Sugar Nellie Challenge

Hi, not sure why this is called a "challenge" as when using Sugar Nellie stamps it is anything but!! I Just adore Sugar Nellie stamps and find that it some cases (as this card shows) that it isn't always necessary to use a lot of colouring as the images are so perfect in themselves.

I used the gorgeous Manga Boy and Girl and colouring them with a combination of Silver Gel pen and Marva La plume pens. I used some adhesive lace from Lakeland as I have rather a lot and want to use it up wherever possible as it has been in my craft stash for far too long now. The black(it may look brown on the photo so sorry about that) floral and swirl paper with diasies is from Papermania Ivory Black collection. The white daisy flower and brad are from my stash as is the sentiment stamp the two small daisies along side it are peg stamps which I have recently got into using.

I really enjoyed making this card and also accidentally stumbled across a "top tip" when clearing up. I usually use liquid soap and water to clean my stamps but used liquid handwash by mistake - oh so much better than liquid soap as it also brought off dried on black in from the acrylic block.

Basic Grey Challenge - Animals

Wow, Animals? now there was a challenge in itself as I had very little in the way of animals. Anyway I stamped, coloured, cut out and then glazed this cheeky little monkey from Pink Gems stamps about a week ago and then selected my Basic Grey porcelain papers. Had this wonderful idea of making him swing from branch to branch. Then spent several nights wondering how I could achieve this before deciding to forget this idea and attach him with a brad to give him some movement. For the large embelishment , I used a sizzix die and then embossed it and then touched it over with a sandstone ink pad to lift the dark green. The sentiment was cut using my "Slice" as I haven't really had a really good play with it to date. I then embossed it using the same cuttlebug folder that I had used for the large embelishment and again inked it with the sandstone ink pad to tone it down. The rest is from my stash. Can't really say a lot more as the "deadline" is fast approaching. I really must get myself together a bit better for the next challenge. I've attached two images so that it is clear that the monkey does move (not sure if this is allowed) but please excuse me as I haven't really got my head around blogging yet. Please feel free to leave comments.