Birdies by the water

Good morning. I thought I would blog you the birdies card I did for the last Claritystamp Show on Sunday 1st March.

I used the gelli plate for this one to do the reflection of the birds and to do the background.

I marked the long middle line on the back of my card as a guide and then stamped in versafine the birds onto the gelli plate. I then pulled the print.

I stamped the birds directly above the image then masked both of them off.

I inked the gelli plate up with green and blue adirondack ink and on one half of the gelli plate I dabbed it with crinkled paper to hopefully get a watery effect. I then pulled a print and my line marker had worked well!

I removed the masks and coloured the birds using the spectrum noir pencils making sure that the birds in the reflection were paler than the ones above. I also added a bit of green shading around the birds legs and some in the reflection.

 I trimmed the card slightly so it just fitted the birds in length. I stamped the word in place then mounted it onto  black card then a card blank. 

Here it is!

Have a good day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

Making a Rainbow!

Good evening to you all

After a very stressful day and a weekend I want to forget about I thought I would spend a bit of time indulging myself and writing my blog! And what better thing to do but blog about the Fairy book I made for the last Claritystamp show on Sunday 1st March.

I love this set of stamps and as soon as I saw them I knew they would be perfect for making a Child's story book. I got this idea from a project that I do with my year 9 classes where they have to look at children's books and then write a short story of their own and turn it into a book. I suggest to the class that they think of something that they want to teach the children through a story so that's where I started. 

There are two sets of the Wee Fairies: Set 3 and Set 4

I counted the fairies to see how many there were and then thought I could use them to teach children about the colours of the Rainbow. I can recall being taught the way remember the colours is by the saying phrase Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain but I wanted something more Child friendly. So I started to think of a story. I wrote this is rhyming couplets as this is often how children's books are written.

Here is the Story

Rose the Fairy loved everything Red,

Ola wanted Orange, even her bed!

Yasmin needed bright Yellow to be seen,

But Gordon wanted it all to be Green.

Bobby made the whole world turn blue,

It had to be Indigo for Iris through and through.

And not forgetting Vivian, last but not least,

She needed Violet ...Oh what a feast!

They all loved their colours but wanted to show,

That when they all get together, We see a beautiful Rainbow.

I then thought about how I was going to create a book.

I while ago I bought a miniature board book which had 4 pages held together with rings. Perfect! I painted the art boards with gesso to seal them and cut pieces of theuva card to fit the pages. I would stamp and colour these then stick onto the board pages when finished.

I created the front cover first and drew the rainbow and coloured it with promarkers. I added the title which I had made on the PC and a bit of sparkle using the stars and embossing powder

The next page I planned to get two colours on so drew a feint line diagonally. One side red and the other orange. I masked off each half and made a little scene in each using the fairies and the other stamps. I drew some bits that I didn't have stamps for like the bed. I printed out the words and stuck these on. Once completed I added sparkle then stuck it to the board book being careful it was the right way round.  I then found buttons the same colour as each page to add interest and a bit of embellishment.

I then went to do the 2nd page, this time yellow and green.

This is how they look together.

The next page was blue and Indigo

with Violet being on its own. I used the toadstool stamp to make the scene and fill the full page. I think this is my favourite page of all of them.

Here they are together

I then had to create the final part when they all come together and make the Rainbow. I put the two pieces of card together on my work space and used distress stains to make the splats. Word of advice...move things well away when you do this!

I then stamped all the fairies in black archival ink to make the double page.

The back of the book I drew the rainbow again and used the final fairy that had not appeared in the story. And I added my personalised bespoke stamp I use on the back of all my samples.

The whole thing was put together and that was my Fairy Book complete! I was a lot of work but I really enjoyed doing it.

I hope you enjoyed finding out about this project. It would be lovely to hear what you think of it!

Happy Crafting

A bit of Sax for you!

Good morning all! What a difference a day makes...yesterday was clear blue skies and bright ...today is grey and drizzle! But that is not going to spoil things...Colin and I are off for a trip out later then I will do a bit of work before settling down to do some major crafting....all new secret stuff!

But before I go I want to share the other card I made using the music set. 

For this one I used the brushos (Black, yellow and red) to make a background and once it was dry I stamped the saxophone in place as a guide then the music staff which I curved a bit. I then used my black pen to extend the lines to make it look like they were coming out of the sax. At the other end I opened them up to look as though it was off into the distance.

I stamped the treble clef and then some random notes to make it look authentic music!

I then stamped the word Harmony from word Chain 12 in the corner and then randomly stamped notes around the whole piece. 

I stamped the saxophone again on a piece of theuva card...I always keep offcuts for such occasions...coloured it in with a gold gel pen and stuck it on over the original stamped one. 

I finished it of by going round the edge with a wiggly line but I wrote' musical notes' in it as I went. I matted and layered it onto a card blank 8 x 8 then added cosmic shimmer pearls to the keys on the Saxophone to make them stand out a bit. I also used a white pen and added highlights to the notes and to the word. 

I was really pleased with this one and I think it worked out quite well!

Have a good day 

Happy Crafting

A musical note

Good Morning...and a bright one it is here! Lovely blue skies all around! It make you feel better when you see a bit of sun ...don't you think?

Anyway I know I have been a very bad blogger but I have been so busy that something had to go by the wayside. Let's hope I can catch up with you all a bit this week! 

