Opus Gluei Challenge # 95. Springtime in Paris.

The lovely ladies over at OG have asked for Springtime in Paris.
(Love the new banner ladies , can I be a penguin please?)

I don't have anything even remotely Parisian in my stash, but it has been too long since I joined in and when has something as trivial as not having the right stash ever stopped me?
Exactly.
And besides which, I have some new french chickens to show you.

So this is the best I can come up with given my lack of French stash.

This is the dancing Lady from the Silhouette plate by Art Journey stamps.
Also the freebie butterfly from Craft Stamper magazine this month.
I wanted the butterfly flying towards the pretty lady, but maybe it would look better facing the other way? Not sure.
I've used my new favourite shiny which is a water activated layer of Neocolour II crayons that I've over painted with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour paints, thereby creating lovely shiny shiny magic.
The card look mheh photographed unfortunately. IRL I love it, as a photo it looks kind of crappy and flat and unshiny, which it isn't. Oh dear.

Now for a little french chicken or two or even three.
I thought I could add these because they are nice and they have just bought their Eurotunnel tickets to go to Disney World Paris just in time for Easter where they will be laying Easter Eggs for the Seven Dwarfs.

 

This is another card based on a Jo Kill topper that she designed for Papercraft Inspirations Magazine.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Less is more Challenge, Week 7 Masculine. Twinkie loves to juggle.

The Less is more challenge this week is a masculine card.

 Now I don't know about you, but I find it is really easy to make a "less is more" type of card that is MHEH and that it's really quite hard to make one that actually makes you think WOW.
Mandi and Chrissie who run this challenge certainly do Wow cards.
But I do love a challenge.
This one's not quite a wow but I like it.
Now I bought some of this dotty Card Candy 'cos I can't resist polka dots and thought Twinkie 6103 could practice his juggling.

 

Click on him to make him bigger.

Twinkie is rather good at juggling isn't he?

Juggling 4 balls is quite a feat.

Can you juggle?

I can.

Oh yes, I can juggle with 2 balls rather slowly.

I only said I could juggle, not that I was any good at it...I think I am marginally better at jiggling. 

What's one little vowel between friends.

I don't have the patience to practice, not when there is paper and glue and shiny in the world just sitting there; waiting.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Stampotique Triptych Card challenge. Spanky does The Birth of Venus.

The Stampotique Challenge for the next fortnight is to make a Triptych card using Stampotique only stamps.
There is a random draw to win $30 to spend in the Stampotique store, which you need to win because have you seen the new stamps released this month? Jo Capper Sanderson has some new stamps including two wonderful owls and Daniel Torrente has done 3 mermaids and other fabulous animals. There goes my crafting budget for this month. Life is always sunny in the Land of Shiny.
But this is my last project for Stampotique as guest designer, aaaw.

So what did Spanky make huh?

She had a ball with this one and whizzed back in time to 1484 and is the Official Queen of Ginger this fine spring morning.

Click on any image to make it bigger.

Mirror, Mirror on the tree,
Who's as pretty as can be?

 

Kolossal 6070

Tree 6112

Puss Puss 6105

 

 

Stitch 6052

Large Lace Background 5177

Now just in case you don't immediately recognise (as if!) Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, here is the centre of the painting.

Now everything that could possibly go wrong whilst making this; did go wrong and a few more previously undiscovered errors to boot.

It's just as well that the "Spanky does.." are my favourite makes.

The triptych template I used is this free one from Mirkwood Designs.

 They also have a paypal button for donations to support their endeavours.

The background paper is by Basic Grey from the Urban Prairie range.

If I had to choose a Basic Grey range I had to marry it would be this one.

I used Versamark and Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder in Copper Bronze Lustre for the Large Lace background stamp.  Isn't it gorgeous like this?

The one and only Stitch has embroidery floss hair glued onto card using Golden Gel medium. Anything is possible using gel medium as a glue. 

If I had to choose a glue I had to marry it would be this one.

I had to go a bit lower with her hair than is esthetically pleasing but I needed to cover up her claws and then rearrange her arms.

The colouring is with Derwent coloursoft pencils. You really can't go wrong with any Derwent pencils.

If I had to choose a pencil I had to marry it would be a Derwent one.

Now the tiny gold stars are new (to me) and I didn't do a test glue with them, so I ran a line of Glossy accents around the edge and wow did a lot more of them stick than I had planned.

The beads at the bottom are Suze Weinberg's Beadazzles in Electric slide (also new to me) and oh my, don't they go everywhere, they just followed the little stars...absolutely everywhere.

The mirror is made out of mirror card with silver stickles around it.

Whichever Daniel Torrente lady character stamp I am working with becomes my favourite stamp.

