Los Tres Caballeros!

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

Good morning and a very happy Friday! It's Sue here and I'm back with another project for our 31 Days of Halloween event. This time I'm sharing Los Tres Caballeros!

I started by inking up my background, then stamping Gargoyle and Gryphon and embossing in white. I also added some text from the Leonardo Accessories set. I added some colour with ink, but left the text in white.

Next, I stamped and coloured Taurus, and the words from Tres Caballeros.

These are my lovely stamps. I quite often chop my stamps up, which is why the words are separate from the images. Don't worry, if you want  Tres Caballeros it will come complete with the three men lol. I've used

Gryphon

Taurus

Gargoyle

Leonardo Accessories 

 Tres Caballeros

I hope you've already joined in with our fun challenge, but if not, there's still plenty of time. Just link up via the linky or through our Facebook group.

Have a very happy day whatever you are doing, and thanks so much for looking x

It's All About The Background

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

 Good morning and a very happy Saturday, welcome to the weekend!

It's Sue here, and today I'm sharing a card that I made for our Backgrounds In Focus challenge.  I think this one holds the record for the most stamps used by me on a card lol.

I've been seeing lots of retiform lately, with some beautiful examples from my blogging friend Angela (Felix The Crafty Cat). I must admit, I'd no idea how it was done, but I knew that I liked it. So, much YouTube watching later I decided to give it a go!

I made my grid with a blue distress ink and a blender.

Then I added some stamping - LOTS of stamping. I really like how these two colours look together.

I told you I used a lot of stamps!

These are the ones that I've used;

Pieces of Caligraphy

Leonardo Accessories

Steampunk Fly Girl

Steampunk Icarus

Steampunk Pony

Misc Words

CV Leonardo Man

There's still lots of time to join in with our challenge, so please get stamping and remember to keep the Background In Focus.

Take care, and thanks so much for looking x

We're All Divas Darling

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

 Good morning and a very happy Thursday. It's Sue here with my tag tryptych for our Art Dolls and Divas Challenge.

I started by inking up my tags with Distress Inks.

Then I added some stenciling and background stamping. At this point I joined them all together with some washi tape and stitched it down. This now means that the tags are free standing 'cos I can bend them.

Then I stamped my trio of lovelies (yours will come all in one stamp, I really must stop chopping mine up lol) I stamped the three words onto card to ground them.

This is what I've used.

Leonardo Accessories

Cracked Grass and Sky

3 Flying Flower Girls

Misc Words

This was great fun to make, and I hope you like it.

Take care, and have a very happy day whatever you are doing x

Starry Starry Night

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

 Good morning and a very happy Monday. It's Sue here with my second piece for our Things With Wings challenge, and I've made a journal page.

I knew that I wanted to use Steampunk Icarus as my main image and in a Starry Night homage.

I started by stamping and embossing the circles from Leonardo Accessories in yellow, but they turned out to be a sort of burnt orange. The Cracked Grass and Sky was embossed in white. My journal is textured watercolour so it can take loads of water, which is my next stage.

Then dipped and dried (many many times) in the blue distress inks. They resisted the ink beautifully, but I wasn't a fan of the colour of the circles so I stamped them again, cut them out and added them to my background.

I added some yellow Portfolio pastels, and

was much happier with this, so now on to the main images! 

I collaged some book pages and gave it a coat of gesso then I stamped my row of houses onto it using the stamping platform.

And it was an epic fail! The texture was too uneven for all of the stamp to hit it. That made perfect sense after I'd spent an hour of my life that I would never get back doing it!

So, on to plan B! Stamped onto my super smooth card and coloured with Distress Inks. Then my favourite - fussy cutting - shoot me now. I've heard that some people actually enjoy this ?????? But, they do look nice when they're done, don't they!

This is my leading man - Steampunk Icarus who today has flown too close to the moon! The moon is actually the centre part of the Goth Shrine.

I typed up the sentiment on my computer and added to the page.

These are the stamps that I've used. They are all by Lost Coast, and can be found here.

Cityscape

Goth Shrine (moon)

Steampunk Icarus

Leonardo Accessories

Cracked Grass and Sky (this would come to you in one piece, I'm terrible for cutting up my stamps - sorry not sorry!

And there we are, all done! It's not quite as it was in my head, but then again I'm no Leonardo! Don't forget to join in with our challenge, just feature something with wings! Have a great day, and thanks so much for looking x

CHALLENGE #58 - ANYTHING GOES!!!!

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

Greetings.  It's time for our new Challenge.
Please remember we are a stamping challenge and real rubber or clear stamps should be the focus of your project to be eligible for the prize.
Our challenges are now fortnightly!  A new challenge starting the 1st and the 15th of every month, with chances to win your self some Lost Coast dollars. We will be announcing winners on the 5th of the month, so do pop back and see who wowed the team and gets our snazzy blog badge and the coveted Lost Coast dollars.

Now for our new Challenge!

CHALLENGE #58

ANYTHING GOES!!!!!!

Everybody's favourite it's Anything Goes here at the Portal so get out those stamps and go crazy!!!!

Please remember we do have some Challenge Rules to follow so look them over to ensure your entries qualify to win this month's prize!

You are welcome to play in our Challenges using rubber stamp images from any company but if you use any of our Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda stamps...we love it when you do...then your entry counts as two which doubles your chances of winning in our Design Team Faves prize drawing.

PRIZES

To ensure you all have a fabulous time playing in our Challenges this is how our Prize system works!
The more entries the better the Prize so tell all your friends to join the fun too!

