November Craft Stamper

The new issue of Craft Stamper magazine hit the shelves yesterday. I received my copy a few days ago, as I have a regular subscription. I was leafing through, as per usual, and as I turned the page, my heart skipped a beat. There was my card, on the page, before my very eyes! I knew that it was going to be published of course, I just didn't know when, and had been waiting for a few months for it to appear. So, if you have a copy, go and look at page 32, 'Blowing Bubbles', that's my card! It's the first time that I have had anything published in a magazine, and I am of course very excited, and very grateful to Katy, the Editor, for picking my card as a Reader Submission.
I have had a brilliant few months, knowing that my card was going to be published in such a prominent magazine, and being chosen as a Design Team member for Elusive Images. My crafting life has really taken off. I enjoy what I do so much, and am learning new and exciting techniques too. I have my friends, Elaine, Jo and Lesley, who I met through the Graphicus Guild forum, that I run the Craft Stamping Quartet blog with, and they are such a big part of my life now, all because of this crafting mullarkey.

I've been messing about today, just making a couple of tags. They are not for any challenges, or submissions, just for pleasure. I have used some of my favourite stamps and colours, and I hope you like what I've come up with. The first tag is loosely based on the work of the lovely Lynn who makes beautiful tags. She often uses the large Tim Holtz flourish on her backgrounds, and her work is just stunning.

I have used Distress Inks to colour the background, stamped the large flourish twice, and added some scraps of old pages to one side of the tag, which I coloured with Distress Inks again. I made a flower with some lovely Artylicious paper, using the Peony Nestability Die, and added a large brad. I cut my butterfly out using the Tim Holtz Butterfly Die in Grungepaper, which I then painted with green Lumiere paint, and then  Broken China crackle paint over the top. I added some of the lovely blue paper behind the wings. An ideology disc, a Tattered Leaf shape and a Dream ticket finish the tag.

 The second tag uses painting with bleach, which my friends and I used when we made our flag books on our other blog Craft Stamping Quartet

I want to place this tag near to my desk to look at when my creativity has gone walkabout. I love butterflies in any shape or form, this one is a personal favourite. It is from Elusive Images, as are the other stamps, isn't the swirl around the edges gorgeous? I kept this tag deliberately quite simple, as I wanted the stamps to speak for themselves. I have used Distress Inks again to colour my tag.

I'd like to thank you, my followers for your support too, on my crafting journey. I appreciate the time you take to make your comments, and visit my blog. Thank you!

I hope you have a good weekend, whatever you're up to, thanks for looking, Judith xx