Cloud Stamp Cupkake - and Prizes!

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's December already? I can't, and I'm not ready - but December hasn't asked me ;-) 

Ready or not - how about joining our challenge at Rubber Dance this month? Here's what I made with our challenge colours and theme combined:

I have used stamps from several sets to make this (all from Rubber Dance);

sentiment from You Rock, mug and cherry (actually a snowball) from Whimsical Winter, 

"cake" is the cloud from Whimsical Summer, and the crown is from Poodle Power. 

The mug and sentiment are both stamped directly on watercolour paper, whereas the cloud, crown and cherry were stamped, coloured, cut out and glued down before adding lots of glitter.

Our challenge will run the whole month of December and there are prizes to win!

 

See my fellow teamies inspiration makes over at the Rubber Dance blog.

I hope you get a chance to join our challenge!

You may use stamps from any company.

Thanks for looking!

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!

Out of Africa - Movie Challenge

Hello lovelies! I made a collage for the new challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog. The theme of the challenge is to make something inspired by a movie.

I'll admit that it took me a while to pick a movie, but my love for elephants lead me to choose 'Out of Africa', an American movie from 1995, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. The movie was loosely based on the autobiographical book 'Out of Africa' by Danish author Karen Blixen, published in 1937.

I made the sunset background first, using Distress Oxides and a makeup sponge. I had masked a circle where the sun would be and coloured it in with Oxides after making the sky. There are some purple looking mountains in the back, painted with ink. I drew the tree by hand. The bird stamps I used are seagulls, so I added some feathers and adjusted the beaks a bit in an attempt to make them look like eagles. I stamped the elephants over the background and coloured them in with black ink, as I just wanted their silhouettes against the sunset. I adjuested the tusks of the left elephant with a black pen to make the two elephants look slightly different.

This is what the elephant stamp looks like.

It's easy to turn any stamp into a silhouette!

Some details:

 

I used a page from an old Danish book, since Karen Blixen was a Danish writer. 

She lived in Kenya, a British crown colony at the time, hence the British postal stamp.

Karen's husband was from Sweden - luckily I had a Swedish postal stamp.

I didn't have any postal stamps from Kenya, so I found some photos online and printed them out.

The Lion was stamped on a book page ... I don't know whether Karen Blixen made any sketches of African animals, 

but I imagine it would look something like this.

The African pattern in the back is also an internet photo that I printed out for my collage.

 

Karen Blixen wrote a lot of letters while she lived in Africa,

perhaps she sent some postcards as well .... 

I stamped the postcard with Distress inks and sprayed it with water

to make the ink seep for a vintage look. I also crumbled it up 

and added some ink here and there.

So there it is,

Out of Africa:

Stamps used (all from Rubber Dance):

Elephant and Lion from African Animals

Seagulls from A little Birdie

Vintage Postcard

Which movie would you pick, if you were to make something inspired by one?

Would you like to join our challenge?

You have until midnight CET on November 30th.

See you there! Maybe? ;-)

I want to end my post today by sharing this quote. I've printed it out and hung it up in my studio, as a gentle reminder in case I should forget .... (Feel free to do the same - I made it using a copyright free image of a torn book page. Print out and decorate if you wish!).

 

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, 

and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."

Thanks for looking!

 

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! 

Gloomy by Night Card

Hey, everyone! Here's my card for this fort-night's challenge at Rubber Dance (October 1.-14th).
It must be the gloomiest card I've made in ages - you know I love bright and vibrant colours, but I also love a real challenge once in a while! :-)

 

I have used two Tom Holtz dies - the distressed diamonds in the sky and the houses in the back, combined with Textured Houses stamps from Rubber Dance. The moon and stars are also stamps from Rubber Dance, from a fun set called Whimsical Summer. I don't know where the barbwire die is from ....

Below is a closeup of the houses. I glued a piece of yellow paper behind some of the cut out windows (from the die) and painted yellow in some of the stamped windows as well, in an effort to make it a bit less gloomy....

 

Here are the colours for this challenge:

If you visit the Rubber Dance blog, you'll find other inspiration makes that are far from gloomy - pop over and have a look at what the other teamies have made! I hope it will inspire you to join our challenge.

Thanks for looking!

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!