Darnell and CASology combined challenge :)

The only way to really say congratulations to Darnell on being the cue card for CASology  is to join in the challenge  and share with those of you who have not yet visited her place.  I myself had not heard of CASology until Darnell's post and am chuffed to have found them.

Darnell is the mother of NBUS, never before used schtuff, her posts are not only packed with awesome art but are humorous and touching.  CASology add design comments to their design team projects.  I found these incredibly helpful as a newbie to crafting and their design team is uber talented.

Anyhoo here is the card I made to celebrate and share with them and also to say thank you to Darnell for opening up a lot of new blogs to me and for making me laugh :)

The stamp is by Papermania and their urban stamps collection,  I have had it in my stash for ages, its beautiful and was a lovely Ebay win but then I just didn't know what to do with it other than gaze at its prettiness!!!

I stamped it with versamark and used mica powders in violet frost and enchanted gold,  I haven't used this technique other than to play before and I love the way the image changes as the light catches it.

The "celebrate" sentiment is by paper smooches and the "True colours" is by Sheena Douglas, it came with a set of totally gorgeous butterflies.  I stamped them using a metallic purple stamp that I cannot remember seeing before!!!  It must of been sent by the crafty angels as I think it was perfect to go with the mica powders.

As I said I made this to share with Darnell and her NBUS challenge
and CASology and their NBUS challenge.

Thanks for looking now treat yourself by popping off to their blogs for a real treat

Tracey :)

Retro Sketch - with a magazine freebie retro stamp

I saw this fab sketch challenge over at Retro Sketches and was inspired to create this using some freebie dies I got from Creative Stamping Magazine.  I love the retro look to them and they stamp really really well, I was skeptical before I tried them lol

I created the background with bubble wrap,distress inks and shimmery water.

In the picture above I hope you can see the shimmer from, the perfect pearls that I added to the water I used with the distress inks, top tip I picked up from Jennifer McGuire, It is subtle.... until the light catches it!!

Now I was over visiting Darnell,the inventor of NBUS, don't know what im talking about?  lucky you you have a lovely discovery ahead of you, get over there... Now!!  Anyhoo, I love popping over to Darnell's not just because her craft is awesome but because she introduces and shares lots of other crafty bloggers work.  I saw a link to Pixie' Crafty Workshop and an intriguing challenge called pixies snippets,  I love the idea and was inspired to add some "snippets" of bakers twine and also punched some hearts out of the card I had left over from the background i made.

The stamps give really good impressions, I used versafine in black.

Thanks to their inspiration I'm sharing this with Retro Sketches challenge, thanks for the cool sketch you guys

Pixies Snippets, I will so be visiting Pixies place again.

And finally with Creative Stamping magazine thanks to their freebie stamps

Take Care

Tracey