My House, Poppy Cottage

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you today featuring a very special stamp showcased on last month's TV shows on Hochanda, but first of all I would like to talk to you a little bit about the background of the stamp.

You are all probably very familiar with the very talented Kim Moody whose stamps are manufactured by Chocolate Baroque. His quirky stamps feature architectural images, and seaside scenes which are such a delight to work with. Kim also does commission drawings of houses and other buildings, adding his particular eye for detail. I decided to ask Kim some time ago to draw a picture of my own house Poppy Cottage, and we discussed adding lots of features that I love about my house; the dragonfly door knocker, the wrought iron butterflies on the balcony, the dovecote in the garden, and of course, he needed to include Poppy and Bella, my two cats. Poppy is a bit plump, and Bella is rather skinny, so you can tell them apart! I sent a few photographs, and Kim came up trumps with a delightful drawing, beautifully framed for me.

A few months on, and I asked Lesley if it would be possible to have the stamp made, as I would really love to create Christmas cards using 'Poppy Cottage' as a personal touch. We hoped that you would love the image as much as we did, and decided to try it out as a small batch on one of the TV shows. I was so touched that you really liked it!

I created a couple of samples for the show, the first one was created by stamping an image from the Poppy Edges stamp set a couple of times, then masking these images before stamping Poppy Cottage itself. I masked the house also, then added a Pan Pastel background.

I added foliage from the Silhouette Grasses stamp set before removing all of the masks. I coloured the images with pencils and added one of the sentiments which I stamped onto sections of card, and edged with a plum coloured ink. I chose the same coloured card to mat the project onto before adhering it to a large card blank.

My second project was a Christmas card, to show the versatility of this lovey stamp. You could use it at any time of the year really, by adding extra foliage, and varying the colours. I have chosen to stick to the true colours of my house for these samples, but you can let your imagination run riot.

I stamped the house once again, and masked the image. I used a snowflake from The Christmas Garden and white embossing over the top two thirds of the background. I covered the background with Distress Ink, and the embossing acted as a resist.I coloured the image with Koh-I-Noor paints, and added a bit of Stickles for some Christmas bling. The sentiment comes from the Let's Get Festive stamp set.

My final project was a heart stopping TV demo, and it could have gone horribly wrong on live TV, but fortunately, it all worked out well. I decided to create a little key ring or handbag charm using shrink plastic. I die cut a large tag, and stamped the image using Archival Ink. I coloured the image using Copic markers and cut a hole at one end. I shrunk the plastic using a heat gun, turning it over regularly to ensure even heating, and flattened it with an acrylic block before it had time to cool.

I drew around the shape onto a piece of greyboard, and covered this with some scrapbook paper using Matte Medium. For the keyring, I stuck the shrink plastic to the greyboard shape with Matte Medium, but for the handbag charm, I let the shrink plastic swing freely.

Even shrunk down you can still see the details so clearly, and these little charms make a fabulous little gift. You could try this idea using the Tagtastic stamp and any of the tall houses that either Kim Moody or Sue Page have designed recently.

I will back later in the month with more ideas to share with you. I hope that you will watch Lesley on this month's TV shows on 3rd September, she has some amazing new stamps to share with you. Sadly I will not be there this month due to family circumstances, but I will be back again in October.

Thanks for stopping by, xx