Flowery Gown

Hello and welcome back. Here is a fabric project I have done using the stamps from Leonie Pujol and the new collection that was launched on Hochanda on Wednesday 18th May. I hope you like it and enjoy my step by step today.

I started of by cutting a square of cream Calico approximately A4 in size, pressed it and stamped the head and shoulders stamp.

Very lightly in pencil, I sketched a rough outline of a gown, I filled this with the group of flowers stamp from the same set. This is a wonderful stamp and has a light feathery effect within the flowers, I deal for pattern building. I thought it would be great for the dress as it gives a floaty effect.

I was a bit adventurous with the hair and wanted her to look different so I decided to cover the hair with French knots. Taking 2 strands of black and one strand of burgundy embroidery thread I randomly added them all over. Then in between I used just 2 strands of black thread until it was completely covered. 

For the flowers on the dress I used Spectrum Aqua Markers from Crafters Companion, the colours I used were Teal,Wildflower and Red Violet. I used flicking strokes using the small nib end, from the centre outwards, but didn't colour right up to the tips as I wanted these to remain cream.

I used the same flicking motion and small nib to colour the wings with Teal and I concentrated the colour nearest the body. When this was dry, I stretched the calico over a piece of 8 x 8 board.

On a separate piece of calico I stamped my sentiment and stretched this over a piece of greyboard.

Taking the misty flower stamp that I used for the dress along with the single flower, I created a frame/border around the card. I positioned the sentiment where i wanted it to sit so I could stamp the edge to match the Background.

I then randomly coloured some of the blooms in the border, Using just a couple of the Spectrum Aqua Markers. Finally I stuck down the sentiment, raising it with 3D glue gel.

It was fun creating this project and I hope you have enjoyed seeing and reading about it today. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit and I hope that you will continue to follow my blog. Take care xx

Butterfly Scribbles

Morning, Thank you for stopping by to see what I am sharing with you today. I hope you are well. If you happened to see my Post on May 22nd, you will already know why I am posting this card. I thought I didn't like the original card when I had finished it and so I made a replacement. After I had finished this one, I decided that I did like the other one after all. I hope that make some sense to you.

For this card I took a piece of 8 1/4;; square watercolour card. I took the Scribbled Dreams Sentiment from Leonie' new collection and placed it in the top left of the card, directly opposite I stamped the scribble butterflies in versamark, then embossed with white fine detail powder.

In between these two stamps, I placed one of the butterflies from the Fly to Freedom set. Then I took three word stamps from across Leonie's collection and stamped them in a staggered fashion.

Lightly in pencil, I drew a double box around the sentiment and words. I also drew a box 5 mm from the edge of the card and repeated this another 5 mm from the first line. I created a deckled line along these lines and the lines around the words using a waterproof black fine liner.

I took my fine liner and ruler and drew a series of lines from the boxes to the centre of the card to give the 3D look and feel. Then I repeated this for the butterfly. Using Pebeo Drawing Gum, I masked all of the elements, including both frames around the card.

When this was dry, I took a selection of distress inks and applied them in circles using a smoothies, randomly across my card working from blue to green, through yellow,orange and finally red. The colours I used were: Mermaid Lagoon,Mowed Lawn,Mustard Seed,Fossilized Amber,Mustard Seed,Carved Pumpkin and Candied Apple.

Then I removed my Drawing gum, with my new eraser, now it only takes seconds, Thank you so much Janet!!!. For the beams I used 3 of my Blue Alcohol Markers to graduate the colour from the centre point. I coloured my butterfly using a yellow, orange and red alcohol marker. Finally I coloured the inner of the outer frames in black and layered my design onto a black pearl card blank.

I hope you like the finished card, I have to say I like them both. I think it is a really effective design and I have enjoyed experimenting with different shapes and stamps, Take care and thank you again for your support.xx

Happy Birthday Nan.xx

Morning, Hopefully you wont mind me sharing something very special to me today. My Nan would have been 94 years old today. To mark her special day, I wanted to make a double spread scrapbook page. I really hope you like my project, her favourite flowers were roses and Lilies, so I just had to cover the pages with them.

For those of you that have been following my blog, you will know that I adore Graphic 45, but I never use it, for this I broke all my rules and used papers from The Gilded Lily 12 x 12 & 6 x 6 collections.

