Inchies to the rescue

Irene gave me some really good advice - 'Never throw a wrecked 'huff and puff stamped image' away, use it for your inchies'. So when I played the other day and didn't much like the result I took heed and this was the end result:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- plain green snippet (SU's 'Always Artichoke') background

- white background, embossed using Cuttlebug's 'Script' folder

- the 'wrecked' image which is Penny Black's 'Irises' Slapstick stamp, coloured using a mixture of Whisper pens and Tim Holtz Distress Markers then punched with SU's 1.25" square punch into three (picking the 'best' bits)

- three squares of lemon spotted paper punched from a snippet of Dovecraft's 'Back to Basics' paper pack

- 'Always Artichoke' butterflies, die cut with SU's 'Beautiful Wings' Embosslits and topped with white pearls

- sentiment stamped using SU's 'Old Olive' ink pad and a stamp from a Personal Impressions' set called 'Everyday Words Happy Birthday' by Lindsay Mason, then punched with SU's 'Word Window' and popped onto a snippet of the lemon spotty paper (punched with SU's 'Modern Label' punch)

Couple of tips for today. Firstly, I love SU's 'Word Window' punch but often find that sentiment stamps are just that bit on the large side - even though (sigh) I do have quite a selection to choose from. The 'Everyday Words Happy Birthday' set is brilliant though, I only bought it recently and it comes with such a wide choice of small and neat sentiments - at least 16 of which fit the Word Window punch. This is the link to Sirstampalot where I got mine from. I should have got one for the Playground Toybox but wasn't sure if they'd be as small as I hoped - they are though!

Secondly, lately I've been using Colall All Purpose glue for layering as it's very forgiving and allows a bit of movement if you work quite quickly.  I got a bit fed up with closing the nozzle to use the glue spreader so now have a saved empty Colall bottle and use that one to do any 'spreading'. Bet most of you already thought of that one anyhow :)

Oh, and finally - never throw a snippet away! :)

Di
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Inchies and butterflies

Wahoo, my 1.25" square punch arrived in double quick time from Sirstampalot and I wanted to play with it right away:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- slightly smaller white backing, embossed using Cuttlebug's 'Swiss Dots' folder

- six white 'inchies', punched with EK Success 1.25" then three were embossed using Crafts-Too's 'Butterflies' folder

- the butterfly embossed squares just had some green sparkly gems added here and there - Papermania 'Capsule Verde'. These are lovely gems in varying shades of green, I bought them in Hobbycraft

- the other three squares were topped with a snippet of green gingham paper, from Teddy Teddy's 'Spring Chic' paper pack, and punched using SU's 1" square punch

- lastly added some double layered butterfly stickers and smaller ones (Hobbycraft own brand) to each gingham topped square

I wrecked a 'huff and puff' stamped image on Saturday afternoon. Sorry folks, Irene's got me hooked so there'll be another inchie card appearing soon. They really are such fun to make and perfect for rescuing 'deesarsters' - as well as using up titchy little snippets :)

Di
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Playing with 'inchies'

If this card looks very much influenced by some of those that Irene makes, you wouldn't be far wrong:

Last week I had a couple of very welcome telephone conversations with Irene - what a lovely person she is too. We spoke firstly because I'd bought a Stampin' Up 1" square punch and then realised that Irene uses their 1.25" punch. Guess what, it's been discontinued :( Why, oh why, does that always seem to happen to me. Then we got talking about how Irene colours her stamps and gets such lovely results - I picked up a secret but that's for Irene to disclose, it works brilliantly! My first attempt was a bit 'iffy' so it was put to one side ready for another try.

Then, a lovely selection of punched papers and card arrived through the post from Irene, so yesterday I had a little play and came up with the card above.

I used:

- A6 white linen card blank

- white linen card, embossed using the Cuttlebug 'Swiss Dots' folder

- six white squares and three pink patterned squares plus the pink hearts and a teeny blue butterfly, all from Irene

- my previously mentioned 'iffy' go at colouring a stamp (blue and green) from SU's 'Serene Silhouettes' set, three squares were punched with SU's 1" square punch

- some white pearls to finish off

I tracked down SU's 1.25" square punch on a USA eBay site. Brand new ones to be had - at approximately $60 including postage! Guess who had to be revived and has gone back to the drawing board :(

Di
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