A new Challenge!! My friend Lisa from The Craft's Meow has started up a challenge and the first one is good for me since I'm on a "clean-up" (not that you'd know from the amount of stuff still on my desk!!). You have to use something that's been lying about, waiting for your inspiration..... so I decided to try and find a use for the orange things I like but can never quite manage.
The DP is Bali Breeze from SU, and the terracotta scrap and orange ribbon are both from my "what-will-I-do-with-this?" folder, all on cream CS 4.5" square. The lovely flower is a SU Fifth Avenue Floral with some colouring and gold gel pen to pick up the stamens. The embossed sentiment is a bargain-box find, and the graduated pearls are from Creative Charms.
Hope the Poobahs forgive me this non-glue entry... I never make Christmas cards because I often don't send them til the last minute, and unless they're ready to go, well, I'd never send any at all. So when I read the Christmas theme of this challenge I almos
t (ALMOST, but not quite) gave up before I started...... but since the philosophy of the Opus Gluei is such a creative and forgiving one I thought some beading was in order.
I found some nice solid trees at my favourite bead stall in the market, and put them with silver baubles and some big pieces of something mysterious and red. Some kind of nut maybe, there are veins and odd cracks here and there.... Think this might be something I put on AFTER I've cooked the dinner on Christmas Day in case it gets caught in the oven door!!
Suddenly remembered that I'd borrowed a beautiful stamp from Debbie a couple of weeks ago, so had to make a couple of cards just to show I could. The lovely red tree is her SU stamp and the scribble tree is one of mine from Fern Gully. Lots of embossing because its the season for tinsel and sparkle. Merry Christmas!!
Had to make something special for my friend whose birthday is next week....not you Ali, or Debbie. I couldn't possibly post anything here for you so early!! You two had better hope I have some time this week so you do actually get cards, not just pieces of folded CS with a quick note scribbled inside!! Anyway, back to my OTHER friend.... she's got lots to celebrate this week, the end of her chemo for one thing, and her birthday for another. There's still a way to go before her cancer treatment is over but I wanted to make her something bright and sparkly, just like the glasses of bubbly we'll be sharing.
I had fun with the versamark and embossing powders and glitter, and used a variety of bits from the busy room. The gold paper is a hangover from my early card making days when I relied more heavily on the texture of papers and less on stamps and embellishments. Couldn't resist using it here, and its nearly the last piece. I had fun with the sentiment stamp which had some outlined letters so I played with my new versamark pen too.
Just how far out of one's comfort zone can a person step with one card? A l-o-n-g way!! Bo
y did I struggle with this, and it probably looks like it. STOP, enough waffle... to the point. The challenge from Stamp Something was to use pink, green and yellow in any shade....
This is a 6" card with addition of olive CS and a slip of Kaiser party twirl DP. I was able to match the colours with scraps for the circles, and also a piece of ribbon from the busy room boxes. I added some extra texture to the linen CS with versamark using a leaf frond acrylic stamp that I picked up in Lincraft, and 
embossed the sentiment using iridescent powder.
I dont think it looks too childish, maybe just a cheery little card for a blue day?
So fancy that, another black and white challenge!! The movie this week is To Kill A Mockingbird which was a great movie staring the wonderful Gregory Peck. I hunted in my bookshelves and came up with the copy I read in school, my name and 1968 inscribed on the flyleaf.
I really wanted to highlight a theme from the story as well as indulge my delight in black and white, and the result is perhaps darker than I expected, but I like it. The bird and sentiment are SU images I borrowed from Debbie during our stamping day yesterday. I ran one panel of black CS through the cuttlebug, then re-mount
ed it on another panel of white. The flower is a double bloom I made from Kaiser pieces, and the pearl centre is a collection from the busy-room boxes. It picks up the floral detail on the bird which has been embossed to make it glossy. The black petals looked very dull so I drew in details with a white gel pen. The slender gingham ribbon is part of a gift from the GPs at Opus Gluei.
I chose the sentiment because I think it reflects something of Harper Lee's positive message about having the confidence to do what you believe is right, even in the face of opposition.
...and a belated Opus Gluei Challenge 14 Patriotic
Since I'm not even remotely American, and my only US-related relative is my Dad's cousin (and her US husband died years ago........) this wasn't really a challenge that jumped up and grabbed me. But, then I spent the day with my friends Debbie and Ali, stamping and browsing the SU catalogue and eating and laughing, and suddenly inspiration struck!! Might have something to do with being able to use Debbie's red and blue stamp pads too, or was it the beautiful soup she made for lunch?
The stars and sentiment are from SU In The Stars, and heaven only knows which inks I used (Debbie will know!!). Cant always get my head around coloured CS, so its all on a white C6 card from a pack on my shelves. I played around with navy blue CS to make the stripes, and punched out all the stars which saved me endless snipping with the decoupage scissors. I showed it to my son to see what he'd make of it, and his reaction was "Why have you made a card for the USA?" so I guess it looks right to him at least.
1. When I heard that ridiculous air-horn I knew my son was finally home.2. Chocolate and a good book is my very best medicine.3. It's late, but who cares, I'm still eating Easter eggs.4. Winter always.5. My eyes have seen too many new books and I'm leaving this book shop now before my credit card melts.6. Stilton smells strongly. 7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to catching up with my friend Ann, tomorrow my plans include having lunch with my parents and Sunday, I want to plant the things I bought from the nursery!
A new Challenge!! My friend Lisa from The Craft's Meow has started up a challenge and the first one is good for me since I'm on a "clean-up" (not that you'd know from the amount of stuff still on my desk!!). You have to use something that's been lying about, waiting for your inspiration..... so I decided to try and find a use for the orange things I like but can never quite manage. 
