Happy Christmas

Morning, I am sharing another card that I made using the stamps and Sparkle Pens that Leonie launched on Hochanda. I said before that I loved the gingerbread men, so I really wanted to use them again for this card.

Ii took a sheet of watercolour card and cut it to 8' square. I used the tree building elements to create the bunting across my card. I stamped the gingerbread men across the bottom, complete with hats. Then I placed the fairy, tiptoed in the centre perched on an arm. I then masked the design with Drawing Gum from Pebeo.

To create the background, I spritzed my dry watercolour card with Cobalt and Holly. I used a micro spritzer because it uses a lot less of the ink from your pens, a regular size would use too much, I got mine from Oak House Studio. Once this was dry I removed all of the drawing gum. 

To add the letters to the bunting, I used an alphabet stamp set from Phill Martin. I also joined up the bunting with a black fine liner pen from Copic.

To colour the gingerbread men I used Copper from the 'Evergreen Set', neat for the eyes and buttons and then with a varying amount of water to create different tones for each of them. I coloured the bunting with a selection of pens from across the collection. I used a very small amount and pulled the colour out with the clear overlay sparkle pen, I used Berry from the Bright Lights set for the hats, the sparkle is amazing.

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you have enjoyed the step by step for this card and the end result. Hope you will be back again soon. Take care and happy Crafting.xx

Never Out Of Style

Morning. I am very excited to share this post with you today, after being invited by the Lovely Lynnda of Oak House Studios to be a guest designer. The theme is 'Rainbow' which gave me the scope to create something very different, I chose to design a wall hanging. I used a selection of the wonderful Colour Chemistry Ink's. They are such rich pigments and the colours are so vibrant, they are great fun to use either in their concentrated form or diluted to give the shade required.

The base for this project was a piece of reclaimed timber, which I sanded before painting with Slate Grey Cosmic Shimmer Chalk paint.

On a piece of Super Smooth Card I stamped the lovely background stamp and a wonderful sentiment from Oak House Studio, using the Navy Blue, Colour Chemistry pigment pad. I love the sentiment, it's so nice to have the mixture of fonts making it more interesting and adds to the feel of the project. I used versamark and Silver Embossing powder to add the Dog Rose to the background.

I then positioned the background and sentiment onto my base, then created a frame made from branches that I cut to size to surround the image. I secured these using 3D glue gel.

Next I cut some lengths of Hemp and dipped them into the bottles of Pure Colour Chemistry Inks, for this project I used Bottled Sunshine, Pumpkin, French Lavender and Totally Turquoise. I was over the moon with the strength and depth of colour, which wasn't lost at all once they had dried.

I took a piece of gauze and moped up all the left over ink from my glass mat and left to dry. I also made some simple round flowers using the Hemp that I had coloured and glued them in position using Cosmic Shimmer glue.

I mixed up some Bottled Sunshine Colour Chemistry ink with Gesso and flicked over the wood to create some added interest and then repeated with some plain white gesso.

I threaded some matching beads onto wire and then assembled the piece. Finally I distressed around the edges of the project with sand paper to bring the elements together.

I hope you have enjoyed the step by step I have shared today. I love this piece with the vibrant rainbow colours, a little bit of a different way to use the lovely stamps and inks.

Thank you ever so much to Lynnda for inviting me to take part in this. I have thoroughly enjoyed using the stamps and the Colour Chemistry Inks are just a pleasure to use, giving such a wide range of results. A must ave crafting essential. I have loved mixing my own colours in the spritzer bottles and have had hours of fun creating different backgrounds.

Thank you also for taking the time to visit today, I really hope you enjoyed this project and the step by step I have included. Hope you will visit again soon. Take care xx

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

Vintage Tattered Blooms.

Morning, I didn't have a clear view of what I wanted in today's project and didn't really know how it would evolve. All I did know was that I wanted the sentiment and flowers to be the main focus.

I randomly collected some various stamps,card,paper pad, pearlescent pva, some loose Hessian strands and a few embellishments.

After selecting my background paper, here it was a piece of 6 1/2'' square from Kaiser crafts vintage Timeless range. I then measured a mat for this 1/4'' larger in cream card. Then taking my handwriting background, I stamped this onto a strip of matching cream card using Tim Holtz Victorian Velvet. I stamped my sentiment over the top with Coffee Archival. I love this sentiment from Bee Crafty and it was the inspiration behind my project. I cut this out and measured a mat, again 1/4'' larger.

I then blended around both mats and the sentiment with a selection of distress inks, Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet and Aged Mahogany. I then distressed the backing paper using the same colours.

For the flowers I used a mixture of Tattered Blossoms and Mini Vintage Floret, both by Heartfelt Creations. I used the same distress inks to colour these, also tinted the backs with Tattered Rose. 

Taking the flowers, along with a large ball tool and foam mat I added dimension and shape.

When I matted and layered the main card and sentiment, I decided it would have more impact with a black border, so I used black card to add a middle mat of approximately 2 mm.

I positioned the sentiment using 3D Glue Gel. I took 3 strands of the Hessian and wrapped this around the left hand side of my card.

I took some leaves and coated them in Black Distress glitter using cosmic shimmer glue. Arranged my flowers around the bottom left hand corner and filled the centres with Black Distress Glitter. I added some Dazzlers from Creative Expressions. A Tim Hotz Sentiment key was then added using another strand of Hessian.

To finish of the card I used Cosmic Shimmer Coloured Pearlescent  pva to make some pearl swirls. I simply marked out my design using a pokey tool and added the drops.

I hope you have enjoyed today's share, Thank you so much for stopping by and hope you will visit again soon.Take care xx

A Little Bit Sketchy Greeting Card.

I love Sheena's Stamps and for this card I chose from the 'Little Bit Sketchy' Range from Sheena Douglas, the name of the stamp set is 'Believe'

I chose some leaf stamps from Justrite, It's the Shabby Chic Range 'Autumn Leaves'

I create the background using a background stamp, also from Justrite, called Autumn Swirls.

The dies I used for this particular card were from Tonic, The Oval Layering Dies straight and scalloped set.

To start with the background, I took a piece of white card and using a versamark inkpad stamped the Autumn Swirls background, used detail fine white embossing powder and heated. Then distress the edges with Antique Linen, building up the colour.

I chose a selection of leaves from the set and stamped them using black momento ink and coloured using a selection of copic markers. These were then cut out, shaped and put aside.

I used a selection of copics to colour the image of the church from Sheena Douglas, the lovely thing about this stamp is you can easily change the season depending on the colours you use. The atmosphere of the finished piece can also be changed dramatically by using different colouring mediums.

The coloured image was then cut using the oval die and layered onto a slightly larger mat, cut from black pearlesant cardstock from(www.annamariedesigns.co.uk/)

I layered the background on the same black cardstock, glued the topper onto the card and then arranged the leaves around part of the image to look a little like they had fallen from a tree.

I hope you like the finished result.