Dream time!

Hi there everyone and welcome to the newbies!

I hope you are well. 

I am off to meet a friend today for lunch and have a good old catch up. We both retired early  from teaching so can be ladies that lunch these days! It's nice as we worked together a long time. Living the dream now! Haha!

Here is todays card I want to share with you all. It's a nice simple and bright one. I have given you the ingredients and instructions below.

Ingredients.

Fairy with Daisies and Butterflies Stencil

Follow your dreams stamp

Gemini Machine or similar

Distress ink - Picked raspberry, Salty ocean, mustard seed, Black soot.

Northern Lights paper

1. Add black soot ink to the stencil and place carefully on to the stencil card. Run it through the Gemini to emboss the card and transfer the ink. Remove the stencil and clean it.

2. Replace the stencil to cover the black then using a blending tool and sponge add the 3 distress inks randomly over the exposed white card overlapping the colours to give full coverage. Flick with water and blot with a paper towel.

3. Trim the edge of the card to leave an even border. Adhere to a piece of designer paper and mount on a card blank.

4. On a spar piece of card stamp the sentiment and then colour with the three colours from the background. Edge with a black sharpie pen. Attach to the card with some 3D foam pads.

Have a good day and happy crafting

Home alone!

Hi there everyone!
I have the house to myself today …..well 'til mid afternoon I do! It doesn't happen often these days! I was up early so feel like I have had a long day! 
I thought I would share a groovi sample today. This one uses one of the Queen lace plates. They really are beautiful! I find that if I perforate around the outside first I can get it to line up first time every time. I am glad I have the lightwave though! 

Anyway here is the card and the ingredients and instructions are below.

Ingredients.

Anne Lace Frame Pattern Grid GRO-GG-41138-12

Leafy swirl Plate GRO-TR-40338-03

Mini  word chains 17&18 GRO-WO-41175-09

Nested square Picot dies and matching plate

A4 Apple green parchment

Indian summer  paper

pastel brads

1. On green  parchment  emboss  dots for the frame. Turn the plate and parchment over and perforate the design. Emboss the white work in the frame. Reperforate then cut away waste.
2. From the remaining parchment cut a square to fit in the centre and then use the plate the emboss the lines around the edge and use the centre square to make the sentiment box.
3. Emboss the patterns around the centre box and emboss white work as shown.
4. Attach the frame to the designer paper with pale green brads then attach the small square with brads.
5. Mount on to a card blank.


Hope you are having a good Sunday.
Happy Crafting 

Look for beauty

Hello there again and welcome to the newbies! 
Our Maria will be on TV later with some really cool Groovi stash. I hope you will be able to watch her tonight and tomorrow too! 
But for now I want to share something I did when Leonie launched her first lot of stencils. They are brill and can be used to make pretty much any style of item from really grungy stuff to pretty CAS cards. 
This one was a journal page I did using the stencils as a background and then adding stamps to build up the layers.  I will be honest with you..this kind of art used to terrify me!! But watching Leonie and now Louise on TV, plus meeting up with Louise for play days, has actually shown me that it really is nothing to be scared of. It's mixing mediums but also layering that gives your project the desired look.
This project could be done on paper or directly in a journal depending on how you want to work.
I have given you the ingredients and the instructions but you could change it easily by using different colours or images or by adding other words that are more poignant to you.

Ingredients.

Leonie's frameless stencils

beauty Wordchain stamp

Alphabet Wordchain

Marigold and friends stamp set

Basic circle and friends Stamp set

Blues / Greens and Orange Paints

Artistry inks in similar colours to the background

Book pages

Charcoal pencil

Green archival ink

Mixed media paper or work directly into a journal

1.  Use the paint to create a background by adding different colours in different areas and covering the complete paper.

2. Place stencil with squares over the page and sponge white paint through the stencil. Move the stencil around to cover the page. Change the stencil to the one with little circles on it and sponge blue and yellow paint through small areas and again move it round across the page. Leave to dry.

3.On spare decoupage paper stamp the flowers outline 3 times. Use artistry ink to fill in one of them and cut out the circle. The other need cutting out. Stamp the words for the sentiment and brush ink over them .

4. On the page stamp the infill stamp in green archival ink around the page. Add some strips of torn book pages and the flowers and words. Stamp the circle a few times around the flower circle. 

5. Use the charcoal pencil around the elements and rub in with your finger.

Feel free to leave me a comment below especially if you feel inspired to have a go.
Hope you have a good day and happy crafting.

An inky/parchment crossover.

Hello to you all. 

I am off out later to Stockport to meet up with a  small group of folks who are all into mixed media and journals. It's a great little group and we haven't been able to meet since December due to various things. I love going as it is one of my inky playtimes. It's only for a couple of hours but I seem to have got loads of stuff to take with me. Oh well I am sure I will have fun. and that's what crafting should be about. 

