More Wonderful Email Entries

Hi everyone,

I have new email entries to share with you today.....

From Dawn R.

Thanks for setting such an interesting challenge this month - I wanted to recreate a classic fairytale scene but didn't have the appropriate stamps to depict Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel or Snow White!  Mum and I share a lovely stamp from Lavinia Stamps which always reminds me of the pumpkin carriage in Cinderella, but Mum beat me to it and she used this one for her entry, so  I had to think again.  I tried to remember all my favourite fairytales from my childhood - particularly those Tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen - but I couldn't think of anything that I could stamp.  A little more research was required!  I googled "fairy tales" and enjoyed reading a number of tales - and then I found The Gingerbread Man.  This might be possible!  I knew I had a small Gingerbread Man stamp in a Christmas set, and a Nursery Rhyme set from IndigoBlu which could provide the old woman who chases him.  I would have liked to have been able to add more characters to my scene, but I don't have any other stamps that would fit, so you must imagine that all the other characters that the Gingerbread Man meets on his travels are just around the corner!

Beautiful!!!

Have a great day!
NancyD

Email Entries for Craft a Scene Garden Challenge

I've got a couple more email entries to share with you all today.

BarbG has posted with us in the past and she does amazing layered work.

DawnR posts regularly on our challenge and she wrote:

I've enjoyed mixing a selection of stamps to make my garden scene for this month's Craft A Scene challenge - I've called this entry "Over the Garden Fence".  I'd made the front of the card some time ago, using an Art
Impressions Front'n'Back stamp, together with their fence and cobbles*, but I wasn't sure what to put inside the card.  It needed to be something that could be seen over the fence, whilst also perhaps having something hidden to be revealed when the card was opened.  Then, when this month's challenge was announced, I looked through my stamps and came across the Winnie the Pooh set that I'd bought from a charity shop, which included this stamp of Pooh tenderly planting a flower, which I thought would be a great subject for the little girl to be looking at over the fence.  I added to the scene with plantpots from Lindsay Mason (Personal Impressions) and flowers from Clarity Stamp.  I made the mistake of stamping my sentiment (from Inkylicious) before I added the Clarity cherry blossom, so one of the branches is overhanging the words a little too far, but I hope it's still legible.

To begin with, I left my scene like that, but it needed something to the left of the plantpots - and then, this weekend, I bought a Papercraft Inspirations magazine that had a set of freebie stamps - including this
second little girl, who was ideal to go into that empty space.  I had to stamp her onto a separate piece of paper and cut her out to stick over the original scene, so that she could stand in front of the flower-pots.





(*  PS: I absolutely love that cobbles stamp from Art Impressions - and it was through the Craft a Scene challenges that I discovered it!  I saw it used by one of your Design Team, Brenda, way back in July 2012, and I just had to have it!)






Well, that's all for today.  Happy stamping!
NancyD

Hills and Mountains eMail Entries

I have two email entries to share with you for the Hills and Mountains challenge.  The first is from Jan P. You can find her on Split Coast Stampers under the name Janelli.

Our second entry is from Margaret in Yorkshire and she writes, "I created my card using a brayer and various Adirondack inks for the sky and foreground, adding a moon mask,  Then I used torn paper and the same inks to create the mountains and hills.  With Versafine onyx black I stamped the trees and small figures, and finished with eggplant ink and some Cut n Dry to sponge around the edges.  Dawn and I don’t have any Scene-scape stamps so we have to create all our scenes from scratch.  Hope you like the card."

****Updated*****

I just received two new cards from Dawn.

Stamped with HobbyArt stamps and coloured with watercolour pencils (except the window frame, which is Clarity coloured with promarkers).  The sheep have been given their fleeces courtesy of "fluffy stuff"!

Yes, we love both of these great entries!  Thank you ladies.

NancyD

Let it Be Spring - Week 4

Another week has past and we are still looking for your wonderful Spring scenic creations. You may click here to go directly to mr. linky.

