Winged Clock on distress inked & embossed background

Today's card has been half done for a couple or three months!  I had embossed some cardstock, with various embossing folders, then experimented with blending distress inks over them.  I attached this panel to the card blank and then left it until I could think of how to finish it off :-)

For the second background panel, I smooshed distress inks in the same colours as far as I could remember them, luckily I hadn't strayed very far from my normal palette!  Then I over-stamped with a marble background, cut to size and inked the edges.
The clock face was part of a sheet of die-cuts in a 6" paper pad, either Bo Bunny or Kaisercraft and I had already put it with the wings, which were my experimental cut of a Cheery Lynn die.  I was looking through my die folder for the banner tags I used the other day for the white on white card, came across the large clock die (Robert Adams) and thought - that's it!  The small clock needed a mat as it was a little too small to fill the large clock centre, so I used a Dienamics twirly edge die for that ... I'm sure it has a proper name, but I can't think of it!
I really like this one and I must get that large clock die out again, it cuts beautifully and looks great :-)

Buy it - Try it Monday: butterfly birthday

Today's BiTi is a birthday card using a new butterfly die from Memory Box.

Some of the purple cardstock from last week was still on my desk, so I used that to cut the butterfly, it's quite delicate so I applied Stick It sheet adhesive before running through the machine.  The background is done with a large Justrite stamp, inked up in green/pink/lilac, then I laid the card over the stamp and pressed all over to give a complete impression - this is a much easier way to use such a large stamp!  Then I matted using the same purple cardstock, added the sentiment and some crystals to finish.

This is a nicely sized die for a card, you don't really need much else, so I am quite pleased with this purchase!

Stamped background page for layout

At the crop yesterday, I was winding down for the day and decided to mess about with a bit of background stamping.  I used a sheet of Bazzill in Natural as the base.  Most of my backgrounds start the same way - using an ink duster brush to apply and blend distress inks in Antique Linen and Tea Dye.  It looks a bit splotchy and uneven at this point, but that's OK :-)

Next step is the crackles - swoosh distress ink onto a splotchy shaped area of your crackle stamp (I use Indigo Blu) in Tea Dye and apply randomly over the page, especially in the clearer areas between the previously applied inks.  A non-wood mounted stamp is more flexible for this as you can hold in the hand to apply.  I also tried using Antique Linen for some of the crackles.

Next I added the 'speckles', again using Tea Dye and a Paperartsy stamp.

 Now for the corner stamping.  I knew I wanted to have a graduated stamped image, fading out naturally towards the edges and disappearing into the background.  The ink was Kaisercraft 'Vintage'.  The stamp I chose to use is a tile pattern by Hero Arts for the Basic Grey 'Spice Market ' range - another new purchase used!  I applied the ink to one corner and upwards/along from that corner, then blurred the edges of the ink with a baby wipe before stamping.  This gives the 'fade-to-background' effect at the edges of the image.

Finally I blended some Brushed Corduroy distress ink around the edge, then went over the whole lot lightly with Antique Linen again, plus a bit more Tea Dye.

There will be more stamping on this sheet, but that will depend on how the layout is arranged, so for the moment, that's it.  I am rather pleased with it :-)