Claritystamp Challenge 10 - Scene Building

This is my entry for this months Challenge which is called Scene Building. 

Ingredients 

The concertina card has been cut out from Sizzix Bigz Die, Album and Accordion Flip 3D 

I have then created 4 scenes by stamping with archival ink and then coloured in using Distress a Inks and a Zig brush. 

Scene 1 - Claritystamps tall wild poppies, wheat and small scarecrow 

Scene 2 - Claritystamps moonshaddow, boating and leaves from birdhouse garden set

Scene 3 - Claritystamps medium tree silhouette, trees and grass from winder tree set and squirrel from birdhouse garden set.

Scene 4 - Claritystamps forest ridge and medium fishing 

Selection of ink pads, archival for stamping the images (black, orange blossom and potting soil) and Distress a Inks for colouring the backgrounds (frayed burlap, salty ocean, dusty concord, fired brick, wild honey, shabby shutters, spiced marmalade, antique linen, pickled raspberry, forest moss, iced spruce, mowed lawn, faded jeans).

This is the first play I've had with these dies which I had for Christmas and I just love the results. 

If you'd like to leave me any feedback that would be much appreciated, thanks for taking the time to look.

Butterfly Delight

Ingredients

Imaginations Crafts Products - Flower Flourish stencil, Diamond Sparkle Medium, Satin Lilac Card, and Butterfly Decoupage Stamp Set 

Cream 7x7 card 

Archival Brilliance ink pad - Peacock

Centura Pearl Card

Distress Inks - Shaded Lilac, Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers

Lilac and pale blue ribbon 

Pinflair glue

Sticklers - Turquoise and Starry Night

Self Adhesive Jewels

1. Cut a piece of Centura Pearl card slightly smaller than the base card. On the reverse of the card stamp around the edge using Archival ink and a small stamp from the butterfly set, once dry distress the edges with Shaded Lilac. Mat and layer this onto the base card.

2. Stamp two of the decoupage toppers and one sentiment using the Archival ink pad, again distress the edges of the sentiment and one topper. Cut the large butterfly out of the other topper and colour in using a Zig water brush and DI. 

3. On a piece of Satin Lilac Card using low tac tape stick down the Flower Flourish stencil and spread the Diamond Sparkle Medium on it. Once covered carefully remove the stencil and leave to dry, I tend to batch make different backgrounds so that I've got a variety to chose from.

4. Mat and layer the lilac card and then the toppers on to the base card then add some matching ribbon around the card. Stick the decoupage butterfly on and finish it off with a little bit of stickles and self adhesive jewels. 

I hope that you like this and try out the techniques yourself, the sparkle medium is especially nice to work with.

H O M E

I decided to take Friday off from work to do a little bit of crafting and amongst other things made a wall hanging which I haven't done before. 

Ingredients

Home Hanging from Tando Creative

Gelli Plate

Acrylic paints - assorted colours Almond,  Light Magenta, Pale Peach, Pearlescent  Blue and Gold

Versafine Ink - Onyx Black and Deep Lagoon

Archival Brilliance ink pad - Peacock

Distress Inks - assorted colours Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Squeezed Lemonade, Dusty Concord, Tumbled Glass, Fired Brick and Peacock Feathers

Inkylicious Stamps - Vintage Birds and Flutters 1

Ribbon - Burgundy with gold running through it

I created the background using the Gelli Plate with peach, magenta and almond paint, once dry I coloured it further with distress inks through punchinella for added interest and distressed the edges with gold paint.

The HOME letters were painted using the pearlescent blue paint and distressed a little bit with gold, once dry the letters were stuck to the background using pinflair glue.

I stamped the flowers with part of the pattern from the Inkylicious vintage bird stamp using fired brick DI, then the butterflies were stamped with the flutters 1 stamps using either the Versafine or Archival ink pads. Once dry they were coloured using DI and edged with a little bit of gold paint and attached to the background. Finally I attached the ribbon to hang it up and thread the pieces together. 

Clarity Stamp Challenge 9 - Christmas

This is my entry for this months Clarity Stamp Challenge 9 - Christmas 

Ingredients 

Clarity stamps - Small holly and ivy - Christmas sprig - Traditional Christmas Message

Assortment of Promarkers pens

Archival Brilliance pigment ink pad - Peacock

Encore Ultimate Metallic Gold ink pad

Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass

Red card for mounts

Spellbinder Shapeabilities - Layered Poinsettia

Gold gilding wax

Little bit of bling

The backing for the card was stamped with the holly stamp and then coloured in with Promarkers, this has been mounted on red card after being distressed with tumbled glass. The sentiment was stamped using the Archival peacock ink pad and was heat set as it does have a tendency to smudge if you're not careful or patient.