Penny Nichols emailed me her wonderful scene to be included in the challenge.

I would like to announce that Claire from Clair's Crafty Creations has joined our design team.  Claire was a recent guest designer and when we asked if she would like to continue on a regular basis she said yes!

I'm Claire from a quiet corner of north east England where I live with my son, two dogs and a very cheeky parrot. I work full time for a mental health charity and stamping is my escape from the stresses of work. I've been stamping for about 8 years and if I'm not at work or out with my dogs you will usually find me in my craft room. I don't have a particular style of craft, I love everything from cute to vintage.

I'm so excited to be a designer for Craft a Scene, its always one of my favourite challenges as I love to start with a blank sheet of card and create a scene using ink and stamps. Claire's blog is Crlair's Craty Creations.

Here is what our wonderful design team has made for your inspiration this week.

Claire - Claire's Crafty Creations

Pia - Pippins Stampscapes

Now that you have scene what we mean by a Spring Scene, lets see what you make for our challenge. You may enter up to 3 times and as many other challenges as you wish. If you do not have a blog or account on Split Coast Stampers, then just email me a picture of the piece and I will add it to one of our posts.  

If you are not sure what constitutes a scenic project, check out the information here.

Don't forget to add GDT to your link if you wish to be considered for a guest spot.

Have fun creating!

NancyD

Trees Email Entry

Hi everyone!

I have an email entry from our friend Dawn in the UK.  She writes:

The tree stamp, from Personal Impressions, Winter Birds-Tall Trees, just asked to be made into a card for the November challenge, so I just had to buy it.  I paired it up with two of Clarity Reindeer stamps, which I stamped onto the card first.  I covered the deer with masks and then stamped the trees three times.  After colouring the deer using Promarkers I used Adirondack inks and torn paper with a sponge to create the sky and the snowy foreground and then added a little sparkle to the trees using a Clear Star Gelly Roll pen, before layering onto a piece of card which I had embossed around the edges using Versamark and Heat it Up embossing powder in blue.

Hope you like it.

And here is her lovely card!

I will be back on Sunday with winners of the trees challenge and our theme for December.

NancyD

Fowl Weather Challenge - Week 3

This month our theme is "Fowl Weather". This means you should create a scene that shows a bit of stormy weather (any kind from light rain to full-on tornado) and just to make it more fun please include birds in your scene - hence the name "Fowl Weather".

We have email entries from our two friends from England......

Margaret

Margaret from Yorkshire England here with my entry for the October Challenge.   For this card I sponged on Adirondack ink in various shades of blue and created a hint of the moon by painting with water and dabbing with a paper towel, removing some of the colour.  The stamps I used were from Lindsay Mason, apart from the robin and small trees, which were Clarity stamps. I used cut and dry and eggplant to edge the picture and the snow was created with a white Pen-touch pen.  Hope you like it.

Dawn

Here are the design team inspirational cards.....

Anna-Karin - Layers of Ink

Sue - Sue's Crafty Corner

They are all so beautiful it makes me want to get into my craft room and have more fun!  We are looking forward to seeing your wonderful creations.

Have fun creating!

NancyD

Under the Sea - Email Entry

Hi everyone,

I have last minute email entries from our wonderful email friends!

Maureen has sent us two great cards using stickers and a variety of images:

"Here are two cards by Maureen.  She used an ivy stamp by Art Impression and Sand/Snow by Stampendous.  She drew in the rock.  Maureen stamped her design on blue distressed scrapbook paper.  She stamped the fish by Beeswax onto white paper and cut them out.  All other images on both cards are stickers."

