My first post

Hi everyone, and here I go with my first post. It seemed a good time to start a blog as since I started making cards last year such a lot has happened for me.
Very recently I was so happy to be asked to design some background stamps by Kitty at Spiral Whisper. Kitty is launching a brand new stamp company which will specialize in high quality clear stamps and her website will launch on 21st July. This is such a wonderful opportunity for me and I'm honoured to be listed on her blog as a guest designer along with all the other very talented designers who will, I'm sure, bring a great variety of stamps to choose from. There are already some sneak peeks and a character naming competition on her blog.

Just a couple of months ago I won a prize in a stamp designing competition at The Craft Barn and on from that I was delighted to be asked by Sandy the owner, to design two sets of stamps for their new Kadoodle own range which are due to be released in September. I can't thank Sandy enough for her enthusiasm and encouragement over the past couple of months, it's fantastic to be given this amazing opportunity to get into stamp design and also to rekindle my love for drawing.

The winner of the competition, Sandra Dry, designed some wonderful stamps which were released two weeks ago. The Craft Barn will be launching their website very soon.

I should have some sample stamps very soon so that I can start making up samples and as soon as I do I'll be posting them here.

I decided to start off my first post with a card using a Penny Black image as they're my favourite stamps, particularly the Margaret Sherry designs as her cute critters are just amazing and so funny, it's also great that this stamp was sent to me by a friend.

I don't know the name of the stamp but the three little mice look as though they can't wait to eat that cake! I water coloured the image with Tim Holtz distress inks in scattered straw, mustard, tea dye, faded denim, tattered rose and peeled paint, and added stickles to the icing and scarves for a bit of sparkle. The layers are pale yellow bazzil card and doodlebug polka dots paper cut into three panels behind the image. I added a blue organza ribbon to finish.

Have a great week,
Chris