A Burst of Colour

Hello everyone, as the nights are pulling in, and the days are often a bit grey and gloomy, I thought I would share a few colourful projects that I made for last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I hope that these projects will brighten up your day and inspire you to get your inkpads out and have some colourful creative fun yourselves.

My first project was created using drawing cartridge and Brushos. I wanted a zingy background, and chose yellow, red and orange to create the first layer. I sprinkled the Brushos first, and added water to get the lovely mixture of colours. I blotted another piece of drawing cartridge over the top, and saved that piece for another day's project. I added some stencilling using red and yellow ink, and stamped randomly over the background using the Klimt Panel cling mounted rubber stamp. I held the stamp in my hand rather than on a block to get just bits of the image here and there.

I stamped and embossed some chess pieces from The Art of Chess stamp set onto black card using gold embossing powder, and cut them out. I also stamped the sentiment onto a spare piece of my background card. I mounted the backgrounds before adding them to a tag shaped card.

The backgrounds for the next three cards were all created in the same way, I simply finished them off in different ways. The colours are so pretty, and I really enjoyed making the backgrounds. I made a lot, and still have some left for another creative session. I used Distress Oxide Ink spread onto a craft mat, which I spritzed with water. I placed my drawing cartridge over the top, and then added some gold mica spray, giving it a generous spritz. I put some crinkled cling film over the background and left it to dry completely. When the cling film is removed, you are left with some beautiful patterns, highlighted by the mica spray. There are lots of variations for this technique out there on the Internet, so do give it a try.

For the first of the three cards, I stamped the heart from Music Fanfare five times on a pink background, and once on green. I cut the green heart in half, and edged the cut side with black ink. I stamped the large music segment twice using a toning ink, and added a piece of velvet ribbon to the background. I scrunched, then arranged the hearts into a flower, tucking the green segments behind to resemble leaves. I wanted the flower to look more 'crumpled', and by scrunching the petals first, it gives them far more texture. I added a big black button in the centre. To finish, I added a sentiment from the Loving Sentiments stamp set and matted the background onto black card.

For the next two cards, I used the beautiful Floral Grunge stamp. I used patterned papers for the first card, paper piecing the image, and adding a butterfly cut from the papers themselves. I added one of the ephemera stamps using toning coloured ink, matching the background colours. You can really see the shimmer of the mica spray in this photo.

Finally, I added a bit of pencil colouring to the image on this last card, adding some grey pencil around the flower to give some shading and to give a feeling of dimension. I chose toning colours once again, and although this was a very quick card, it would make a lovely Birthday card. I used a sentiment from the Birthday Words stamp set.

I hope that I have given you a few ideas, and that you will try out some of the projects that I have shared with you today. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Vintage Ephemera With an Added Cup of Tea

Hello everyone, I have a couple of vintage themed projects to share with you today using the stamps that we launched last month on our TV shows on Hochanda. These fabulous new stamps are so useful, and can be used with lots of your existing stamps, as you will see from both projects that I have created.

I coloured some drawing cartridge with some cold tea, and then sprinkled the background with sea salt, leaving it to dry. I brushed the grains of salt away, and then stamped one of the images from Baroque Ephemera 1 randomly over the background. I dry brushed some pale blue chalky paint from Little Birdie over the top, to push the images into the background. I really like the blue and beige combination.

I stamped Floral Grunge over the top, using black Archival Ink, and also stamped the flower head a couple of times onto spare piece of background paper, also coloured with tea. I cut these out, and stamped the same ephemera image over the top, so that they look as if they had been stamped onto a piece of text. I decoupaged the images onto the background. I added some ricrac, also painted with the blue paint. I created a little tag by dry brushing a section of lolly stick with the paint, and stamping a word from Baroque Ephemera 2 over the top. A black brad and black card to mat the background complete the card.

 

I used some of the same background to complete my second card. I used the alphabet strip to create a frame around the edge. I added a postcard created by stamping onto another piece of the background, and adding a section of Movie Strip Collage in the corner. I added the lovely butterfly from Happy Flower's Day, and coloured both of these images simply with Koh-I-Noor watercolour pencils and a water brush. I added tickets stamped from the ephemera stamp sets and some little stamps complete the card.

Both cards were a lot of fun to create, the stamps are great for building up backgrounds, and adding a little something extra to your projects. They can be mixed with your other stamps or create something special in their own right. I hope that you will enjoy playing with them as much as I have!

Thanks for stopping by, xx