This week at Allsorts the theme is 🐶Four legged friends🐺🐹.
I chose a cute little stamp - had for ages, bought from e-bay, can't remember the brand - and coloured in the same colours as the striped backing paper. It's nice to work with warm colours when the snow lies thick here and everything is white.
Made a small card for a little boy. Using the image Ice Hockey from Paper Shelter and went for the colours green and yellow - the colours of our local ice hockey team :). Entering this in the current Paper shelter challenge.
This week at Allsorts the theme is 💐Beautiful Blooms 🌺🌻.
I've had my distress inks for a long time and they are, without contest, the things I couldn't get by without. But the blending tools have varied and I have a tendency to always get ink on my fingers regardless of how I do.
But not any more!
I stumbled over a tip on Pinterest on how to make your own ink blending daubers so I did. I went to the local hardware store - Biltema for you Swedish lot 🛠️ - and bought plastic water pipe wide enough to fit my finger and a tool to cut them easily, the pipes not the fingers 😜. And then I ordered a bigpack of make up sponges, the triangular ones. I then just folded the sponge in half and pressed it in to the tube until it came out on the other side, making sure I didn't push it too far, I wanted a nice round dauber without any edges or corners sticking out.
I store them in an IKEA box, dividers made from regular cardstock, and put a paper with all the colours on the inside of the lid.
They work perfectly, I've even used them to ink and blend entire card bases with great result.
I keep the box on the desk top and my distress inks in a desk drawer, everything within reach.
Plastic pipes
Tool to cut the pipes
Make up sponges
This post is to remind you of the challenge Feminine over at We Love Chocolate Baroque that's running during January. A lucky winner will be able to select an A4 stamp sheet or stamps to the same value from Chocolate Baroque, a small independent art and craft company based in the historic market town of Barnard Castle in County Durham in the North-East of England and is owned and run by Lesley Wharton.
For this is used Chocolate Baroque Butterfly Dress, the image is embossed so really easy to colour. I coloured the entire paper slightly with distress inks Old paper to give it a vintage look.
This week at Allsorts I'm hosting and I set the theme to Something new. It's open for your interpretation, it could be a new baby, a new crafting item, a new love for something 💖or maybe hopes for a great new year. But please state in your post what is new so we know.
My new is a gift set for a newborn, using a shoe template that you can find under the tab Templates in the top bar, and a pillow box that you can find the template for online, just search for pillow box template :). I also found the time to give this blog a makeover with a new banner and some new colours. Some of the creations in the banner are very new and will be properly showcased during 2021 🤩
We are sponsored by Tattered Lace with this lovely shoe die, almost as pretty as my little baby shoe gift box 😜
This week at Allsorts the theme is Favourite colours. Easy enough, blue is my first choice. Using the paper Wavy Stripe Papers from our sponsor Pinksy Doodles, I added a Magnolia image, some flowers and a bow. The die is also Magnolia. The great thing about digital paper is that you can print it in the size you want, not wasting any ink, you can also increase or decrease the size of the pattern, really neat.
Well, what do you know! I've been asked to join the Design Team at We Love Chocolate Baroque and I will try to match the very talented team and do justice to the wonderful stamps. And if you want to see the real pro in action, the company owner will have a one day special on Monday 4 January at 6 pm UK time on Hochanda TV. Now THAT will be a treat!
So for the first challenge of the year - and for me :) - the theme is Feminine. I used an image from the stamp set Floral Perfumery , coloured with distress inks. I always dilute my distress inks with water mixed with perfect pearls from Ranger, gives the image that extra shimmer. And this time I also used a bit of grey around the edges of the bottle and flowers to make it pop a bit.
It's time for the first Allsorts challenge of the new - and hopefully much better - year, so we'll start with Anything goes. Feels appropriate to start fresh with that :)
I made a gift bag for some of my collegues - unfortunately I didn't get to give it to them due to the work from home-situation. It's a crumbled paper, distressed with Vintage Photo and decorated with a die cut lace, some die cut branches and sizzix flowers and a tag, also crumbled and distressed and a topper pop-out from a design paper.
Sponsor this week is Chocolate Baroque with this lovely Fragrant Honeysuckle stamp - limited edition. Chocolate Baroque will be on Hochanda TV with a one day special at 6 pm UK-time on Monday, January 4.
