Viva le Paris

Today's card is made using another image from the Domestic Goddess range of stamps by Crafty Stamps called "Seductive", here is the link if you would like to have a look at it or any other stamps in the range Crafty Stamps - Seductive - DG109M .

Just recently I have been having a love affair with all things French, especially Paris, so as you can see if you regularly read my blog there have been a few entries that have something to do with Paris. Don't worry I'll soon move on. Lol.

I was really happy with this finished card, but it was so simple to make.  I used a shaped blank white card and layered up pieces of card that I had dry embossed with embossing folders.  I layered a square of embossed white card on a slightly larger square of light pink card, wrapped a piece of pink ribbon across the bottom and attached to the card blank.  I used Cosmic Shimmer Pearl PVA to make the pearls around the edge. Using a Spellbinder die I cut the Eiffel Tower and then inked through the die with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, it was then glued to the right hand side of the card. I then embossed a small rectangular piece of light pink card then inked the edges with a Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, put a PVA pearl in each corner and adhered it vertically to the left hand side of the card.  I stamped the "Seductive" Goddess onto white card having coloured the stamp with Distress markers in order to a coloured image, die cut it with a Spellbinders die and inked through the die with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink. I then adhered the image to the card centrally on the left hand side with dimensional glue to add to the layer's.  And that's it finished, voila!  Hope you have enjoyed this post and have a good week. Thanks for dropping by.

 

 

 

Photo Stamps

For Fathers Day this year I used Darkroom Door photo stamp to create this card.  I just love Darkroom Door stamps and this is one of my favourite images, though to be honest I hadn't actually used this stamp before, I think I was a bit scared of stamping photo stamps but in fact it stamped beautifully.  In fact I found it quite easy to repeat stamp in order to extend the image and make a bigger card.

I stamped this lovely Venice image onto a tag which had been matted and layered, and then onto some craft card that had be stamped with a Darkroom Door map background stamp.  Which was again matted and layered and put on a card blank.

To finish it off I added embellishments, pearl PVA glue drops and alpha stickers.

Just a quick post tonight. Hope you like it and it gives some inspiration.

Chandelier Canvas

 

I have really been bitten by the canvas bur recently and have fallen in love with making canvas art.  I had been thinking about making this piece for a while now as I had picked up these 2 Twiddleybitz chipboard chandeliers when I was in Australia and was really keen to utilise them in my artwork.  I had found these beautiful paper napkins when I was in a gift shop one day and |I thought they would work well in this piece.  So I used matt medium to attach it to the canvas and seal it.I lightly spritzed it with a diluted  Paperartsy Fresco South Beach paint spray.  I then used some of my background stamps to create some layers and depth to the background. 

I then used the Crafters Workshop "mums" stencil to with embossing paste which once dry I coloured with painted then coated with glitter embossing paste. I used my Faber Castell PITT big brush pens to create shading and blended them into the background. The sides of the canvas were painted dark blue and the edges heat embossed with sparkle blue embossing powder then edged with silver ink. Whilst that was drying I painted the chandeliers in a pearl blue and over stamped it with a script stamp in silver, then used hot fix crystals to embellish them.The chandeliers were then attached with glue gel and pearls attached to the top left and bottom right corners.  I like this so much that I think I am going to try and replicate this on a larger canvas maybe a long rectangular one.

Playing with Stencils and Masks

Recently I have been playing with masks and stencils, which are currently my favourite crafting tool, and have come up with 5 different cards for a the class I am teaching Saturday at Stampers Grove in Edinburgh. I had an absolute ball playing and making these cards and the hardest thing about this topic was knowing when to stop! Lol.  If you would to join us or just have a browse through what they sell pop over to the their website at http://www.stampersgrove.co.uk/.

The first card above is, I think one of my favourite card, it's so striking yet at the same time super simple.

