Let's go to Africa!

Good Morning Bloggers. I am sorry I have been away for so long but I have been busy with so much going on that my blog has had to take a back step for a while! I keep promising myself that I will get it going again so maybe this is the start of things to come!
I now have a wealth of artwork to share with you but I thought we'd start by having a trip to Africa. This is a card I did for Barbara's July Show using the African and the Wee Africa set 1 and set 2 I also used the Wood press letters set to write the word Africa.

To do the background I started with some of Sheena's Stamping card and cut it to 7" x 7". I then used Spectrum noir Aqua tints in stripes across the page overlapping the colours so they blended a little. I spritzed it a little with water then sprinkled it with rock salt to create the blotchy affect. I left it to dry for about an hour to allow the salt to work it's magic. 
Once the card was dry I brushed the salt off it. The surface can feel a bit rough after this so I dust it with talc! Makes it smell nice too! 
I stamped the larger man in the corner then the trees and then positioned the smaller man stamp so it added depth to the picture. I added the letters of Africa then I added a shadow under each man using a pencil crayon and along the foot of the trees. I also put a little shadow under each letter. 
I matted it on to black card then onto a white card blank. 

I was pretty pleased with the overall look of this one! I think it has the African feel .....what do you think?

Let me know in the comments please.

Anyway I'm off to hang some more washing out and then have a cuppa! 
Have a great day

Happy Crafting

xx

Just Words( but more than that)

Well good morning! 

I finally got round to blogging and realised just how long it is since I last shared things with you! I will slap my wrists!

It's another lovely day here in Stockport. Blue skies and fluffy white clouds which I am glad about as we are having our roof done and part of it is still open to the elements. Hopefully today it will be almost finished and it can do what it likes then. I will be glad to get back to normal although to be honest I haven't had to deal with most of it with being at work.

Sunday is the next show on Hochanda for Claritystamp and Paul is doing two hours of groovi with some lovely new plates for you all! I just posted my samples to him this morning.

Today I have an assortment of samples using the Word chain alphabet which Barbara brought to you in April. They work so well with the word chains allowing you to write almost anything in really funky fonts.

 Hope you liked looking

Have a wonderful day whatever you are doing

Happy Crafting

Hugs 

Border Music!

Good Morning!
Its cold  here but frost free and dry. The Sun is trying to peep out too so not a bad day. I thought I would blog before I get on with some secret stuff. Lots of lovely goodies are coming your way very soon! Yes I am teasing I know! 

Today I am sharing a card I did for the More Clarity Show on Hochanda with Maria Simms. I had spent the day with Maria before this show and had been lucky enough to see all the beautiful samples that the rest of the Groovi DT had sent to her. They always look fabulous on the TV but they looked even more stunning in real life! 

The card I am sharing is the one that had the border of the music stave on it. I started off by cutting a piece of parchment into a square and using the border plate with the double straight lines I made a border area to fill in. 
I then used the music plate with the wavy music stave to fill in that area making sure I didn't cross any lines over so it appears that some are in front of the others. I love how on parchment there is no masking!
In the blank space above the border I then used the sentiment border plate to write Happy Birthday. 
Next came the white work. I filled in the two lines with white work ...remember slowly and gently does it!  It is a lengthy process but believe me it's worth taking your time! ( and how does this girl know that?) 
After I had done the white work I used a pricking grid and pricked two straight lines on either side of the border and all the way round the sentiment. I snipped out the little crosses in the corners of the lines around the sentiment.
I then cut a piece of pink card to attach it to and used the corner punch. to attach the parchment to it before attaching it to a white card blank. 

I thought this was a bit different than the usual parchment cards and could easily be for a young musician's birthday. It looks good on any colour card although I favoured the pink ....obviously!

So off I go now to get on with my crafting. Hope you have a good weekend whatever you are doing!
Happy Crafting

xx

Lawn and Flowers

Good afternoon and Happy Valentines Day to you!

