One Stamp Two Ways

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

I always love to show the versatility of a stamp and this lovely leafy stamp from Brocade Backgrounds, an all time favourite of mine, is no exception, I have used it a lot over the years. You can find plenty of fabulous stamps in the current range of Chocolate Baroque stamps that would work equally as well for these techniques.

For my first card, I used a piece of grey card, and stamped the leaf using black ink all over the background. I used Koh-I-Noor colouring pencils to colour the images, and added a touch of green ink around the edge of the card. I added a sentiment from Amazing Mackintosh Words and a piece of green velvet ribbon to finish.

For my second card, I stamped the leafy image with Versamark and clear embossing powder over a piece of Drawing Cartridge before colouring the background with Distress Ink. I covered the background with paper and ironed off the embossing powder, creating a faux batik finish. I then stamped the second image over the top using a dark blue Versfine Clair ink. I added a sentiment from another of the retiring sets.

I have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some of these old favourites, but there are so many more exciting things to come! Thanks so much for stopping by, take care, xx

Making Your Scrap Papers Work For You

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have a couple of projects to share with you showcasing some of the retired stamps that we brought to the TV shows on Create and Craft last month. The TV shows were so busy, and if you were watching, you would have seen that we had to change our demos, sometimes in the middle of what we were doing, it certainly made us think on our feet! 

I wanted to share two of the projects that I talked about during the shows, although one you did not see in its completed version, I made a different version on the show due to sellouts of the stamps that I had planned to use.

Often we have bits of card and paper in our scrap boxes that do not seem to go together, a piece of card left over from a crafting session that is blue and purple, and a piece of brown card. Whatever would make them work in a project together? 

I like to mix and match my scraps together, and can easily put these pieces with each other by using toning inks. I used the piece of tea dyed card as the large background, stamping a small worker stamp randomly all over using various shades of blue and purple, then edging the card with a blue ink. I then stamped a large flower three times onto the blue/purple card using purple Versafine Clair ink and clear embossing powder. I cut the flowers out and adhered them to the background, adding a piece of scrap corrugated card underneath the third one to raise it up slightly. I can add a sentiment at a later date when I know what the card will be used for.

My second project was created by taking a piece of greyboard and painting it with white paint. I added torn strips of book paper and then painted the whole piece with acrylic paint. I chose a pretty green paint, and some touches of plum around the edges. The green paint allowed the book pages to still be seen, as it was not completely opaque. I added some stencilling with Plum Archival Ink, and stamped a pretty leafy sprig from one of the retiring stamp sets, Take It or Leaf It.

I chose some patterned papers to stamp and emboss birds from Sing Your Song, Live Out Loud, and Fly Away With Me. I added a bit of colour using Distress Inks and a blending brush to make the papers fit my colour scheme. I also had some left over card from another project, which had originally been blue and green. It did not match my colour scheme, but I had some of the plum paint from this project on my craft mat, so I spritzed it with water, and splattered it over the card, to tone the card in with this project.

A very simple way to get the card to match. I then stamped the sentiment onto a die cut piece of the card, and sponged some of the Plum Archival Ink around the edges. Finally, I attached the birds to the leafy branches, and attached the sentiment to the panel.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I will be back later in the month with more projects to share.

Take care, xx

Retired Birds

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have some projects to share with you featuring some of the fabulous retired stamps that we brought to last month's TV shows on Create and Craft. These stamps are no longer available on the website, but if you were lucky enough to purchase these stamps in our whirlwind shows, or from the website itself, then hopefully you will be inspired this month with the projects from the Design Team.

 My first two projects we created in much the same way, I placed two colours of Distress Oxide onto a large square acrylic block and spritzed this with water. I pressed the block onto a piece of textured card to colour the background. Once the card was dry, I added images from Dawn Chorus, Wise Owl and Let Your Heart Sing.

On the first card I added a sentiment from Amazing Mackintosh Words:

To complete the second card, I used a fineliner pen to lengthen the stalks and add more berries and flowers. Do not be afraid to embellish your images and create a picture. Silhouettes are a great way to do this, as all you need is a black pen. The sentiment is from Sing Your Song.

Finally here is an older card that I made some time ago which is in keeping with the general theme of my two previous cards. I made a Distress ink background for both layers, used brown ink for the stamping. I added some white charcoal to create a dreamy feel to the top layer. The image is from Let Your Heart Sing and the sentiment is from Fly Away With Me.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you.

Take care, xx