The tag was stamped using the Encore gold ink pad, again this was heat set and then coloured using the Archival ink and mounted onto red card.

Finally, I cut out the poinsettia picked out the detail with gold gilding wax and put it all together. I hope you like it, why not have a go yourself. 

If you'd like to leave me any feedback that would be much appreciated, thanks for taking the time to look.

Lavinia Stamps Challenge 9 - Bright Hot Colours - (I won)

This is my entry for this months Lavinia Stamps challenge, Bright Hot Colours. It has been stamped with some of my new stamps purchased when I went to the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC, Lavinia's was the first stand that I went to and I wasn't disappointed. I can't wait for Christmas to come when I've got a few days off so I can have a really good play. 

The stamped images have been coloured in using Pro-Marker pens and then I have gone over the top using Distress Inks, mustard seed, wild honey, spiced marmalade, fired brick and peeled paint. 

Finally I have finished it off with some ribbon coloured with the Distress Inks to match the tag. I hope you like it. 

Why not visit Lavinia Stamps website and have a go at the challenge yourself, you never know you may be a winner. For more details follow the link:  http://laviniastamps.com/blog/lavinia-stamps-challenge-9-bright-hot-colours/

Claritystamp Challenge 8 - Winter

This is my card for this months challenge, late as ever I really must be more organised next month. I started off by stamping the fisherman and (reverse image with the splodge mat) using chipped sapphire Distress Inks. Next I moved on to the background which is a mixture of iced spruce DI and stonewashed Adirondack. The next step was to put in the moon shadow, cabin and trees for which I used a mixture of blues, greens and black both by Distress Inks and Adirondack. Finally, I put in a bit of shading using a blending tool and went around the edge using forest moss and chipped sapphire. 

Lavinia - Challenge 8 (Autumn Colours)

I love to watch the seasons change as we move through the year and especially like it when autumn arrives. To watch the trees turning to their rich autumnal colours is a joy to behold. This is my entry for Lavinia Stamps Autumn Colours Challenge, to see further details on how you could be in with a chance of winning a £40 voucher to spend on the Lavinia Stamps website follow the link below. Go on why not give it a go, you know what they say you've got to be in it to win it.

http://laviniastamps.com/blog/challenge-8-autumn-colours/

Clarity Clocks

  

This was my first attempt at making a clock with some kind advice and mentoring from Karen Clare aka The Clock Lady

Clarity butterfly and flourish.

Lone Ranger at sunset.

Sweet Poppy Stencils

I was mesmerised watching Lucy do demonstrations at the NEC in March 2013 using Sweet Poppy stencils, inks with translucent paste/pearlescent paste and also the micro beads. This is another area of card making that I really enjoy, hope you like the results. 

Variations on a theme using different coloured inks through the stencils and co-ordinating card for matting and layering.

The Delights of Sparkle Medium

In November 2012 when I went to the Hobbycraft show at the NEC for the first time with my crafting buddy Amanda I bought some sparkle medium from Imagination Crafts. Since then I have made a number of cards using this medium and I just love the results. 

This card was made on a pre-printed background paper by Lavinia Stamps and the Felicity stencil from Sweet Poppy Stencils. It was mounted onto black card that was clear embossed with leaf stamps and placed on a cream 8x8 card. 

The two cards above we're made using Imagination Crafts sparkle medium through stencils by Sweet Poppy Stencils.

These two cards were made using the Leafless Stencil from Dreamweaver Stencils using contrasting sparkle medium and papers from Imagination Crafts. 

These last cards were again made using Imagination Crafts sparkle medium through Sweet Poppy Stencils. I just love the combination, try it out but don't be surprised if you get addicted. 

Poppy

Here is a simple card using the poppy stamps from Claritystamp embossed in gold on Clarity black coated card stock mounted on gold mirror card and layered onto a pearlescent card. Very quick to make but simple and elegant. 

Alcohol Inks

Here are some cards that I made recently using alcohol inks on laminating pouches. They have then been backed on white card (but not actually laminated) and mounted inside a linen card with an aperture cut out with a Spellbinder die. This is great fun so be sure to have a go. 

IndigoBlu Snow Queen

Here we have two cards made during a very enjoyable evening with my 'crafty' mate Mandy.

On both cards I have stamped the IndigoBlu Snow Queen on the reverse side of centura pearl card using an onyx black Versafine ink pad. On the first card some areas of the hair have been drawn over using a white crayon to create a resist technique, then they have both been coloured using a variety of Distress Inks. The next step was to spritz with water, dry and finally mount and layer onto cards. 

The beautiful leaves stamped on the first card are from the Ornate Leaf Set by Designs by Ryn. 