This technique is stamping with a stencil, so ink up your stencils with your preferred colours, layer it up onto white card, the same size as the stencil, and with the appropriate sandwich for your die-cutting machine and run it through.  Before removing the stencil spritz the card with blue ink spray for the sky. Stamp the quote on white card, cut out and glue to the card as shown.  Then mat and layer the image with black card and attach to white card blank.

The next car is double embossed, that is, it's heat and dry embossed. I inked up the mask with embossing ink and ran it through the die-cutting machine in an embossing sandwich on white card 6"x6" with rounded corners, once that is done I sprinkle it with embossing powder and heat emboss.  I run the mask through to emboss it onto white card again, colour the hearts red, cut them out and attach to the wreath and coat in glossy accents.  Stamp the sentiment in the centre of the wreath and embellish the wreath with crystal gems. Matt and layer onto green card with rounded corners and glue to white card base. Finish by embellishing all the corners with crystal gems.

This card has to be my other favourite card! This is so simple but I just love the effect you get from it. I made my own stencil by die-cutting the shape from a sheet of ink blending mat.  I then used 3 Distress Inks through the stencil aperture, onto white card just slightly larger than the stencil, to get a blended background and then around the edges of the edges of the stencil in the same colour scheme.  Keeping the stencil in place I used black embossing paste through a flower stencil laid over the top of the aperture stencil. Then attach it to a white card base just slightly lager than the topper, and embellish with black star gems in the bottom left corner and top right corner.  The page tab was a chipboard shape coloured with the same inks and stamped with the word smile, glue to the top left corner.

This card is double embossed again, but using the embossed side rather than the de-bossed side.  Put the stencil on the patterned side of the paper (the same size as the mask) and run it through the machine in an embossing sandwich.  Keeping the mask is place rub embossing ink over the raised areas, remove the mask and sprinkle a dark embossing powder and heat embossed it.  Then rather rub embossing ink over small bits of the already heat embossed area and heat again to achieve a two-tone result. Rather heat emboss the edges and then layer onto brown card and then a cream card blank.  Finish by embellishing the edges with gold Creative Expressions pearl PVA glue.

The final card uses a number of stencils and masks.  Place the stencil of the lady onto 6"x6" white card and ink through it with the different colours, then place the swirly mask over the top of the lady stencil and ink with black ink which will leave you with the colourful pattern on the black background.  Once that is done take away the swirly, put the lady mask in the stencil aperture, then holding the mask remove the stencil and put the splodge stencil over the mask.  Ink through the splodge holes with your choice of coloured inks and you're done.  Remove the stencils, using some watered down ink make a few ink splatters, stamp the sentiment onto card and cut out and glue to card and embellish with black gems. Layer onto black card slightly larger than the topper and a slightly larger white card blank.

Now that is all the cards finished and I hope that we mange to finish them all in the class.  I'm sure if we put our heads down we can as they are all so simple and straightforward.. I hope you like them and give your stencil another go.

Count Your Rainbows!

 

Sometimes I like to give myself a challenge to help get the mojo flowing or at least try and get me thinking outside the box.  This challenge was to make a project that used entirely Sam Poole for Creative Expressions stamps, and this is what I came up with.

I gathered together all the Sam Poole stamps I have (which to be honest is a few, lol) and selected some of my favourites.  I then had to decide what to make, I found this tri-typch which I had had for a while and wanted to use, so I decided that would be my substrate.

I created the background by painting it with a blush acrylic paint and then a pearl glaze coat.

