Travelling Around The World is this fortnight’s theme at Fashionable Stamping Challenges. Marina from Cottage Crafts is giving away a beautiful Artemio stamp to the winner so no excuses this fortnight just get out all those stamping goodies and have a play with us.

The amazing Fashionettes have excelled themselves on the catwalk this week and their creations are gorgeous so hop on over and have a peek through the curtains at all the stunning artwork. My DT piece is a centre stepper card made especially for a man in mind.

This time round the card was all experimental for me because I wanted to showcase embossing folders and masks in a different way on a card and lucky for me it worked quite well … eh, I think so but not sure what you will think 😀 because I usually get comments saying … blah, blah, different … not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

Maybe it’s because I don’t really have any particular style with cardmaking, I just love to play and experiment, whether it be a pretty card, which I adore making …(but couldn’t just churn out the same old thing, cutesy image, flowers, ribbon in the middle) … an album or manly, the fun of making and being pleased with how it turns out is good for me … but hey everyone is different and it truly is whatever works for you.

Playing around in gimp after I have made a project is also another thing I love to do and at the moment experimenting with layers is my flavour of the month as you can see by all the little scrolls around my pic … will probably tire of this soon as I think it makes the pics look busy 🙂

For my new technique I made a slit at the top of the middle panel on the card and slid the TH embossing folder from Artful Muse through (your slit should only be a teensy teensy fraction bigger than the embossing folder you are using) eg., TH folder measures … 7.2 cm width so the slit should be 7.4 cm … picture 2 should give you an idea of what I mean, then put through your die cutting machine (it will only go through one way :wink:) unless you are lucky enough to have a beast of a machine called the Big Shot Pro … which I had for Christmas last year … or a Grand Calibur from Spellbinders.

Next I used the Compass Mask from Creative Expressions and fiddled around with each section of the card so it looked fairly close to a circle then sponged through with a Soft Suede ink pad from Stampin Up. Also inked, very very carefully the Old Jalopy Car.

Technically this is the second time I have used this technique below is a pic of a Christmas card that I made in October but never showed.
Also showed Claire, Irene and Brenda this technique … cool eh 😎

Entering into The Stamp Man Challenge – Techniques … use a technique you have not used before
Hiding In My Craft Room – Embossing Technique

I love a bit of humour in my cards and the new image from Little Miss Muffet Stamps lends itself to that.
I chose to use Hope because I think all us girlies can relate to her. Check out those scales she’s standing on … wish that was my weight. 😀

Stamped and embossed both the dress and dress form onto matching paper – Stampendous Spring Fling and Girls Paperie by Margie Clear Stamps. Flower from this set also but stamped with TH Fired Brick as was the post card from SU, inked around edges with same. Don’t you just hate it when the light reflects off the embossing and makes it look sparkly – yuk.

Lots of new releases this week and the DT girlies have really made some gorgeous inspiration for you to look at here. Still time to enter the challenge for this fortnight which is Simplicity.