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

A Colourful Collection

Hello everyone, I have more projects to share with you using the fabulous new stamps featured on last month's shows on Hochanda.

I was very taken with the Floral Harmony stamp, and love the flower head image part of the design in particular. I decided to use this as the focal point for a couple of my projects.

I applied texture paste through the Useful Leaves Stencil onto a large Tando Tag, and allowed this to dry completely. I covered the tag with gesso, and once this was dry, applied a combination of pale pink and turquoise chalk paints from Momenta to the background.

I stamped the leafy spray stamps from the Take It or Leaf It stamp set, using Memento Teal Zeal Ink onto the background. I stamped several of the floral images onto to some spare white card, and coloured them using water based markers. I added a bit of Stickles to the centres for added bling. I coloured a piece of white card with water based marker that I had scribbled onto an acrylic block and spritzed with water. I then die cut a small rectangle and stamped a sentiment from the Amazing Mackintosh Words stamp set. I edged the rectangle using Picked Raspberry Distress Ink.

I added the flowers and sentiment to the tag, and finally coloured some ribbon using the same paints as I had used for the background, to give a coordinated feel to the project.

For my next project, I rummaged through my stash, and found some brightly coloured backgrounds, and cut out some squares of orange card, I then inked up the flower head part of the stamp, using Orange Blossom Archival Ink, and pressed the squares of card onto the stamp to obtain the image. I also stampd several of the large leaves from the Take it or Leaf It stamp set, using Olive Archival Ink, and then cut all of the images out. I arranged them onto a large black card blank, to create a wreath shape. Once again, I added Stickles to the centres of the flowers for some sparkle.

I die cut a circle from another piece of the orange card, and stamped a sentiment from the Amazing Mackintosh Words stamp set.

For my final project, I decided to work within my favourite colour palette, and created a soft background of turquoise and purple, using Distress Oxide Ink. I stamped the Baroque Corners using Cobalt Archival Ink, and added a sentiment from the Amazing Words stamp set. I edged the background with a Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Butterfly Wreath

Hello everyone, I am sharing a card that I have created as part of the monthly Fifteen MInute blog post over on the Design Team blog today. This card was made as a Birthday card for a special friend, but it doubled up as a quick card for this blog post as well.


I created a wreath by using the leafy sprays from the Take It or Leaf It stamp set. I stamped the images around a pencil drawn circle, using first and second generation stamping, and Memento Pistachio ink. Once the ink was dry, I rubbed out the pencil line. I then die cut several butterflies from book paper which had been stuck onto card, which I found  in my box of scraps. The dies are a set from Crealies, and are a firm favourite of mine. I inked around the edges of the butterflies with Abandoned Coral Distress Ink and stuck them around the circle.This is not a colour that I use much, but it goes so well with the Pistachio. Finally I added a sentiment from the Birthday Words stamp set.

After looking at several options, I decided that kraft suited this card best, and so I matted the background onto a large kraft card blank.

Pop over to the Design Team Blog to see the rest of the creations in this month's Fifteen Minute blog post.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Leafy Florals

Hello everyone, I have three projects to share with you today showcasing new stamps recently featured on Hochanda. These floral stamps are really fabulous, suitable for all sorts of occasions, and styles.

For my first card, I used a favourite technique, stamping on a piece of book paper, and colouring the image with pencils. I stamped the Hanging Flowers image using Versafine Onyx Black Ink, and then edged the book paper with Distress Ink. The larger background was from my stash created with Twisted Citron Distress Ink, and I used the same stamp to stamp around the edges with Library Green Archival Ink to create a frame. I used kraft card to mat and layer the edges, giving a more natural feel.

For my second card, I used some background card from my stash created using Twisted Citron Distress Ink, and simply stamped and embossed the main image using Versafine Onyx Black Ink and clear embossing powder. I stamped the two leaves randomly over the background to create a very quick design. Black matting layers give a very bold feel to this monochrome card.

For my final card, I used masking to combine an image from the Take It or Leaf It stamp set with the Chequered Flowers image, and coloured the images with Coloursoft pencils.

Thanks for stopping by, xx