If I had to choose a stamp company I had to marry it would be Stampotique :-)

Happy creating everyone!

Gini

xx

Stampotique Guest Designer March, The Chicks Round House Home

This is my second project as Guest Designer in March for Stampotique.
In The Land of Shiny live the circus performing Chicks, and they have built for themselves a cheerful, shiny Round House.
They roost by perching on a chair at night.
Triangular chick doesn't like to sleep on her own so she doubles up with either of the round chicks. Unfortunately square chick makes for an angular and therefore uncomfortable bedfellow.
This started out life as a Pringles tube container.
Click on any picture to make it bigger.

The chicks are  Chick shapes (4 sided cube) 9111 and I have paper pieced their bodies.

The bling on the roof is glued on with Golden Gel Medium in the Heavy gel (matte). 

The flowers are Heart Flowers 9107.
I used versafine black ink heat embossed with clear powder. Coloured the flowers with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paint and used foam pads as the adhesive.
The stems are bugle beads glued onto the house with Anita's 3D clear gloss finish (substitute with Glossy Accents if you don't have this.) Anita's is thinner and therefore easier to use as this kind of glue. It also gives a stronger bond than Glossy Accents.

 

The chairs are 3 chairs 9179

The walls and roof of the house are watercolours on very thick finest quality white card. Whether you use card or thick watercolour paper it mustn't stretch and buckle (go wavy and unflat) because you can't wallpaper with buckled card as it looks dreadful.
Or you could stamp onto designer paper like Basic Grey plain coloured 12" card if you can't get an unbuckled finish. Alternatively you could try brayering using ink which isn't so wet.
All wallpaper glued on with extra strong doubled sided tape (red backed).
The background stamp is the brilliant Large Lace Background 5177 and I used worn lipstick distress ink. Loads of things you can do with this versatile stamp.

If you would like to have a go at a round house I give more instructions here.
Be warned though, in case you don't like fiddly things, as they are fiddly to do especially if you wallpaper them.
It is easier to do if you cover the round container with lots of tissue paper (glue with gel medium or mod podge or my least favourite for this job - white PVA) and then paint it.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Stampotique Challenge, Animals, Birds and Insects

The Stampotique Challenge for the next two weeks can be found here.
A fabulous challenge with oodles and oodles of possibilities and you can use any stamps in your project.

Last week we saw the chick shapes in their paying job as circus performers. They are energetic joyful characters and this week we get to see them playing musical chairs.
I have tried to show just how good these chicks look no matter what style of creating you like; whether grungy and shiny (gotta have a bit of Shiny) or paper piecing with pretty designer papers.
Click on any image to make it bigger.

The  4 chick shapes (4 sided cube) 9111 and 3 chairs 9179 in this one are stamped with Versafine black and heat embossed with fine detail clear powder.
If you heat emboss your stamped image it makes it really easy to colour in with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours or Twinkling H2O's because the embossing resists the watercolour paint so it easily stays inside the image. 

In this one I've used pretty summer garden designer papers and paper pieced the stamped images. As you know if you're a regular here, I'm a bit of a duffer with flat card layouts (I need a lot more practice, about 2256 more cards worth I think) but you get the general idea and I'm sure you'll be able to put them in a much better layout yourself if you fancy having a go at musical chairs.

I did wonder what these two completely different styles would like if they were combined together; probably quite horrid, but I thought I'd try it out in an ATC and surprisingly this style turned out to be my favourite of the lot.

So my advice would be:
No matter how mad an idea seems to be; give it a try as an ATC.

Next week I'll show you where the chicks live.

Happy creating!
Gini
xx

Stampotique Mayan Circus

I'm so pleased to be given the opportunity to design some projects for Stampotique Stamps this month as their guest designer for March - woohoo!

If you've yet to visit their challenge blog Stampotique Designers Challenge, you're missing a treat as their quality wooden stamp range is very diverse and I love all the marvelous inspiration and ideas that come from their very talented design team.

For my first project I've created a Mayan Circus.
Now who knows whether or not the ancient Mayan's ever had circus events and truly, we in the land of Shiny don't actually care because you're very unlikely to find any historical accuracy here.

But this was great fun to dream up.
It's 12 inches square and you can click on any picture to make it bigger.

  It's all made of cardboard and white card.

One of Stampotique's stamp designers is Amy Wilson Wellenstein and she has drawn some Mayan Images and the one that caught my eye was the
7124 Mayan Background #2 
that has so much versatility not only as a background stamp but for each element of the design on it's own. It even has 4 crown's of 3 different sizes, Uri Gellar's bent forks (all the better for scooping out your heart my dear) and all sorts of fashion design accessories that Spanky coveted immediately and some interesting potential building blocks that I had my beady eye on.