Dawn Rogers

"Another last-minute entry from Huddersfield!  When I first saw this month's challenge, I thought I couldn't take part as I didn't think I had any appropriate stamps.  But then I was looking through our collection and came across a set of Fiskars animal stamps which we've hardly used - and, lo and behold! it included several fish stamps and a set of crabs!  So I decided to make a scene with a shoal of fish, using just one stamp repeatedly, masking to add depth.  I wanted to have one fish swimming against the tide - I was thinking it should be an encouragement of individuality, saying "don't just follow the crowd, be your own person, chart your own course ..." and, after much searching, I found this Henry David Thoreau quote which I thought suited - "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined"

So,  having stamped my shoal of fish, how to get one swimming in the opposite direction?  Well, I took some blue-tinted acetate and stamped on there, colouring the fish using Liquid Pearls.  Once dry, I was able to reverse the image by placing the stamped side of the acetate down against the paper on which I'd stamped and coloured all the other fish.    I don't have any seaweed stamps, so I used the "willow twigs" from Inkylicious - mostly, these are stamped on the reverse side of the acetate but, as I was putting the whole card together, I realised that there was a big empty space at the left-hand side, so I stamped some more "seaweed" onto the paper, because I'd already attached the acetate with brads and it was too difficult to get the stamp in position on the reverse of the acetate!"

Gundi

"My first card uses a sea horse by Beeswax. I stamped it once, then used transparency paper to create the mirror image.  The ocean floor is Sand/Snow by Stampendous.  I wanted to see how many plants I could transform into sea weeds...  The coral reef is part of a large branch by Beeswax, the purple, hairy sea anemones in the right hand corner are  the roots and bulbs of daffodills!   All other sea weeds are leaves, grasses and flowers by Art Impressions. The second card is torn paper and stickers - no stamps at all."

Wow! Three great cards from folks who do not have a blogs!

I will be back on Sunday with a winner and the top 3 picks.

NancyD

Forest Animals Email Entries

I have a number of email entries for you today.

Our friends Margaret and her daughter Dawn from the UK sent me their challenge entries via email.....

Great challenge for June, so both Dawn and I have been inspired to create a card.  We share all our stamps, so you’ll see that we’ve both used Lavinia’s “horse & foal” silhouette stamp, but our cards are quite different.  Dawn brayered her background using a Big & Juicy inkpad, and her forest is an Inkylicious stamp  (“The Coppice”).  Then she made a frame by  stamping Lavinia’s “Tree Root”, “Maple Leaf” and “climbing ivy” in versamark and dusting with perfect pearls in various autumn shades, and cutting to produce the border.

For my horse & foal card, I used Lavinia’s “Spring Trees” to form the forest and I sponged the background, as I don’t seem to get good results with the brayer just lately.  The foreground grasses are Clarity stamps.  The embellishment is some dried grasses that I collected and pressed myself.

To tie in with your theme, we decided to title our cards “new forest ponies” – the New Forest Pony is a breed of pony native to the UK and the New Forest is in Hampshire (southern England).  We’re not really sure whether Lavinia’s stamp is really meant to be a New Forest Pony but we’ve decided to apply some artistic licence!

My second card (Lonely Stag) uses Clarity’s “Split Tree” and “Small Stag, standing” together with foliage.

Hope you like our entries and we’re looking forward to the next challenge.

Kind regards

Margaret (and daughter Dawn) from Huddersfield, Yorkshire UK


Our Friends Gundi and Maureen from Texas sent these beauties....

Two more entries!   My friend Maureen's deer is obviously not proudly standing in the Texas woods!   Although maybe the Piney Woods of East TX???   No, we decided it must have been seen on a trip to cooler parts of the country!  She used stamps from Stampin' Up, and Prisma Color pencils.

Near Weatherford, "forest" is synonymous to "impenetrable green wall"!   Oaks and other deciduous trees, overgrown with vines...  Poison Ivy, tarantulas and copper heads, along with mosquitoes, will certainly keep people away...  We are in the third year of a drought, and on short road trip last week I "studied" the woods along the interstate - as well as one can observe while flying by at 65 miles per hour!  And I saw that the lack of rain has thinned the "wall", and in places, it was like looking into dimly lit rooms just beyond the edge of the forest...  A perfect place for a fawn to patiently wait...  The oak tree, oval frame, bell flowers, and bird are from Art Impressions, the fawn is from Embossing Arts, the weeds in the foreground are from Endless Creations, and the leaves in the "non-oak!" tree are from Rubberstamp Tapestry.  I used sponging for the background, and markers for the fawn and tree.

