By Royal Appointment

Once again I was in the mood for getting my hands all covered in ink this morning; I suppose I need to make the most of it while its half term and I don't have work to go to!

I managed another three-for-one, well I suppose technically its a three-for-three lol; I haven't made an ATC for so long that I just couldn't stop at one!!

So this little set of three Royal ATCs are entered into:

Simon Says Stamp and Show 'stripes'

Sunday Stampers 'numbers'

and The Crafty Pad 'red, pink and black'

 The ATC bases and the inchies on the first one were cut from an old cereal box. All were created with plenty of stamping, masking and inking (coloured with Victorian Velvet, Worn Lipstick and Barn Door Distress Inks). A couple of bits cut from some old playing cards, crowns stamped and cut from white card and some'coins' punched from silver mirri coloured with black ink.
You can't see it but the crowns on the inchies and the ones from white cardstock are highlighted with a Sakura glaze pen.

Incidently, all 3 ATCs are available if anyone wishes to do a trade, either the whole set or individually. Just leave me a comment here and/or click the link at the top of my blog to email me.

Charli x

PS. The stamped stripes were done with another background stamp I made myself with some strips of craft foam and a lid from a small cigar tin. Here is a little pic of it and the harlequin design I made a while back and used on my tag here.

Charmed, Enchanted, Bewitched

After going for a couple of drinks at our local for a friend's birthday, I came home to find that a handful of their uniquely shaped beermats had ended up in my pocket! A very odd occurance but hey, now they're here I may as well alter them.

So here is my project for the Darkness Inspiration challenge- Bewitched.

First I spent the better part of an hour trying to get the top layer off of the darned beermat (the others I have peel off easily; not so with this one - in fact there is still a little bit left under where the image is!)

I coloured the background Forest Moss DI (see! a new colour at last!) and then edged it in Faded Jeans. Then I took another torn out book page, coloured it with Weathered Wood (my other new DI) and stuck it down, trimming around the beermat and edging again with Faded Jeans.

Next I stamped out the Tim Holtz ticket block stamp, this time leaving it in tact rather than cutting them apart, to use as another background - tinting it with Weathered Wood (my new fave!) and then using a cottonbud to add Forest Moss around the edges of the tickets; again sticking it down then trimming it down.

The image is one of the gorgeous ching-chou kuik images, made by Sweet Pea stamps and bought from Crafts and Me. I coloured her with watercolour pencils then painstakingly cut out a mask from sticky notes and coloured the background with Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans and Forest Moss.

I used my brass stencils to do the wording with my brown Indian ink marker, using the same ink colours; added an eyelet and a strip of lace(ish) ribbon, some silver gems and finally a bit of silver glitter.

This piece is also being entered into the following challenges:
Crafts and Me - sparkle (the gems and glitter)
Crafty Pad - ribbon (the strip bowed at the top)
Fab'n'Funky - no designer paper
Crafty Creations - make your own backing paper (I did mine with a stamp, book page and planty of Distress Ink!)
and finally, Lexi's Creations - animals (her two adorable kittens)

Take care and happy crafting

Charli xx

St George the Dragon

This is my entry (cutting it fine I know, but I have no idea where the days are going) for the Tuesday Taggers theme of Dragons - in honour of St George's Day.

I had planned to get this project finished and posted by then, but as St George's Day is also my daughter's birthday I just didn't have the time.

Anyway, whilst searching the net for a cute little dragon to use (no idea why, but I wanted a cute cartoony dragon) I found this little guy by Dustin Pike and thought it would be somewhat ironic to colour his shield and standard with the St George's cross and make the dragon INTO St George.


This card is also my entry into Lexi's Creations Recipe challenge (3 papers, 2 embellishments and 1 image).


My embellishments are actually a ringpull from a drinks can (on the paper strip) and the shield, which were cut from the same can and embossed by hand; and these should qualify for this weeks challenge over at the Crafty Pad; to recycle something.