The Stamp Man 3rd annual awards

Hi there, well Christmas is well and truly over, the decorations have been put away and the fridge is cleared off leftovers lol. Before looking forward to 2012, the team at The Stamp Man are encouraging us to look back over the past year and pick our best/favourite craft project of the year! What a great challenge and a good excuse to sit in front of the TV with the lappy and a box of After 8s lol (not that I need an excuse to eat chocolate )

After a wander around looking at all the projects I've made in the last year I think my favourite is this one, a little canvas called 'Fairy Door'. I really enjoyed making it as it gave me chance to mess around with paint and glitter and also to use one of my all time favourite stamps, the gorgeous unicorn from Chocolate Baroque. You can see the original post here

It was hard to choose and I thought I'd share a couple more of my favourite projects, this little canvas was created for our first challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and uses some more of my favourite stamps (the original post is here)

Lastly, I really enjoyed making this one, I love mail art and got so carried away making these faux stamps, again using stamps from Chocolate Baroque. You can find out more in the original post here

Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me. I'm back at work tomorrow so although I'm not the happiest bunny in the world its always nice to catch up with friends and have a good old gossip :-) Here's to another year of crafting

Claire xx

Nautical but nice (can you tell I was struggling for a title for this post lol)

I don't often make cards for men but its my lovely Father in Law's birthday coming up so I thought i'd better get cracking. I've used my all time favourite stamp sheet for mens cards to make this card, its the Nautical sheet from The Stamp Man and I never get fed up of it (the men in the family probably do though as I use it again and again, lol). I thought this would be a good card for the latest challenge from the Stamp Man Challenge Blog where the theme is distressing.

I love to make a card from scratch and get inky making backgrounds so i had a lot of fun making this card. All the stamps are from the Aspects of Design Nautical stamp plate. I stamped the large ship/map image randomly on white card with stormy skies distress ink and then did the same with the ship stamp using Tumbled glass distress ink. I sprayed the background lightly with Moonshadow inks in Bucaneer Bay Blue and Golden Dubloons.  I repeated this on the back of the card and then cut an X where the background would lie over the main image. I distressed all the edges with tumbled glass and vintage photo DI and attached the folded back corners with little brads.

The main image was stamped and embossed with walnut stain distress EP on a left over scrap of the background card. I painted the image with a little Bucanner Bay blue and Golden Dubloons inks and attached the background over the image.

The sentiment is stamped and embossed with the same EP. The little brass button is from my stash and the hinges are grungeboard basics die cuts coloured with vintage photo DI and more Golden Dubloons Moonshadow Ink.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Allsorts: Male/boy

Aly's Sunday Challenge: for the guys

C.R.A.F.T challenge: Martial arts/sport - I hope sailing counts :-)

Crafty Sentiments: Vintage

Paper Sundaes: Distressing

One Stop Crafty Challenge :More than one fold

Pixie Dust:  Buttons

Sweet Stampin Challenge: Clear as mud (Brown + 1 other colour, I chose blue)

Simon Says Stamp: Bingo challenge (my line is brads, button, die cut)

Thanks for visiting today,

Claire xx