Inspired By Emma Godfrey

When I saw Emma's project on the Paper Artsy blog,  I knew I wanted to try this. I was instantly attracted to the bright and luscious colours with the brushstrokes still in evidence.
I chose to make a book cover, a work in progress of mine that should end up being a folder for dies but started life as a Next catalogue.

I followed Emma' s step by step so won't repeat here and just show you the result below.

I used Frescos in Claret, South Pacific, Vanilla and Pansy. The script stamp (only one, unusually restrained...) is from the Paper Artsy ESN10 set and I used the reverse Chicken Wire from the Crafter's Workshop, plus a circles stencil that I die-cut with a Papertrey ink cover plate.

I made the flower from Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die, the flourish is a magazine freebie.

And if I'm not showing the spine or the back cover, this is because I haven't done either and I am reserving the right of doing a completely different design if I feel like it!

A quick one made from scraps

Still clearing out the Christmas stuff off my crafting area I found these bits and decided to use them up in a simple Christmas card instead of throwing them away.

Disclaimer: No stamps were bothered during the making of this card.

To make the green mulberry paper more interesting I punched it with a Martha Stewart corner punch and repeated this  on one corner of the card blank, layering some red card behind to make it pop.
Pretty underwhelming I know, but it uses up the scraps and kids don't care a jot about the design or the effort put in!

I am entering the card in the Pan pastel UK and We Do Doobadoo challenges.
Thanks for coming by,

#3UP at Paper Artsy

I am delighted to feature again in the Paper Artsy #3UP event!

Please go and see what I and 2 other fellow crafters have made for this special event on the Paper Artsy blog.

 To whet your appetite here's a snippet:

Please do leave me comments, although I will not be reading/responding until the following week.

Have a wonderful Christmas,

Faith and Harmony

So here it is the very last quote of the Craft Barn challenge... can't quite believe I managed to stay the course to produce 25 pages!

I chose the quote purely because it was the only one I could try to illustrate.

I stamped the Harlequin background from The Artistic Stamper with Chalk ink over a Fresco paint layer.
I added some Vanilla Fresco to provide a light area for my main image, a Paper Artsy stamp from Hot Pick 1206.
I added 2 stamps from the Messy Art set (also the Artistic Stamper) and the quote penned with India ink.

Thank you all for your kind and supportive comments throughout this year, it's been fun (as well as hard work at times) and I'm hoping for more fun challenges from the Craft Barn next year.

I leave you with my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year,

White Stamping

Drippage is very big at the moment on the craft scene, so my design started with this idea. The next step was suggested by the Craft Stamper magazine's December challenge, namely white stamping, or rather in my case white embossing, so I could use a resist technique with my drips!

After stamping a butterfly background image by Crafty Individuals (CI- 231), I used Gelatos in blue, purple and pink colours, as prescribed by the Rubber Dance latest challenge and sprayed liberally with water.

The flower is from the Delightful Dahlias set by Papertrey Ink, a 3 steps image, as is the sentiment.

I was going to say it was simple enough, however I did make 2 previous attempts: one on watercolour cardstock, which didn't give me the best drippage, and one on "rock" paper which melted in a twisted mess when I attempted to emboss it!

Still, I learned a few things in the process...
Thanks for coming by,

Love & the City

I wanted to try my new supplies from Imagination Crafts. It's a specialty card with a design on one side and white on the other. Although the recto looks like paper, it isn't, and is waterproof . This makes the card ideal for wet paints, especially acrylics and pastes. The back, is a kind of glossy cardstock but with a more matt aspect, I am still to explore what can be done with this side..

The motif on the printed side is designed by Lavinia stamps and so it made sense to use their stamps for my card.

First I decided where my city stencil (from junk mail) should go and did all my stamping in Archival black. I tried other inks but believe me it has to be Archival or Stazon!

Then I stencilled with Sparkle medium in Jade and when dry I sprayed mists in blues and greens to frame my scene.

The card didn't react at all with the moisture, totally impervious. Of course since the mists do not get absorbed, they take longer to dry and there is plenty of opportunity to get the splatters moving this way and that way until you're happy or to mop it all up if you're not!

The theme of my scene has been given by the Live & Love Crafts (With love) challenge and a pun on that famous series, because the townscape reminds me of New York (If I remember correctly it is actually London!). So my faerie is sending love to the town's people...

I am entering the Imagination Crafts and Lavinia Stamps challenges.

Thanks for coming by,

Nostalgic Christmas

The Christmas cards season is still in full swing and there is always one more you need to do isn't there?

I have used Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium paper, because it evokes the nostalgia of Christmas pasts. As nostalgic as my memories of Christmas as a child...

Keeping it simple, I added a stamped panel (Katzelkraft), embossed with Aged Copper embossing powder. The sentiment (also Graphic 45) was embossed to match. I had another panel, a Christmas tree, but after pushing the papers around for what seemed the whole afternoon I decided to omit it!

The whole is mounted on a gold card blank.

Challenges: Katzelkraft, Country view crafts, WOW Embossing powders, Lisa.B.Designs and Ladybug Crafts.


As someone pointed out that the Katzelkraft stamp set I used is not sold anymore, here's a pic of the designs.
I use the falling snow all year round as a pattern, like a distressed polka dot.