To create some layers and depth I stamped randomly with a range of Sam Poole back ground stamps with brilliance inks in gold, red and jet black Archival Ink.
I stamped the lady 4 times; once onto white card, 2 different patterned papers and with jet black archival onto acetate.  I then cut them all out, coloured and paper pieced them as you can see in the photos, popped on a "pearl" necklace and attached her centrally to the middle panel with dimensional glue.
I then stamped the small and large heart flowers across the bottom of the three panels, then stamp them again on white card, colour the hearts, cut them out and glue them onto the hearts on the tri-typch with dimensional glue. I also glued glass glitter along the bottom to look like pebbles, and then put a chipboard wrought iron fence coloured to look like rusty iron in front of the winged lady.
I then stamped the flowers onto white card, 4 small ones and 4 large ones coloured them cut them out, layered them, curled the petals and stuck gems in the centre. Glue them on with dimensional glue as shown in the photos.
To finish the tri-typch by stamping the sentiments onto card, cutting them out and gluing to the panels ad embellish with the brass bolt head and some crystal gems. And that's it, project finished!

Paperarsty #3UP Challenge - Happy 10th Birthday

 

 August was Paperartsy's 10th anniversary.  It was time to bring out the cake and start singing hearty renditions of Happy Birthday! Lol.  To help celebrate such a momentous birthday, the lovely people at Paperartsy decided to have a special birthday #3Up challenge and invited 48 people to volunteer to take part.  I was lucky enough to see the invitation just before all the places were taken and managed to get my name in, in time.  I had never participated in a #3Up challenge before and wasn't sure what to expect, but couldn't have been more delightfully surprised then I was when the parcel arrived on the door step.  I felt like it was in fact my birthday with all the lovely stash that arrived and although I know that the parcels were randomly allocated and you were just as likely to be challenged and pushed out of your comfort zone as you were to be in love with the contents.  Well, I was one of the lucky ones and just loved everything in my envelope, even the colours .  If you want to see what everyone has created here is the link; http://blog.paperartsy.co.uk/ 

 I unfortunately, forgot to photograph the contents of my parcel when I received it, but the contents were as follows; 2 sets of Eclectica A5 stamp sets, a large piece of stampboard, chipboard branches, a packet of brads, 2 brass bird embellishments and 2 wooden cotton reels. and a colour strip of shades of turquoise and brown. So after a bit of a think and a play I came up with the idea for my creation.

I started by repeat stamping the words from the Sara Naumann Eclectica set ESN08 onto tissue paper with sepia Archival ink (spot the obvious mistake, lol). I then used matt medium to glue to it to the A4 stretched canvas. Then using the Fresco paints in Beach Hut, South Pacific mixed with water and pearl mica powder in spray bottles and add colour to the canvas. I then stamped with the texture stamps and then used complimentary inks through the letters stencil to create layers and texture. I then used some of the left over stamped tissue paper with each of the main words and images and glued them to the canvas.

I then used a flower stencil with embossing paste, which once dry I coloured using the Paperartsy Fresco paints in Beach Hut, South Pacific and Chocolate pudding and a stencil brush through the stencil.  Once the paint was dry I then put a glitter paste through the stencil over it all.



Now the canvas is completed it is time to work on the focal points.  I have stamped the flower images from the Lin Brown Eclectica set ELBo1 on the stampboard which had been stamped with the words in from the first set in complimentary inks.  I then etched highlights into the stampboard, put 3 eyelets in the bottom right corner of the large board and then coat in Rock Candy crackle paint. I then coloured the branches with the same inks and again coated in Rock Candy crackle paint.  Once everything was dry I glued them to the canvas with glue gel as shown in the photos and added the cute little birds.

The last thing I did was to tie it all together and stop the from looking stuck together was to add shading around the plaques and branches with Faber Castell PITT big brush india ink pens and paper stump to blend it out into the canvas.  And now with that last step done the canvas is finished.
This was a huge challenge for me creating a canvas with these products in this size as I have only made smaller items before, but I had a wonderful time and can't wait to face my next challenge.
Happy birthday Paperartsy! I look forward to celebrating at least another ten years with your fab products!

 

 

To my Darling Husband

 

 Last week was my husbands 46th birthday and this was the card that I made to mark such a special day.  He is a huge fan of chess and in fact has belonged to a club and played competitively since he was about 15.  So, after having seen a set of Creative Expressions stamps by Sam Poole with a gaming theme, particularly chess, I just had to get it and make a card for him using it.

