Fence

Yep, must be in my "fence" period as, even though I have a die to cut the shape, I felt compelled to make one from a raw piece of wood!
Artful Times challenged us to make something on or with wood and I immediately thought weathered wood and fence.  And of course in front of my fence I had to have some flowers... just perfect for the Fashionable Stamping challenge.

I used the colour scheme suggested by A sprinkle of Imagination with the Irish cream, steel blue and seafoam green with a touch of deep cobalt and rich ruby. Or at least it WAS ruby when I stamped it but then dye ink has a habit of sinking in gesso and appearing paler.

I created the fence look by scoring the wood with an embossing tool and a ruler and cutting the top of the fence with a Zigzag die.
Then I painted the panel in blue acrylic paint, in crackle paint and cream (mix of gesso and brown paint) as the top coat. In a few places I had smeared a bit of petroleum jelly and was able to go back to wood at the end.

The small flowers were inked with multiple markers (Zig graphic, Faber Castell big brush) to get the right colours. The large flower was inked with Memento Rhubarb Stalk and Zig markers.

As usual, I didn't want to cover my background but since there was such an expanse of empty space I created a house number with a Spellbinders label die, embossing the centre with WOW Vanilla powder. Unsurprisingly the 7 didn't stamp very well on top of the embossing... I let it lie on the basis that it is supposed to be weathered...

Thanks for coming by,

About a bird

I am revisiting my bird image with gilded flakes for this card, teaming it up with a new technique as inspired by the Craft Stamper challenge. It's called bleach blocking and I used a stencil to bleach my blocks over a piece of glossy cardstock, discarded from a previous crafting session.

The piece was originally stamped with Versamark (Impression Obsession Branches) to resist the layers of pink and violet inks I then applied with a roller. It looked a bit garish and you certainly couldn't see the "Trees" but if I "bleached" it would knock it down a bit... maybe it could work as a background.

After gilding the bird image I fussy cut it and put in on double layers of foam pads.

I made a sort of nest with fibres (they look like Angelina fusible fibres but aren't) and added a cardstock mat (Spellbinders label) before applying my embossed die-cuts. You can see I was experimenting because each die-cut has its own colour!
The long flourish (Spellbinders) has been embossed first with Pearl Blue (WOW) then Aurora (Cosmic Shimmer) then again with Pearl Blue because I didn't like the initial results.
The smaller flourish has been embossed only once but I sprinkled both colours over it.
Finally I embossed the frame with Pearl blue only.

I am also entering the Pan Pastel UK, Fashionable Stamping and  Stamping Sensations challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Proud & Vintage

I can't believe a week has passed already! Time again for the Craft Barn quote challenge and the words are Proud & Vintage. I had difficulties finding a quote I liked for the word Vintage (it had to be Vintage as I had stamps for that) and had a look at lyrics too... you've had a narrow escape is all I will say...

I started with a piece of kraft cardstock and applied white acrylic paint and Inktense colours.
Some stamping with a doily stamp (there seems to be a fashion for all things doily at the moment and I am hooked too!), some Sparkle medium (Imagination Crafts) with a stencil, and some vintage stamps of course... I have lots of images to choose from but I selected this set of clear stamps as I fear it will be unusable very soon.
And since I'd already started a glitter theme I die-cut the mat for the quote with double sided adhesive and applied gold glitter. I have seen people do this before, so I tried to colour the glitter with alcohol pens, aiming for a chocolate brown colour. Sadly it didn't work for me, I guess it depends on what type of glitter used!

I am also entering the Imagination Crafts challenge.

As a final note, I would like to thank the other competitors who have left comments on my posts and if I haven't responded in kind, it's not through lack of trying but I don't do Facebook or Google+. I have often really liked their entries but... This time I will post my comments as a reply to visitors comments on my blog, so if they come back later or click on the Notify Me button they will be able to read my comments.

Have a lovely weekend, over here it's sunny and I am enjoying the weather!

Inspired By Sara Naumann

Keren Baker was on the Paper Artsy blog this week but her marvellous shadow box was too much for me. Sara Naumann's project looked ever so easy when she did it in her video, that I jumped at the chance.

In the end, of course, it took me more time than expected to create the card, but I am quite pleased with it, so well worth the extra time!

