Boy is it cold here!

Okay I am ready for Spring!!
But in the mean time I'm cooking and stamping and walking Luke through the snow!
Today I've mailed of a card swap to OSA this one is a 4/4 and the Theme is 'Year of the Horse'
These cards took two tries.  I started with a Magenta stamp that I love:

This stamp is a pain to use, like so many magenta stamps, I have however come up with an ink and paper combination that works pretty well, The mess you see to the right of the stamp is an ink spray spill, what a disaster! I use an old ranger solvent ink (called 213) and a specialty photo offset paper. This combo works great especially when your refill ink bottle doesn't rain ink everywhere except on the pad!

 

Next getting a good impression, another challenge with these jumbo Magenta stamps!

 

 

Ugh!!

 

Best I could get with my big block rocking stamp mount which is normally the best tool!  Resorted to remounting the stamp onto it's wood block (yes I saved it!) and using my speed ball press!

Finally a good impression!  and I didn't have to run the stamp over with my front tire!
I worked with these images to come up with something and no matter what I did I didn't like it for this swap!

I know, bad photo but these images weren't going anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I started over again

This Time it worked right from the start with out any ink explosions!!

 

This is a digital image I worked up and printed on watercolor paper

 

 

 

A background design from Shery K Designs, I did the coloring

 

 

 

For the finished card I added silk turquoise thread with silver thread, hand stamped Kanji  - Peace, Love and hope - I named the three horses!

The purple background is for

the swap hostess.

The first set of card I worked on for about 4 hours, the second set took and hour and were very enjoyable to make!

 

Thanks for stopping by and if you like snow visit, come and visit me!!

Ginny M