 Now Spanky went to town on dressing all the Torrente characters up in their finest Mayan fancy dress gear.
If you are lucky enough to get to attend a Mayan Circus you really must dress up to the nine's Mayan Style.
In the following close up's of the audience, anything yellow/gold is part of the Mayan background stamp. I stamped the background stamp multiple times onto white card and cut out all the individual elements of the design and Spanky stuck them onto the people artistically - ahem.
I used Versafine black ink for all the stamping.
White PVA craft glue for all the glueing and Derwent pencils from their Inktense range, watercolour range and Coloursoft range.

Working from Left to Right. First we have my favourite Torrente character

6057 Heart Throb Bless him - he thought he would manage just fine on his own without Spanky's help styling his costume... although there is something to be said for the appeal of a man with a tattoo on his forehead and forks through his ears. Quite what that appeal might be, I'm not sure but for every old sock there is an old shoe.

6022 Sheer Gotta admire a gal who isn't afraid of her own cleavage. (Spanky has a ginger cleavage - nuff said.)

6047 Glimmering Hope When you dress with style who needs legs?

6048 Moth Fab The more I work with these characters the more I realise that clashing colours work really well in their outfits.

6104 Eric How about those Dennis Healy eyebrows and deeley boppers?


6011 Girl with Lunchbox The poor girl doesn't have a name! How did this happen??? She looks like a Davina to me...

6051 Prom Queen

6059 Bowtie Now I think the Mayan's missed out on a real fashion statement by not utilizing the accessory power of The Sporran. Perfect for your small change, lipstick or as the indomitable posing pouch.

6080 Topknot  Is this a dagger which I see before me?  Topknot is a Sporran wearing Mayan Norman Bates tonight. We all go a little mad sometimes.

6052 Stitch Now Stitch was the last character I coloured and I choose colours that I thought couldn't possibly look nice together but it turned out to be my favourite colour scheme by far. Edward scissor hands? Pah! He's been usurped by Stitch the Knife Slayer.

6102 Dweeze Looking mighty fine in his kipper tie.

6104 Eric again, you can't keep a good man down.

6045 Newt with lunchbox

6071 Perl This is the first time I've given Perl brown hair and it just doesn't look right, she's a blonde through and through, but I thought blonde hair would detract from the gold forks or even (heaven for fend) clash with them.

6059 Bowtie again. Oh my, oh my what a splendid costume. I just hope your not behind him because you'll never see a thing with that huge headdress in front of you.

6025 Gooseneck. Not quite playing spoons on a wash board but very close.

6115 Weasel Aha, Weasel looks like he has nefarious plans for poor old Two Barrettes.

6024 Two Barrettes Who proves that Yes, bobby pins work well with crowns but they provide absolutely no protection from knife wielding Weasels.


6021 Girl with heart purse Another girl with no name! Poor Tink.

So onto the floor acts.

First we have 6026 Heart Boy the lion tamer holding one of the  9179 three chairs (designed by Janet Klein) controlling a very fierce 6105 Puss Puss.
He's holding a whip made out of embroidery floss and I used a section of his arm for the handle.

Then we have the amazing Chick riding cat jumping fences. The chick is one of the 4 chicks on the cube 9111 Chick shapes riding  6096 Kitty and the fence is made up of the elements of the Mayan background stamp. More embroidery floss for the reins and another element from the Mayan background to form the chick's wing (so she can hold the reins).

Followed by the wondrous chick riding cat balancing act. We have another chick from the cube 9111 Chick shapes riding another 6096 Kitty balancing on further elements from the Mayan background stamp.

And finally we have the balancing quails from the 9211 Quails cube

with 6105 Puss Puss balanced precariously on the top.

A brief look at how I made it. 'Cos you're ready for a cup of tea now aren't you?

I cut a very strong box like this. Remember you can click on any photo to make it bigger.

You can cut your supports for your freestanding characters one of two ways.
The one on the left (Heartboy) is a single layer of card with the support cut and divided up the centre and the sides folded back opposite each other.
The one on the right is made of a double layer of cardboard, glue only the stamped section together and fold back the supports opposite each other.

To decorate the floor I stamped the Mayan Background stamp in it's entirety using Antique Linen Distress ink.

My Top Tip:- Now Distress Inks are great but if your paper or card is at all porous or loosely woven then the ink will bleed and fuzz when stamped. To avoid excess bleeding, ink your stamp using a brayer to apply the ink. (If you ink the stamp directly with the distress pad you will get unwanted bleeding.)


I cut incisions in the floor where I want the images to stand. Feed the image support through the incision to the back and open up the folds. See the chair and cat in the photo.

 



Happy creating!
Gini
xx