Make your Mark

Hello there,

I have my DT project for the new challenge over at Cardz 4 Guyz for you this morning. My team mate Julie chose the theme this week of

'MAKE YOUR MARK'

Now I wasn't sure how to interpret this, but as she explains - anything that you have made a mark with! Simples. So, no preprinted images or CD images, just making a mark with your inks, stencils, stitching, embossing- get the idea. So off I went, and here's my finished effort ...

I started with a piece of white cardstock and stamped the Creative Expressions old vintage car with Sepia ink. Then stamped again on a sticky note and cut it out to make a mask. Once I covered the original image, I could get started with my stencil and inks.

The stencil is from Clarity Stamps and I used my ink dusters to brush Crushed Olive, Broken China and Gathered Twigs distress ink through the stencil. I also added some of my favourite Stampin' Up splatters using the same three colour inks - definitely made a mark there then! Lol.

I stamped the car image again onto a piece of scrap card and just cut out a small segment using a circle die. This is coloured with my Promarkers and mounted onto an olive green circle, and then positioned over the original image (just to highlight a small section of it).

I made a little banner to stamp the sentiment on and embellished with three little punched banner pieces cut from scraps of card that had been inked with the same three colours, and three co-ordinating brads to finish off.

I hope you can come and join us with your own male-themed projects this week.

Hugz, Jan xx 

Steampunk Tag

Hi there crafty friends and followers,

I'm back today with news of our next challenge over at Cardz 4 Guyz and this week it's my turn to choose the theme. I decided on one of my favourites for male themed cards

'STEAMPUNK'

So, interpret as you wish - there are hundreds of possibilities for this one. Here's what I came up with for my DT inspiration ...

I decided on a tag, rather than a card - gives me a little more freedom. Believe it or not, this started out as a basic white tag! Then I gave it everything I had! 

First I inked the background using three different distress inks - Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold and Fired Brick. Then I added some Walnut Stain around the edges for definition - no project seems complete without some Walnut Stain!

Next I inked up part of one of my stencils with Versamark and positioned it over one side of the tag, before passing it through my Calibur. I added some copper embossing powder to highlight. Then I used my Clarity brick stencil and covered a portion of it with Walnut Stain ink, positioned it on the other side of the tag and passed that through the Calibur again (transferring the ink onto my tag). Finally I put the whole tag through an embossing folder and highlighted the results with a little blue gilding wax.

I stamped out several elements to use on the tag and coloured them with the same ink - those three fellows have been stuck to my noticeboard forever (can't even remember where they came from), but they seemed to fit today. A few stamped cogs, some black ink splats and some brass embellishments to finish off and voila!

I can't wait to see your Steampunk projects - I shall look forward to visiting your blogs this week.

Hugz, Jan xx