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