Inking and masking and stencils and playing.

I've been creating and designing masks and stencils again. I have to say I have rekindled my love of photoshop. Unfortunately it's been sort of a hate relationship as well, though not with the program but with my computer. It is the. Slowest. Thing. In the world. I would love love love to be able to afford a new Mac, because of all the lovely graphics capabilities. My only problem is... I can't stop buying my crafting goodies long enough to save up properly for one!! How anyone can go so long without new inky stamps goodness to play with is beyond me.

Anyway, I have managed to combine my photoshop abilities with my crafting abilities to make some exciting (for me) new things to play with. You already know about the stencils and the masks. But recently I was asked to cut out a sloth... Can I find a sloth cut file anywhere?? No. Can I find a sloth image to cut? Not. So what do I do? I drew it. Yeah, go me! Not only did I draw it. I scanned it, altered it, cut it, painted it and glued it together!

 

 

Eee! He is so cute! I really like how he turned out.

I have also created a few new masks/stencils to play with. I made this pumpkin set and I love it! Here is what I managed to create with it so far:

Yup, back at my typical fall colours! I can't get enough of them. You will probably be seeing both the colours and the pumpkin a bit more.

One last make to share with you. I recently bought this lovely indigo blue stamp and I received it today, so of course I have to try it out. So I stamp it with stazon onto my tag, break out the distress inks and start water colouring it using my new water brush my mother in law gave me. It had a bit of empty space in the edges so I used one of my stencils, distress inked over and sprayed it with a gold shimmer water to make it blend in as a watercolour effect with the test of the image. Stamped on a sentiment and there you go! I'm very happy with it. 

And there you have it! Hopefully I will bring you some more makes soon! Have a great weekend!

Sam. 

Visitors and a new business venture for Moi!

First of all, congratulations to the royals on the birth of the new baby boy! I am not ashamed to admit that I was watching the news feeds that day, waiting to hear about little baby monarch.

Ok so back to the blog! First of all, Im sorry Ive been gone so long! I had friends visiting and let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Its really never easy to share your house with someone. I should know, Im married lol. But its especially hard when you have certain expectations and excitement leading up to their arrival and after 2 days it just goes pfffft. I wont go into too much detail but suffice to say it was a stressful time. I couldn't wait to get back to my crafting.

I started on a new 'business' venture recently. I found out that my crafty idol is coming to the  UK to teach a workshop in Coventry. I hit a couple of hurdles but I really really wanted to attend this workshop.  Hurdle one- Coventry isn't exactly close but its definitely doable compared to, say, trying to get to Scotland. Even so it was a lot of money. Luckily a friend suggested a company that would get me there and back for under £20. Awesome! Hurdle jumped. Hurdle two- Babysitters... I have three kids. The class is on a Thursday. Hubby works. That's ok, I managed to get a friend to watch the kiddings until hubby gets home PLUS! she was willing to give me a ride to the bus station  in Winchester! Technically that should count for 2 or three hurdles really but JUMPED! Hurdle three- The class is EXPENSIVE. About £70 per person. Yikes. That on top of having to pay to get there and of course the fact that I would have to be there all day so food and shopping even more. So I started making masks and stencils. I would design and cut them on my cameo and due to the knowledge of one and encouragement of another, I was able to actually find something worth selling! Something that made a little money! And in about a weeks time I was near the amount of money for the class. Hurdle jumped right? Wrong. Right as I was planning on making that all important  phone call to book my spot, my hubby comes home with bad news. Our bank screwed up big time and paid a direct debit that it was told to cancel. We had ended up paying 2 lots of rent for the month and were now completely broke until payday. So what does that mean for me? All the  money I had saved went towards getting us through the month. Major Sad face on my end.

Anyway, the good thing that came out of all of this was that I was still making masks and still creating new designs and still making good sales! So its now nearly a month later and I took it to the next level by creating a business page on facebook. Im excited and I really hope it continues to do well! If you feel like it please stop by and like the page? You know you wanna!! ;)


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sams-Masks-and-stencils/165167530337116?ref=hl

Check out below for a few more makes with my stencils :). As always if you want to comment please do so, I love hearing from you!!

Digi Galore's Birthday

Happy Birthday to You,

Happy Birthday to You,

Happy Birthday Dear Digi Galore!

Happy Birthday to You!

I'm on the DT at Digi Galore and as we're having a birthday blog hop at Digi Galore Challenges I thought I'd invite you all along :D I've been luckily enough to be on the Design Team right from the start and can honestly say its been a pleasure to be part of such a great team :D It's hard to believe a year has gone past already!

To celebrate our birthday we've arranged an amazing Blog Hop with the whole of the DT involved. 

Pop by to Digi Galore to start the Hop. We've got amazing sponsors and some incredible prizes so come along & join in. 

This is the list for the Blog Hop 

Digi Galore

Erin

Kelly

Shell

Trish

Kelly M

Lucy  - that's me!

Lisa

Louise

Laura

So now onto the cards I made. Unfortunately 2 of the DT members are ill at the moment (Get Well Trudie & Sandra) So I had 4 digis to play with!!! All from amazing artists. So here they are:

Sponsor: The Stamping Chef
Digi: Howdy Baby

I love The Stamping Chef's Cheeky Saucy Ladies

The Sentiment is from Ginger's House I use her free sentiments regularly - they add so much to a card.

Sponsor: Bugaboo

Digi: Happy Birthday to Ewe Trio

The fun easel card was cut on my Cougar using the Doily Easel Cut File from Birds Cards

I made the sentiment myself by adapting the Happy Birthday to Ewe one that came with the digi.

Sponsor: Digital Delights

Digi - Singing Sally and Tiered Cake

Sentiment - from Create with TLC

Promarkers used:

Skin - Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush, Pastel Pink Cheeks

Hair - Tulip Yellow, Sunflower, Gold

Dress, Shoes, Roses & Sentiment - Cerise, Shocking Pink*, Vermillion*

Underskirt - Rose Pink

Cake - Tan, Caramel

Lush Green, Pine

Sponsor - Beansie Doodles

Digi - Musical Amanda

I'm pleased with this as I managed to master a few things I can't normally manage - Lace, Embellishments & Patterned Paper :D

I made the sentiment myself

The Paper is from the Fancy Pant's Beach Babe 6x6 stack

I used these Promarkers:

Skin - Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush,  Pastel Pink Cheeks

Hair - Cocoa, Henna, Chestnut, Walnut

Dress, Shoes & Earphones - Salmon Pink, 

Well there you go - that's the end of my contribution. I've had loads of fun playing & hope you enjoyed it too.

I'd love to hear what you think so please leave me a message before you hope in to Lisa 

Don't forget to pop back to Digi Galore to enter - the theme is Anything Goes and the prizes are AMAZING!!!!