Thanks for coming by,

Wrapping paper

Artful times want to see wrapping paper and this couldn't come as a better time with lots of presents wrapping to do...

I have done this in the past and although it's a lot of work I love doing it because it's all about the stamping, no colouring, paper or embellishments to overshadow the stamped images.

Today I chose a 3 steps stamp set from Paper Trey ink to create a feminine paper (Delightful Dahlia).

I have some Bare Basics wrapping paper on a roll (Docrafts) but this is A3 bleed proof paper I have no use for; I keep the paper in the pad until I need to do some wrapping to keep it flat.

I am also entering That's Crafty challenge.

Hope you like my home made paper!

IndigoBlu Inspiration

I have been honoured to make the top 3 at the IndigoBlu blog challenge last month, with this card, and I have been offered the chance to join them for this month's theme, Let it Snow, with an inspiration piece.
Not an offer I could refuse...

Now is a good time to bling up our cards and as I normally shy away from loose glitter, I made an effort to use some in a bid to streamline my supplies! But I had also decided to use my favourite shiny supply... gilding flakes, from IndigoBlu of course!

I made a frame with snowflakes die-cuts covered with an adhesive sheet, then glittered and foiled to my heart's content.

The main image is from the Retro Christmas plate. I coloured it with alcohol markers, adding white gel pen and white glitter as "frost".
As a backdrop for my image, I used a circle cut out and splattered some blue, green and silver watercolours with a brush.

A peel off sentiment finishes the card (yes I still use them!)

I hope you've enjoyed my card and will join the Let it Snow challenge, you will find plenty of inspiration on the IndigoBlu blog including from my fellow Top 3.




I will leave you with a bonus picture showing the shine from the gilded snowflakes, bear in mind the sun isn't playing ball these days.

On the Home stretch

Yep, it's nearly the end of the Craft Barn quote challenge and barring any mishaps I should get to complete the collection!

Talking of home stretch, I thought I should dust off and use an old stamp set (Polka Doodles) that never really got a chance before. I'd bought it when I thought a move was on the cards - didn't happen - or I needed a card for other people moving houses - no one did -
When I saw this quote, very well known, I knew the choice was made just because I had the perfect stamp set!

The Pan Pastel UK challenge is all about colouring and I was relishing taking out my markers and trying again. All good plans... I still don't own any black dye inkpad, so I had stamped my scene in Versafine. A quick test told me alcohol markers were definitely out of the question!
The house was easy enough to watercolour using pencils and the card wasn't cockling but once I had started I had to colour the pond, the grass..... I decide to use Pan pastel for the sky to avoid the paper getting to wet around the house. A mixed media of some sort!

I penned my quote in black ink adding the little heart die-cut to finish.

I am also entering my page in the Artistic Stamper challenge.

P.S Come to think of it, this house looks suspiciously more like a SHOP! Darn...
P.P.S My electric eraser was a godsend for my colouring as I had to retrieve detailed areas after I'd applied the pastel.

Christmas songs

Time for challenge #27 over at Vintage Stamping Challenges. The theme this month is Christmas songs and I chose the classic White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby.

I saw this stamp and thought the lyrics suit it to a T:





I used Core'dination Black magic cardstock for my background, tearing, distressing and embossing to make the most of its core colour.
I stamped my image with Versafine black ink and brayered the background with dye inks. I used bleach to recover areas of snow and added gel pen on the tree, stars and moon.
Of course a Christmas card needs a bit of sparkle so use a Spica pen to add subtle shine in the sky and on the snow.

I hope my card will inspire you to join in the fun, as always, you don't have to create a vintage project, but you do have to include stamping though - no digis allowed. Our lucky winner will receive a fab prize of a $20 voucher from Flonzcraft so don't miss out on your chance to win.
Go on and hop on over to the Vintage Stamping blog and see all the DT’s work for more inspiration.

I am also entering the Bunny Zoe's Crafts challenge.
Thanks for coming by,

Christmas tags

It's the run-up to Christmas... need to step up the creative effort and produce something, anything...

I am still planning to stamp some more gift wrap (see last year's here) but this is such a time consuming task I am starting by the quick and easy... the tags.
I work to a formula for Christmas tags, because their lifespan is even shorter than cards, and let's face it they are destined for the bin a few seconds after having served their purpose.
So I only use "rubbish" in my creations, leftovers from other projects, scraps of cards and free supplies that came with magazines.

The pic shows the "rubbish" I have assembled, only used a fraction in the end!

There's card splattered with green paint from  a forgotten experiment, angel hair waste form a die cut, remaining holly leaves, and offcuts from vellum and freebie papers.... Also a piece of card onto which I had stuck the remaining green and red mulberry paper I had a few years back.

 

As to the design I let myself completely free, the only objective being to use up as much of the supplies to clear up some valuable space for new stash!

Whilst making the tags I pulled out other old die-cut, embellishments etc.. I even added a piece of die-cut waste that had adhesive on it and foiled it in gold (lower right tag)

I haven't threaded them with anything because I usually use the same twine/ribbon as I use for the wrapped present.

I feel a bit hopeless entering my rubbish tags in the Papermill challenge as I can't think anyone is going to vote for them, but I thought you might be interested the process.
Also entering the Wedodoobadoo challenge who are getting festive!

By my reckoning I have enough Christmas rubbish to keep me in tags for decades!