Thank you ladies for all your beautiful work.  These ladies do not have a blogs so you may leave your comments here for them to enjoy.

See you on Sunday with our winners and top three.
NancyD

Last Minute eMail Entry

Hi Everyone,

It is Friday afternoon just before our Down on the Farm challenge closes and I just received an email entry from our friend Dawn Rogers.

Dawn wrote:

I took inspiration from a Michelle Zindorf tutorial for this (Rooster Crows – Tutorial #563) and adapted it to the materials I had.  The rooster stamp is from Clarity; the grasses are Lavinia and Art Impressions; and the fence is from Lindsay Mason (this wasn't a silhouette stamp, so I had to colour it in to make it fit the scene).

For my second entry, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", I had stamped and water-coloured the three images, using Hobbyart stamps, at the beginning of the month, but couldn't decide how to mount them.  I've ended up rushing this tonight, so it's a bit rough & ready, but I wanted to share the stamped images with you so I hope you'll overlook the faults in the layout and embellishments 

I always enjoy having a go at your Challenges, and also browsing through the many entries and design team offerings, and I generally find some inspiration or useful tips.

Thanks Dawn!

I will be back on Sunday with our winners and next challenge theme.

NancyD

Let Your Light Shine - email entry

Hi Everyone!

I received this lovely email entry from Dawn (daughter of Margaret from Yorkshire).  I should have posted this yesterday before the challenge ended, but there was just too much to do.

She wrote:
A late entry for the February Craft A Scene challenge - who knew there were so many lighthouse stamps available!   Mum (that's Margaret from Yorkshire to you) and I have two - she's already submitted a scene using the Lindsay Mason Cliff Top Scene stamps, so I thought I'd use the other lighthouse that we have in our shared collection.  This is a small individual clear stamp, which we picked up at the Happy Stampers North West show in Port Sunlight a couple of years ago - I'm afraid I can't recall the specific retailer/producer.  The yachts are a HobbyArt stamp called "yacht race"; the seagulls, sentiment, rowing boat and lifebuoy are from the Butterfly Kisses "Far Away" set, and the pebbles on the sand are an Art Impressions stamp ("teeny tiny flowers"?)

I water-coloured the images, then framed the scene with some braided ribbon - a new technique for me, but one is very clearly explained by Christina of Card-Making-Magic http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kR63I-vyls0

Once again, I've enjoyed gaining inspiration from the challenge and all the scenes which have been submitted by the design team and other challenge-participants - it's good to have a theme to work to, and a deadline!

Looking forward to the next challenge.

That's all for today.  In the morning we will have the winners from the February Let Your Light Shine challenge and the theme for March.

Have a great day!

NancyD

Winter Scene - Email Entries

Today I have some amazing email entries from a mother and daughter team in Yorkshire.  Margaret and Dawn have entered in the past with email entries.

Dawn's cards: 

"Winter Wishes" uses stamps designed by Lindsay Mason (Sally of Crafty Salutations used the same set for one of her design team cards).

"Santa Claus is coming to town" uses Clarity stamps.

Sorry, I don't know the make of the stamps I used on "Snowman and Santa" - but the snowman is created by washing away some of the ink and drawing in his hat, buttons, scarf, face etc - this is a technique demonstrated by Lindsay Mason.  I haven't quite mastered it yet (there should be trees too, but they're very indistinct which is why I've stamped a tree in the foreground!)

Margaret's cards:

“ A Chilly Day” used deers from Hobby Arts  and I think the trees-cape  was a Clarity stamp.

“Through the Window” was created using all Clarity stamps, the window having been stamped, I had to cut all the window panes out before colouring with promarkers, before mounting it over the background with dimensions.

