Boy and girl in flight

Good Morning to you! 
OOO it's been so cold here I wonder what today will bring. It doesn't encourage me to stray too far which is probably a good thing as I do have a lot of secret stuff to keep me busy! And I have a few personal cards to do for friends upcoming birthdays!

Todays artwork was done for the shows Barbara did on QVC Germany! I do like these two stamp sets. The boy and the girl can be used for so many different occasions. Used with the foliage they make a great quick card. Even quicker if you use the designer paper or card.

Ingredients

Flyaway and Carpe diem stamp sets

Northern lights designer paper

Indian summer designer paper

Black archival ink

1. Put two different pieces of designer together and draw the curve up the centre then cut it with scissors.
2.Take the pieces and fit them together...you get 2 for 1, just the other way round.  
3. Stick the pieces onto a piece of copy paper and trim to size.
4. Stamp the boy and girl in place the surround them with foliage in 1st and 2nd generation ink.
5. Add a moon mask and brush black ink gently around the moon. Make hills using ripped paper and brushing black ink. Darken the edges by brushing black ink around it. Remove the moon mask.
6. Attach to a piece of gold card then on to a card blank.

Please let me know if you have a go at this technique.
Happy crafting  xxx

Snowdrops...well nearly!!!

Good morning all.

It's gone really cold again...still it is winter so I suppose it should be... And it's not as bad as Europe. Germany and Austria are having blizzards and even Athens has seen a small amount of the white stuff so I reckon we have it good really. Looking back at memories on facebook it is 9 years since we got so much snow it caused schools and businesses to close and a snowman appeared in the middle of our road! It's great to look at but when you need to get about it's a nightmare. 

I had a little look round our garden today. After the work done on Sunday it looks a lot lighter now the hedge has been lowered and  whilst I was looking at that I also noticed that the snowdrops are already up and nearly in flower.  I am sure its a bit early but it's been so mild over Christmas I am not surprised to see things so advanced in the garden. Other things are showing signs of coming back to life too.

So I thought I would share with you a card from last year made with the Art Nouveau Snowdrops groovi plate and the Shenandoah designer paper. 

I do still class myself as a stamper rather than a parcher but I enjoy using the groovi plates as it is easy to pick out specific parts of the plates. With a stamp it would mean a lot of masking to do any thing like this. It makes the plates really flexible with what you can create. If you haven't yet plucked up the courage to have a go at groovi it's well worth considering it as a craft. Very relaxing and can be done anywhere!

Anyway enough of my ramblings! 

Hope you have a great day.

Happy crafting 

Love and hugs xxxx

Another place another town.

Good morning all. Hope today finds you well. It's amazing it's a full week gone of January gone already. I'm sure that time goes faster the older you get. 

I have a bit of shopping to go and do today and this afternoon I will be adding to my die collection ...that's if I can get through on the phone to Clarity!!! They were busy yesterday. Fingers crossed.

Today's artwork is another using the town 3way overlay stamps. I only used the infill Stamp for this one.

I started off by making a tile out of a piece of mount board. I covered it in 3 layers of UTEE with mica powders added to the final layer. Whilst still hot I pressed the inked Stamp into it then carefully lifted the stamp away. If you're not happy with the result you can repeat this process by reheating that too layer!

Put this to one side and brush terracotta ink through the brick stencil onto a piece of stencil card. Edge with a black sharpie pen and attach to a card blank. Stamp the words using the mini word chains and then attach the tile. Job done!

Have a great day whatever you get up to and please leave me a comment if you can.
Happy crafting
Jane Telford xxx

Our Happy Home

Good afternoon all

I hope today finds you well.

I am just getting ready to watch Paul on Hochanda getting creative with some smashing dies. They are firmly on my wish list especially after seeing Barbara's demos so far.

It's really miserable and wet here. I just managed a quick walk up to the post office earlier to get a couple of urgent things in the post and made it back just as it started to chuck it down again.

Colin is wanting to get in the garden to sweep up after the hedge and tree were taken down yesterday but it's too wet to do that. It was a bit late when the guy finished yesterday but the hard work is done and mostly cleared away so that's the main thing.

The artwork I will share with you today is using one of my favourite images. It came out first as a stencil then has been turned into stamps, groovi and dies. This piece uses the stamps which are 3 way overlay stamps. I used distress stains to colour this one! I have included the ingredients and simple instructions on how it is made.

 

Ingredients.

Town 3-way overlay stamp set

Mini word chains, Our Happy Home
Distress stains - lucky clover, salty ocean, Candied apple, mustard seed

1. Working on stencil card cut 17cm x 10cm stamp the line art stamp in black archival. Ink up the infill stamp in brown archival and rest it on copier paper to remove a bit of ink then stamp it in the image offsetting it slightly. On the outfill stamp rub the stamp with the distress stains and use to fill in the image. Add more colour on this stamp if needed but try to leave some white spaces in the image. Let this dry.

