Age Happens...

I was asked to create some funny birthday cards. I LOVE those American Art Stamps images with all those more or less young ladies struggling with age, diet, husbands and other minor problems... So I had a lot of fun creating these quick cards!



Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Colorbox Fluid Chalks to sponge the edges.
Images colored with Tombow markers. Dp by 3 Bugs in a Rug (Flower design) and Basic Grey (stripes design).

Black and Purple

You all know the Black Magic technique? To stamp an image with white ink onto some dark cardstock and then color it with pencils? I really like this technique, so I was happy when I fund out that today's Splitcoaststampers Technique Lovers Challenge was to use the Black Magic technique.
Stamps: Stampington (main image), Innovative Stamp Creations (background flourish), Stempelmeer (sentiment saying "congrats"). Ink: Adirondack Snowcap White, Memento Sweet Plum. I used Karisma pencils to color the image and a purple gelly pen to add some definition and highlights. Border punch by Martha Stewart.

Amy Atlas Inspired Retro Card

When I browsed the Amy Atlas Events gallery for today's Splitcoaststampers Inspiration Challenge, I was fascinated by the colors Amy Atlas used for her dessert table on photo No. 108.


I would never have thought of combining red, olive, beige and purple. Nevertheless, I wasn't as brave as Amy Atlas was with these colors, so I chose a stamp with only an outline design to get not too much color onto my card, but added a cardstock stripe and flower taking up the colors of the stamped background. The stamp I used is the Fifties Fabric cube by Judi Kins, and for the flowers I used my EK Success punches. I used the Memento inkpads Lady Bug, Sweet Plum, Bamboo Leaves and Desert Sand.
Guess I'll have to add this color combo to my "Definitely YES!" list!

Back again... at home and in my stamping room!

I haven't had any time to stamp during the last weeks, so finally I had to start with something simple again - I'm totally out of practice, LOL!
The flowers are created out of some old book pages. I colored the paper with some Tim Holtz distress ink pads, then punched and embossed the flowers with my Nellie Snellen flower punch, then added the golden lines with a gelly pen.
The main image is by Stamp-Iit Australia. For the blue background cardstock I used a flourish stamp by Innovative Stamp Creations (stamped with Versamark ink and hard to see on the photo). I distressed the edge of the main image with my distressing tool.
The sentiment says "Happy birthday" and is handwritten.