Hares on the Green

Hello and thank you for dropping in!
It's been really cold here today but bright blue sky and sunny so that makes you feel better. It reminds you that spring is on the way and although it's cold you can wrap up against that. It was pleasant to have a walk up to the post office this morning with some more secret stuff...soon to be revealed! 

And I have a date with my daughter to go shopping for wedding items! OOO its all getting very exciting!! I think the next 6 months will go very quickly! I really must get on with designing a card …. I have plenty of choice as far as stamps, stencils groovi and even dies!

The artwork I an sharing with you today is one of the samples I made for Maria's shows yesterday. Wasn't she brilliant? I do love her style and she's such a fab teacher. But more than that she's a good friend too!
Anyway the plates we had to work with were fabulous as always so it's not hard to end up with a good card! Even if I say so myself! 

This one was worked on green parchment and had a second layer of plain underneath it 
So here it is. 

Ingredients.

The Earth has Music plate GRO-WO-40270-02

Tina's Doodle flower plates 1& 2 GRO-FL-40806-02

Nested Scalloped Rectangle GRO-PA-40587-04

Sentiments Spacer (harmony) GRO-WO-40655-06

Diagonal Basic Groovi Border Piercing Grid GRO-GG-40383-14

Green and plain parchment

1. On green parchment  emboss  the Earth has music plate but leave out the words. In the space where the words would go, emboss the sentiment and then fill in with flowers, leaves and dragonflies from the doodle flower plates.
2. Emboss white work to the flowers  and tails of the hares. Fill the hares and the birds with dots using the diagonal plate.
3. Perforate around the edge and cut away waste. Put to one side.
4 On plain parchment and using the scalloped rectangle create a frame to fit the green piece. Perforate and cut away the waste.
5. Layer up the plain and green parchment and then attach to a piece of green card using white brads. Mount on a card blank.

Anyway enough of my drivel. Please feel free to leave a comment . I like to know what you think of my artwork!

Have a great evening 

Happy Crafting

An experiment!

Hi everyone and welcome to another blog!
It's our shopping day on a Wednesday so I was up and out early. I'm so glad that Asda has an undercover carpark as the weather is not at all good today. It's wet and going really cold... Need the thermals on again. I just hope that the rain doesn't turn to snow! When we got back I had a bit of admin to sort out and photos to take so I could get some samples packaged up. They need to go in the post tomorrow. 
I got my PTCs done yesterday but I've not attempted the icing sunflowers...I realised I didn't have the right icing to do them. So that's something I need to do. 
So I had a play with a technique that Eileen Godwin had highlighted. Eileen had seen it on a you tube channel called Treasures of many by a girl called Natalie. Its a brilliant channel and her videos are so easy to follow.I also found other you tube videos of it including one by Tim Holtz. It's using oxide inks on shiny card. I have to say that Natalie's technique of using the baby wipe is genius. So I thought I'd have a bit of a play and use the same colours on different types of shiny card. 
Very interesting! !! I used fossilised Amber, festive berries and salty ocean for the inks and the card I used was the clarity coated card, chromo card that clarity also sell and some bog standard photo card. 
You must dry the surface in between each addition of ink. And once all the colour is on the card use a baby wipe to reveal the final colour and bring back the shine. 
Here are the results! 

 I was amazed at how the ink reacted so differently on each type of card. I have now got 3 lovely backgrounds to use another time! 
Anyway I'm off to play some more! 
Have a great day whatever you're doing! 
Happy crafting. 

I've got Sunflowers on my mind!

Hello all! Thank you for dropping in again! Today I am getting a few jobs done then later I have my PTC swap to sort out! I have a few ideas floating round in my head but once I get playing all that can change! My groovi stuff usually does that.... I start off with a basic plan in my head then it evolves and the more you play with the plates the different possibilities emerge. 