2 Use the distress stains to create splats over the image and around it. Let this dry.

3. Edge with a black sharpie pen and attach to a card blank.

Have a great day whatever you are doing. Please leave me a comment here.

Happy Crafting 

It's a floral wonder!

Good Morning all.

We are having some work done in our garden this morning. Our adjoining hedge is just too tall for Colin to safely get up to these days and so we are having the height reduced a bit to something that he can reach without climbing on a ladder. Last time he did that he ended up breaking a bone in his hand! So we had a guy round who gave us a ridiculous price and now we have found one much more within what we are prepared to pay! So whilst that is going on and Colin is out supervising it all I thought I would come on here and have a chat to you! 

I can't wait for Barbara's 2pm show today ,,,It seems ages since she was last on the telly....Christmas seems to fill the time up and make it disappear so quickly! I know that the products on the show today are fab and having seen the sneaky peeks from the rest of the team  everyone enjoyed using them. I bet Barbara has a huge pile of samples to show in all the formats of the products. That's the beauty of the Claritystamp designs... they lend themselves to all the different products they now sell. Then later Paul will join Barbara in bringing you the ODS and they have some amazing dies for you but also they emulate the plates that were out in 2017 Tina's floral swirls and corners. They also came out in stamp form too!

I thought I would share with you some artwork that I did using the plates and the stamps today! 

I hope you enjoy your day whatever you are doing and if you have any comments please leave them on here... I do like to get comments.

Love and hugs 

A belated Happy New Year

Good afternoon bloggers.
Its a long time since I blogged and I really should do more so fingers crossed I will try.
It's been a busy old year in the world of Claritystamp and lots of products have been launched on Hochanda and a few have sneaked quietly onto the website but all are fab and there for a purpose! And because of that I have been kept busy with samples for the shows. I do enjoy making them and giving all you good people lots of inspiration. I can't believe that I have been making samples for Barbara for well 5and a half years now. It's amazing how much more I am doing now compared to when I started but that shows how much more popular the company has become. 

I know this year I will be even more busy due to our daughter getting married. Her invites are nearly finished and then its the favours and the table settings to be done. Oh and the cake of course...but its all in hand and in my plan so it will all slot into place. I am so looking forward to it and I know the time will fly past. Before you know it I will be sharing photos of the big day I am sure.

Anyway back to the crafting. I will share with you a card I made back in 2018 that was for one of Tina's shows. I loved doing this one as it got me painting on the front of the parchment too.

Ingredients.

Tina's Fun Groovi Collection

Nested Rectangle GRO-PA-40524-04

Semi square Tool

plain parchment

Blue A5 Parchment

1. Working on the Plain A4 Parchment,  Emboss The largest and 2nd largest rectangle to make a frame.

2. Emboss the tree but replace the flowers with butterflies. Add some around the tree too. Emboss the daisies.

3. Using a shader tool to add whitework to the daisies then add colour to the reverse with distress markers . Brush over the daisies with green artistry ink

4. Perforate around the frame with the semi square tool and cut away waste.

5. Attach to blue parchment with brads then layer  onto white card, blue card then a card blank.

 6. On Spare Parchment emboss the same number of butterflies as you have on the tree and paint on the front of each.

7. Perforate around each painted  butterfly with a 2 needle tool  and cut away waste. Attach to the front with perga glue.

Hope you enjoy your day and if you like this card or indeed have a go at making it please let me know by adding a comment below.

Love and hugs as always

Time flies when you're having fun!

Cor...time isn't half flashing by. One minute I was thinking that I need to pack for the Clarity stamp retreat and the next I am washing all the stuff I had packed having had the most amazing time down in Crowborough with lots of friends ….old and new! 
I think that this year the projects we got to do at the retreat were the best ever, and gave us so much to contemplate and techniques to use again and again. I am sure in the next couple of weeks you will get to see the projects we did. Thank you Barbara, Paul, Becca and Dave for a great retreat. I know its hard work for you all but I do think that you must enjoy it as you seem to want to do it again next year. 
I am not sure I will make it to next years retreat.... It will all depend on the dates. That's because a year today our daughter Amy will be getting married! I have a feeling that this coming year will go fast!

The piece of artwork I want to share today is from the shows Maria did back in April but I think it is appropriate after the lovely few days I have just had. 
Part of the retreat I enjoy is getting to see people I don't see that often but keep in touch through facebook or blogs. It is so much better to see them face to face and to talk to them for real. 

Linda Williams designed these stamps....the dangles collection from Claritystamp...…. and this one went well with the stencils I used here.

I started off by positioning the stencil and brushing pink ink through it and then using a makeup sponge to darken some areas and sharpen the edges.
I then stamped the word and the dangles as shown in the picture. I then coloured the letters and ribbon with pink and purple promarkers, matted it on to a piece of purple card and attached it to a card blank. I added a gem at each corner. And this is the result. I hope you like it.

I must now get on with a few more bits and pieces. 
Happy Crafting 
Love and hugs from