A house by the Sea

Good Evening to you. It's been a bit of a miserable day here weather wise. But I have felt in a great mood so all is peachy! It's amazing what a holiday does!

Anyway I want to share with you my last sample that was made for the last Claritystamp show at the beginning of May.

It used the town stencil and grunge paste. I started off by cutting a piece of centura pearl card and attaching the stencil to it with masking tape. I then applied the grunge paste to it, carefully removed the stencil and then left it to dry. (Remember to wash your stencil straight away.)

Once the paste was dry I used my craft knife and drew some extra lines in the paste for bricks and slates and on the road part. I then put the stencil back on it to protect the white lines and sponged inks to the different parts of the picture. I trimmed the white border.

I chose bright colours for the houses....they remind me of the houses that you often see painted bright colours in seaside resorts.

I found a piece of backing paper with similar colours and with bunting on it. I used this to back my card and I also cut out some of the bunting to go on the card as an embellishment.

Here is the finished card

Anyway I hope you will join Barbara on Sunday morning 9 - 11am for the next instalment of Claritystamp genius!

Happy Crafting

Woodland Creatures

Well it won't be long until Barbara is back on the telly with more fabulous products! In fact its this coming Sunday when she is due to be on our small screens with her fabulous demo's. So I better get more of last months samples blogged for you!

These all used the Woodland Animals set. I really love the stag in this set and it always makes me think of the Stag picture that used to be up at my parents in laws home. Monarch of the Glen I think it was called! They loved Scotland and my father in law has now lives there. 

So I thought I would use the woodland stencil and create a scene that made me think of the highlands .... in the Summer I have to add!

The next one I used the tree scape stencil which I ran through my grand calibur and then brushed with inks to create the wooded background. 

I then stamped the stag and other animals in place. I added the garden twine.

I then was looking for an embellishment to finish it off and was lucky enough to fine the little wooden squirrel.

The next one with the woodland animals just used the owl and the cottage stencil. I used the inny and the outy to do it! 
I got into my head the film from Dusk to dawn so used the wheelie stencil to to that as the words. I used the owl to do the background on the card blank.

For my final card I wanted to use just the stag. I brayered the sky and the hills. I had masked the moon first then removed it to do the hills and mountains. I stamped the stag into position and then I added vines and grasses to make it look as though you were looking through the trees and wooded area into the clearing where the stag was standing silhouetted by the moon light.I added shadow under the stag and on the ground. I darkened the edges of the picture making sure it was dry first!

I used the best wishes at the bottom of the card.

Hope you enjoyed the samples today.

Happy Crafting

Gilded Nuthatch

Good evening to you and I want to share one of the cards I did for last months Clarity show. It is the Nuthatch stamp I used for this and very simply I embossed it using mica boss then covered this with gilding flakes. I then placed the die over it and cut it out. I cut out an edging too. I cut a piece of theuva card and used the tangle stencil and whatever ink was on my brush...greens and blues but only very pale. Ii matted and layered this onto black then onto a blank card I added the topper and the two borders.

I hope you like it. It was a quick card to make. They don't all have to be complicated!

Happy Crafting!

Lapwing Lane

Good Morning....Time marches on and I realise I have not posted much recently....I have been so busy I hadn't noticed that it is nearly the end of the month and I have only shared one of my last months samples with you. Slap wrists and all that! So I'll share two with you today just before I head off up to Preston and have fun at Maria's Clarity NW class....we are playing with the Gelli Plate today....I cannot wait!

Lapwing's are fabulous looking birds...a bit comical at times but have that air of attitude and I think Clarity have really captured that in the stamps.

The first card I did with them was this one which I used the cog off the inkadinkado set to do the circle of smaller lapwings in 2 different colours. Then I stamped and  heat embossed the bigger one in to the middle. I added some shading under his feet using a bit of torn paper and a make-up sponge. I added some very faint clouds around his head. I then brushed the corners of the card with brown before I matted and layered it onto an 8 x 8 card. I finished the card with a brown pearl in each corner

After that one I then wanted something different with the Lapwings so I used the stencil of the bulrushes and blues and greens to create this card. I used the lone tree stencil to create the ripples in the water.
I stamped all the birds in espresso ink and then used a pale green and blue promarker to add shade to them. I stamped the bulrushes along the bottom and the 'with love' in the to corner. I matted and layered it on to an 8 x 8 card and added 3 brown pearls to complete it.

Well I must dash...I have things to do before I go out. Hope you have a great Saturday whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

When is a box not a box?

Well its a full week since the last last Clarity Stamps Show on Create and Craft so I thought it was about time I blogged one of my cards.

I have been seeing a lot of those pop up box cards and had had the instructions given to me by Jan Holmes.... one of my FB friends. She very kindly gave me a very simple set of instructions using my Hougie board, to make a box from a piece of A4 card. So I set to and made the blank box.

