Time for Nature

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I am sharing my last few projects this month featuring stamps from last month's TV shows on The Craft Store. 

My first card features stamps from the beautiful stamp set Sow the Seeds. These large stamps are perfect for journaling or creating eye catching, distinctive cards for someone special. I love the seed heads, and wanted them to shine in my project. I created a background using my inky plate and soft colours. I stamped the images, and added some pencil where the shading was present. I added extra foliage from Silhouette Grasses, such a useful stamp set.

My next card features the fabulous pine cone from Mother Earth as a focal point. I stamped this three times onto kraft card, using brown ink, and cut it out and scrunched it up to give it added texture. I created a background on a piece of tea dyed drawing cartridge, using stamps from Sow the Seeds and Make Your Mark.

The next two cards are older samples that I posted here on my blog a little while ago, but I will share them with you again. A simple piece of white embossing, and then the image was painted with Koh-I-Noor watercolours:

The leaf was stamped using different colours of ink, and then lightly coloured with pencils to accentuate the shading:

Finally I created a card using the Scripts and Timepieces stamp set, which was only available during the TV shows. I coloured my background with Distress Ink, and stamped the scripts using dark brown ink. I added splatters from the Timeless stamp set. The cental piece was created by stamping onto a piece of stampbord which I had coloured with Distress Ink, and I then added triple embossing for a shiny glaze.

Thanks for stopping by, take care,

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

Watercolour Backgrounds

Hello everyone, I have a few projects to share with you today, featuring stamps from last month's TV shows on the Craft Store. I really enjoyed creating these projects, as they were a slightly different approach for me. I had recently taken a watercolour course with Lucia from The Wild Ink Workshop, and these backgrounds were a result of my practices. 

I started by creating the backgrounds, using scraps of watercolour paper, drawing cartridge, etc. These are of varying size, some are really small, and very cute! I have used a mixture of Jayne Davenport watercolours and Derwent watercolours, just whatever I had in my stash.

They would make lovely thank you cards, or little notelets, I love the whole concept. I stamped the silhouette images, and added some white details with a gel pen. 

I even had a go at drawing some foliage by hand as recommended by Lucia. This was such a relaxing thing to do, and I will definitely try to do this more often, time permitting.

I created a couple of backgrounds for the larger cards to tone in with the little panels. I used clear embossing powder to stamp and emboss the silhouette flowers first, then added Distress Inks with a blending brush.

On the second example, I ironed off the embossing powder, creating a faux batik effect, so that I could stamp a sentiment over the top. (You will need to place some copy paper over your background to protect your iron, and turn the steam off, if your iron has a steam setting!)

I have added a touch of gold watercolour to link the squares together, I used Gansai Tambi metallic watercolour, which is very creamy, and perfect to layer over regular watercolour paint, the gold really pops. These cards were relatively quick to make, and would be suitable for so many occasions. Chocolate Baroque has so many silhouette stamps. If you made lots of backgrounds, and then rummaged through your stamps, you could create a big pile of cards in no time.....

Lesley and David have said that although these stamps are not on the website, you can order them by phone - Retro Vases and Retro Florals, as they were a one off for the TV shows.

My final card was created using Distress Inks for the background, and stamping a selection of stamps from Make Your Mark to build up layers of depth. I used Versafine Clair coloured ink, and added circles in black ink, which I wanted to be more prominent. I then chose some floral elements from the two Retro stamp sets.

Make Your Mark is such a versatile stamp set, we reach for it again and again to create our backgrounds and to add an extra something to our cards.

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