Hee hee

One post a week, that s shocking!! Hello my lovely blog readers, well I won't say nothing as I feel so bad about being quiet but I live in hope that things will get better, lets face it they can't get any worst!! I am still crafting and I have also been busy finalising details for the Stamp With Us first ever Retreat I am soo excited for this, there are only 11 days left woohooo!!> By the way registrations closes today so skip over and book your place now if you want to come. I have 2 cards to show you today I have followed the same sketch for both as I really liked it, is the sketch posted for this week challenge over at SWUS.

I adore circles, balls, spheres, polka dots in fact everything that's round I love, so this suited me down to the ground, it came together in minutes. The trees from Lovely as a Tree were embossed in black powder (I love how embossing looks on cards, you get this wonderful dimension on your image while still keeping the effect subtle), then I sponged using a dauber Certainly Celery in, and a bit of Old Olive on the lower part and Bashful Blue and a bit of Tempting Turquoise for the top part. Then circle was cut with the Coluzzle system and the scallop edge was made with SU straight edge punch from a piece of Old Olive card. Oval All provided the sentiment this was again sponged on the edges before it was layered onto a old olive scalloped mat. Designer paper used was Bashful Blue and Celery, wide Old Olive grosgrain ribbon and basic black card blank. I really love this set and I hope it never, ever retires. So why not have a go yourself at the challenge this week? We have some free giveaway places to our next round on Stamp With Us Online starting on the 1st of August. Each week for the whole month of July we will pick one lucky entrant to join us for FREE. I am looking forward to lots of lovely entries and good luck!!

Then I got carried away with the sketch and did another, this time with an oval center piece instead of the circle.

I love this year's key colours, they are everywhere!! Rich shades of berry like colours paired with yellowy mustards and deep purples they suit me very nicely. So I settled on a combo of Rose red, Elegant Eggplant and Summer Sun overstamped with More Mustard. And yes I have used a Martha Stewart lattice punch, I must be the only person in the land that only just got this punch but in my defense I did order it at the beginning of March and only took delivery of it last week . Soft Summer is such a gorgeous set and I wanted to have a play at an old technique cracked glass, I love techniques and don't use some of them too often.

I stamped on whisper white CS then I have embossed several layers of clear embossing powder over the surface, I think all in all I did about 5 layers. I could have gone on and on but I got bored of it in the end LOL, the thicker you do it the nicer the effect, now beware do not do it too thick either. On the last layer I have sprinkled some dazzling diamonds before heating so it added a bit more interest to the whole image.

I have a close up here for you and while you might not be able to see the diamonds you can hopefully see the cracked lines, very pretty. You could also rub some ink with a sponge dauber over the cracked lines to emphasise them. Have a great rest of the week and I will see you later on this week for sure as I have a few birthdays to announce. Lots of big hugs and thank you for still visiting me and leaving me those lovely comments. Monica xxx