Beware Pirates! - number 2

I had a go with a smooth background technique for this card (see http://www.monkeysee.com/play/2612-how-to-use-the-smooth-background-technique-for-your-card?source=ext), using chocolate chip, old olive and really rust inks on a glossy cream card base.  Once this was dry I stamped the pirate and text (from the Beware Pirates stamp set) with Versamark and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder.  This was a bit fiddly because the embossing powder stuck to the apparently still wet background but with a soft dry paintbrush I just about managed to remove the excess.  I had a go with another card in different colours after this one and cunningly stamped the image and text first to avoid that problem, however, the background then didn't go evenly over the raised embossing, so I think the first method is the winner!

Both of these cards are being entered into the Stampin' Up Only Challenge - For The Kids

Beware Pirates!

Used the Beware Pirates stamp set and an old road atlas for this card.
A page from the road atlas was soaked in cold tea overnight and left to dry.  A rectanglular-ish shape was then torn out, it's edges carefully burnt over a match, screwed up, unscrewed and just the middle bit stuck onto a square card blank.  I then rolled the edges a bit.
I stamped 2 of the skull and crossbone stamps using Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler inks.  The Cherry Cobbler one was stamped twice without re-inking so that it was nicely faded, then cut out and stuck on.
All the bits were stuck together and the Beware Pirates stamped in Cherry Cobbler

Anniversary Card

This card has been designed for 6 challenges -
The Shabby Tea Room, flower power
Hooked on Craft, with love
Papertake, hot hot hot
Cupcake Craft, vintage
Kaboodle Doodles, use those scissors
DYSU, sew (faux or real)

The sentiment was written, a wavy shape drawn around, cut out and edges inked
This was stuck on to some scraps of Stampin' Up patterned papers, which were drawn and then hand cut and holes punched around the edge
The background layers are Stampin' Up papers, then hand stitched to the card
The circle of flowers are punched out from coloured papers and selectively embellished with coordinating pearls