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

Using Up Your Scrap Papers

Hello everyone, I am back with my final project using the lovely bird stamps featured in last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I have created two cards using scrap pieces of paper as the main feature, to show that sometimes what might be considered as something to throw away, can be made into a great feature for your cards and other projects.

For my first card, I made a background using Distress Oxides in three different colours, and then stamped some foliage from the Nature Swirls stamp set to create a scene using coordinating Versafine Clair inks. I stamped and embossed some of the images from Sing Your Song and Live Out Loud, using Versamark and some two tone embossing powders onto scraps of Lesley's My Floral Soul papers. I cut the images out, and added then to the scene. These papers are so lovely, I want to use up every last inch of them!

For this project, I decided to use the large owl from the Wise Owl stamp set as my focal image.

I had been making some gelli print backgrounds, and had a scrap piece of paper that I had cleaned the brayer with. The multi coloured greens looked lovely, and the paper was too good to waste. I stamped the owl using Versamark, and added two different shades of embossing powder before heat embossing, a copper and a verdigris. I then stamped some of the swirls from Let Your Heart Sing and Dawn Chorus, using Versafine Onyx Black ink, and added some flowers from Orchard Design A Tree, which I coloured using Distress Markers. I also added the sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set.

For the background, I used a gelli print created with green Distress Ink and bubble wrap, and stamped some of the feathers from Wise Owl and Dawn Chorus with Versamark, and swirled some mica powder over the top. I added matting layers of black card to complete the project.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Live Out Loud

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year to you all. I hope that you had a good break over the festive period, and are looking forward to the year ahead. As you read this post, I will be at the studios with Lesley for our Birthday TV shows, featuring some beautiful products, and I really hope that you can watch the shows, either live, or on catch up over the next week.

My project today features stamps from last month's TV shows, when I was unfortunately too ill to help Lesley out. Nonetheless, I love these wonderful stamps, and wanted to make something to share with you. I have chosen a fabulous sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set, which I feel is a really affirmative and positive message to give someone, especially if they need cheering up.

I created my background by using a piece of Textured Art card, blending Brushos with Tinting Base, and dry brushing the colours over the background. I coloured a whiteboard heart with the same colours. I stamped an image from the same stamp set onto the heart, and then used the leaves as a border. I used Jet Black Archival Ink for the stamping.

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