April tags...

OK so its nearly May and I'm only just posting pics of my April tags - truth is I didn't read the instructions properly and got carried away with a design that was totally wrong... "On 26 April 1923 the Duke of York married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons more commonly known to us all as Queen Mum. This month we also celebrate the Royal Wedding between William and Kate.

The theme for April is "DIAMONDS ARE A GIRLS BEST FRIEND" Your tags this month must have an image of a woman/women or girl/girls on them, plenty of blingie diamonde/diamante/crystal embellishments and the twist this month to bring in the royal theme - somewhere on each tag you must include a CROWN."

So I went off like a bull in a china shop and dug out a head & shoulders stamp of a rather distinguished man... wrong wrong wrong!!

So, without further ado, here's Betty Boop - who I can distinctly recall singing "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" in one of her cartoons... I made a slit across her printed dress and slipped some sparkly fabric thru, wrapping it around the edge of the picture... fiddly but I rather like the effect.

The background was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and the diamonds were picked out with a silver pen, then further embellished with a diamante blingy dot. The crown was stuck on with Glossy Accents - makes a fine glue...

Out with the TH ticket die and matching stamp set again - mainly because I'd left the first couple of finished tags out overnite on my craft table - and my cat decided to investigate - and put a hole thru one of the tags with his claw...

Looking forward to receiving my April tags back - I've had a sneak peak at one or two on peoples blogs already and they are looking rather lovely - just hope ol' Betty here can hold her own!

Crafty creations

Been a busy bee over the last few weeks beavering away with various craft swaps, and here's what I've achieved so far...

This is my effort for the March/April Anything Goes ATC swap - Spring is most definitely in the air and the bees and butterflies are starting to appear, so I cut & embossed some butterflies out of grungepaper using my Cuttlebug and coloured them with Distress Inks. The bodies are represented by some little bits of bling - they come on the tops of Prima clear stamps and are very handy for jazzing things up. And being free, who could resist? Not me thats for sure!

The flowers are from Polkadoodles, I won them in the raffle at my all day crop this weekend - amazing that the pack was opened and actually used within 24 hours of coming into my possession, must be an all time record for me...

The backing card is embossed with the small embossing folder that came free with DoCrafts Creativity Mag, it's the perfect size for ATC's so I think I may be using it a lot... sorry ladies! 

I also signed up for a bunting swap entitled "Here Come The Girls" (and every time I think or say that I immediately think of the Boots tv ad - ahh the power of advertising lol...). This sounded like a lot of fun so I signed up for 2 sets, on the basis that getting just 6 bits of bunting to play with would only make a short run when I've put them on ribbon... so 12 bits will look much more fun!

My first set had a distinctly Oriental theme, I have the most gorgeous Japanese lady stamp from Rubber Stampede that I've had for yonks and love using on my Oriental projects, so stamped her and coloured her in with some of my new Promarkers... yup I've succumbed to Promarkers altho am not using them to their full potential yet - need to do a class or two with them methinks...

Anyways, here's all 6 together and then a close-up...

After colouring her in I initially cut her out using one of my Nestabilities labels, but decided I didn't like the shape so trimmed her into a squished hexagon so she fitted onto the bunting better. The bunting itself is cut from grungepaper and embossed with a Cuttlebug folder, I've then used Versacolour inks to highlight the flowers altho a bit hard to see...

After cutting my lady out I masked her with a post-it note and over-stamped her with Chinese text using Barn Door Distress Ink - I know she's Japanese and not Chinese but hey it's artistic license in action here guys... I then mounted her onto red cardstock and trimmed around the edge, then inked the edges with a gold pen.

Add a Chinese coin held on with a flower brad and 3 small paper blooms and the bunting is done... well I'm happy with it anyways...

For my second set, look away now if you are of a nervous disposition as nudity is involved... but it's all done in the best possible taste as Kenny Everitt used to say... I have this wonderful stamp designed by Lindsay Mason for Funstamps, initially I stamped and cut 18 of her out on white shrink plastic and stunk the kitchen at the community centre out shrinking them during the crop on Saturday. but then blew it by colouring them in with my Promarkers before the ink had dried fully and of course the Archival Ink bled into the pens and all 18 looked awful... lesson learned...

...so last nite I stamped her again onto plain white cardstock using Memories Artprint Brown dye ink and coloured her in again, and she looks fine...

...if a little naked lol... so it was out with my craft knife and an oak leaf punch and she is now covering her modesty with a couple of well-placed leaves lol... very fiddly but well worth the effort!

I placed her on a couple of skeleton leaves (we had to put some florally embellies on each piece so as she's nekkid I decided my leaves ought to be as well!) then added a couple of flowery brads and a dragonfly for good measure... couldn't resist the piece of lace across the top as it just seemed to finish the bunting off nicely.

So it was off to the post office this afternoon and 2 packages are now winging their way across the country to their respective hosts - hope the recipients like them too!