Colourful Fabric Projects

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. Hopefully you managed to catch our latest TV shows on Create and Craft on Friday, we always appreciate your support. The Design Team and I had a lot of fun creating projects with the stamps that featured on the shows, and you will see lots of our designs popping up on social media over the coming month. Be sure to check out our Facebook Group where we share lots of our projects.

I am sharing projects from one of my demos with you today; a quick, medium length, and a longer lenth project. They are all based on the same technique, depending on what time you have to spare, and which project you fancy creating. Initially, I used a square piece of fabric, which I painted with acrylic paints, (Paper Artsy). I spritzed the paints with water to loosen them up a bit, and blended them where they met on the fabric, just like I would if I were using inks on card or paper. Once I had covered the fabric, I dried it with a heat gun.

I chose stamps from Make Your Mark and Numerology and, using Archival Ink, I stamped the images onto the fabric. I chose colours of ink to co-ordinate with the background, Manganese Blue and Plum with a bit of Jet Black. I added a sentiment from Words to Dazzle and Sparkle on my original card, but during the demo, I used the phrase 'Make Your Mark' in the large circle. I added the fabric piece to a black card blank using strong double sided tape.

I decided to create a canvas using the same method of decorating fabric strips using acrylic paint and the stamps. I cut thick and thin strips, and used stamps from Make Your Mark, Numerology, Timeless and Just Useful. I used coloured Archival Ink as before, adding Olive as an extra colour. I painted the canvas background in the same colours and added some stamping to the canvas as well, using the splatter stamp and the very useful equation stamp, both from the Numerology stamp set. I worked out where I wanted to place the fabric strips, and glued them to the canvas using Matte Medium.

Finally, I used a tutorial that I had seen from Altered States Studio and I am adding a link to the video that I watched for my last project, here. I created a fabulous fabric basket using more decorated strips of fabric and used pva glue, (the tutorial recommends Elmer's Glue which is really easy to get hold of, and I got a clear version which works really well). You need a base to create your project around, so I used the bottom portion of a milk carton, but you could use a balloon for a more rounded basket. You then wrap cling film around the pot, and paint a layer of the glue on first before adding your fabric strips. Place your patterned inner strips on first, and plain layer next for rigidity, then finally, your decorated strips. I put my basket in the airing cupboard overnight. I put it inside a plastic crate, so that it wasn't touching any of my towels! 

My photos show the basket before I trimmed the top, it looks much neater now!

This would be a great project to create with your children in the holidays if you don't mind getting a bit messy. You could create several pots and use them for your paint brushes, pens, pencils etc. You could use the fabric strips for covering journals or boxes, the possibilities are numerous. I hope you will be inspired by my suggestions.

I will be back soon with more projects to share with you, your visits are always appreciated.

Take care xx

Blue And Green

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have a couple of projects to share with you today, showcasing stamps that we brought to you on last month's TV shows on Create and Craft.

My first card uses a variety of stamp sets, but the hero of the card is the lovely dragonfly collage from the Fragile Wings stamp set. I decided to stamp this image on a coloured background, a deep teal colour, for a change. We often use black, kraft, grey, etc., but I wanted to reflect the wonderful dragonfly colours in the card background. I used Versafine Clair Nocturne to stamp the image, and Koh-I-Noor pencils to colour the image. I used white pencil first to create a base to add the rest of the colours, and to give a real sense of light to the image.

I created a background using green and blue Distress Ink, and then added stamps from Just Useful and Ace Card, using blue, green and black ink. I matted both layers using black card.

To create my second card, I coloured some Drawing Cartridge using tea, a favourite technique of mine. It's a really quick way of adding colour to a background and creates a vintage feel to a project. I stamped the playing card from Ace Card randomly over the background, and added a touch of turquoise around the edges using a watercolour pen, brush and water. I stamped the large image onto another piece of the rawing Cartridge and coloured the image in the same way using turquoise, green and brown watercolour pens. I edged the layers with the same dark brown ink that I had stamped all of the images with.

I chose to use a piece of scrap corrugated packaging as a mount; I dry brushed the edges with paint to match my colour scheme. Always keep that packaging, you never know when it will come in handy!

