Fun With Flowers

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have a few more projects to share with you featuring stamps from this month's TV shows on Create and Craft.

My first project was created by stamping and embossing the very pretty Wish Flower repeatedly over a piece of Drawing Cartridge using Versamark and white embossing powder. I then added Wilted Violet and Broken China Distress Oxide over the top. The white embossing acts as a resist, and creates a beautiful design. 

I then stamped the flower again, complete with its accompanying words onto a piece of fabric using Archival Jet Black Ink. Don't be worried about stamping onto fabric, you just need to allow a little bit more time for the ink to do its job, so allow the stamp to sit for a bit longer before you lift it off. I coloured the image with Inktense pencils, first a pale green and a lilac, then added water with a brush. While the image was damp, I added a deeper green on the leaves and stems, and a turquoise on the flowers in the dotted areas for shading. As the fabric was damp, the colour was a little bit deeper.

I chose to leave the fabric as it was, but I could have frayed the edges, sewn the piece with a sewing machine, or drawn some faux stitching around the edges with a fineliner pen, (see my example below). You can really play around and experiment with fabric, it can be a lot of fun.

My second project was a pretty little acrylic bookmark using one of Lesley's newest patterned papers. These are all bookmark size, so perfect for this project. I stamped the image from Garden House using Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink, then needed to decide what materials to use on the top. Because I knew that I was going to use Matte Medium to adhere my bookmark to the acrylic piece, I could not use anything that might react to something wet, for example watercolours or Distress Inks. So I chose to colour the image with pencils to be on the safe side. I added a bit of shading at the bottom, again with pencils, and also used pencils to colour through a stencil. 

I added a sentiment at the top, which normally would have been too wide, so I used masking tape to cover parts of the sentiment each time I inked it up, enabling me to break it into three parts. Finally, I covered the whole bookmark with Matte Medium and adhered it to the acrylic tag. I allowed the glue to dry before sanding the edges and punching a hole at the top. If you chose to make one of the bookmarks and stick it to a chipboard shape, you could use all sorts of mediums, paints, watercolours, Distress Inks, whatever you like. It was purely because I was inking over the top that I needed to be so careful.

I have an older project using the fabulous Wish Flower that I am sharing with you today. I have stamped the image onto patterned paper and coloured it with pencils. I then took a piece of greyboard and painted it to match the patterned paper, adding some stencilling and the words from the stamp to create a matching background.

I will be back soon with more projects to share with you. Thanks so much for stopping by, take care xx

Floral Canvas Projects

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share featuring the beautiful individual flower stamps that we brought to you on the TV shows last month on Hochanda.

Both projects were demos from the show, but the first project was designed to be finished in two ways, depending on how the sales of the items on the shows were going. Little did Lesley and I know that everything would sell out like crazy on that first show!

I decided to separate the word clouds from the flower images on my stamps, making it easier for me to create a lot of my projects, and I just cut them apart very carefully with some sharp scissors. I then slot them back together whenever I want to, jigsaw fashion, to create something with the design as a whole. If you are worried about doing this yourselves, you can simply use masking tape to cover the areas that you do not want to use, ink your stamp, then peel the masking tape away before stamping each time.

I stamped the words over a piece of tissue paper, and glued this to a small canvas with matte medium. Once the canvas was dry, I added some watered down acrylic paint in green and orange tones. I stamped the Floral Delight image onto a whiteboard heart, masking it and adding some paint in the same colours as I had used on the canvas. I coloured the flower image with pencils, and added a single word to the heart to finish. This was the version that was seen on the show.

For the alternate version, I stamped the flower image onto a spare piece of card and coloured it with pencils as before. I stamped the word onto a die cut rectangle and added these to a canvas.

My second project was all about colour matching. I chose a pretty piece of patterned paper by Crafty Individuals, and stuck it to a postcard sized whiteboard piece. Looking at the paper, I could see that it was made up of mainly blue and lilac with hints of green and orange. I painted a larger piece of greyboard with lilac and blue acrylic paint to match the paper, adding hints of green and orange around the edges. I added some harlequin stencilling to match the patterned paper, before stamping the words from the main image across the background using first and second generation stamping. I used grey ink for a softer effect than black ink would have given.

I stamped the Wish Flower onto the postcard piece, and coloured it with woodless pencils, toning the colours to match the background paper.

I hope that you have enjoyed the projects that I have shared with you today, and will give them a try for yourselves. You could make a simpler version as a card, or take elements from my designs for your own projects. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Book of Flowers

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today showcasing all of the beautiful stamps featured in the Chocolate Baroque Anniversary TV shows in January on Hochanda. I hope you managed to catch the shows, they seemed to go in a flash, and Lesley and I were overwhelmed by your enthusiasm for all of the products that we brought to share with you!

My project is a concertina book, made with two pieces of whiteboard for the covers, which I have covered with some lovely patterned paper by Crafty Individuals. I stamped one of the images, minus the words onto the cover, and coloured it with the Koh I Noor woodless pencils that we also featured on the show. I chose to cut my stamps apart, separating the word clouds from the images, which made creating this project much easier. When I wanted to stamp the words and images together, I just placed them back together on the acrylic block, slotting them together like jigsaw pieces. You could just use masking tape to mask the words off, ink the images and peel the tape away before stamping if you wanted to as an alternative.

I created some pages for the book using smooth watercolour paper, but cartridge paper would work equally as well. Each page measures 10.5 cms x 14 cms, and I allowed an extra panel to join the sections together each time. Cut your strips of paper, score and fold them, and decorate as you like. I decorated the back of the pages using Distress Oxide Ink, and stamped the words from several of the images on top, creating a tone on tone effect.

On each page front, I stamped a different flower image, and coloured these with Distress Inks and a water brush, keeping to a common colour theme throughout.

As I assembled the book, I added some ribbon before adhering the pages to the covers, which allowed the book to be tied shut with a bow. This was such a fun project to make, and would be a lovely keepsake for someone special.

Thanks for stopping by, xx