New Stamps - FREE Shipping!

Hello, my crafty friends! ♥

Just a quick note to let you know there are brand new stamps over at Rubber Dance today! FREE shipping during release week! You will find the coupon code you need over at the Rubber Dance blog - where we also share lots of samples we've made using the new stamps. Here's one ....

 See you over at the Rubber Dance blog :-)

Thanks for looking!

Watercolour Birthday Card

Hello friends! I've made a card for CAS-ual Friday over at the Rubber Dance blog.

This gorgeous hydrangea stamp with birthday sentiment (and more) will be released at Rubber Dance on the 2nd of June, so here's just a little nibble ...

I coloured the stamp with watercolour markers, gave it a light mist of water and stamped it on watercolour paper. I filled in just a few petals and both leaves, using markers and a paint brush. For the sentiment, I also used markers on the stamp - but no water for a crisp impression.

This stamp set will be available in the Rubber Dance web shop on the 2nd of June.

Thanks for looking!

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Funny Easter Cards

Happy Easter, everyone! ♥

It's not custom here in Norway to send out Easter cards, but I made three just for fun. It doesn't say Easter on any of the cards, though, so maybe I'll use them as birthday cards instead - especially spring birthdays.

First is this chick - obviously born with a lot of confidence! :-)

 

All the stamps are from Rubber Dance:

Tulips from Crazy Flowers #1, Chick from Textured Spring, sentiment from Adore Me, and Rascal Rooster. I drew the stem of the flower by hand before stamping the sentiment on a separate piece of paper, which I cut out and adhered on top after colouring it.

 

Stamps used, all from Rubber Dance:

Bonny Bunny, Textured Spring (chick), Flower Power, Flying ink bottle (sentiment). I drew the speech bubble by hand and also some hearts to match those on the chicken.

Stamps used, all from Rubber Dance:

Bonny Bunny, Flower Power, Textured Spring (eggs). I made the sentiment using 'Hoppy' from Bonny Bunny and 'Spring' from Four Seasons.

I stamped all three cards using black Versafine ink on watercolour paper and coloured the images in with Zig clean colour markers, sometimes direct to paper and some places combined with a waterbrush.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

 I wish you all a very Happy Easter!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Thanks for looking!

Easy Scenery Cards

Hi there! I love making scenery cards, even if I don't have a lot of stamps made especially for that. I'm all for using what one has available, including a bit of imagination ...

My first card combines stamps from the two sets from Rubber Dance; Carved Whimsy Wood in the back and a tree and leaves from Four Seasons on top, cut out and adhered with foam dots. I stamped the trees first, then drew the ground and grass with a waterproof pen before colouring everything using Zig clean colour markers and a waterbrush. Just goes to show that you don't need more than a few trees to make a scenery card - add a few pen strokes and you're all set! :-)

 The flower in the corner is from Carved Whimsy Wood, with leaves from Four Seasons tucked underneath.

The trees in the back (lighter colours) were stamped, masked and stamped again to make them look as if they are standing behind one another. I used the two leaves stamp to add branches to one of the trees (darker green). The ground and grass are easy to draw in like this - and it doesn't have to be perfect. All we want is the illusion of a ground that adds a bit of depth:

 If you haven't made scenery cards before, just give it a try. 

Start simple..... and before you know it, you've made a heck of a scene!

 Thanks for looking!

If you want to see more samples with the new stamps, 

please visit my post over at the Rubber Dance blog. 

 The stamps used are from the new sets - on sale just till the end of February.

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

OR both and save even more!

 

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!

Vinterbilde med Votter (Norwegian challenge)

The text below is not gibberish - it's my mother tongue! 😜 Since I made this for a challenge in Norway, this post is in Norwegian. You can still look at my very, very pretty winter picture and leave a sweet comment - in any language but Klingon (mine's rather rusty).

Hei på snei! Her er et vinterbilde jeg har laget til grublisen på Scrappelyst. Jeg brukte en tykk kartong på 15 x 15 cm som base og malte den først med hvit gesso, deretter fargela jeg himmelen med to blånyanser Distress-blekk, som jeg ga en liten dusj med vann for å illudere dalende snøfnugg.  Bakken dekket jeg med hvit krakkeleringsmasse. Når den var tørr, klinte jeg på litt glitterlim her og der så det ser ut som glitrende snø.

Vottene og de andre stemplene er fra Rubber Dance, som er mitt eget stempelfirma. Jeg stemplet motivene med vannfast blekk på tynt akvarellpapir og fargela dem med ZIG Clean Color-tusj. Hytta er limt rett på bakgrunnen, de andre motivene festet jeg med 3D-puter for å få litt mer dybde og liv i bildet. Legg merke til at vinterbildet mitt hviler på et par votter - måtte bare ta med denne fine julegaven, ettersom votter er temaet for grublisen.