It was a very straight forward to make and relatively quick to make.  It just required a bit of fussy cutting around the chess pieces.  In the stamp set there is a stamp that is used to create the chess board by repeat stamping it in order to make a board that 64 squares.  I stamped and heat embossed the chess board and then layered it onto card to mimic the edges of the board.  I then stamp out the pieces and again heat embossed, then cut them out and glued them to the board.

 I then layered patterned paper on the coloured mats and glued it to the scalloped card base.  The chess board was then adhered to the card at a jaunty angle.  The sentiment was stamped onto the complimentary card and the smallest of the rectangular spellbinders die was used to create a faux nestie as I drew around it and cut it out.  I then die cut the next size up of the decorative rectangle from the same dark card that had been used as mats throughout the card.  They were glued together and glued to the top right corner with dimensional glue.



 I then created a banner with the patterned paper and mat it onto darker card.  Three card candi were attached at the end and the banner was attached to the bottom left of the card.  To finish the card it was embellished in the top left corner with bronze Creative Expressions pearl PVA glue.

Happy Birthday my darling husband!

Creating with the Melt Pot

 

I have recently been inspired to start playing with my melt pot again and I thought I would enter this into Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stamper challenge of "metal". I had a paper mache box which I decided to alter using the melt pot, and I wanted to incorporate as many techniques as I could.

I started by colouring the base of the box by spraying it with acrylic paint which I had diluted and put in a mister bottle.  When you do it this way it doesn't take long to dry.  I then stamped on it with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and a Ranger peacock feather texture tread.

For the lid I used beeswax to adhere some Tim Holtz tissue wrap and then overlayed with parts of a paper napkin. I dipped the edges of the lid in the melted marbelized UTEE and then quickly pressed them into the texture tread. The embellishments were made with UTEE as well, the heart was made by pouring the UTEE into a cookie cutter which was sitting on the texture tread and allowed to cool.  The flower and leaves were dipped into melted clear UTTE to create faux enamelling.

Once I was happy with how they looked they were adhered with glue gel and a metal key with a ribbon tie was added to the heart.  I then spelt out "craft" with Tim Holtz plastic letters, but you could put whatever you like.

If you want to join in this challenge or just have a look at the sample, here is the link;

http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/sunday-stamper-week-272-titanium.html 



Travel to Paris - The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Challenge

Here is my entry for the Artistic Stamper's Challenge,"Postcards, Travel and Holidays".  This is a relatively simple but striking canvas was quick and easy to make, and I particularly like the monochrome colour scheme.
I took a deep edge 3" x 3" canvas and layered up Paris themed patterned paper and black card, distressed it with Black Soot Distress Ink and glued it to the canvas.  I then took a smaller piece of patterned paper and again matted it onto black card, distressed it with Black Soot and adhered it off centre and slightly to the right of the canvas.
The focal point is a of the canvas is a domino sized piece of chipboard that I cover with the patterned paper.  I stamped the image of the Eiffel Tower from the Stampin'Up "Artistic Etchings" in Jet Black Archival and distressed the edges with Back Soot.  I glued Champagne glass glitter along the bottom of the image and then covered the tile with embossing ink and triple embossed it with clear UTEE to create faux enamelling. The tile was then matted onto black card and glue to the canvas so that it overlapped both of the panels already on the canvas.
To finish off the canvas I wrapped with black and cream stripped grosgrain ribbon and as simple as that the canvas is completed. If you want to see more entries to this challenge pop over to their blog, here is the link; http://www.theartisticstampercreativeteam.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/august-challenge-postcards-travel-and.html
Thanks for stopping by my blog and I hope you have a good week.

Making a Silk Purse from a Sows Ear..............