What's a PTC? I here you ask. Well it's the parchment equivalent of an ATC or artists trading cards. They are small pieces of beautiful art work that were traditionally swapped instead of a business card. SO a PTC is 3.5inches x 2.5 inches. You can also do a round one 2.5 inches in diameter which is known as a coin. So they are great to practice your skills on and also to use up small pieces of parchment that us crafters just cannot throw away! Whatever happens I will have some fun doing them. I just hope my partner in the first swap will like what I do! 

You can find details of the swap on the Facebook page Groovi Worldwide. Josie Davidson designed some great plates to help with these and she is organising the monthly swaps.

I also want to have a go at making some sunflowers out of icing. I have seen the most beautiful wedding cakes with sunflowers on them and if I can get the flowers anything like those I will be happy! I am sure once I get playing I will be able to do them. I just need to get the colours right! 

The artwork I want to share with you today is one I made back in October using the Hidden Hares plates. It's not a PTC but it's still an easy one to do. I used  the Hares in the Meadow plate for this one. 

Ingredients.

Hare In a Meadow plate GRO-AN-41108-03

Nested square extension plate GRO-WO-40538-15

Pots and Vases Baby Plate GRO-FL-40217-01

Semi Square Perforating tool

Brighton Rock Designer Paper

1. Working on plain parchment emboss the double lined frame which is the 9th and 10th squares on the plates. Emboss the three plant pots and flowers . Emboss the bird.

2. On the reverse add colour with blendable pencils.

3.Semi - Perforate around the frame with the semi square tool. Emboss a zigzag in the perforations then re perforate. Cut waste from around the edge and within the perforations.

4Attach to a  piece of designer paper cut to a 14cm square with brads then attach to a 6x6 card blank.

Hope you have a great day whatever you get up to.

If you like todays artwork please leave me a comment below!

Happy crafting. 

Owl be seeing you!

Good morning to you! 
At least for the moment it has stopped raining although for how long I am not sure. It would be nice to have a bit of brightness now! I am not wanting hot sunshine....just a bit of warmth! 
I had a really productive day yesterday and certainly my hands looked as though they had been spending a day crafting....I had paint and ink out so you can appreciate things got messy! Ace!

I thought I would share something a bit different today. This was done when the 3 way overlay stamps came out for the first time! They are really an innovation and since that first set we have had a lovely collection of this style of stamps! and as a bonus there is usually a stencil to match too! 

I used the fossil leaf stamp and stencil set for this project. Well I actually used the stencil only for this.

I had bought this MDF shape ages ago and can't actually remember where it came from. 
I painted it with gesso and let it dry.
I wanted the surface to look like feathers so I used the stencil on different areas of the owl adding texture paste through the stencil and drying it as I went with a heat tool. You need to use a less fierce tool or the texture paste bubble!
Once I had covered the surface I left it overnight to dry properly. 
I used acrylic paint to add colour and dry brushed with inkagold over some areas.
I drew onto a card the area where the eyes and beak were and then coloured these with promarkers. This was stuck on the back so you could see the eyes and beak  through the holes in the MDF shape.
I added flowers to the owl and that was it finished. 

Have a great day whatever you are doing and  please let me know what you think of the owl by leaving a comment here.

Happy Crafting 

We want it in Stamps!!! PLEASE!!!!

Good morning all. Well the weather is awful today! Wet, wild and windy! It certainly isn't the day to venture out very far!
As most of you know ( and if you didn't you do now) when I joined Barbara's fantastic design team it was as a stamper. I loved to use the brayer and other methods to create cards using stamps and then stencils. I had had no intention of ever doing parchment....but that's another story! 
When I get my groovi plates I still look at them through a stampers eyes....if this were a stamp what would I do with it? is the question I often ask myself. So when a stamper sees a great design done only in groovi they appreciate its beauty but wish they could have it in stamp form too. Now nearly always  the designs are coming out in all forms that Clarity produce. Stamps , Stencils, Groovi and Dies. This means everything can match which appeals to my OCD side. 
I wanted to do a full dream catcher but the stamp I was using is a half circle one. In groovi it's easy to pick out the bits you want and avoid the bits you don't. But in stamping its a bit more difficult and takes a bit of thought! But it can be done with masking techniques and here is the artwork I did with it. As you can also see the gems can be done on card as well as on parchment.

