Radish Delight and other recipes

Hello! Radish Delight sounds like something Letitia Cropley on Vicar of Dibley might have made. I hate to disappoint you, but the recipe will be for a card. If you have a delightful radish recipe, please do let me know.

I stamped the radish (Stampin' Up) in India ink and watercoloured with shades of distress ink, including some mustard seed on the leaves to tie in with the yellow coloured paper. I made this a radish, though it could be a beet or a turnip/swede as well. I'm out of touch with what the leaves are like on all those veggies. I think this could likely be a beet. Radish leaves I think are smaller and smooth. Any botanists and or rabid vegetable enthusiasts, please forgive my artistic license, expressed in the desire for a hit of red. The paper is from the Farm Fresh line by October afternoon. The "Homegrown" oval is from the same SU set and is also stamped in black. The card base is Summer Sunrise, which is a great match in real life to the paper. Not as much on the scanner. I used this card to send in payment for our summer veggie box. We've signed up with a local Community Supported Agriculture farm and we will get a box of farm-fresh veggies every week all summer and into the fall. I am very excited. One of the farmers is a stamping friend of mine, so a veggie-stamped card seemed very fitting for sending in my payment. I'm looking forward to the challenge of some surprising vegetables, but we generally like veggies in our house, and my pickiest daughter likes veggies best. I can't wait for green bean season to start!

Well, I should dash and get ready for work. I woke up to the first thunderstorm of the season today. It's quite the doozy. Hope the Little Blue Jellybean doesn't blow off the road on my way in! (That's what I affectionately call our Prius, blue. As the Top Gear boys would say, "Naught to 60 in 320 seconds." Not a traditional super car, but it's our supercar - great on gas, fits all our gear on camping trips. Though as the girls get bigger, we'll need to take less stuff or get a pod for the roof.)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

PS If you type in www.thedaleystamper.blogspot.com/view, you can get different view options for my blog. So you can see more pictures and less text and not have to hunt through the archives or my peculiarly categorized key words if there is something you're looking for but don't know what it is.

Colouring with Copics

Hello! Here's a card I made out of a piece I coloured up with Copics one evening. I couldn't get it to scan well - in real life it'q quite soft and pretty. On my monitor it looks a bit garish. For a reference, the cardstock is PTI's lavender moon, and the background paper is from the Kioshi line (BasicGrey). The stamp is by Penny Black (gossamer?) and I stamped it in either Memento tuxedo black or Brilliance graphite black (heat set). I did up a batch of different images and used one or the other ink since my little Memento was drying up. (I have a reinker now! Yay.) Anyway, I played with the Copics trying to go for a soft purpley pinky orange look to the petals, which was somewhat achieved in real life. I am less happy with my choice of stickles, but that's ok. Another doodled frame, which I seem to be doing quite often. This is one of my favourite images from Penny Black, but I think I say that about all of them.

I have a few different projects on the go at the moment. I picked up some Shimmer Sheetz and am playing with those at the moment - lots of fun and lots of possibilities. I am also working on my May class sample, a few ideas there and some of the ideas even seem to be going somewhere. I have no trouble stamping when I can just sit down and play. When I have to use a certain thing, I often get a creative block. It's weird.

****One last thing, if you're in the area and want to take my class on Saturday morning (April 16th, 10-12), please call Heather to sign up. I'll be showing how to do quick and easy collages by turning ATC-sized stamps into cards. There are a few little special touches for adding texture and dimension that may surprise you. Give Heather a call by Thursday to register.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bellarific Friday

Here's my card for this week's Bellarific Friday challenge at Stamping Bella. The challenge was to do a monochromatic card, so I went with blues. I know, I know, not exactly out of my comfort zone. Never mind that, comfort was what I wanted tonight, so comfort zone to the rescue.

I started out with the acrylic block+Distress ink + water I learned on Jennifer McGuire's fabulous blog using Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire, Milled Lavender and Victorian Velvet (sssh! don't tell Bella that I used those last two - but really I think they make the rest of it look bluer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it). It turned out a bit crooked and spotty, but oh well, it's a different look every time. And after spending all day fiddling with nightmare fiddly detail horrible detail nightmare fiddly horrible things, I was not about to get all picky with my spray and smoosh therapy. The next step was to wait for it to dry (I skipped this step, just blew on it a bit and by the time I rootled out the stamps and long block, it was dry) and I stamped the branch and bird. This was the very exciting part because I got to use two new embossing powders: Cobalt (branch) and Holiday Blue (bird). A dear friend gave me the Holiday Blue (Sparkle and Sprinkle) and it is so gorgeous in real life. Very sparkly and wonderful. I am feverish for embossing powders lately, not sure why. I think it's that magic that they have when you heat them and they go all shiny. It's still magical after all these years. [soft sigh and quick stare into middle distance....] Next I stamped the sentiment in black, and then some swirly circles in Stormy Sky. They're a little dark for my taste. Stormy Sky is one of those colours that's too light when you want it dark and too dark when you want it light. It's an interesting phenomenon. Then I doodled a border, and regretted it a bit. Fiddled around a while with the card base but settled on this ice blue linen with a scrap of blue-gold metallic paper that was embossed and lying handily on my table. I added a dot of black liquid accents for an eye, drew around the bird for emphasis, and added those three little black dots and called 'er done. I feel marginally better, and may try another one to see if I can get a version that I like better. Or maybe I'll leave it till tomorrow and see how I feel about it then. Top Gear is about to start - who knows what those crazy guys will be up to next. Yesterday they were making police cars out of a Vitara, a coupe and a Lexus. Or maybe I'll go back to my book. I'm re-reading my Susan Howatch Starbridge books, which are my go-to books when I need something really good to read. Anyway, time to get off the computer! Thanks for stopping by!

