Life is Wonderful- a Quick Watercolour Card

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have a very cheery project to share with you today, a demo that I created for last month's TV shows on Create and Craft, featuring the large image and a sentiment from the Life is Wonderful stamp set. 

I scribbled onto an acrylic block with a couple of Zig Clean Colour markers and spritzed the area with water, before pressing a piece of Drawing Cartridge onto the block. This created a very quick watercolour background. I let the Drawing Cartridge dry naturally and then stamped the images with Versafine Ink. I scribbled more of the Zig markers onto an acrylic block, this time picking them up with a paintbrush dipped into water, and painted the images. I used just three colours, sometimes blending them, to achieve lighter and darker versions of the base colours, so that I could add shading.

I chose a patterned paper from one of Lesley's Designer paper packs which toned in perfectly to create a mat for the image, and added layers of black card to mat the design and patterned paper.

I had great fun creating this card, and hope that my design will give you some inspiration to create something yourself.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Bold Landscapes

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all keeping well. I have a couple of vibrant projects to share with you today, showcasing stamps that Lesley brought to you on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. 

 My first project is an accordian book, and I have used lots of stamps from the shows. These little books are a great way of experimenting with stamps and colour, you can let your imagination go wild. I started by colouring a piece of drawing cartridge with some ink, and let this dry completely. I then stamped and embossed the Klimt Panel twice with gold embossing powder, and cut the panel out. I mounted the panel onto black card. 

 

I cut some strips of drawing cartridge just a little bit smaller than the pieces of black card, and coloured these with Distress Ink, before scoring them into sections. I stamped the Arched Landscape and Landscape Collage twice onto the panels on one side, and coloured these with pencils. I stamped the Klimt Panel using second generation stamping in between the panels as an infill with pink and blue Distress Ink.

On the reverse, I used the Klimt Panel once again, using the same colours of ink to build up the background. I also stamped fragments of the Floribunda Net stamp on each page and coloured this with pencils. I constructed the book, adding ribbon to enable me to close the book.

My second project is equally colourful! I chose to stamp the Garden Lace Scene onto kraft card using white embossing powder, and used inks to colour the scene. I matted the image onto a piece of Lesley's A5 Double Sided Designer Papers Roll Up. I also stamped and embossed onto this background using white embossing powder, and chose to use an image from the Lace Fragments stamp set. There is a strip of lace on this set that matches the border on the main image exactly, and I stamped this onto kraft card to use as a strip behind the main image instead of a piece of ribbon. I stamped and embossed one of the new Say It Vertically sentiments onto kraft card to finish my project.

These images are such fun to work with, and I have lots more to show you this month. Keep checking back to see what my Team mates have to share with you as well. Thanks for stopping by, stay safe, xx

All About the Butterflies

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today created with some beautiful butterfly images that we brought to Hochanda last month. My first card was created fairly quickly using a piece of drawing cartridge, onto which I drew a circle with a pencil. I chose several colours of Versafine Clair in shades of blue and green and stamped an image from the Thistle Butterfly stamp set around the circle. I stamped each colour five times, to ensure an even coverage, varying the direction that I stamped to make the foliage appear more natural. Although these colours are not necessarily true to nature, I love how they turned out.

Once I had finished the wreath shape, I added some splotches with an image from Just Useful, using some of the same colours that I had used in the wreath. I added a touch of shading around the edge of the background with Distress Ink. I added a sentiment in the centre of the wreath from Birthday Words.

I stamped and embossed three butterflies from across the four sets, I just chose whichever butterflies appealed to me most, to be honest. I used some of Lesley's A5 Doubled Sided Designer Papers, they are so useful for this sort of thing, and will last for ages. I used white embossing powder for a delicate touch.

I am sharing two older projects with you today using the Honeysuckle Butterfly stamp set. These two projects were really fun to create, so I hope that you don't mind seeing them again. The first was a canvas that I made using a sheet of old music paper. I painted over the top using a zingy green colour, and decoupaged the image which I had coloured using pencils. I stamped around the edge using Archival Ink. I added lettering to create a collage effect, you could use book paper, die cuts, whatever you have in your stash to create this effect.

 

This next project is more subtle, but again, I loved creating this one too. I used a Brusho background, and added stamping using an image from the Elegant Edges stamp set around the edge of the background. The butterflies are decoupaged, leaving one wing free for real dimension. This card is just waiting for a sentiment for the right occasion. It would make a lovely Mother's Day card, don't you think?

 

Thanks for stopping by, take care and stay safe, xx

Just Useful Collages (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share with you today. I posted one of the projects a few weeks ago on social media to help promote last month's One Day special on Hochanda, so some of you may have seen this card already. To create the card, I stamped the paint splash onto a piece of drawing cartridge several times using Versafine Clair Ink in three different colours. I chose bold colours for lots of impact. I stamped the dragonfly image from the Fragile Wings stamp set onto the background, and added the slim script  and splatters from the Just Useful stamp set to extend the collage. I also added circles from the Make Your Mark stamp set.

I stamped and embossed the dragonflies onto some patterned paper, and cut them out. I then attached them to the background. The sentiment comes from the Fragile Wings stamp set as before.

                             

I created an acrylic tag as my second project, I really enjoy making these, they are really fun to create. I chose a piece of A5 Double Sided Designer Paper, and using Archival Ink, added lots of detail. I used elements from the Just Useful stamp set to create a collage, showing that you do not need a hero image to create a real focal piece of artwork. You could add this to a card, or give it as a special gift to someone, hang up as a stand alone piece of artwork, or include it on a larger piece of mixed media. The stamps I have used are all great for incorporating in backgrounds and building up your collage pieces. I have some real favourites amongst them already, some real go to stamps. As you experiment and play with them, I hope that you will find yourself reaching for these stamps too.

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