Crafty Boots bingo - Inspire!

When a special friend of mine thad a special birthday (yep that one again!) I wanted give something that she could keep. I've known her since my first night at halls at Polytechnic (you can tell how old I am!) She and my friends from college inspired me to be creative. Kate especially with sewing and cooking. I learnt lots from everyone there and it gave me a taste of the world outside my family. Super. Happy 40th Kate, hopefully this is something that she can hang in her home across the ocean and think of her daft friend back here in the UK.

It's my contribution to the Crafty Boots Design team challenge - Bingo, with green, yellow, ribbon and lace set by Denise in homeage to her US roots..perfect for a friend who lives there.  Have a go and see what you can come up with.

I used mount board as a base. I mod podged on a couple of english/german dictionary as a based and then covered the whole lot in antique paper distress stain. I used a watered down acrylic eco green  paint in ocean for a rough brush round the edges and then used watermelon through the Tando random circles mask. The stamp is the bubble gum tree from Unity and the flowers were cut using a Paper Artsy Grunge flower die in an off cut of basic grey paper (not sure which one, sorry) and then swooshed with acrylic paint and sprtized with sunshine yellow perfect pearls. A Tim Holts memo pin with an adage ticket and two hitch fasteners to hang it by fininshed it off. 

Nautical

Inspiration was lacking for this challenge tag.. Nautical, ships, anchors, pirates etc.. I raided my stash to find something suitable. I did find brass and silver buttons with ships and anchors but could get there on that. I remembered a lovely stamp I bought a pier and dug it out only to find I had 2! The one I used in the end is from a Crative Expressions set.

 Sorry I couldn't get the pictures to turn round!! The background is Tumbled glass distress stain, blue acrylic paint dots through a stencil and Vintage photo gently distressed round the edge. I then stamped the pier, a mistake really as when embossing it stuck to the distressed edge (I forgot to heat it to set it) the result was a little heavy and messy but I actually quiet like it. The buttones were found in my stash and the flousih is a sissix one. The phrase Time and Tide comes from Paperartsy clocks stamp set. I have two of these and find I use the particular sets alot! I did add a little rock candy sparkles to the flourish and finished off with some wide Stampin up ribbon, a piece of silk off cut and tied it all round with a little blue ribbon. Red, white and blue!

I've entered this in the Nautical challenge for Crafty Boots and Fashionable Stamping Challenge.

A special young man..

I don't often do children's cards or tags except for my own children but it was my Godson's birthday and I knew I had a stamp that would fit the bill completely.

 I cut a plain white card tag using Tim Holtz  trusty Tag and bookplates large die and stamped Guitar player, Lily of the Valley collection INCA stamp. I then used the Star free gift stamp from October's Craft stamper and a number nine from my super alphabet set by Papermania. All the stamping was done in black and then embossed using just plain black embossing powder. I love balck embossing for a clear image. I used my ranger pens to colour the stamp in (something else I rarely do!). I wanted a bit of glitter for my little star and used Broken China sticles on the guitar and crystal stickles on the stars.

A little distressing round the edge with vintage photo distressing ink and a red ribbon and hey presto! Simple but I liked the effect. It looked lovely on the brown paper parcel and with something funky Costco ribbon. Hope he likes it!

I'm going to enter this in the Fashionable Stamping Challenge #16 - Make it for  a child. Not as fancy or beutiful as most there but a bit of fun!