It's been a bit manic here and tinged with sadness too as my Father in law sadly died on February 5th at the grand old age of 95. Colin and I will be travelling (weather permitting) up to Inverness this week for his funeral. So keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't snow too much up there.

This week is half term so I am having a lazy weekend, finishing samples for Maria's next show on Hochanda and getting the washing done too! Colin is busy in the garden with his Bonsai trees so we are both enjoying our hobbies this weekend!

The card I have for you today is one I did for Barbara's show on the 7th February. I used the Henna Groovi Border Plate,  Relatives & Occasions Groovi Border Plates,  Art Nouveau Groovi Border Collection, (I used Lawn for this card), the Groovi Border Plates 1 & 2 Set (Just the straight line) and the Circle Nested Groovi Plate 

I started off using a piece of A5 parchment by placing Lawn to one side. I then positioned the circle around her so that she was to one side of the circle. I then used the sentiments to write Happy Birthday Daughter in the circle.

I used the line on the borders 1&2 plate to draw a straight line all round and then added the semi-circles off the Henna Groovi Border Plate. In the corners at the bottom I picked out the flowers which are on the plate with Lawn.

I added colour using spectrum noir pencils on the back of the parchment. I pricked all round the line border and snipped it out using the parchment scissors. I then attached it to a piece of purple card using mauve brads. It seemed the make the colours pop even more on this colour. I attached this to a card blank and that was it done. Simple really but I think so effective. Do you agree?

Hope you are having a good weekend
Happy Crafting

A rose circle

Good Evening. 

This week has flown by and I have not had a minute to blog anything at all so I thought while tea is cooking I would sit down and share with you a card from the last show that Barbara did in in January on Hochanda. We had the Wee foliage set to use as some of the stamps being sold on the show and I wanted to do something a bit different with them. So I decided to make my own ink pad using distress re-inkers and a piece of Ranger Inkssentials Cut-N-Dry Stamp Pad. I stamped the rose on the pad in archival ink then added the colour using a paint brush to the areas I wanted red then green. I left it to soak in a bit then used it to ink my stamp and stamped a couple of times on spare paper to get the ink dispersed.

I then took a piece of theuva card and found the centre which I marked with a pencil dot. I then started to stamp the rose with the bottom of the leaves on that dot then turned the card one quarter turn and stamped it again until I had 4 roses in position. I then stamped in between each of these to create the circle. 

I used the word chains to do the sentiment Hugs & Kisses. I brushed a little bit of the red ink around the corners of the card just to take the whiteness off then matted it onto black then red then onto a white card blank. I added 4 gems to the corners and that was finished.

I was pleased with how this looked. I think it would be a nice Valentines card so might repeat it at sometime!

Have a lovely day and happy crafting.

Beautiful roses

Good Morning to you all! 

I have got up early so I can get my car to the garage early for it's annual service! So I have taken the opportunity to write a little blog about one of the cards I made for Maria's last show on Hochanda.

 I really loved the rose plate and decided that I did not want tot make a small card but how can I get more roses than the ones on the plate...I set my brain cogs whirring and also my stamping head as I sometimes find that if I think 'If this was a stamp what would I do.' then I can use the plates better.

I had got all the plates out on the table in front of me and I saw the tags border. I also saw the nested square plate and then my brain kicked into action.

I started off by Creating a rectangle using the square and moving the parchment to extend the sides. I made it as big as I could on a piece of A5 parchment leaving enough of an edge so I could prick round it and snip it out.

I then started in the corner with the tag border and chose the small two sizes of tags I did then moved the parchment down and did the next one moving in a diagonal direction. I wanted to end up at the opposite bottom corner. I tilted and turned the tags so that seven would fit in. I then went back to the square plate and did the border. Then using the alphabet on the Groovi plate mate, I added the letters FRIENDS.

Now for the roses. I positioned the parchment over the rose plate and did the first lot of roses making sure I stopped at the lines I already had on the parchment. I moved the parchment and did more roses again avoiding the lines I had already got. I added a few more leaves where I thought they needed to be. 