Yesterday I shared a card made with the Garden Heart stencil. So today I thought I would share one done with the stamp set. This one is done on parchment and uses a groovi plate to create an embossed frame for the heart and verse to sit in. It also has some embossing done on the reverse to create white areas within the heart design. The thing to remember when stamping on parchment is you need to let the ink dry properly before you start yo do any work on it. You stamp on the front of the parchment to get the image the correct way round. However if you want to create a reflection or a mirror image to something stamp one on the front and one on the reverse and bingo! 
Any way here is todays card and as usual the ingredients and instructions are below for you.

Ingredients.

Garden heart stamp set

Rainbow river Parchment

Rainbow River Paper

Nested rectangle plate GRO-PA-40524-04

1. On a piece of designer parchment  Create a rectangle measuring 11cm x 16.5 cm

2. Stamp the heart and sentiment in black archival ink and leave to dry thoroughly.

3. Working on an embossing mat and using the Number 3/4 Groovi embossing tool add white work to areas.

4. Use and eraser to remove the colour from the parchment then use a green pencil to colour them in.

5. Trim evenly around the frame with a paper trimmer then attach to a piece of white card with brads and then mat on a piece of matching designer paper and mount on a card blank.

Have a good day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

A heart for you

Hi there everyone.
Its a very pleasant spring day today for the start of the most promising season. And its just 4 months to the wedding so I am feeling very happy and content with life. Things are going well.
Colin is busy repotting his little trees and generally pottering about in the garden so he's feeling better. I think he worries that his trees may not make it through the winter so when they show signs of life and coming into bud it makes him happy! 
I thought I would share a sample using the garden heart stencil. I love this image and have it in all forms made by Claritystamp. And I can now tell you that Amy chose the stamp version for her invitations. It fits in perfectly with her theme of rustic and lace!
Anyway back to todays artwork. The stencil has no frame so can be used in lots of different ways and with a variety of mediums. I chose to keep it fairly simple. As usual I have given you the ingredients and instructions below.

Ingredients.

Garden Heart stencil

Hugs& Kisses mini word chain 15 STA-WO-10062-XX

Hope Frame & Celtic Shapes Unmounted Clear Stamp STA-PA-10384-A5

Worn lipstick Distress oxide ink

1. Add oxide ink to the stencil and spritz very lightly with water. Place carefully in the middle of a piece of 7x7 stencil card and pass through a Gemini or similar to emboss the stencil and transfer the ink.
2. Use a blending toll to add ink to the corners of the card. Use the stencil to add texture to the corners by using the blending tool  lightly over it. Flick water at the corners and blot. Use the Love stamp from the Hope Frame set and stamp in 2nd and 3rd generation oxide ink.
3. Stamp the Hugs and kisses in grey archival ink and edge the card with a grey sharpie pen. 
4. Mount on a card blank.

It would be easy to change the look of this by using different colours of inks. I just like PINK!

I hope you are having a good day today.

Happy Crafting

A peacock in many guises!

Good morning to you all. And welcome to my new followers I hope you like what you see here.

Today I am just sharing some artwork with you that I haven't shown on here before just for a bit of inspiration. 

These peacock images were designed by Linda Williams with groovi in mind but they were made into the most fabulous stamps too. They were launched at the NEC a year ago and were so well received by all! Here is a selection of the stamped samples I made plus two groovi versions too.

I hope you find something that you like!

Have a great day whatever you are doing 
Happy Crafting

Bee Happy

Good morning! It's gone quite cold again and we've been having a mixture of sunshine and showers. But the showers have been heavy and wintery! Not really what we want to see at this time of the  year. Mind you this time last year we had snow lying on the ground  so I suppose it's a little better than that.
I have a few things I need to do today including tidying up my space... It's got a bit muddled over the last couple of weeks so once I have finished mounting some secret stuff I can set to and have a really good sort out before the next lot arrives! 
I want to share with you one of the samples I did for the Groovi show on Friday from the NEC using the new tools along with the plates designed by Linda Williams plus a few extra things which I have listed below.

Ingredients

Round Picot Die and matching plate

Happy Word chain border plate GRO-WO-40563-09

Linda's Bee Plate. GRO-AN-40816-03

Wheel embossing Tool

Lozenge Perforating tool

Perga Liners

Northern lights designer card

1. Working on plain parchment emboss the single line circle using the 6th circles on the picot plate. Emboss the flowers and the bee in the circle.

2. Emboss the white work and add colour on the reverse of the parchment. Emboss the bee trail using the wheel tool.
3. Use the lozenge tool and semi perforate around the circle. Emboss a pattern around the perforations.
4. Use the 5th picot die to cut out the circle and at the same time cut a piece of blue card the same size as the parchment.  Emboss the double lines on the picot plate. Reperforate  around the circle with the lozenge. Put to one side
5. Make a wrap for the card using spare parchment ripping the edges. Emboss the bee,  the word and the honeycomb. Add colour to these.
6. Layer the  blue card and circle of parchment and attach to the designer card with brads. Attach the wrap by sticking on the back.
7.  Mat onto silver card then mount on a card blank.