“Winter Scene “used mainly Lindsay Mason stamps with the Fir tree from Clarity.

Thanks ladies!  Later I will announce the winners and next Sunday we will start the 1st challenge of 2013.

See you then,

NancyD

Troubled Skies - email entries

Hi everyone!

I have a mid-week post to show you a couple of email entries for the Troubled Skies challenge.  These come from our friend Margaret in Yorkshire, who often joins our challenges but doesn't have a blog where she can attach her entries.

For Gale Force Wind, I used Clarity’s “Split Tree” stamp and a leaf stamp from Cart-Us.

I created the Lighthouse card using Adirondack ink pads in various colours with sponges.  The ships are Clarity’s “Galleon” stamp and the lighthouse is from Stamps Away.  As there was no land to stand it on, I used a wishing well stamp from Joanna Sheen’s Messy Rabbit Thatched Cottage Extra Bits set, inking up only the “roof” section to create a harbour wall.  I added the details of the foaming surf using a white gel pen.

These are super cards Margaret!  Since she doesn't have a blog you can leave her some love on this post.

If you don't have a blog, but would like to enter our challenges just email me your pictures and I will post them for you just as I have done for Margaret.

Have a great day!

NancyD

Trees Challenge eMail Entries

One of our regular challenge players is Margaret from Huddersfield in Yorkshire England.  She sent me two cards for our Trees challenge.

I stamped the images for the Lady in the Park on to white card using Adirondack Pitch Black.  The Trees , Lamp Post and Lady are from Clarity Stamps, and the Fence is from Tanda stamps.

I coloured the background using Grey, Black and a touch of Purple crayons.  The lady was created using archival ink on the stamp and a sandwich of Fantasy Film and Angelina Fibres placed over the stamp and fused together using a craft iron (This is a Clarity Stamp technique, not sure if it would work with any make of stamp)  This gives a multi coloured shimmer effect, which may not show up very well on the printed image, but is very effective on the card.  The lady was then cut out and attached to the card with three dimensional foam pads.  I used  3D Clear Gloss Finish on the window of the Lamp to give the effect of glass.

The second card was created using mainly Hobby Art stamps along with the Split Tree from Clarity, which comes in two halves and can be used separately, as in the side trees or melded together to make a larger tree as the one in the centre of the card.  I used water colour paints to complete the scene.

There are still a few days left to enter your cards in the challenge.  Your projects must have at least three trees on it.  

You may enter up to 3 times and as many challenges as you wish.  If you do not have a blog or account on Split Coast Stampers, then just email me a picture like Margaret did and I will add it to one of our posts.  

Don't forget to add GDT to your link if you wish to be considered for a guest spot.  Click here to enter the challenge.

Have fun creating!
NancyD

Last day to enter Beach challenge!

Today is the last day to enter the Beach - "a bit of sand and water" challenge.  I have another email entry and this time it is from Margaret. 


Margaret wrote, 

"Margaret from Yorkshire here again with another card, This time for the Beach Scene challenge.  The stamps I used for this one were from Butterfly Kisses.  I used Versafine black to stamp the images and then water coloured using Distress inks.  Hope you like the card. "

Thanks Margaret!


I decided to make another card for the challenge as well.  This time I used a new background image from Digital Delights that has a built-in beach scene.  I added a couple of Wendy's characters to finish it off.

I hope you enjoy these last two creations before the challenge closes later this afternoon.  I'll be back on Saturday with the winners for this month!


Have a great day!
NancyD

Email Entries

Hi everyone!  I have two wonderful entries here from Jan Pagnanelli.  She doesn't have a blog at this time so she sent me her card images via email.  

This is a great time for me to mention that you do not have to have a blog to play in our challenges and sending me the cards via email is perfectly fine. You may also load your pictures to a gallery like Split Coast Stampers and then link from your gallery.


There is one more week to go in our Winter challenge and I will be back tomorrow with our final Winter inspiration.


Have a great day!
NancyD