January's Inchie swap

I'm announcing this a couple of days early in a feeble attempt at being organised.
The theme for January is LOVE. I have chosen this as, if all goes well, the swap should be returned to you in time for Valentine's day.

This swap is open to anyone, whether you've taken part before or not.
if you are new to this swap or to inchie swaps in general ( or indeed new to inchies), here are some rules and advice,
An inchie is a 1" square piece of "art" (I use the term loosely)
you can use any media you like. I generally use paper collage/ stamping. but we have had fabric ones, and painted ones.

for this swap you make 9 inchies (regardless of how many people are taking part). Keep one of them for yourself and send the other eight to me (email me for my address, you can email me through my profile) with a stamped addressed envelope (with a "large" stamp) if you are based in the uk. if you are sending from outside the uk, send a self addressed envelope (with no stamp) and then an ATC or a small gift, and I will cover the cost of postage.

The closing date is 31st January. please email me, or post a comment on here when you have posted your inchies off, and then I will know to expect them (or indeed wait for them)

you do not need to mount your inchies, there are no rules to their presentation, just make sure they won't fall out of the envelope.

write your name on the back of each inchie (and any other details you want, if you can fit them on!!)

you will receive a random selection of eight inchies back.

please ask any questions in the comments. and have fun creating these miniature works of art.

Deb's birthday card

I have to admit that I did this one in a bit of a rush as I was worrying about it arriving in time with all the pre-christmas post, so I sent it a good week early, and would you believe it, it arrived the next day!!
So I'm sorry it was a bit of a rush Deb.
The main image and the feather are by inka, the background paper is by paper mania. I love that little girl she is all dressed up ready to party, so I thought I'd add that as a quote. I've used moon glow powder to emboss the feathers and moon glow glitz spritz to the white card.

just a gift tag

This one was never meant for blogging. I was just wrapping my husband's christmas present, and as we only buy each other one present I like to make it look nice. So I thought I'd make a quick tag, but by the time it was finished I was pretty pleased with it, so I thought I'd pop it on here.

I asked him to put a similar effort into wrapping mine! and yes he has! he's wrapped it and stolen one of my quick tags for it!! for him that's effort, like most men he just doesn't do wraping!!

80th birthday card

This is the eightieth birthday card that I've made for my wonderful mother-in-law (who is offically the nicest person in the world)
I wanted to make her something special, that celebrated her age but also showed that she is young at heart.
I took a square card and drew a big 80 on it, and cut out the bits, I then put this onto backing paper, drew round it and cut out the paper to match. The paper is from a papermania 6"x6" pad and the white flowers at the bottom are already on it. I used this little girl from Inka, which I love and seemed perfect for my theme. I then echoed the white flowers with punched white flowers which looked too plain. so I stamped on a swirl that I found in the hero arts alphabet set I used for the words. I then freehand drew around the flowers and around the word to tie it together. added a few ribbons, and decided to leave it at that. I hope she likes it.

Christmas Cocktail Brolly

The theme at this weeks's wednesday stamper is Umbrella. This immediatly made me think of those little umbrella's you get in cocktails. As we are coming up to christmas I thought it would be nice to do a festive version, which then also led me to think about using them for the place settings at the christmas table. (last year I made wine glass charms)

so these were easy peasy. cut a circle of card, cut a wedge out. colour with distress inks, stamp holly, name, add some red glitter glue and some moonglow spritz, then edge with gold acrylic paint. when it is dry (or nearly dry in my case, ahem!) glue edges together and glue a cocktail stick in place. unfortunately I couldn't find any cocktail sticks. I'm sure we have some, we can't have used them up, we don't have cheese and pineapple on sticks THAT often, lol. I reckon the children might have taken them to make something (where DO they get that from). So Anyway I used a lollipop stick instead (from those double lollies)

Nellie's birthday

I made this for my friend Nellie's birthday. I decided to make a hanging rather then a card. I have used an Inka clown stamp (love that stamp) and then the background is a mixture of Inka, paper artsy and river city rubber works.

Believe in your elf

I made these little 3"x3" hangings for some of my best crafting buddies. so I was able to do what I really wanted rather than normal cards. I made 14 of these but they still only took a couple of evenings. They are not all the same as I have varied the background papers and some of the colours.

I had had the idea of "altering" the invoke arts quote "believe in yourself"in this way for quite a while, but it wasn't until I picked up the little hat stamp in a studio g clear set that it really came together.I tried the hat on various stamps but this little girl from Inka just seemed to fit it the best.

All of the background papers are from a blonde moments christmas pad that I got last year but never really got used.

I'm not sure why I photographed it on pine cones,that's just the mood I was in.I'm not sure if you can actually see the ribbon I've used to hang them,but it's green.

ooo it's such a nice feeling

when you get a piece published.
I decided to enter a piece for stampers sampler "change of heart" challenge, where the heart had to be something other than paper/card. I had the idea of stamping onto denim and adding a little love tag in the style of a levis tag. I thought it would be a good card for a man for valentines.
to go with the red I added the red strip of card and then some stitching done with a seeDs cross stitch (yes one little stamp repeated).

I posted it off and then thought "what have I done? that card is far too simple for stampers sampler, take ten maybe but not stampers sampler"
so I kind of put it to the back of my mind. Imagine how delighted I was to find that they had published it, in the take ten section of the change of heart issue of stampers sampler. exactly where I think it belongs.

It's always an honour to be published in the stampington publications as these are where I often get my inspiration from.

I've a bit of a confession about the main stamp. I bought it from asda (supermarket). it was originally a rose in a heart, but I didn't like the rose at all I just liked the heart with the stitching. so I mutilated the stamp and cut the rose out of it.

things I like about stamping

There are so many things I like about stamping. I love the way you can make a stamp look different depending how you use it. I like how you can make things complicated or keep them really clean and simple.

but at this time of year there are two things about stamping I especially like.

it gives me the ability to make 32 christmas cards all the same in under two hours
and I don't run out of any consumables apart from a bit of card.

I made these christmas cards at the weekend when I realised that not only had I not started writing my cards, but I really hadn't made anywhere near enough. so these cards are the result of panic.
The swirl is from Inka and I stamped it with versafine3 times without re-inking. The dove is also by Inka, and I have glittered that. The words are from a christmas set by rubber stampede.
these have to be the simplest cards I've made in a long time, but needs must!!

as the main image is a bird I am entering it for Daring cardmakers this week

saturday stampers

The challenge this week on saturday stampers this week is to create a christmas piece without using any christmas imagery or words. this coincided with a similar challenge on a forum.
I decided to make a set of christmas decorations using curtain rings. I had just received these gorgeous inchie children images from Inka, and thought they would work. I decorated the rings with thick gold embossing powder and made a little collage behind with a music stamp, some gold mesh and some gold "zuzu" paper. the words are taken from invoke arts quotes.
They were to be sent to Deb, so I decided I wanted a box to put them in. I found this mint tin in my "drawer of things that might be useful" and decorated the front to match. The little girl is from Inka, and I made her a bit christmassy by painting her dress red and then painting some glitz spitz spray (first time I'd tried applying it with a paint brush)