I hope you like this project and if you have any comments please leave them below
Have a super day whatever you are doing.
Happy Crafting

Frog and Friends

Good morning all! Welcome to my new followers! I just noticed I have a few more following this blog now! I hope you enjoy what you see and please let me know in the comments! 
I am sorry I missed a blog yesterday. We had had a power cut in the night and whether that was the reason why we had no internet or TV til about 2pm I don't know but by the time we were up and running, I was busy perforating and snipping a project. I can't tell you what yet but you will find out in due course. 
Anyway here I am back again today so all is good.
Today I want to share a canvas I made using the woodland animals stencils. Mel Turner designed this one for Claritystamp. She is so clever how she draw! Her drawing though makes it easy to create great looking pieces of artwork. Maria had these on her show back in November 2018. I can't believe it was that long ago! 
Here is the result of what I did and below are the things you will need to make it and the instructions.

Ingredients

Frog and friends woodland stencil  STE-TP-00470-4S

8x8 canvas board

Texture paste that dries clear

Mica powders

Acrylic paint

1. Working on a canvas board add colour by dry brushing with random colours of acrylic paint to create a background. Leave to dry.

2. Attach the stencil to the canvas so the image is central. Add texture paste through the stencil. Remove the stencil
3. While the paste is still wet add mica powder randomly to the image. Gently tap the excess off.  Use a heat gun to dry the texture paste so the mica sticks and the paste bubbles slightly to create texture. Leave to dry completely.
4. Use a soft cloth to gently polish the mica and remove any from the canvas.

Hope you have a great day whatever you are doing.
Happy Crafting

A heart of Flowers

Good morning to you! 

For those of you that didn't see yesterdays blog post you may notice that my blog has had a slight change from Bits to place and a new URL. This is thanks to Facebook not liking the original name that this blog has always had! But all is good as it's only a small change but one that means I can now share my blog again! It will still be me sharing my artwork with you and maybe one or two other bits too!

Today I thought I would share a piece I did for Tina's show in January.

Ingredients.

Nested Square GRO-PA-40037-03

Nested Hearts GRO-PA-40094-03

Tina's Floral Petites Tall flowers GRO-FL-41143-01

Floral Spacer GRO-FL-41161-20

Straight Border grid No.1 GRO-GG-40350-14

Basic Piercing grid  diagonal GRO-GG-40383-14

Tina's 3D Flowers and Butterflies GRO-FL-40553-15

Semi square perforating tool

Brighton Rock designer paper

1. On plain parchment  emboss the 2nd and 4th largest hearts then make a border around the hearts using the 1st, 3rd and 4th largest squares.  Add the flowers into the heart. Use the floral spacer to fill the widest part of the square frame and add the pattern off the border grid in the narrow part.

2. Emboss dots in the heart frame and white work to the flowers as shown. Add colour using Perga colours on the reverse.

3. Emboss and perforate the grid pattern.

4. Semi perforate around the design with the semi square tool. Emboss zigzags within the perforations then reperforate. Cut waste from this edge and also in the grid pattern.

5.  Attach to a piece of designer paper with brads and mount on a card blank.

6. Using spare pieces of parchment make a flower and leaves and attach to the front adding a flat backed pearl to the centre.

I hope you stay safe, warm and dry today. It isn't very pleasant outside so I won't be going far today

Happy crafting

Wonderful colours

Hello there and welcome to you! I thought it was about time I blogged something else for you! It's been a while but things got a bit busy and something had to give! I really do not know where the time has gone but I cannot believe we are in March already. It will soon be July!! 

I have samples to do today but can take things nice and steady as the rush of the NEC stuff is over and my in try isn't too bulging with things to do. 

Who is going to the NEC? I am not going this time round. I would love to go but it is just so expensive to get there and get in and that's before I buy anything so I will be staying put! I am sure that if you do go you will drop by the Claritystamp stand and say hello to Barbara and the rest of the Clarity gang! They are such a lovely lot! 

Anyway I thought today I would share with you a sample I made for the first lot of Leonie's Stencils. They are so cool and great as backgrounds and lend themselves to so many different techniques. I did this one with alcohol ink on yupo paper. If you have never done this get some and have a go! It is amazing stuff! 

Ingredients.

Leonie's frameless stencil

Wonderful  Wordchain stamps

Marigold and friends stamp set (Infill stamp )

Alcohol inks greens yellow and pink

Blending solution

Yupo paper

1.  Place the stencil over the yupo paper and tape the stencil down to stop it moving.
2. Use a felt to dab alcohol ink through the stencil. Add texture by adding sequin waste dabbing blending solution through it. Add gold mixative to some areas. Remove the stencil and let dry.
3. Stamp the wonderful  and the marigold in Black archival (be careful not to slip). Heat set it with a gentle heat tool. Don't concentrate the heat in one place for too long!
4. Edge with a black sharpie and mount on a card blank.

That's all from me today. Let me know if you have a go at this. Even dabbing the yupo with alcohol ink gets amazing results.

Happy Crafting