Framed Flowers and Homemade Ink Blending Tools

Hello there :0)

It's colour challenge week over at Less is More and I guess you're inevitably going to come up against a colour choice or palette that's not comfortable for you to work with along the way and this week is my 'ooo I'm not sure about these colours' week but a challenge is what it's called so here's my attempt to play with the soft pastel shades for this week....

I'm more than happy with how it turned out but ....hmmm, not sure how close I am to the mark now, my apricot is definitely more terracotta and yes I slipped in a bit of green for the leaves..... you can't have a pot plant without leaves!!!

I used dienamics dies to make the flower pot and inked it with Tea Dye Distress Ink for dimension, the flowers and leaves are memory box dies finished off with a dot of liquid pearls.

I'm happy to say that I'm guest designing with this card over at the Catered Crop where this weeks recipe swap is 'Framed'. Pop over and check out the challenge, winners have a chance to guest design on the next recipe swap and you have until March 16th to join in :0)

Now I promised you last week that I'd show you my homespun Ink Blenders for my Distress Inks.
I got fed up with the one and only Ranger Ink Blending tool I do have, falling apart and covering me with ink everytime I changed the foam pad but I didn't want to buy a tool for each colour so I searched on Google and found this tutorial on You Tube that seemed simple enough and here is the result....

the dimensions of my wooden blocks are 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.75 inches, the foam layer is made from strips of doublesided foam tape from Poundland and the velcro is found cheaply on eBay...and you can just buy the hook side too, so no wastage there! :0)

The length of wood was £2 which made 25 blocks, the foam tape £1 for a big roll, the velcro was £3 for 2metres... in fact the most expensive part was the foam pads but I could justify that with the savings made :0)

I used regular office stickers to label them, an extra bit of sticky tape behind them helps to make them stay put, and oh boy does it make using Distress inks easier and much more clean too... I would never say smudgy fingerprints have been totally eradicated *sigh, tut tut*
The plastic fishing tackle storage box keeps them separate, tidy and easy to view when selecting colours, but any plastic container would do the same job :0)

Apologies for the long blog post but hope you found the blending tool idea useful??
Thanks for stopping by today :0)
Jenny x

Patterns and Circles

Hello there, I've got two cards to share with you today as the challenge deadlines are looming at the end of the day :0)

First up is a zingy little number for the Avery Elle AEI♥U challenge which has a bright table setting in the photo inspiration below, not 'go to' colours for me but you have to push those box edges sometimes!! 

I have just three AE stamp sets at the moment so I got creative with the small retro diamond stamp from Merry and Bright which I love, and teamed it up with speech bubbles from Picture it.

My fiskars stamp press came in soooo handy when making this pattern but don't look too closely because it's a bit dodgy in places!!! A few glitter dots to add some sparkle and I was quite chuffed with my first attempt at creating a geometric pattern with such a small stamp :0)

Now for something completely different (as they say) and my card for this weeks Circle challenge at CASology which was also my DT card yesterday at Make the Day Special where I shared a small tip I found in blogland about using stamps and diecuts together..... see the blog post here.

I've used the Love Birds stamp and die set from Wplus9 for this card and used hessian/burlap again through my bigshot to get that lovely texture on the raised panel.

Now for a shameless plug as both these stamp companies are stocked by Make the Day Special here in the UK, just pop over here for a trip round the store ...... and join us on Facebook here for updates of new arrivals in store :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

Another Monster card!!

Yep, another monster... although it's more of a dinosaur really :0)

I couldn't resist this stamp set called 'Dino-mite' from Janes Doodles because the dinosaurs 

have such cute faces and rounded bodies :0) I had this card idea in my head as 

soon as I saw them and finally with the help of the fab 

ColourQ palette, I have bought the design to life...

It also follows the sketch#134 at the Paper Players this week too... a few hours 

left before closing time there!!

This is actually my brothers birthday card. 

He is a leap year baby and, like every three out of four years, he has hijacked the

1st March as his birthday and I am safe to show you this now....although I know he doesn't 

look on my blog :0) I thought he'd appreciate the comic style cartoon scene... we both

grew up watching the sort of cartoons this could be a scene from!!

I cut a circle mask to ink the sky using Distress inks and then used the 

dienamics cityscape in three shades of blue card for depth. I love using the Distress inks on 

diecut shapes....they just bring them to life :0) 

I have a homemade version of ink blending tools to show you too. I followed 

a tutorial on you tube and I'm quite happy with the result......so much 

cheaper than buying the ranger tools. I just need to 

get some photos taken and upload them.

I'll include them in another blog post next week :0)

Right that's all from me, it's been quite a busy week here on the blog

thanks for stopping by :0)

Jenny x