It worked perfectly and so now all I had to do was decorate it!

I found some nice backing paper I had on my PC and printed off some sheets onto a decent quality paper

I put the black paper on first the added the other paper.

I wanted to use the lapwing and the moor hens to look as though they were in the grasses and reeds of marsh land where they would be quite at home.

I stamped them all out in espresso adirondack onto some theuva card and added a bit of colour using my promarkers. I also stamped some grasses and bulrushes. I then set about cutting them all out leaving a tiny border round each part. I almost gave up the idea when I was doing the bulrushes!!!

I cut two long thin pieces of card which I used to attach the two birds in flight. The flock of birds I stuck to the back of the box. I added the large lapwing to the back layer surrounding him with bulrushes then added the two smaller ones to the front layer again with bulrushes but not as tall. The grasses and the moor hens were added to the front part of the box.

I created a topper saying home from the word chains set....such a useful set of words....and that was it! I find it amazing that all this folds flat!

Here's a close up of the top part of the card!

Anyway that's it for today. Hope you have had a lovely weekend! 

Happy Crafting

Sunny Saturday!

Good morning all and welcome to my blog for today.

A sunny Saturday morning and Colin is out side doing a bit of painting on the house...the decorating bug has bitten him! I myself am having a lazy day...saving my energy for going out tonight with Nicola to see Sarah Millican at the Apollo Manchester! Should be good.

Anyway tomorrow is the next instalment in the Clarity Stamp story and Barbara Gray will be showing off the new stamps for this month and you will not be disappointed...they are fab...as are the new stencils too! I can't wait to see how she uses them and to see all the creations form the rest of the design team. They will be all getting very excited this weekend as they are off to France on Tuesday. Unfortunately due to my work I am unable to join them this time.

Anyway I realised I have not shown you all the cards from last months show so here are the cards I made using the boy and the girl in flight stamps. They are so lovely and were accompanied by the most wonderful accent stamp which could be used alone or with the main stamp. 

The first I used the arch stencil with the tangle stencil over it to create a background. I brushed just two colours of ink over it but where they overlap you get more appearing. 

I then stamped the image of the boy and the branch at opposite corners. The filled the space in the bottom right hand corner with one of the words from the word chains....they are just perfect to fill in.
Matted this onto a piece of black card then on to an 8 x 8 card blank and added 3 tiny gems under the word just to finish it off!

I then moved onto the girl stamp. For this I started off using the circle stencil which I brushed without the insert in very pale pink then added the insert and added some more ink.
I then used the poppy stencil but off the page. I used a make-up sponge to do the poppies so I could direct the colour better. I then stamped the girl the grasses and the sentiment. 
Without adding any more ink to my brush I took the whiteness off the card in all four corners and the edges of the card. 
I matted onto 2 tones of pink card then added it onto an 8 x 8 card.

For the next card I was going to use both but I wanted to have a very different background so I go my spray booth out! (Its just a box plastic box really but it sounds posher to say spray booth!) 
I used 3 colours of dylusions sprays and used the matt side of centura pearl card to spray on to. I left it to go completely dry.

I then cut this down saving the piece I cut off.
I then dusted the card in talc before I stamped in versamark ink and embossed it with some Cosmic shimmer powder. I love how it looks black then in some lights it has red tones. As you can see I used the boy and the girl and both the branch and the gasses to create the card.
As you can see I used the piece I had cut off to make the sentiment.

Here it is finished.

I hope you all have a great day today and  watch out for the sneaky peeks that are about of what the design team have done. There were a couple shown yesterday and today there are more planned! 









Happy Crafting








  

It's all about the words

Good Morning to you all and what a morning it is.....start of a new challenge on the Clarity Challenge Blog and for this month we are thinking all about Words!

I think we under estimate the sentiments and words we use on a card but it can be critical. 

Anyway I decided that for this challenge I would decorate 3 boxes that I had bought from the MDF man at Harrogate show. They would eventually be going to my daughter for her flat....sorry duplex!

I started off painting them in gesso then cream acrylic paint. I then dry brushed some brown acyrlic paint over that to get a grained effect....I almost stopped there as they did look lovely. 

However I persevered and stamped onto tissue paper with lots of different clarity stamped but with garden in mind....leaves, flowers and vines....then I did dragonflies and feathers ....oh and the birdcage. Then I needed some words....so I chose the sentiment Count your Garden by the flowers. 

I used versafine inks in all different colours. Then came the task of cutting out and splitting the tissue into single ply. 

Once I got this done I was ready to start putting them on to my boxes...lids done first tops and inside then the box sides were done. I used slap it on to attach the tissue.

It did take me a while as I had to let them dry in between layer application...thank goodness I had nothing much else to do!!!

Several coats of matt varnish were applied once I had done all the images then then edges of the boxes had gilding wax applied and that was it

And here they are.

Hope you like!

Happy Crafting