Nedenfor er et nærbilde av de stemplede vottene og litt av gullramma rundt. Den lagde jeg ved å ha på masse embossingblekk og tjukt embossingpulver. Mens den fortsatt var varm, trykket jeg kanten av et blomsterstempel nedi den bløte embossingmassen. (NB! Dette går helt fint med gummistempler - jeg vet ikke om clearstamps tåler varmen. Noen andre som vet det?)

Nedenfor ser dere de fine vottene jeg fikk til jul av en venninne som har sydd dem selv. Snøkrystallene er av refleksfolie som hun skar ut på Silhouettemaskina si. Vottene er av ullstoff og fôret med skikkelig myk fleece, utrolig deilige å ha på når det er bikkjekaldt ute! Det har fortsatt ikke vært ordentlig vinter her i Fredrikstad; snøen og frosten kommer og går med regnet, men vintersesongen er jo ikke over ennå. Kanskje blir det litt Tiddelibomm og huttemegtu snart! (Ikke det at jeg liker å fryse, men jeg vil jo gjerne bruke de nye vottene mine).

De sydde vottene er ikke et bidrag til grublisen, de er bare fine :-)

Minna syr for det meste barnetøy, og har en egen side på Facebook: Minnasydd

 

Jeg deltar på grublisen hos Scrappelyst

Takk for at du kom innom!

Alle stemplene er fra Rubber Dance:

Votter, Hytte, Tre:  Whimsical Winter

Blomst til gullramma: Crazy Flowers #1

Dessuten har jeg brukt:

That's Crafty! - Greyboard,  Prima - White Crackle Texture Paste,

Ranger - Distressblekk, embossingblekk, EP i gull, Stickles glitter,

Canson akvareallpapir, Versafine onyx black, ZIG Clean Color Markers.

 

Happy Christmas, Shimmer Card

Every December I say the same; "Next year I will start much sooner, and I know I've said it before, but this time I really mean it!" And every year I believe what I say. No exception this year - but this time I really, really mean it.... (I'm so gullible, I think it's true - I honestly do!).

Anyway, I did send TWO Christmas cards this year (yay, right?). Here is one of them:

The embossed panel is Shimmer Sheetz, which is an iridescent metallic Mylar by Elizabeth Craft Design (I'm not affiliated, just love this product!). After embossing, I altered it with alcohol inks, sanded it lightly to reveal the silver core, then I added some bronze paste to the edges. I wanted to add some gold mica powder to the paste, but it flew everywhere and stuck to the alohol ink on the Shimmer Sheetz. I liked it, though - a happy accident - so I added more and set it with a fixative spray. The stamped trees are from the Whimsical Winter stamp set by Rubber Dance. I white embossed them and coloured them in with ZIG markers to match the colours of the card. I adhered the trees with some really sticky clear tabs (Power Tabs by Tombow) to raise them up from the card and make sure they stayed there.

With this card I wish you all a very merry and 

♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Christmas! ♥ ♥ ♥

Is that a Penguin in your Window?

Hello, my fellow stampers!  I've made a picture for the current challenge on the Rubber Dance blog, where the theme is to make something inspired by a movie. Can you guess which this is?

 

'Mr. Popper's Penguins' is an American comedy from 2011, with Jim Carrey, Carla Guino, and Angela Lansbury, among others. The film was loosely based on a children's book of the same name, first published in 1938. 

Mr. Popper is a real estate entrepreneur in New York who inherits six penguins from his father. As Mr. Popper transforms his luxurious apartment into a penguin friendly winter wonderland, his professional life starts to unravel..

This family friendly comedy is kind of cute and I adore Angela Lansbury! Even if her role was not a big one, it's a vital one for the plot and she's there - on and off.

I've used a free photo from Wikipedia Commons for my backdrop - one can see the Empire State building from Mr. Popper's apartment. My "window" is a mini printer tray from Tando Creative, which I painted white. The snow on the window frames are mini art stones and glitter glue. It's really blingy in real life, like a thousand dimonds on glittery snow, but this was impossible to caputure on camera - so I edited my photo by adding some bling reflections in Photoshop.

I stamped the Playful Penguins from Rubber Dance on watercolour paper, coloured them in with Zig markers, cut them out and glued them to the window. And that's it! A quick and easy make, inspired by a cute movie.

There's still time to join our challenge at Rubber Dance - you have until midnight CET on the 30th of November to join (you don't have to use stamps from Rubber Dance).

Thanks for looking!

Mixed Media Beach Bathroom Decor

Heyyyy crafters! Let me first remind you of the release sale at Rubber Dance - with 20 % discount on all the new stamps. The sale ends on Tuesday, midnight CET. (Between you and me: I'm rarely up that late, so the sale ends after I get up on Wednesday morning, usually around 5 o'clock-ish, and get a chance to change the reduced prices).

