Bee yourself .......

Happy Friday ........

The weekend starts here! Although I think it's already started for some!

I've got a little reminder for you this morning about the latest Craft Stamper challenge .......

It's been up and running since last Friday and there's already some fabulous entries in the gallery.

It's the usual Anything Goes theme ..... as long as there's actual rubber stamping somewhere on your project, and our sponsor this month is the wonderful STAMPlorations .......

A fabulous online craft store, stocking hundreds of their own brand of clear stamps, stencils and masks ..... and metal cutting dies.  The designs cover a whole range of tastes ..... there really is something for everyone.

The prize on offer for this month's challenge winner (randomly chosen) is this set of three (3) amazing stamp plates ...... cool or what!

And ........ Shery has very kindly offered a little something extra for everyone.  For the whole of July, when readers/followers of the Craft Stamper Blog place an online order of at least $15 they can get 20% off by using the code CRAFTSTAMPER at the checkout.

Thanks Shery!  

Surprise!  I've got a couple of journal pages for you today.

Yes I'm still playing along with the Creative Journaling 365 group on Facebook.  Well, when I say playing along what I mean is I follow what everyone else is doing and feel guilty I haven't been keeping up!  There's no way I'll get to 365 finished pages by the end of the year but if I can keep doing something every now and again I'll be happy!

I've been playing with my Distress Oxides again ....... I love them!

I can't wait until the new colours arrive ....... talk about stalking the postman!

Anyway ..... I started the pages by applying the colours to the background.  I used another favourite of mine .... the acetate smooshing technique, or it was more of an acetate pouncing really. 

I smooshed the DO's onto my craft sheet, spritzed with water and them picked up the colour using a piece of acetate.  I then pounced the acetate over the journal page to build up the colour .... I love how you get this mottled look, and you can see I did leave a little bit of white space here and there.

I then added some foliage to the top of the pages using yet another favourite .... stamps from the JOFY range (JOFY 49 for the leaves) 

I love how you can stamp with the oxides and get clean, crisp images ..... and then use the same inks along with a little bit of water, to colour them in

I stamped a few grasses across the bottom of the pages, again in a green Distress Oxide and then stamped the large flower (JOFY 26) over the top using black Versafine ink and heat embossed them with a clear powder

 If you use more ink and less water you get this really cool, almost opaque finish .....

I added in a few little bees here and there, and finished off with the words ...... the new 'T' for Transparent set from Penny Black called be .....

Stamped and heat embossed in white, and I couldn't resist adding the extra letter ........ it just had to bee done (oooh .... sorry!)

Something else that had to go on there was the ladybug ...... stamped, coloured and fussy cut, and finished off with some glossy accents.
And finally I splattered some white paint over the pages and a few dots of gold .... just because I could!

Well that's 2 more pages done ..... and I love how they turned out.  I just wish I had more time to play.

Thanks for popping by ....... enjoy the rest of your day and have a great weekend.
I'm off into the craft room again.  I had a lovely day up there yesterday, very productive too.  And no interruptions.  Hubby's on the work's 2 day 'off site'........ you know one of those team building/bonding sessions where they supposedly get lots done.  Yeah! Yeah! .... it's just an excuse for a couple of days away from the office having a jolly!!
Yesterday was spent at the museum ....... apparently, it was all meetings and presentations along with a quiz that hubby had prepared.   He said it went down really well with everyone, but things got quite competitive ..... no surprises there!   Then they had a meal out in the evening and a late night doing goodness knows what ...... there was probably karaoke at some point.  I'll bet there's a few sore heads this morning though, which is not good as they're all off kayaking and coasteering this morning ........ let's hope they all make it back in one piece!

Cheerio until next time ......