not typical', as it went well with the journaling which is all about how Leo hardly ever takes the orange bone because he only likes toys that are red (weird, weird little dog).

Gingersnaps Challenge - Read

The theme for today's challenge on Gingersnap Creations is 'read'. Being a literal-minded sort, I've created a reading journal using my BIA for my contribution to the challenge. I love this stamp and I thought it appropriate as she looks like she is reading. I used up some Basic Grey paper I've had since the dawn of time, so that's another dent made in the stash mountain!

Materials...

Curious By Design stamps - Chere Amie

Stampendous stamps - Butterflies

Hero Arts stamp - Ledger

Elusive Images stamps - Curly Birds (flourish used inside)
Patterned papers

Chipboard pieces, 7 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (covers)

Tim Holtz Idea-ology bookplate and brads

Letter stickers

Distress Ink: Barn Door; Brushed Corduroy

Versafine Ink: Black

Coloursoft pencils, Sansodor and blending stumps

Trim (Prima)

BIA and o-wire

Here's what I did:

1 Cover the chipboard pieces with paper leaving the reverse of the front cover uncovered until the after the bookplate is added later. On the front cover, add a panel of pink paper inked with Barn Door and with one corner rounded, and a panel of torn script paper inked with Brushed Cordoroy.

2 Stamp the girl (Curious by Design) onto a piece a plain Basic Grey paper and colour with pencils, blending the colours for a soft look. Round the top corner, ink the edges and add to the cover. Punch holes in the covers at this stage.

3 Stamp two butterflies, colour with pencils and cut out. Add along with the bookplate, trim and lettering as shown. Now you can cover the reverse of the front cover to hide the brads.

4 For the inside, stamp each page with the Hero Arts ledger stamp and the Elusive Images flourishes (or computer generate pages -believe me the stamping took an age!!!).

5 Bind the book and you are done.

I hope you like what I made - do pop and see what the rest of my lovely, talented teamies made and join in the challenge at Gingersnaps. If you don't want to make a journal, what about a bookmark or bookplate for this theme?

Katy x