I chose the papers I wanted from the pad along with some border strips. I used the very border from two of the pieces as a frame for both pages. I also used 2 sheets of cream cardstock for the base of my pages.

Then I took the border strips and background papers and cut them to size.

I used a border for the top of the page, leaving a gap for the frame. I used the other border strip just over half way down the pages.

Once the papers were in place I added some Distress Ink around the pages, I used Victorian Velvet and Tattered Rose. Then I added the frame and finally some cream crochet lace from Creative Expressions.

For the decoupage element, I took a page from both the 12 and 6 inch pads. I worked out which roses and lilies I wanted and cut them out with scissors.

Having chosen the photos. I used some of the sentiment frames and cut out the centre sections so I could add  the photo's behind. I took one of the mini folders and used it as a journal pocket and added a matching tag for journaling. Here is one of the final layout after many re arrangements. 

I took some other embellishments from Bo Bunny and scrappberries, A cameo as Nan always used to wear some beautiful ones, some filigree metal butterflies and some letters to spell 'Nan'. The letters were printed with type, but white so I coloured them using Victorian Velvet Distress ink. I also coloured some seam binding with the same colour and scrunched it up before making a 'Sue Wilson' messy bow. Finally I assembled my decoupage elements using 3D glue gel. I wrote something in the journal pocket  and invitation with details of the wedding. I added a ribbon to the journal card and attached it with a matching brad.

To finish the pages I added some pearls, using some cosmic shimmer pearl PVA from Creative Expressions.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post today and for all of your comments. I do hope you have enjoyed what I have done here. Before I go I would also like to share this medal, I collect coins and I designed it as a commemorative piece and had them made. 

Thank you again for stopping by and I hope you will pop back very soon. Tomorrow I have another card to share using stamps from Leonie's New Collection. Take care xxx

Butterfly Wreath

Good Morning and thank you so much for stopping by again. I hope you are well and have a good Bank Holiday weekend. Well I have something completely different using stamps from Leonie to share with you today, So I am hoping that you will like it.

I have lots of grape vines here, when they are pruned, there are lots of long lengths to get shot of. A lot of them go into the stove, but I thought it would be nice to find a different use for some of them at least. I decided I would like to try and make a grape vine wreath.

After some research online, I found out that it is in fact fairly easy to do, I took three equal lengths of vine and formed them into a rough circle shape. Then brought the ends through the centre, wrapped and repeated. Before running out of length I added some more until the wreath was about the right size, any loose pieces can be tucked in or trimmed back with pruning sheers. I was really please with the finished result, at the same time cursing, thinking about the money I had spent in the past buying them in the past. I put this aside while I got everything else ready.

There are quite a lot of elements to the wreath, so It's best to go through them one by one.

I cut about 10 x 1 1/2'' strips of calico, approximately 36'' long and when bunched together I concertina folded them and tied them together with garden twine about 2/3 of the way up. I dyed one part with Slate and one part with Lavender, Quick and Easy Dyes from Forest Fibres on ebay. When they were dry I cut them in half and rolled them into roses. I will do a post on this at some point soon, to show how. There were a couple of strips left over that I tied into messy bows.

On a separate piece of calico, I stamped some of Leonie's stitched hearts from the new collection with archival waterproof ink. I stamped inside the hearts with 'Love' & 'Dreams', again with black Archival Ink. I dyed half of them in Slate and half in Lavender at the same time I dyed a square of calico in Slate to become my backing. Once they were dry, I roughly cut out the hearts and backing and stitched around leaving a gap for stuffing. I then stitched up the gap and frayed around the edges.

I took some 2'' strips of hessian, approximately 18'' long and made 3 large roses. I wrapped some garden string around paint brushes 3'' long, secured with pins at either end, covered in PVA and left to dry.

Then I made a few Paper roses, I took half a sheet each of Tim Holtz Core-dinations cardstock, Tattered Rose and Dusty Concorde from Crafters Companion. I cut various size circles, using my circle cutter, then run them through the Textures Leaf Vein embossing folder by Crafters Companion. I then sanded them back to reveal the core colour. I cut these into spirals, wound them to form roses and secured them with Cosmic Shimmer Glue.

Taking an MDF tag, I coloured it using Cornflour Blue Nuvo Embellishment Mousse by Tonic Studio's. I applied 2 coats and polished it once it was dry. Then using Indigo Blu Flitter Glue, I used a sentiment stamp from Leonie's New Stamp Collection and covered it with Gilding flake.