Ingredients.

Tina's Henna Dream catcher set

Dream Wordchain 5  - ST-WO-10052-XX

Perga Liners (blendable pencils) PER-CO-70063-XX

1. Working on Theuva card trim to 9½cm x 19cm then mask the dangles off the stamp and the central line. Ink the stamp up then remove the masking and stamp so the curved edge is up.  Mask just the centre line now , ink up the stamp remove the mask and stamp so they join and make a circular shape. Use a fine liner to disguise the central lines.

2. Stamp the border top and bottom and add the word.

3. Using the blendable pencils colour the gem adding highlights with a white pen. Colour in the rest of the image as shown.

4. Mat onto black card and then mount onto a card blank.

I hope you have a great day whatever you are doing. Please let me know what you think of todays artwork by leaving a comment below.

Happy Crafting 

A gem of a circle

Good morning all. It's another cold and grey day here ...one of those days where it never really gets properly light. It's not raining but it just feels damp! I do hope it picks up a bit. It would be nice to see a bit of brightness! 
So today I will have to make my own sunshine and have a play with some inky stuff. I might even get the paints out. I have put away the groovi stuff for now as I need some messy play time. I think those of you who are stampers but who have found parchment art through Groovi will understand exactly where I am coming from there. Don't get me wrong though... I love doing the parchment art but every now and again I need messy play!

That said the piece of artwork I want to share with you today is a piece of groovi artwork. It uses the Henna Dreamcatcher plate and the Henna Droplets plate both designed by Tina Cox. I also used my favourite perforating tool to create the edge

Here is a list of the things I used and what I did.

Ingredients.

Tina's Henna Dream Catcher Plate. GRO-PA-40996-15

Tina's Henna droplet Plate GRO-PA-40995-15

Nested Square GRO-PA-40037-03

Semi square Tool PER-TO-70021-XX

Perga Liners (blendable pencils) PER-CO-70063-XX

1. Working on Plain parchment emboss the half circle but leave out the dangles and also the straight edge line. Turn the parchment and line up the half circle to be able to emboss a full circle.

2. Emboss the two largest squares around the circle so it is evenly in the centre. Use the droplet plate to add the corner details.

3. Emboss white work to the design as shown. On the reverse add colour but not to the centre circle. On the frame blend the colours with dorso oil to get a smooth effect.

4. On the front using the blendable pencils create a gem and finish with white pen/ink

5. Perforate in the corner detail with a bold 2 needle tool and around the frame with the semi square.  Cut away waste.

6. Mat onto blue card using brads then attach onto a card blank.

I hope you like todays card and if so please leave me a comment here. 

Happy crafting 

xxx

A bit of a grey day!

Good morning bloggers. It's a grey day here today! Well actually it's still quite foggy. I hope it lifts very soon...it makes everything feel damp and cold. 
Are you feeling well and ready for the weekend? I do hope so! I have plenty to keep me busy at the moment what with secret stuff and wedding stuff I won't have time to be bored!

Today's artwork is a simple one done for German QVC the last time. I think the weather at the time I made this was my inspiration. 

I used the wee folk set... I think this figure looks so forlorn so I decided to use just grey black and white. 

I dripped grey ink using a brush down the card. I then used an old tooth brush to flick more ink at the card. 

I brushed the same grey ink across the bottom to create the ground. I dried it with a heat tool then added more grey ink to add texture. I gave it another blast from the heat tool then stamped the figure and added a shadow with a makeup sponge and dragged ink away from him. The card was edged with a black sharpie then mounted on a card blank. 

I hope your day is brighter than this card. 

Have a great day whatever you do and if you can spare a couple of minutes please leave me a comment here. 

Happy crafting 

Jane Telford

Xxx