PS. All stamps on project are by Stamping Bella.

Bellarific Friday

Here's my card for Stamping Bella's Bellarific Friday this week, challenge is polka dots. I used that great flower (Stamping Bella), which has some dots in the design (oh, how it pained me to hide some under the ribbon, the ribbon nearly didn't make it!), the solid grey piece has embossed polkadots and the patterned paper has large and small dots (SU). I stamped the flower on shimmer paper using India Ink and painted it with stamp pads (Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy - SU; Willow - Adirondack; Brushed Corduroy, Peeled Paint - Distress). I also added a bit of a doodle-y frame with my Micron .05.

I made this for a colleague at work who is coming back after an extended maternity leave. It will be nice to have her back and I'll bring this in for the team to sign. I'm even going to stamp the solid version of this flower on the inside - so cool. Other bits and bobs - the ribbon is the double sided kiwi kiss ribbon from SU and the black dots are the Ranger liquid accents in black, the perfect finishing touch for a polka dot challenge! Did anyone else out there play along?

Thanks for stopping by!

Easter card

Hello! I made this card for the Stampotique Animal/Bird/Insect challenge, and when I went to enter it, I found the challenge closed. This is the second time I've missed the challenge. How stunned am I? I am losing my mind. Granted, there wasn't a lot left to lose, but this is irritating. Still, it's a cute card and I mean to give it to a friend for Easter.

I don't have any Stampotique animal/insect/bird stamps, so my thought was to make Marci here into a little Easter bunny. Her bunny ears are actually parts of Moon Girl's wings (feeling quite clever about that!). I stamped Moon Girl on vellum and embossed with Moonstone (no other choice of ep really seemed appropriate) and trimmed out the parts of the wing I wanted. Then after I had Marci stamped and embossed in Chocolate Brown (again, no other ep seemed right for an Easter bunny), I made a slit in the card stock at the top of her head and inserted the "ears". When I trimmed them out, I left little tabs on the bottom to glue down on the back. Marci is stamped on a light pink cardstock that has a faint texture. I coloured her with Distress inks (crushed olive, forest moss, tattered rose, pumice stone) and added in some small grass clumps too. She's embellished with some stickles (champagne, star dust). The card base is the light lemon PTI card, topped with some pretty decorative paper from my stash. It's a pad of Provo Craft handmade paper that I've had since I first got hooked, and I am trying to use it up. Then the card still needed a little something else, and I found a gorgeous piece of textured Japanese paper and used that. I found a great deal on scraps of Japanese paper, all in a big bundle for a good price (at Wallack's art supply store). It's ideal, because I can never bear to bring myself to cut into a full sheet, but these scraps, well they're already scraps so I feel free to use them. Unless they're really pretty and there's only one.... Ok, maybe I'm not quite cured of hoarditis, but I'm getting better and at least it's a start! The final touch took the form of three dots of Espresso dimensional pearls. On the inside is an Inkadinkado stamp that says "Chocolate: It's not just for breakfast".

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have some time to stamp this week.

Upcoming Class

Hello stampers! If you are near Heather's Stamping Haven, here is my next class, scheduled for 10 am on Saturday, April 16th. (I'll try to schedule an afternoon one soon, just this one I had to do morning to accommodate prior obligations.)

This class is called Quick and Easy Collage, and we'll be making these two projects. Hope you can come and join us!

Paint Challenge

Here's my card for the March challenge at Inkurable Stampers, which is to use paint. I started with a sheet of textured shimmer paper, and coated it with acrylic paint dabbers and (pool and lettuce). The shimmer didn't show through, but I still like the texture of the paper, and the white bits still show shimmer. The "thanks" (Impress Rubber Stamps) was stamped in black and heat embossed in black, and matted on more black. The card base is olive, with some botanical silhouettes (Darkroom Door) stamped in dusty lime and Opaline blue ink. The flowers are from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by!