Hope you like them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Umbrella Man

Card made using Tim Holtz umbrella man stamp kindly stamped for me by my crafting buddy Mandy. Coloured using distress inks and layered onto card that was embossed with a cog stencil and the detail picked out using rubbing wax. 

A Little bit different

I have only recently started using distress inks and created this with the first outing of my new Dylusion Stamps which are quite different to my usual taste. Great fun! 

Autumn Delight

I love this time of the year and the beautiful autumnal colours that it brings.

I started this card by taking some leaves from my garden, inking them up with distress inks and pressing them onto a piece of linen card, once dry this was distressed with frayed burlap and antique linen.  I stamped 'autumn' on it using Dylusion's alphabet rubber stamps from Ranger. 

This was matted onto a piece of card which I made a border using a stamp from the Dylusion 'Further around the edge' set which I distressed with antique linen, mustard seed, spiced marmalade, dusty concord and a hint of fired brick around the edge. 

Finally, this was matted onto a piece of black card and put on a white base card and as a finishing touch I added a flower cut out using Tim Holtz Tattered Floral dies. 

I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it. 

Clarity Stamp Challenge 7 - Vintage - (Top Five)

I started off working on my entry this month with the idea that I wanted to incorporate a bookmark with the card. I struggled a bit to start off with because my card base was too small which restricted me so I put that to one side and started over.

I wanted to use the large sketched lady stamp so stamped it out twice, coloured it in using Promarker pens and cut it out using a Spellbinder 'Our Daily Bread' bookmark die. The bookmarks were edged with tumbled glass distress inks and trimmed with white ribbon that was coloured using the tattered rose distress ink.

The backing paper was made using tattered rose distress inks on 'Theuva card' which I spritzed quite liberally, this pickled the card surface a bit but I wasn't too concerned as it just adds to the aged look.  I then embossed over the top of this in white using the large roses stamp.

Another layer was added using a patterned paper 'Victorian Classic' from Paper Cellar Ltd. This paper was also used to make the small flowers which were cut out using Petal Pair Punches from Tonic Studio, the flowers had the petals tinged using distress inks milled lavender and dusty concord. The large purple flower was bought and already in my 'Crafty stash' and added with a metal leaf embellishment.

Finally, the 'Yesterday' sentiment was added, distressed with tumbled glass and a pearl was added to each corner. 

I really enjoyed making this card and was pleased with the way the colours co-ordinate. I hope you enjoy it too. 

Lavinia Challenge 7 - Add A Flower

Having only recently set up a blog this is the first opportunity I have had to enter this wonderful challenge and this is my entry for http://laviniastamps.com/blog/challenge-7-add-a-flower/

I Hope you like my entry as much as I enjoyed making it. 

Paper Artsy Hot Picks

I made these cards at the beginning of September using Paper Artsy Hot Pick stamp sets 1207 and 1218. The backgrounds on the first set are made using the Geli plate, the main images stamped in onyx black Versafine and then finished off with distress inks. This was my first go at something a little bit different and I really enjoyed pushing my boundaries. 

Distress Ink Delight

Five step card using techniques leant at Eileen Godwin's workshop in Allhallows, Kent on 14th September 2013 with my good friend Amanda.

Step one - Create a script background using Versamark ink and white embossing powder.

Step two - Pick a light coloured ink and stamp it all over an ink block (for this card I used distress ink tumbled glass). Liberally spritz the block and place down on the paper, lift off and dry with heat gun.

Step three - Ink up a background stamp in the same colour (tumbled glass) spritz lightly and place down, drying with heat gun if necessary. I used the Cover-a-Card background stamp  'Fireworks' from Stamps & Memories which I fell in love with at Eileen's workshop so just had to get one.

Step four - Stamp around the edge of the card using distress inks and lightly spritz each time before stamping the image. I used shaded lilac, iced spruce, dusty concord, tumbled glass and peacock feathers. Edge the card with distress inks, I used the iced spruce.

Step five - Print you main images, for this card I have used Lavinia Stamps and inked up with Versafine inks onyx black, deep lagoon and imperial purple. 

Finally I have stamped some small stars from Lavinia using an Encore ultimate metallic gold ink pad. The card has then been put together using co-ordinating coloured card and trimmed with matching ribbon. 

I have to say I loved every minute of making this card and shall be using this technique again and again. Thank you for the inspiration Eileen. x

Allhallows Craft Workshop

A selection of cards made at the workshop, concentrating on Distress Ink techniques. A great day, can't wait to experiment more once we get home. It's been a bit like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure! 

Allhallows Craft Workshop

 Fantastic day at Allhallows Craft Workshop where Mandy and I met Eileen Godwin. Wonderful time with like minded people and learning new techniques. Can't wait until October so that we can do it again!