Setting the Scene

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all keeping well. I am sharing more projects today from last month's TV shows on the Craft Store, where we showcased the fabulous Retro Vases and Retro Floral stamps. As I mentioned in my last post, if you would like these stamps, you can give Lesley or David a call at the unit, and they will take an order from you, as these stamps are not available on the website.

I decided to create a little scene for my first card. I used some torn strips of paper to create some hills, using Distress Ink and a blending brush. I added a circle mask to create a sun. Once the background was created, I chose some suitable silhouette stamps from the two sets and stamped those using various colours from the Versafine Clair range of inkpads. I used first and second generation stamping to create some depth to the foliage. The little butterfly stamp comes from the Butterfly Blush stamp set, so useful for this kind of scene. The sentiment comes from the Life is so much Better stamp set.

My next two cards followed the same basic principles, I used a piece of fabric and stamped circles in analogous colours, (next to each other on the colour wheel), using different sized circle stamps from the sets and coloured Archival ink. I then chose some of the retro images and stamped over the top using black Archival ink.

For this first card, I used an inky plate background.

For the second card, I used a Brusho background. Matting the layers onto black card adds more definition. The sentiments are from the Say it Vertically stamp set.

My final card was a quick card created straight onto a card blank. I stamped three vases using Versafine Clair ink, which I masked with Masking Tissue. I then coloured the floral staps with Koh-I-Noor brush pens and stamped them above the vases, before removing the masks. I added a bit of shading with a grey pencil to 'ground' the vases.

I really had a lot of fun working with these stamps, and hope that you have found some inspiration in my projects. Thanks for stopping by, take care, xx

Beautiful Bold Butterflies

Hello everyone, I am sharing more butterfly cards with you, following on from my last post. Butterflies are such a universally popular image, and I hope that you will enjoy what I have to share with you today.

I created my first card using the Just Butterflies and Butterfly Blush stamp sets. I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge using Distress Oxides and then stamped some of the butterflies from Butterfly Blush using Versafine Clair. I added some white dots using charcoal through a stencil, however, you could achieve a very similar look by using white paint and one of the dotty stamps from Make Your Mark.

I added some texture paste to a piece of MDF, and once it was dry added some paint and gilding wax. I stamped and embossed the butterflies onto vellum, cut them out and layered them up onto the panel. The sentiment from Butterfly Mind was stamped onto a spare piece of background.

The following two cards are older projects, but once again, I hope that you do not mind me sharing them with you. I masked off  the edges of the cards, and added Distress Ink in the centre of the cards. I was aiming for aurora borealis effect, and hopefully achieved that feeling in these cards. I added water splatters, and then stamped the foliage from Briar Rose Butterfly along the bottom using black ink. The butterflies were stamped onto sparkly acetate using Archival Ink and I added coloured vellum to the back, but you could just stamp them onto card, colour them as normal and use a sparkly pen over the top to achieve a similar look. The sentiments come from the Birthday Words stamp set.
 

By changing the colours and foliage, you can create a completely different look, these are really pretty and would make a nice set to give as a gift as well.

 

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and take care, xx

Colourful Butterflies

Hello everyone, over on the Design Team Blog, we run a feature twice a month called Fifteen Minute Cards. The Design Team girls create quick cards in under fifteen minutes and we add a short description alongside each card for the viewer to see how the cards were made.

For the current post, I have made a card using stamps from the Butterfly Blush stamp set to create a multi-coloured background. I used a variety of Memento Inks, and stamped the images onto a piece of white card, building up the images until I had more or less covered the background. Sometimes I used second generation stamping to give a variety of shades, and a feeling of depth to the background. I then added a co-ordinating image from the Just Butterflies stamp set, which I coloured with Zig Clean Colour Brush Markers. I stamped part of the image onto the background first, to get the antennae onto the background, saving me the job of cutting them out.

I added a sentiment from the Pretty Poppies stamp set, and a string of dots trailing from the butterfly with the aid of a stencil, using a fine-tipped black marker.

Please pop over to the Design Team Blog to see the inspiration provided by the rest of my Team mates. Thanks for stopping by, xx