A Bokeh Birthday

Good morning and happy Thursday. I'm back over at Country View Crafts with my second piece for the Bokeh challenge and this time it's a girlie birthday card.

 I started with my go to background of a mixture of Tim's Distress and Distress Oxides.

 Then I added some more water and sprinkled with Brusho Sprinkle It in iridescent purple - Love It!

 Time for my good old stencil and white gesso to make the bokeh background - it only takes a few minutes to dry then on with the stamping. I've used a couple of sets from PaperArtsy.

 I liked the background, but decided that it needed something else, so I chopped some out of the top with a die from the Tim Holtz Mixed Media 4 set, and also added some book page flowers over the originals.

 So now we just needed something for the top corner. I used the dragonfly and stamped it onto some Barbara Gray paper, that way I didn't need to colour it lol.

 These are the lovely stamps that I've used. There's a Jofy, a Tracy Scott and a Kay Carley, so lots of choice there.

And here's my finished card again. I hope that you like it and join in with our challenge.
I'm entering my card into this weeks Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge, which is 'think pink'

Have a fun week, and thanks very much for looking x

Beat It!

Good morning and happy Tuesday. It's my turn to host the challenge this month over at Country View Crafts, so I've chosen a theme that I love, which is bokeh. This is the Wiki definition

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Wikipedia

Well I'm glad we cleared that up! Here's my first piece.

 I made my background piece using a mixture of Distress and Distress Oxides in blues with a little bit of Twisted Citron just because it's my favourite colour at the moment. The twinkly bits are from Brusho 'Sprinkle It's' which are my VERY favourite thing right now. Then I used white gesso and my home made circle stencil to add the bokeh effect.

Then  I chopped a piece out 'cos I decided to make another shaker card, I think I've got that out of my system now for a while thank goodness.

 My nephew plays the drums in a band so I used this very old Sheena set in the cut out piece. The embossing has been done with Moon Glow embossing powders. These must be 15 years old if they're a day but they are still going strong!

 The stencilling has also been done with a Sheena stencil.

 And the Happy birthday sentiment with one of my top three birthday stamps from the man himself.

 I'm almost embarrassed to say, but these are the only 2 stamps I've used from the set. But I don't care, it's been worth every penny just for these 2, they are just so usable and stamp perfectly every time. They just work!

 I though we were all done, but it did look a bit bare, so I added some musical notes from a die that I've had since time began.

So now we're all done! I think I've used this stamp on his card before, but as there will be hard cash enclosed I'm sure he won't mind ;-).

I hope you enjoy our challenge, and join in with us this month. Just make sure to follow the theme and you could win £20 to spend in the store, and also guest design with us for a month.

Have a very happy October and thanks so much for looking x