I had great fun creating these cards. I hope that they have inspired you. Thanks for stopping by, take care, xx

All About the Butterflies

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today created with some beautiful butterfly images that we brought to Hochanda last month. My first card was created fairly quickly using a piece of drawing cartridge, onto which I drew a circle with a pencil. I chose several colours of Versafine Clair in shades of blue and green and stamped an image from the Thistle Butterfly stamp set around the circle. I stamped each colour five times, to ensure an even coverage, varying the direction that I stamped to make the foliage appear more natural. Although these colours are not necessarily true to nature, I love how they turned out.

Once I had finished the wreath shape, I added some splotches with an image from Just Useful, using some of the same colours that I had used in the wreath. I added a touch of shading around the edge of the background with Distress Ink. I added a sentiment in the centre of the wreath from Birthday Words.

I stamped and embossed three butterflies from across the four sets, I just chose whichever butterflies appealed to me most, to be honest. I used some of Lesley's A5 Doubled Sided Designer Papers, they are so useful for this sort of thing, and will last for ages. I used white embossing powder for a delicate touch.

I am sharing two older projects with you today using the Honeysuckle Butterfly stamp set. These two projects were really fun to create, so I hope that you don't mind seeing them again. The first was a canvas that I made using a sheet of old music paper. I painted over the top using a zingy green colour, and decoupaged the image which I had coloured using pencils. I stamped around the edge using Archival Ink. I added lettering to create a collage effect, you could use book paper, die cuts, whatever you have in your stash to create this effect.

 

This next project is more subtle, but again, I loved creating this one too. I used a Brusho background, and added stamping using an image from the Elegant Edges stamp set around the edge of the background. The butterflies are decoupaged, leaving one wing free for real dimension. This card is just waiting for a sentiment for the right occasion. It would make a lovely Mother's Day card, don't you think?

 

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

Just Useful Collages (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share with you today. I posted one of the projects a few weeks ago on social media to help promote last month's One Day special on Hochanda, so some of you may have seen this card already. To create the card, I stamped the paint splash onto a piece of drawing cartridge several times using Versafine Clair Ink in three different colours. I chose bold colours for lots of impact. I stamped the dragonfly image from the Fragile Wings stamp set onto the background, and added the slim script  and splatters from the Just Useful stamp set to extend the collage. I also added circles from the Make Your Mark stamp set.

I stamped and embossed the dragonflies onto some patterned paper, and cut them out. I then attached them to the background. The sentiment comes from the Fragile Wings stamp set as before.

                             

I created an acrylic tag as my second project, I really enjoy making these, they are really fun to create. I chose a piece of A5 Double Sided Designer Paper, and using Archival Ink, added lots of detail. I used elements from the Just Useful stamp set to create a collage, showing that you do not need a hero image to create a real focal piece of artwork. You could add this to a card, or give it as a special gift to someone, hang up as a stand alone piece of artwork, or include it on a larger piece of mixed media. The stamps I have used are all great for incorporating in backgrounds and building up your collage pieces. I have some real favourites amongst them already, some real go to stamps. As you experiment and play with them, I hope that you will find yourself reaching for these stamps too.

I will be back later in the month with some more projects to share with you, thanks for stopping by. Take care and stay safe, xx

Just Useful Backgrounds

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all keeping well. I have some cards to share with you that showcase stamps from last month's TV shows from Hochanda. I have used two collage style stamps as the focal point for my cards with the Just Useful stamp set to build the backgrounds. These stamps were really fun to work with, and I hope you enjoy the projects that I share with you this month.

 My first card was created by stamping the beautiful Alium Collage stamp onto fabric using Plum Archival Ink. I coloured the image with Inktense pencils, and used a waterbrush to fix the colours permanently. I created the background by stamping and embossing the numbers from Just Useful using white embossing powder onto a piece of Drawing Cartridge. I then blended Distress Oxide Ink over the background, and added a splatter stamp using the same colour of Archival Ink as before.

I stamped the sentiment onto a scrap piece of card and crumpled it slightly before attaching it to the card with some twine and double sided tape.

My second card was created by stamping the large Ace Card image onto a die cut piece of Drawing Cartridge with Versafine Clair Ink. I coloured the image with pencils. I coloured a piece of glossy card with more Versafine Clair Ink and a roller, polishing the card with a piece of tissue once I had covered the card. I stamped several images from the Just Useful stamp set over the top with Archival Ink to create a collage effect.

These stamps are just great for creating a whole range of backgrounds really quickly, and you can achieve lots of different effects as you can see by the two backgrounds that I have made here.

Stay safe and take care, xx