I used stamps from the ESN07 set, Hot Pick 1205 ({memo} is hidden underneath the flower) and postmarks from my collection.
The flower, I made moons ago using individuals die-cut leaves layered in decreasing size order.

Hope you'll like this project!

Fantasy garden

It's been a while since I made a tag so the Crafty Individuals challenge is giving me a welcome nudge.
I didn't really have a plan, I just put some white paint on kraft card, then some Inktense colours and pulled out my CI-207 set to stamp what became the middle ground.
I embossed all around the tag with a little green powder and lots of gold embossing powders.
For the foreground I added a fence, die-cut out of wood, which I stamped in white to give more of a wood effect.

I decided to add some Flowersoft, to break the green colour and also because I haven't used any for such a long time.
The more I look at it, the less convinced I am by the fence, maybe it's the colour, maybe the placement... I'll try to live with it for a bit and see if I have any brighter ideas!

I am also entering the WOW Embossing powder and the Totally Gorjuss challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

Mountain & Mistake

Those are the words for the latest Craft Barn challenge. I chose my quote first and wondered how I could illustrate the word Mistake. I toyed with the idea of doing a few ink splats when it struck me how odd it would be to make a deliberate "mistake" when left to my own devices I make them naturally! I decided to leave that in fate's hands and set about choosing my stamps.

I just had to use my new 3 steps rose stamp set, but 3 steps means a lot more time spent taking the stamps on and off the acrylic block, inking, cleaning etc... To make it worthwhile I organised a production line to get some extras roses for later projects. By the time I'd finished that... I was all spent and I thought the roses thrown over the white card looked great just like that and more wouldn't necessary be better.
So... CAS then, just as well since this is the challenge at Artful Times.

On a practical note, because I didn't have enough shades of red to get the best results with the rose, I mixed my inks directly on the stamp with a Cut & Dry foam, light ink first then darker ink on top (sparingly) them soften with foam.

Where is the mistake I hear you ask? As expected, I provided several with no help... The right hand rose is quite a bit off in the third stamping (the darker shade) and as I took the photo of the finished page I didn't notice the small square of foam pad release paper clinging to a leaf, but I bet you can find more if you look!

I am also entering the Artistic Stamper and My Mum's Craft Shop challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

It's Men O'clock!

I haven't had much time to blog or craft these past few weeks and I couldn't wait to get back into crafting, especially after this weekend's visit to the Craft Barn Extravaganza, a chance to see new products in action, learn new techniques and meet people as well as shop! It' still on today...

Yep, it's June and everyone is thinking Father's day. I know of a clock mad father so this was the start of my design along with vintage colours.

The background paper is from Woodware (Vintage 1 Perfect Prints) and I inked it up with Distress inks and embossed several clocks (Craft Stamper & Docrafts Magazine freebies and an old clear stamp from Art Impression) in gold, black and vanilla powders.

I stamped and die-cut the greeting from Old Crock Stamp Set (Hobby Art), which I won recently, along with the background paper at Lisa B Designs .
I die cut a rick rack shape out of metal (recycled tomato sauce tube), and a clip (Papertrey Ink) added some twine and matted everything on a pierced piece of cardstock.

Finally my (time)piece de resistance... a die-cut and stamped clock out of shrink plastic, which turned out very fiddly to cut,  I had to finish with a craft knife and this took forever!

I am entering the following challenges Fashionable Stamping (Like Clockwork), Country View Crafts (Only Men Allowed), Pan Pastel UK (One for the boys),  Ladybug Crafts (Something for the boys).

An update on my phone cover. The good news is that the width was a perfect fit, the less good news is the cover was a little shorter than I wished. Still, it does the job and this gives me an opportunity to make another, better one!

Enjoy this Sunday's sunshine (if you have it where you are), and keep on crafting...

Floral Passion

Time for the Craft Barn quote challenge! This week I chose the word passion, whilst the colour scheme was supplied by A Sprinkle of Imagination (I used Aqua, Pale Lime, fuschia and purple) and the Floral theme by Pan Pastel UK.
As for the technique, I went back to my all time favourite, pastel on top of Versamark. Not only this method allows multi-coloured stamping in a much easier way than inks, but the colours are also much more vibrant, solid and velvety.