Finally I assembled the wreath, using a hot glue gun. I  started off by placing the MDF tag and building up around 3/4 of the wreath leaving some bare vine.

I have really enjoyed making this project and I sincerely hope you have enjoyed the step by step. I know it was a long one but I really thin it is worth taking the time to make such a nice piece. Thank you so much for your continued visits and wonderful comments, I do read everyone of them and try to answer. Thanks for your support. Take care xx

Awash With Whales

Morning and Welcome back. Today's project is something different for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, a little bit of mixed media.

I started off by embossing some watercolour card with a 5 x 7 Textures Embossing folder from Crafters Companion, it was the Dry Stone Wall Pattern. Using Chalkboard Comic Shimmer Chalk Paint I rubbed over the embossed area to highlight the bricks and set this aside to dry.

I decided to use one of Leonie's stamps as a whales fin, I stamped it onto watercolour card using a Versafine Ink Pad (Blue Lagoon). When this was dry I used the Brother Scan n Cut to give a 5 mm border around it.

Using the reverse side of a canvas, I painted it using a mixture of Cosmic Shimmer Chalk Paints, Chalkboard and Slate Grey.

I cut away a section of the stone wall background and secured the whales fin to simulate that it was breaking through the gap.

I created the illusion of flowing water and texture with strips of Modroc, soaked in water, then screwed up and manipulated to adhere to the canvas. Once the Modroc had completely set I painted it using Paperartsy Chalkpaint's, Beach Hut and Limelight. I added some white Gesso to small areas and also flicked some over the frame of the canvas to simulate sea foam. I applied some small accents of Shimmer by using Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Paste in Ocean Teal from Creative Expressions and Tim Holtz Stickles (Ice Blue).

Thank you so much for stopping by to see what I have been sharing. I hope you will be back again soon. I do want to say a massive thank you for your support and for all of the lovely comments that you are leaving for me and my projects. I really appreciate it and it means a great deal to hear when people do like the items I share. Take care xx

Life's Rainbow

Morning, Since I very first saw the Bee Crafty stamps I have loved them. I especially like the sentiments, sometimes even using them as a starting point for my finished project. I make a lot of Artist Trading Cards and the smaller sized sentiments are superb for that.

The project I am sharing today is actually a completely different card to what I set out making. I started off using the Quill,Nibs and antique accounts stamps. It was when I chose the sentiment that I was sidetracked and started a different design entirely.

I stamped the 'Life' Sentiment onto my Super Smooth card, then used one of the Backdrop Borders to create a frame around the sentiment. Then taking a selection of Distress Inks I coloured the piece. I started off at the top right hand corner with Blueprint Sketch to about half way across the card, then blended through Chipped Sapphire approximately quarter way down. Then from the bottom left I repeated the process using in order: Mustard Seed, overlapping slightly to give green, then Spiced Marmalade and finally Candied Apple.

For the main card, I started by stamping the large and medium curled feathers with versamark to give a watermark to the background. Then drew a rough idea of my rainbow and placed this over the background, then using the Distress Inks, stippled the colours through in turn. Keep an eye out for the paper getting saturated, All I did then was cut out the next segment from the mask and move down. I used the following colours for the rainbow: Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Dusty Concorde and Blueprint Sketch.

When I had completed the rainbow, I made the decision to make the feathers more prominent in the main background, The versamark was still sticky so just added the ultra fine clear embossing powder and used the heat gun. Then for the top of the card I blended out from the edge using Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Sapphire and for the bottom I used Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade.

Finally I used a black fine liner pen to create a border about 5 mm from the edge. Added my sentiment with 5 mm foam tape to raise it from the card and added a black mat.

I really hope you have enjoyed my Step by Step today, along with the finished card. I hope you will join me again very soon. Tomorrow I will be sharing a project that was made for the launch of Leonies new collection of stamps, I really hope you will come back for that. Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments, I do like to read them all and it certainly makes my blog worthwhile knowing that you are enjoying what I share. Take care xx

Leonie's Butterfly Bag.

Morning, Oh my goodness. Something else which is very new for me. I thought this promotional piece would be great for Leonie's TV launch show. Obviously you don't get the 'Leonie Pujol' in the collection as it's Leonie's property but It will give you an idea of what else you could do with it.

I have never made a bag before, but I searched the internet for a simple unlined 'Bag for Life' for me to decorate. I am over the moon with the result and hope you like it.

