Sunday Stampers week 259 - Thursday 30th May

Good Morning Friends,

Sunday Stampers Week 259 - Some like it Hot

This week's Sunday Stampers challenge set by Hels Sheridan  - deets here - is a project to include some embossing powder..yippee! One of my favourite crafty items! But having done no crafting over the weekend and lots to catch up with, I'm afraid it's another quick card this week.... I just had to include something made using my melt pot somewhere though - would have been rude not to :)

For this little card, I used Crafty Individuals stamp CI-119: which is a little vintage postcard of a bather, plus backing paper and the backing postcard from a selection by Tilda. I first of all backed the front of the card with a piece of linen card from my scraps box, which I then inked all over using Peacock Feathers distress ink. I tore the edges of the Tilda paper and also inked around the edges with the same ink.

I stamped the image using black archival and then for a little sea-side shimmer, I used heat embossed using Cosmic Aurora Sparkle embossing powder. Then I inked over the card with Vintage Photo to give it a really old look..I did the same to the postcard backing. The only bit of colour I added was to the parasol, just using a little Aquamarine Flexmarker to tie in with the base background.

So where does the melt pot come into this project? Well I took a bottle top, added a starfish embellishment and poured in some clear UTEE mixed with a few pieces of Stampendous Fragments to create an embellishment for the card. Of course whilst my UTEE was all heated up,I just had to dip a few paper flowers to add to my 'melt pot makes' box!

To finish off I just added a little think rope and tied a knot.

Thanks so much for stopping by, you know I really appreciate it!

Love and Hugs, Carole X

Happy Hens - Sunday Stamper wk 250 - Thursday 28th March

Sunday Stampers week 250 Challenge and a give away!

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you all for visiting and leaving comments, I really do appreciate them all! As some of you saw from my WOYWW post yesterday, I was busy with my melt pot first thing in the morning. I like to make quite a few items  at a time and keep them in a box ready to use..there was a lot of flower dipping yesterday and one of the seahorses is for my next Emergency Crafters DT post for next tuesday. The turquoise seahorse sadly met an abrupt end when it fell off my desk along with  a few heavy items and smashed :( so it's back in the box for re-melting.

Whilst on the subject of the seahorse, a few of you asked me about moulds and what they are - well the ones I am using are basically for clay modelling and are readily available in craft stores. The ones I have, I have had for a while and got from The Stamp Bug, a lovely little country stamp shop, tucked away in the village of Hatherop near Cirencester. They only open Mon-Fri and we are usually near there at weekends, so we wait of their 'open weekends' - but they have a shop online with lots of lovely moulds - visit: http://www.thestampbug.co.uk

And so to my Sunday Stamper project for this week! Hels set us the challenge of adding something shiny to our creations and nowadays at the mention of something shiny I reach for the melting pot. I started out to create a canvas with a Venetian feel and made two casts from a mask and Venetian mascot mould (Lion statue), but then had a complete change of mind, so they are in my box for another time!

Enjoying my morning coffee break, looking at our hens scurrying around the garden and then racing to the back door as soon as they saw I was watching them - in the hope of a grape of blueberry treat - I decided to create something whimsical and light hearted instead and came up with this little scene...

It's a wall hanger featuring our girls..well stamps coloured in their honour! I started off by die cutting the frame with two pieces of decent weight kraft card sandwiched together for extra strength. Then I die cut a slightly smaller shape with polka dot card. The top layer is kraft card, to which added a brick effect mask whilst it was still in the die and then  stained with Picket Fence distress stain. The photo below shows this slightly better.

The hen stamp is by Magnolia. I used Spellbinders Decorative Chateau Gate as the window, which I decorated with dotty paper curtains. The flowers were made using Spiral Blossom One and the little button a cookie cutter - all given the melt pot treatment.

 I hope you like my little bit of fun! There's still time to enter and this week Hels has some goodies to give away - link from above or the photo on my sidebar to the right.

I started this post this morning and am finishing after work..yay I'm on hols for a week now! But before I'm off to make tea, a few days ago I mentioned making baskets to give my two office volunteers - filled with choccie eggs and an egg from each of our 'girls. I forgot to photograph the first one, so here is the one I gave my second volunteer today...

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a lovely Good Friday - the tradition in our family is that Tom and I put on a brunch - so a busy but lovely day for us!

Carole  X