I created the squares on the border by using the nested squares plate then I added dot by using the ball tool from the back on the soft side of the Groovi mat. I filled the letters in with white work and added some shading to the roses with gentle white work...I didn't want it too white just to make the outsides of the petals lighter as they would be on real roses. When I was happy with this I then set about colouring it.

You all know how mush I love pink....and I could quite happily have done pink roses but I decided to go a different colour and looked at what I had in the way of yellows and oranges. I used a mixture of Spectrum Aqua, Distress markers and whisper pens...all water based and I find work well together on the parchment. They blend OK but don't make the parchment too wet!

I coloured the frames around the letters using brown then pricked using a half moon shaped tool in the bottom of each frame then all around the outside of the rectangular shape I started with. I snipped this out with my new snips that Colin got me for Christmas. I cut a piece of orange card exactly the same size as the parchment then matted this onto a piece of brown card. I attached the parchment to this using bronze coloured brads then stuck this to the card blank.

I was pleased with the final card and I loved the tones the pens gave me.

It would be nice if you could let me know what you think! Would you have chosen a different colour or do you like this tones I chose?

Happy Crafting

Love and hugs xxxx

 

Home Sweet Home

Good evening!
I hope you have all had a good day!
It was lovely to leave work today while it was still light! SO many days, in the winter, I go to work in the dark and leave when it's dark so it makes it special to get away on time and especially when it was so bright and sunny! I didn't even need my coat on to walk out to the car park. 

This evening I would like to share with you another of my samples from Barbara's last show on Hochanda using the Wee houses, the circle framer the words home sweet home from the little set of stamps by the same name. I also used the cat and the dog from the miniature set that went with the thank-you framer set.

I started off brushing a pale blue/green ink through the circle framer. I made sure it was not in the centre so I had space for the houses on the top of it.

I then stamped the houses around the top starting with the centre one and then working outwards so it looked even. I made sure the corners of the houses touched which is easy with Clarity stamps! 

I coloured the houses using pencil crayons then stamped the sentiment and the animals into place using black archival ink. I brushed a little colour in the corners of the card to take the whiteness off it. I did this with the ink left on my brush....they hold more than you think!

I then matted onto black then onto a white 8 x 8 card blank.

I hope you like it!

Let me know what you have been up to and if you have time today why not hop over to Barbara's blog to find out what is going on in her world today and maybe a few of the design team who have wonderful blogs...you can find the links on my blog or they are all listed on our Barbara's.

In the meantime happy crafting
Love and hugs


xxx

Color Bursts Always!

Good evening and Happy New Year!

I got a bit of a shock when I saw the date of my last blog post....I really don't know where that time has gone but my life feels a bit like a whirlwind and I guess the blog is the least of my worries. I will try though to be a better blogger from now on! 

Anyway it's a couple of weeks since Barbara introduced The Wee houses and the Wee shops to us on Hochanda. I love them and can see them becoming a popular little set of stamps. 

I started off by making a set of masks for the houses. Clarity sell blank sheets of the masks so I stamped the houses and shops onto one of the sheets with black archival ink and cut them out. This way I have got them for a long time. 
I stamped the row of shops and houses on a piece of Sheena's stamping card then masked them off. I then spritzed the card with water then added color bursts by Ken Oliver above and below the houses. I added more water and lifted the card so the colour dripped down the page. I let the colour soak in a bit then gently dabbed with a paper towel but not too much as I didn't want to lift too much colour off the card. I left this to dry naturally for the afternoon.

Once it was dry I removed the masks then coloured the houses in using a mixture of distress, whisper markers and spectrum aqua pens which are all water based. I then chose a word I liked from the wordchains ...I chose ALWAYS. 
I matted it onto black card then onto a white card blank. 

I hope you like it. 

Let me know if you have a go at this technique or if you have used the houses in a different way

Happy Crafting

xxxxx