1 - 4 Entries = one winner chosen by the team is awarded our Challenge Winner's Badge
5+ Entries = one randomly picked winner will receive a $5 gift certificate to spend at
Lost Coast Designs/Carmen's Veranda
10+ Entries = one randomly picked winner will receive a $10 gift certificate to spend at
Lost Coast Designs/Carmen's Veranda
and all winners get our snazzy Challenge Winner's Badge to proudly display on their blogs!

If you don't have a blog then no prob, you can still play in our challenges by sharing your projects from public photo sharing sites which includes our Facebook Company Pages for Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda.  If you are using Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda stamps you can now also link up your challenge entry in the Lost Coast Official Fan Group on facebook.  There is a challenge album in photo's.  Please include our Challenge info and the link back to our challenge in your photo's description!  As long as the privacy setting for your photo is public you're good to go.  See, it's so easy to join the fun!  FYI, you can't link up projects shared in closed Facebook groups! 

Here's some fabulous inspiration from the team to get us started.  ENJOY!

Cathy made this wonderful card using Lost Coast Designs Elk Skull  and Grunge Diamond Background stamps

 and this one using Lost Coast Designs Elk Skull

 Laurie made this fun card using Katzelkraft Grumpy Penguins, which you can buy from Lost Coast Designs, and the fun Carmen's Veranda sentiment Eat Cake.

Sue made this fantastically dreamy project using Lost Coast Designs Seahorse, Eternity, Journal Letter Guide, Leonardo Accessories Set and Carmen's Veranda Compass Square.

Now it's your turn.  Are you up for the challenge?  We can't wait to see your projects!  
Submit your entries in the linky party below by 5 to midnight PST on the 14th and don't forget to follow us so you don't miss anything!  The team will be posting more inspiration throughout the month so check back and join the fun.

I'd also like to remind you that through to August 10th Lost Coast Designs is sponsoring the Allsorts challenge, where the theme is Tags, so that's another chance to win Lost Coast dollars.  There is also a discount code on the Allsorts blog so do hop over and check it out!!

Happy Stamping!
Gail
Challenge Host

An InLinkz Link-up

Round and Round by Sue

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

Good morning and happy Friday. It's Sue here and I'm really happy to be sharing my piece for our fun Round and Round challenge.

I started by making an inky background with some stencils and Distress Inks.

Then I die cut some circles to stamp through. Is this a stencil or a mask, I'm not quite sure, but it does both so it could be a stask or a maskil. Anyway I stamped the lovely Lost Coast Designs Chloe Collage through it with some Wendy Vecchi gray ink.

Then I stamped other images from Leonardo's Accessories Set  in brown and plum.

 Now it was time for the scarey bit! I outlined all of my circles with a black Stabilo pencil then hit it with the water spray. The watercolour pencil spread out beautifully, I just blotted with kitchen towel before it ran all over the page. I also did a little gentle splatter with other watercolour pencils.

And there we are, all done and sewn into my journal.

 There's still a week left for you to join in with our challenge.  Link up your stamped makes featuring circles for a chance to win Lost Coast Dollars!!
Have a great weekend, and thanks very much for looking x

Picture This Chippie Page

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

Good morning and happy Sunday, it's Sue here with my project for the 'Picture This challenge'. I just love the colours of our inspiration photograph, and this is what I've made.

 I started by gathering my paints together in the challenge colours.

 Then I made a 'pealed paint' background using the paints and a chap stick.

I added some stamping with the Leonardo Accessories Set

And the Agregate background

I stamped the 3 Flying Flower Girls using my stamping platform so I could get a really good impression.

So now I have another double page in my chippy album completed.

You still have a week to enter our challenge, so I hope to see you over on the Portal. Have a happy day, and thanks very much for looking x

Down With The Fishes

Welcome back to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity where Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda collide to bring you twice the inspiration and double the fun!

Good morning (although it's actually afternoon here in the UK) and a very Happy New Year to everyone. It's Sue here with our first challenge of the year at Lost Coast Designs, and it's 'Oodles of Doodles' Now this would normally strike terror into my heart, but my resolution for this year is to 
a) lose half my body weight (only joking - or am I....) and 
b) be a bit less of a perfectionist/control freak/not such an uptight arse - we can say this in England, it's not swearing - honestly! So, to celebrate the untightening of my arse - not sure if we can say that?? I didn't make my piece until the morning it was due, and I'm now typing up my post an hour and 15 before it due EEEEEEK!!
Anyway, here it is

So, in keeping with the theme of 'no worries' I decided to start in my brand new, pristine journal! But it's a cheapo one which is great because it doesn't matter if I mess up in it.

I't a black journal, so my first layer is white gesso, and then some colour.

I've used a mixture of Amsterdam, and Dina Wakley acrylics, and just brayered a background.

I also made a mop up sheet to use later.

Time for some stencilling and doodling with a white pen and black acrylic.

On my mop up sheet I stamped some images from the Fish and Heart Set and cut them out.

Then I sewed them onto a couple of tags.

I stamped the fish onto the circle from the Shadow Frame set so that I could reverse stamp it. It's not as 'perfect' as the normal stamping, but remember resolution (b) lol

The circles from the Leonardo Accessories Set have been stamped and cut out from the mop up sheet. You can also see the Large Chickenwire Background in the corner.

So there we are, all done with seconds to spare lol

It's your turn now, please join in with your doodles, however you make them for the chance to win some Lost Coast $'s. 

Submit your entries in the linky party by 5 to midnight PST on the 14th and don't forget to follow us so you don't miss anything!  The team will be posting more inspiration throughout the month.

Thanks very much for looking, and I'll see you later in the month xx