Yesterday I had a terrific start to my half term break and went to the Clarity Northwest Workshop run by the lovely Maria Simms...she is so clever and always comes up with the most amazing projects for us to do. I love going and it's like my monthly fix! It also means I get to catch up with some very dear  crafty friends!

Any way enough of my waffle.. I want to show you a project I did for the last February Claritystamp Show. I love the Music notes set and had the idea to make some notelets in a box. As there were four different instruments I thought that I could make a set of matching cards quite easily. I used the Happy Birthday Corner to make a frame on 4 pieces of theuva card cut to a square. I then stamped each of the instruments into the centre of each and added a few of the music notes. I coloured the instruments in with SN pencils. I then brushed the edges of the card with rusty hinge distress ink and mounted each onto a piece of rust coloured card to make my toppers. 

I had bought a pad of Teresa Collins Paper a while back and to my delight it had a music one in it! I used this as my background to the toppers on to 6 x 6 card blanks.

I then made a box to fit them in and to decorate the box lid I used a bit more of the music paper and made a fifth topper but this time I made a collage of all the four instruments by stamping and masking them off so they all overlapped. I found a metal musical embellishment in my stash and added that to the lid

I was really pleased with how this project turned out.

Hope you all have a good day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

Crinkly Tag

Good Evening

I want to share with you one of the samples I made for the January Claritystamp Show.

It used the butterfly and petals set and the petal stencil 

I started off with a tag made out of artboard. I had some brown packing paper which I had saved and I scrunched up a piece then covered the tag with PVA glue and pushed it onto the paper. I then made sure the paper was stuck to the edges and I trimmed off the excess. I then left it to dry.

Next I used the petal stencil and some grunge paste and added some petals to the top and bottom corners. Once this was dry I used gilding wax and rubbed over the surface of the tag. This picked up the crinkles in the paper really well! I also rubbed the stencil petals with the gilding wax.

For the flowers I stamped and embossed 2 different petals 5 times each and the butterfly twice onto craft card. I cut these out then made 2 flowers and layered up the butterfly. I attached these to the tag and added a small metal dragon fly and a die cut flourish. A couple of self adhesive gems and a small sprig of pearl stems finished it off.

Made a change from just doing a card!

I hope you like it! 

Happy Crafting! 

It's a wise old owl......or two wit two woo

Well good morning to you! I thought I would blog again...just to keep you on your toes and shock you....I don't usually blog everyday but hey! Surprise!

Anyway these two cards I made for the last Clarity Show....just loved the owls and the stencil in this set. The owls would make a great anniversary card or engagement....now there's a thought. I must congratulate my lovely friend and teamie Amanda Branston on her engagement to Mark over Christmas...so happy for her and can't wait for the wedding!

Any way I digress!

The first card I wanted to do was something a bit out of the box and that was use different colours then would be expected with the owls.

I got out four bright colours of adirondack inks; butterscotch, meadow, denim and red pepper, and stamped the owls in each as close to each other as possible but turning the card each time so they faced a different way. I trimmed the card and then added a free hand squiggly line which I then coloured in with the same four colours. I then matted it onto a piece of black then onto an 8 x 8 card blank.

For the next card I got the Gelli Plate out and using the stencil created a background. I then cut a piece of card slightly bigger than the aperture of the stencil and stamped the owls in Black archival ink. I added colour using spectrum noir pencils and then covered the whole tile with clear embossing powder. I attached this to the background with red liner tape.

Then it was matted and layered onto a piece of black card then an 8 x 8 card blank....a very nice stamp and stencil.... thank you Clarity!

Right I am off....the tree and decorations are coming down in a bit and the house is being cleaned! 

Have a good day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting

A squirrel or two!

Happy New Year Blog land!

I don't know where that last year went to but it's over and all I can wish is that this year is kind to us all! We all have hopes and dreams ...lets try and make them a reality this year!

Anyway I normally am posting a new card today for the Clarity Blog Challenge but as you may have seen there have been a few changes there and the peeps on the main Clarity DT who were also on the Blog DT have stepped down as things are getting exciting and busy in land of Clarity.

I wish the new team great success...their projects on the new challenge are stunning.

SO today I thought I would share two cards I made using the squirrel stamp set from the last Clarity Show.

The first one I used the stamp and then the Thank you stamp with it. I coloured the image and the thank you with Spectrum Noir Pencils and then used a blender tool with spiced Marmalade distress ink round the edges. I added some flowers and matted and layered it onto a card blank

I then decided to use the stamp and stencil.

I attached the stencil to a piece of gelli card with low tack tape and brushed spiced marmalade then mustard seed through the stencil. I then put this to one side and prepared the topper. I cut a piece of double sided adhesive into a square and then I stamped the squirrel in black archival onto it. I covered this to a piece of acetate. On the other sticky side I cut out the squirrel and added orange and white mica powders trying to give him different tones of orange on his body. I then removed the rest of the sheet to exposed the sticky and covered that with gilding flakes.I then cut out the circle and attached it to the centre of the stencilled card. I added a free hand line round the edges of the stencil and the word Beauty at the bottom. I matted it with gold mirri card onto an 8 x 8 inch card blank.

It would be nice if you could leave me a comment below to let me know what you think of these...good or bad

Thanks for your continued support

Happy Crafting