I made this wall decor to send to Anti-Santa, or whatever the Santa in Antarctica is called. Since there are no penguins on the North Pole, it would be so silly to send this to the Santa up north, wouldn't it?

Turns out I didn't have the southern Santa's address in my Rolodex (remember those?), so I hung the sign up in our downstairs bathroom (aka loo), which has a beach theme. Not that we live on the beach, but a few times a day I can always pretend... (Raise your hand if you just starting singing "The Great Pretender", Freddy Mercury version! Grab a banana and slap me over the head if you can't get the song out of your mind!)

Properly propped on the bathroom basin with bath towels and sea shells (and a lighthouse to the left):

I posted this photo over at the Rubber Dance blog for my stamp release last week, but I thought I'd share some details with you. I stamped the Playful Penguins on watercolour paper, coloured them in with Zig clean colour makers, cut them out and set aside.

The surface I used is a 15 x 15 cm white/greyboard panel with rounded corners, from That's Crafty in the UK (you can find it here - pack of 5 for only £2.25!). These are white on one side and grey on the other, and I used the white side - without adding gesso first.

I wanted to test the crackle paste I had bought after a friend recommended it. I have tried quite a few crackle mediums, but frankly not been all that impressed with them - but I really liked this one! I'm not affiliated with the brand, which is Finnabair/Prima's Texture Paste White Crackle. I covered the whole board with the crackle paste, using a broad palette knife. I made both thin and thick layers to achieve different sized cracks. After having left it to dry for the cracks to appear, I smeared some acrylic paint in blue and green on top and wiped off some of the paint with a baby wipe.

The MFD signpost (below) is from Calico Craft Parts in the UK, and you can find it here (I'm not affiliated, just a very excited customer!). I love that it's so big - over 10 cm tall and 12 cm wide. I painted the signpost with white gesso and aged it with brown ink. The text was painted with blue acrylic paint, then some glitter on top to make it look more frosty (it does sparkle in real life...).
The "snow" is made with art stones (Finnabair/Prima), which I hadn't used before so I wasn't sure how to glue them down... but it worked fine with a thick layer of matte medium.

The very same day I was working on this, I received some happy mail - and one of the postal stamps was this with two penguins!!

So, there it is - Frankie goes to Hollywood has nothing on my Penguins goes to Anti-Santa!

The rest of this post is a promotion of my stamp company, Rubber Dance.
Just skip to the end if you're not interested.

 This is what the set of Playful Penguins looks like

(13 x 18 cm, or 5 x 7 inches if that's how you roll ...)

Other new sets, also at 20 % right now:

These two 9 x 13 cm sheets, packed full of funny sentiments

(at least I find them funny..... that's why I made'em!)

 ..... and this 13 x 18 sheet of lovely winter stamps:

 Hurry if you want that 20 % discount, 

the sale ends verrah soon!

All the new stamps are in the Rubber Dance web shop.

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 ♥

Rubber Dance Animal Challenge - Two Cards

Hello humans! The challenge over at Rubber Dance blog this fortnight is to incorporate stamped animals in your work (you don't have to use our stamps to join).

Rubber Dance has lots of animal stamps and I ended up making two cards with the largest ones - one on land and one underwater.

My first card, or picture really as it's rather big, features the blue whale - at least one of mine is blue - 

this adorable stamp from Whale Wishes:

 

I made the background with Distress Oxides, blending the colours and spraying light with water. After the first layer had tried, I added more green ink, lots of it, add water and held it upside down to let the green run down the background to look like tall seaweeds. I used a black pen around the edges of the "seaweed" to make them stand out more, and stamped the smaller seaweed and flowers at the bottom. The whales were stamped on watercolour paper and coloured in with Zig clean colour markers, cut out and adhered with foam dots. The fish from Something Fishy were stamped on acetate so I could turn one of them around to swim in the opposite direction. I coloured them on the back with copper paint and gave them a dash of copper glue glitter on the front.

My next card features the Elephant from African Animals. Do you know the children's rhyme about the elephants playing on the spider's web? Edited: Many have not heard of the rhyme, so if you want to get a mind bug.... you can hear the song on youtube here.

One elephant went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day.
He had such enormous fun,

He called for another elephant to come​ ...

I cut the head off one of the elephants so I could tilt it upwards to reach the tail of the other: 

The leaves are die cuts, stamped on top with leaves and texts from Rubber Dance:

Wanna join our animal challenge? 

You have until 31st of October (midnight CET)

and you don't have to use stamps from Rubber Dance to enter. 

 I'm so proud that Susanne chose my blue whale for the challenge image!
She's our DT & social media manager over at Rubber Dance

and also the one who designed the Whale and Elephant stamps for Rubber Dance.

Thanks for looking!