I started by cutting my Calico, The large piece forms the main part of the bag and measures 15'' wide by 27'' long. Two further pieces are needed for the handles and these both measure 19'' by 3''.

Both ends of the large piece were folded and pressed 1/2'' and then again 1/2'' to hide the raw edges and set aside.

The handles were folded 1'2'' in on both sides, then folded in half lengthways and stitched together as close to the seam as possible. Then to match the other side was also stitched as close to the edge as possible. This is repeated for the second handle.

Centre the handle onto the bag wrong side and pin under the folded seam, stitch close to both edges. Fold the handle upwards and stitch over the handle, repeat for the opposite handle.

Turn right sides together and make an 'M' shaped fold in the bottom, pin and stitch down either side of the bag, this gives more room at the bottom of the bag. I did it wrong sides together as I liked the idea of the detail on the outside. I know it's wrong, but it looks nice.

Using my Brother Scan n Cut, I used 'Leonie Pujol' and enlarged the image to be in proportion with the bag and what I had planned for the stamps. I cut the image out of freezer paper and ironed onto the front of the bag. I then used Sleeping Beauty paint from Indigo Blu to colour through my stencil. 

I used all 3 Butterflies from Leonie's collection, from the Flight To Freedom Set. I positioned one so that it was sitting on the 'L' and the other 2 flying around her name. Then I sneaked in a sentiment from the collection to place under Leonie Pujol.

I then coloured them using Spectrum Noir Pencils from Crafters Companion, I used the primaries for the red and green Butterflies and the essentials for the blue Butterfly:

Red Butterfly:024,027 and 033

Green Butterfly: 061,052 and 050

Blue Butterfly:06,073 and 071 

Thank you for popping by today, I hope you liked this project and really hope that you will be back very soon. Thank you so much for leaving your comments, they do help me to carry on.Take care xx

War-bonnet Wilderness

Today, I am sharing another card that I made using the new range of stamps from Bee Crafty. They were launched on Friday 20th May, if you missed Bev's shows they are still available on Hochanda's website, via the TV schedule, using the catch up feature. Please be quick as they're stored for 7 days.

I started off with a sheet of A4 velvet card. I didn't know exactly the size of my finished project, but I was hoping for approximately 7-8''. First I drew a simple hat in pencil and then fashioned it into the base of an Indian War Bonnet. When I had rubbed out all of the excess pencil lines, I went over the required shape with a waterproof black fine liner pen. Then I masked off with Pebeo Drawing Gum.

I worked out which part of the large wing I would need to complete the head dress and applied washi tape to mask off the unwanted part of the stamp, then inked up using Versamark, removed the tape, lined up the stamp with the hat base. I used black fine detailed embossing powder to emboss the feathers.

I then took the small straight feather from the same set to be the hanging side feathers of the head dress. Then took the medium curled feather and masked off the base with washi tape as I only wanted to use the tip. Using black versamark I positioned them about 5-10 mm away from the wing. I added black dots between the head dress and the feathers and joined them together with a very fine line using a black fine liner. I wanted the feeling of movement so they appeared free to move in the breeze. I then applied drawing gum to the whole image.

I cut my project down to size and drew two deckled lines around the edge at 5 and 10 mm with my black fine liner.

I stamped the sentiment I had chosen from the collection. Then added the landscape using Antique Linen,Tea Dye and Frayed Burlap. I added some Brushed Corduroy in the mountain range. I then placed my mask for the Sun/Moon, For the sky I used mainly Shaded Lilac, then from the outside blended in some stormy Sky and finally a little Faded Jeans just around the edges blending into the rest.

To create the Tippee's, I cut a triangle from copier paper and ripped a slim strip also to lay across the base. I blended Frayed Burlap inside the triangle. I drew the base, posts and door flap with my black fine liner. I removed the Drawing Gum and coloured the head dress with a selection of Alcohol markers.I then coloured the inside deckled frame with my black marker.

Finally I mounted the card onto a black card base leaving approximately 5 mm around the card.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today. I hope you like the card I have made using these beautiful stamps from Bee Crafty and enjoyed my step by step of how it came alive. Thank you for all of your lovely comments and I hope you will visit again soon. Tomorrow I will be sharing another card that I made using Leonie Pujol's new stamp collection and I hope you will stop by for that. Take care xx