New Stamps - on Sale!

Have you seen the February sale over at Rubber Dance? I'm really happy with the two new sheets of stamps and they're a hoot to play with!

Below are two tags I've made with the new stamps.

Tag 1: Stamps from Carved Whimsy Wood.
I stamped the three leaves with black Versafine ink (which is waterproof) and gave them a coat of Glossy Accents. Once that was completely dry, I made the background by using make-up daubers and brown and green Distress Oxides, and a light spray of water. While the ink was still wet, I wiped it off the leaves - it comes right off the Glossy Accent. This way you can see the colour of the tag through the veins of the leaves:

 

Tag 2: Stamps from Four Seasons.

I made the background first, using a light green ink through a leaf stencil from That's Crafty. After stamping the images with black Versafine ink, I coloured them in using Zig clean colour markers:

The stamps used are from the new sets - both on sale all of February!

 You can get either sheet at 15 % off in the Rubber Dance web shop.

OR

order both the new sets and save even more!

 

You can find the stamps right here.

 

Thanks for looking!

Wooden House for Rubber Dance Challenge

Our house, in the middle of our street ...

Hey, good people! Are you ready for a new challenge? We have one over at the Rubber Dance blog today and you have all of February to come up with a gorgeous creation! I know you can ;-)

Here's what I made, using the challenge colours as well as theme (hearts). You can use our colours OR theme, or a combo of both.

My sweetheart made me some wooden houses for Christmas (you can see another house here). They are really easy to make (you have a saw, right?), or ask the person at your local wood shop (or whatever it's called) to cut them up for you. Wooden houses are quite popular now, so maybe you can find some cheap ones in a local shop and just sand them off if they're painted.

Anyway - here's another view of my little house. I painted, sanded, painted again and sanded some more till I was happy with the weathered look. All sides and the roof were stamped with stars and music notes, both from Rubber Dance. After stamping, I added the hearts using a That's Crafty dinky stencil.

  I twined the wire around a thin paint brush to make the curls.

The cute hearts below are whiteboards that a friend of mine makes;  you'll find them in her shop here: Deb's ArtZone.  

I gave the hearts a coat of white gesso before adding colour by pressing the hearts into ink pads in blue and green Distress Oxide. When the ink was dry, I added Glossy Accents, left to dry overnight, then finally added gold paint around the edges. The hearts are attached to the wire with clear glue dots on the back. If I had a much thinner wire, I'd just wrap it around the hearts instead.

The "i love us" text is from Tim Holtz' Small Talk stickers.

I was going to give this house to my sweetheart on Valentine's day,  but I couldn't wait that long so now I'll just have to make something else for the 14th ...  My darling and I aren't the most romantic couple on earth, but I try my best - once a year. My idea of a romantic gesture was when he, out of the blue, bought a new dustpan and broom set for the kitchen floor - in MY fave colour!! I thought that was really sweet, so I guess it's safe to say that I'm not hard to please. He does give me flowers for Valentine's, though, so perhaps he has a romantic streak somewhere...or maybe he thinks he has to, it being THE Most Romantic Day of The Year, supposedly. I dunno, but I love flowers, no matter what or why :-)

Whether you're a hopeless romantic or not - come join our challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog.

There will be prizes, fame and glory! ;-)

 

See you there?

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Thanks for looking!

On thin Ice with Shabby Chick!

Hello good people! I have made an attempt on a style I'm not comfortable with, it just sort of happened! I was playing with the new stamps from Rubber Dance, and I thought the ice skates would look nice if I made them vintage... and one thing just lead to another .... 

So, what is this - shabby chick or vintage? Vintage Shabby Chick? No matter what the style is called, it was fun to try something different from what I usually make. You know I love a good challenge! :-)

 

The next card is more my style, wouldn't you say? I printed the text out, but the images are from Whimsical Winter - one of the new stamp sets from Rubber Dance.

Here's another "Bibi style" card. The sentiment and penguin are both from the new stamps at Rubber Dance
(released today!).

I made the background first - sea with Distress Oxides and a spray of water, sky with regular Distress ink. All the images were stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with Zig markers, cut out and placed on top of my background. I cut a line through the "waves" and tucked half of the whale behind the waterline.  The whale and clouds are also stamps from Rubber Dance, 'case you wondered. I drew the shark fin on watercolour paper and coloured it with grey and black Zig markers. It looked better, not so flat, as if cut out of black cardstock.

Below are some tags I cut out of a background I had in my stash. Just having fun with the new sentiments stamps from Rubber Dance :-)

If you want to see more artwork with the new stamps, most made by Donna Gray who designed the new Whimsical Winter stamps for Rubber Dance, check out my post on the Rubber Dance blog.

Thanks for looking!

♥ Wishing you all a lovely and creative week ♥

Is This My Favourite Stamp?

If you had to pick a fave stamp out of your collection, would you know which one right away? Is there one stamp that stands out from all the rest, one that you love more than all the other ones, or one that you end up using over and over again?

I can never answer those "name your fave song/artist/movies/books" kind of question because there are so many faves, not only one. But the challenge at Rubber Dance this fortnight is to use our fave stamp...... Oh, maaan - that's such a tough question!! As with everything else, I have many fave stamps, many that I love and use over and over again. Sounds familiar to anyone?

After sitting here with my thinking cap on (it's purple and very becoming, in case you wondered), I came to realise that there IS one stamp in particular that I have used more than any other stamp I've ever owned! I'll explain why below. Here it is - the Giraffe from Rubber Dance.

I made the Distress Oxides background on a sturdy piece of cardboard, knowing my card would be quite long to fit a giraffe in all the colours of the rainbow - thereby using my fave colour as well: ALL of them! :-) The black stripes were made by dipping a ruler into black acrylic paint that I had  smeared out on my craft sheet. The stars and suns (also stamps from Rubber Dance) were stamped using the black paint as well.

 Bling, bling! I gold embossed the Giraffes and coloured them in using Zig clean colour markers. After gluing them to the background, I drew a black shadow with a marker to make them pop. Notice the heart - the frame looks a bit like giraffe fur pattern, doesn't it?

When this Giraffe stamp was released on a set with other African Animals a couple of years ago, I started using it on all the shipping envelopes. The stamp comes with the text Hello there!, seen on the card below, so all those envelopes had the giraffe peeping out from one of the corners with the greeting next to it, and that's how the giraffe ended up being the stamp I have used more than any other, ever!

This card was published in Rubber Stamp Madness :-) 

I haven't used the giraffe only on envelopes, though! Below are just a few cards I've made with it, 

but if you want to skip that part and jump straight to our challenge - here's the link again.

 

 

 

So...which is YOUR favourite stamp? Make something with it and show us by joining our challenge at Rubber Dance! You have until midnight CET on the 30th of September.

Thanks for looking!