 

I have been doing a series of classes at Stampers Grove in Edinburgh on "Recycle, Re-Purpose, Re-Use" and this gorgeous jar is one of the class projects that I designed.  It started life as a simple jam jar but after it was finished I decided to re-purpose it into storage craft storage for my extremely messy craft room.  Which is in desperate need of organisation and attractive storage solutions. Lol!

After washing and drying the jar I cut 2 strips on co-ordinating card stock and punched a border pattern along the edges.  I layered these strips of card and then glued them to the jar.  I used Spellbinder dies to cut the 3 label dies in the same coordinating card, layered then, threaded pink poker dotted ribbon through the sides, secured with brads and the attached them to the border strip on the jar.  Then embellish the bottom left and top right with die cut leaves and paper roses.

The lid is made by covering the top with a card circle which you have used the lid to draw around as a template.  The using my spellbinder dies I die-cut 2 circles from the same colour card as used on the jar and attach them to the lid.  I then used Creative Expression's Pearl PVA Glue to create faux pearls around the edge of the largest die-cuts and attached some die-cut leaves and a large paper rose to the centre of the top die-cut.

For the edges of the lid I colourised some paper doilies and then cut off the edges which I used to create 2 rows of pleated ruffles and the finished off with the same pink poker dot ribbon that was used on the labels on the jar.  And there you have it a beautifully decorated jar that can be used as storage or to give as a gift to someone special.



Clean and Simple

This week while blog hopping I found a challenge at the Addicted to Stamps blog, It was my first time entering this challenge but I thought I would give it a go.  If you want to check this challenge out here is the link, http://addictedtostamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/cas-with-twist-challenge-59.html ,whose theme was Clean and Simple with a twist, the twist being that there was three options to choose from which were;
OPTION 1

Create a CAS (Clean and Simple) project

OPTION 2

Create a project that incorporates a Nicecrane Design Image

OPTION 3

Combine the two and create a CAS project with a Nicecrane Design Image. 

 

 I decided to try Option One - Clean and Simple, as this is not a style I use very often.  My usual style is vintage chic, distressed or grungy.  So I thought this was a great opportunity to try something outside my normal comfort zone.

  Here is the card that I came up with.  I used two stamp sets I have from when I was a Stampin'Up Demonstrator.  The flower image was stamped using their two step stamping set called Simply soft, with the solid image being coloured with markers and the line image stamped in brown ink. The sentiment used was from the Faith in Nature set.  I used the Stampin'Up label dies to cut the mats for the flower image and layered them on white card which I then matted on the same pink card that was used to mat the flower. I really like the sentiment I think it lovely and is perfect with the image. 
I am really happy with the finished result, I hope you like it.



 

 

Wedding - Stampotique Designers Challenge SDC113

As I was blog hopping today I popped over to one of my favourite challenge sites which is Stampotique and saw that this weeks challenge theme was weddings.  I thought to myself that I had just the perfect stamp for this and it was another Crafty Stamps image.  They are a local stamp company owned by the same people that own Stampers Grove in Edinburgh and they have lovely stamps with really quirky images.

For this card I thought that I would keep it really simple as I think that that compliments all the finery of a wedding without clashing.  So used a simple white 8" x 8" card with scallop edges and embossed it with a swirl mask through the Grand Callibur, I then went around the edges with Creative Expressions Pearl PVA glue to create a border of faux pearls.  I put the card aside to dry and carried on by stamping the image of the couple in black on white card and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then placed the smaller of the two spellbinder dies so that the stamped imaged was centred and die-cut it.  I used the next size up to make the black mat.  I layered the mats with dimensional glue added the veil to the lady and adhered it to the card base, again with dimensional glue.  Once I was happy with the position of the main image I added the pearl swirls to the top right and bottom left.

And there you have it, a quick, simple but elegant wedding card.

If you want to pop over and see what's happening on this months challenge here is the link;

http://stampotiquedesignerschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/sdc113-wedding.html

Happy stamping!