A bit of calligraphy

I have to admit that my calligraphy has rather taken a back seat recently - other things like cards, ATCs and Inchies seem to have taken me over!! Also, I really struggle to produce good small lettering so my pieces tend to be quite large and too big to scan. However, this is a short (and therefore small) piece I wrote recently. I really loved this quote. It was written in watercolours with William Mitchell steel nibs.

A special birthday card

This concertina card was made for a competition to celebrate the first birthday of a craft forum I belong to. I have used stamps by some of my favourite maufacturers including Tim Holtz, Crafty Individuals, Paperbag Studios and Clarity Stamps.

A new shape

I have had a go at making triangular ATCs for the first time - here are two examples. The backgrounds were created with Distress inks and then stamped. The images of the boy and girl are by Paper Whimsy.

Never throw anything away!

This card certainly proves the point! I had a piece of cardstock that I had used firstly to do a bit of calligraphy practice on, then I used it to stamp off the remaining ink before cleaning a stamp, and then as scrap underneath some card I applied alcohol inks to. I was just about to throw it away when I thought there were some interesting areas on this piece of 'scrap'. So I punched out three squares from it, mounted them onto black card, then onto a piece of watercoloured card left over from another project. The flourish was stamped using Distress inks and spritzed lightly with water before stamping at the bottom of the card. Waste not want not!

Tim Holtz Stamps

I've just bought a set of the new TH stamps - Ornate Collage - and here are the first ATCs I have made with them. I've mainly used them as backgrounds, but the one with the tree branches and birds is so gorgeous that I don't think it needs any other ornament!

Inchy challenge

This is my Inchy for the Inchybyinch Blog challenge:

http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/2008/04/word-inchy.html

The background was made using Distress Inks and I created the 'moon' by stamping with Castaway ink.

CSF Blog Challenge

This Skinny was made for the latest Craft Swap Forum Blog challenge - the themes were Passion, Presents or Punctuation! The backgrounds were made with Distress Inks and gesso, and the stamps are by Tim Holtz, Clarity Stamps and Hero Arts.