Happy December

Hello everyone, I hope you are keeping well. Many of you have been experiencing the cold weather lately, and it really feels like Winter has set in, doesn't it? I have just come back from a trip to Mexico, where it was lovely and warm, and the sunshine was very uplifting. I wanted to share a feeling of that sunshine with you with the colours that I have used in some of my projects today. I cannot promise to make you feel any warmer, but perhaps the cheery colours will brighten your day.

My first project was created by blending some Distress Ink onto a piece of Drawing Cartridge. I chose shades of blue and yellow throughout the whole project for continuity. I added some stencilling and stamped segments of the Small Graph Paper stamp using the stamp in my hand, not on an acrylic block, so that I could curve the stamp, to get smaller sections on the background. I also stamped the butterfly definition from the Happy Flower's Day stamp set on the background.

I stamped the large butterfly from the same stamp set first onto the background twice, and then again onto a piece of spare smooth white card. I coloured the images on the spare card using pencils, cut them out, and attached them to the background.

For my second project, I chose a piece of patterned paper and stamped the magnolia from Happy Flower's Day twice, masking the image as I went along. I added the flower definition in a toning colour and the main sentiment in black in the background. I coloured the image with pencils. I attached the panel to a chipboard panel using matte medium. When the adhesive was dry, I sanded the edges to give a white edge. 

My third project was created by placing Distress Oxides onto a craft mat and spritzing them with water. I placed the Drawing Cartridge onto the mat and picked up the colour. I used a whiteboard heart to do the same with the remaining colour on the craft mat, giving a paler version.

I stamped the flower definition over the background, and the fritillary flower and sentiment onto the heart using Versafine Clair Twilight. I picked up a bit of the Distress Oxide colour from the craft mat and painted the flower with a water brush.

For my final project, I chose to use grey card for a completely different look. I stamped the floral sprig from A Heart Full of Love around the edge of the background, and then added the floral heart in the middle. I coloured the images with Faber Castell Black Edition pencils. I used white pencil first on the flowers, and added the other colours afterwards, this really helps on darker coloured card.

It's actually my Birthday today, and I would like to wish you all the best of days today. I will be spending the day with my little Granddaughter Ruby, who has just learned how to sing Happy Birthday, a precious moment.

I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you, take care, and thanks for stopping by, xx

Butterflies and Bubbles

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share with you today, showcasing stamps featured in last month's TV shows on Hochanda.

For my first project, I wanted to compare the card that we brought to the show, a mixture of gloss and matt card, and to see how each surface worked with ink. I embossed an image from Punky Romance on both pieces of card using Versamark and white embossing powder, before creating a background, blending Versafine Clair Ink on the surface. I used a mix of purple and mustard, which is very cheery. I stamped another image from the same stamp set using Memento Ink in a deep purple shade over the top, taking care to rub away any ink that covered the white embossing with a piece of kitchen paper.

It is not very easy from the photograph to tell the difference between the two surfaces. The glossy card (on the right) really shines, and takes the ink very well. The matt card (on the left), apart from the embossing, looks printed, it is so smooth. It depends which effect you prefer, I like them both. This card will be a staple product on the website in the future, just like our Drawing Cartridge and Textured Art card.

I embossed three butterflies onto vellum using the white embossing powder, and cut them out, adding them to the background to complete the card.

To create my second card, I created a wash over a piece of drawing cartridge, using blue watercolour ink. I added a bit of sea salt and left the background to dry. I stamped the heart image from A Heart Full of Love onto another piece of card using dark blue ink. I coloured the image using Ecoline markers and added a bit of sparkle using a silver sparkle pen. Once the background was dry, I removed the salt and stamped around the edge with a bubble image from Floral Heart to tie in with the bubbles on the main image, adding highlights with the silver sparkle pen once more.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Hearts Full of Love

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you from last month's TV shows on Hochanda, featuring the lovely heart stamps.

My first projects are three very quick cards, 4" square, using images from the Floral Heart stamp set. I stamped straight onto the card blanks to create a set of clean and simple cards that could be used as little notelets.

The first card uses three different colours of blue Memento ink and the bubble heart, around one of the sentiments which was stamped in black ink. I covered the card very quickly, simply stamping the heart in the different colours to create an all over background.

The second card was created by stamping the large heart, and then stamping the flower cluster down the side using four different colours. I then painted the flowers in the large heart using the four colours and added white highlights.

The third card was created by stamping the heart in second generation randomly over the background with red ink. I stamped the sentiment in black ink as before. Using a small white board circle from the Hearts and Circles pack, I added red ink before coating the circle with UTEE, heating it with my heat gun and stamping the same heart image into the hot embossing powder. I brushed some gold mica powder over the image to pick out the detail. The variations that you could create using this little stamp set are huge, and these little cards can mean so much to someone. I quite like working on this small size!

The following cards were shown as a demonstration on one of the TV shows last month. I created a Toile de Jouy background using the flower sprig from the A Heart Full of Love stamp set, stamping onto 160gsm Luxury Smooth paper I cut a smaller square of the paper to stamp the corresponding heart image. I coloured the heart with pencils, before matting both layers with coordinating card. I coloured a piece of ribbon with Distress Ink to get the ribbon to match the project exactly. I created a couple of colour options for the show, one pale, and one much brighter, to show that by changing the colours, you can create a very different effect. Apologies for the photo of the paler card, it has been given away now, so I cannot photograph it again.

I stamped the first card using a Blue Archival Ink, and the second using Grey Archival Ink. They are not necessarily colours that you would think to use, but once you start to colour the images,the ink colour recedes into the background. Toile de Jouy is created in lots of different colour options anyway.

I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you, thanks for stopping by, xx