I stamped flowers and leaves without masking (Papertrey Ink), which is why some of the overlaps aren't quite as good as I would have liked. After applying the different shades of pastels I cleaned up around the images with an electric eraser.

I will repeat myself here for the benefit of my new readers that may not have tried the Versamark and pastels/chalks technique: it is fool proof, the results are fantastic and it needs to be seen in real life to be fully appreciated. You can see another example here and here.

Thanks for coming by,

Fabric Stamping

I didn't think I would get the time to enter the Paper Artsy challenge this week but I had to make a phone cover so it was a perfect opportunity to join Keren Baker in her fabric stamping.

I used the houses from the LCP012 set on top of a previously stamped harlequin motif.
I used Versafine, not realising that it wouldn't dry straight away on fabric, and as a result I got black ink everywhere! You have been warned...

The stamped fabric (recycled from an old sheet) has been first stitched together with the "wadding", in this case a piece of recycled ironing board cover, before stitching the sides together (sadly not perfectly straight). With so much recycling I am also entering the Craft-Room challenge.

Unlike the last time I tried this project, I didn't have the actual phone to hand so I couldn't check at each step if the fit was correct. If you could cross your fingers for me that it will be OK...

Masculine card

A quick post to make the deadline at Fashionable Stamping, where the theme is" Circle the Globe". Excellent excuse to use my world map stamp (Docrafts) and make a masculine card inspired by the Lisa.B Designs fortnight's worth of men cards. Although my map is square I surrounded it with embossed circles...

I don't have a bubble wrap stamp such as the Kaisercraft so I used the real thing... Not as easy to use but it did the trick, in a distressed sort of way, but that's fine, we LOVE "distressed" us crafters!
The designer paper has been embossed with clear powder then highlighted with distress inks. On the right of this panel I embossed the card with a sprinkling of regular gold, filling in with a darker gold.
Finally I embossed some chevrons with Sticky stuff and applied gilding flakes. No need to distress further here,, as the Sticky stuff is very temperamental so the result is always less than perfect.
I layered my stamped map (I used Sepia and black Versafine on the stamp), added a sticker and a stamped tag fastened with a screw brad.

I am also entering the WOW Embossing powders challenge.

Thanks for coming by,

Unique and Fame Quote

These are the words selected for the latest Craft Barn challenge.
As usual after a break, my mojo deserts me and I had difficulties coming up with anything. I had several false starts and changed my choice of words twice! In the end I settled on unique and recycled a technique I have used recently on a scrapbook page to produce my background.

For my base, I recycled a scrap piece of cardboard (thank you Amazon) and die-cut it.
I drew around a Crafter's Workshop stencil (Garden Gate) with a water based pen. I then applied a wash of Limelight and Claret Fresco paints on top which both softened the lines and obscured them a bit. I used several Big Brush pens to colour a small script stamp and stamped repeatedly all over the panel.
I used the Chicken wire stencil (also Crafter's workshop) with black ink and stamped a Lynn Perella image (Paper Artsy) as I thought the lady is unique...
To finish I added the quote, handwritten with a pen nib and black ink on a die-cut label.

I feel there is something missing, but as I said, my mojo didn't budge so I left it at that.

I am also entering the Totally Gorjuss and Craft Room challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Mail Art

With a lot of crafting products coming out of the USA where their standard card size is A2 (4.25" by 5.5") instead of our European A6 (4" by 6") I now find myself designing cards in that format. But then I have no corresponding envelopes!

Fortunately, even without punch board or score board, envelopes are easy to make and, even better, they can be tailored to the recipient or made to match the card inside.
The Artful Times challenge couldn't be more timely and this is what I have produced:

I used free papers from magazine (I can't think how to use them otherwise) and embossed 2 corners with some Tim Holtz folders. I created a mask with a die-cut label (Spellbinders) and stamped a small flower stamp (magazine freebie) around the mask to create the address panel.
I added stamped and die-cut flowers & leaves (Papertrey Ink) and for closure a hand written piece of washi tape.

If you haven't yet tried to make your own envelopes, find yourself a template (plenty on the net) and have a go!