Blog Candy at the Craft Barn

Just back from 3 weeks off  so this is a quick post to tell you about the £ 50 candy at the Craftbarn .They are celebrating their 500 followers et there is still time to enter until the 19th May.
Good Luck!

And now for the second peacock...

Here is the photo of the second card I made during my workshop:

It still is the Katzelcraft stamp wich has been stamped with a blue Versafine ink (it is the only one that kept all the stamp details) on vellum. I then painted with cosmic shimmer powders over some areas, the peacock in particular and unfortunately the shimmer gets in the way of the photograph!
A silver mat has been cut and embossed with some Spellbinders dies and a blue mat has been adorned with the Vine X-Cut corner punch. The rose has been made with organza ribbon and sits on 2 leaves die-cut with a Joy Crafts die.

Enjoy!

Simply Squares

I have taken up the Crafty Individuals first Challenge and put together this card with "squares" as inspiration.

I used the CI-207 stamp sheet, which I have completely dismantled in lots and lots of small stamps in order to create backgrounds. For this card's background I have first stamped and embossed in clear 2 of the stamps and inked the whole square (I have masked a small border all around the card) with varying shades of blue. I then over stamped in dark green and antique linen other elements.
For the main image I made a frame using 2 sizes of spellbinders dies and embossed it using Cosmic Shimmer Aurora powder in Lapis Black and some sprinkling of gold embossing powder. Inside the frame, the square has been distressed with Antique linen and a selection of the CI-207 elements have been stamped in green and blue inks. As a fun twist I then stamped a butterfly that would look sandwiched in the frame.
In the left hand corner I placed the small ferns squares which are also from the same plate and the dinky squares are double sided adhesive sheet cut into squares and foiled.

I love Crafty Individuals stamps and I thoroughly enjoyed making this card.

Thanks for stopping by,

All that Glitters...

This is my entry for the Craft Barn Challenge running from the 8th to the 10th of April 2011.

 

The Flower detail

  
















I have used 3 sizes of punches, the biggest to cut out the doubled sided adhesive sheet, the other two to cut masks from the adhesive backing only. I then applied the biggest mask first and glittered in pink, then the smallest mask and glittered in blue, removed the mask and applied the final transparent glitter. 

Thanks for stopping by...



Stamping on metal

A few weeks back I attended a course involving Katzelcraft stamps (one of my favorite make of stamps), metal and vellum. Here I am showing you the first card, which has the Peacock stamped on metal with Stazon, then embossed using a refiner tool (Ten Seconds Studio), then painted with alcohol inks. I also used the wheels from the TSS basic set to give more texture around the peacock image.
If you look closely you might notice that using my alcohol ink loaded brush I displaced some of the Stazon. Lesson learned, I realised that you only have one chance at putting down your brushstroke in order to keep the stamp definition underneath but it is possible. The frame around the metal is by Spellbinders.

Thanks for coming by,

Terra paste Challenge card

This week the Craft Barn Challenge involves making something with Terra paste. I chose to make my item with Sahara Terra paste and pressed stamps into it to create texture. When dry I overpainted, not with acrylics, which would have been the obvious choice, but with watercolours on the basis that I had them handy. With a paper towel I gently rubbed the raised parts to reveal the designs and voila...

I had fun playing with the paste and tried out other techniques as well, including using stencils to apply the paste through, although the results were not perfect as the paste seeped under the stencil!

Sketch Challenge

Here is the card I entered in the Sketch Saturday Challenge :

I don't usually work with sketches but I have found that it helps when inspirations fails, as part of the design work is already done for you !
The main image has been inked with Blue Sapphire, Antique Linen and Forest Moss Distress inks and stamped with in Forest Moss and Walnut Stain Distress inks.
The largest mat has been punched with Martha Stewart Iron Gate Punch Around The Page.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cute but stylish for the man in your life

I picked up this stamp set because of a particular image I'd been looking for, namely a door, even though the set involves cute animals which aren't my usual choice of imagery. Anyway the boat image looked perfect for an anniversary card I have coming up so I thought I would make a foray in the "cute" style. Here is the result :

The main image has been stamped using Zig Art graphic pen in gray and coloured with watercolour pencils. I then applied a wet brush to produce a watercolour effect. The stamp is from the Lovers Lane Collection by Country Companions.

I hope the intended recipient likes it as much as I enjoyed making it!

Concertina Challenge

Over on theCraftbarn blog this week's challenge is to make a concertina flower by hand and this is my submission:

I have meant to make one up for a long time, but I was daunted by the task (I do not own the Tim Holtz Rosette die or a scoring board), so this challenge comes in at the right moment to give me the push I needed.
My my first attempt produced a wonky and oversized rosette but in the end I decided it would still look good, say on a present instead of a ribbon bow.
On my second try, I realised after doing all the scoring that the rosette was still going to be too large and proceeded to cut it into several pieces (3). Of course that wasn't easy what with all the score lines the paper would not lay flat... So by now instead of distressing my edges to give more interest to my rosettes I was distressed!

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the result and I now have a big flower, to use on a scrapbook page, a card sized one I put on my submission card and a dinky one I have to find a use for, as well as my large flower with a swirly middle.

Hope you'll like them

Yes all right...

I have long resisted these new web things, those twitters, RSS feeds, blogs and the like but there it is you can only do so much without one!
So, not very technical me, is embarking on this venture in the hope that, in time, I will create and run a decent blog on crafting matters.
I am off to study my next step of blog creation... See you soon!

Craftyfield