Sunday 19 July 2015

poppy easel

This is the poppy easel card I made at Gissing last Sunday  starting from an idea by Moira Walters, using Hobby Art poppy stamps.
I used both stamps in the set instead of just the smaller one - just had to be different!
The base card is a 6x6 square  white card.
I stamped the larger poppy stamp across the centre of a piece of 6x6 white card, using black versafine. The poppies were coloured with distress inks in spiced marmalade and brick red, with peeled paint for the leaves, using a waterbrush. I added a fairly random wash of green and orange across the card to try to give the impression of more poppies in the background. I stamped the smaller image several times, coloured the flowers to match, then cut out the flowers and arranged them across the front of the stamped image. Fussy cut round the top of the image.
Stamped the smaller image again, and coloured to match the first image, then fussy cut round the top and sides, leaving a flap at the bottom so that it would stand up.
The tricky bit is placing this so that it forms the stop for the easel bit, but low enough down the base that the card will still fold flat. Moira had worked out how to hide the flap, which worked brilliantly - a piece of green card in my case, cut slightly smaller to fit inside the card. Place the stop piece in position, check the card will still fold, then mark where you want it on the base piece - cut a slit in said base piece, insert the stop and glue it down; then glue the base to the card. Much easier and tidier  then cutting strips of card!

Wednesday 15 July 2015

choirmice

I was lucky enough to win a recent Hobby Art challenge, and  one of my prize stamp sets was the new Have a very mice Christmas set.
I loved the little choir mouse, and set about making a choir up - after trying masking I just stamped, coloured and fussy cut them out - their tails really got in the way using masks!
The background stamp is from Chocolate Baroque, part of the gothic fragments set. I used kraft card as a base as that was stonewall coloured, and drew in a few extra stones for the wall, so I was pleased to see that the latest challenge on 52cc was to use kraft card! Not often that something matches up so well with a challenge.........................
I used bleach on the windows, and quite liked the pinky effect so didn't add any extra colour to the glass bits.

Saturday 11 July 2015

CB challenge 12 - again - again!

Another entry, again a get well card for a WI friend, this time using a stamp from pretty poppies and the same Crealies patchwork die and sentiment stamp. Thanks to Lesley for identifying the stamp - have used the others from this set lots of times, but never this one before!
Flowers coloured with promarkers and fussy cut. Background circle stamped with same stamp in grey ink, edges of everything inked with an ancient apricot inkpad.
Really enjoying playing with this borrowed die, waiting for mine to arrive

Friday 10 July 2015

CB challenge 12 - again

Another card for the challenge - many thanks to Moira for selflessly lending me her Crealies patchwork die!
Poppy stamp is one of my favourites, from this old set , which happily is still available -  the words are from this set. The Crealies die is not in stock at the moment, which is why I bribed Moira with cakes!

Tuesday 7 July 2015

Diva Red Saturday


I  had a lovely day crafting on Saturday with Janet and Moira, don't often get to the Saturday workshops, but managed this one at the last minute.
The cards are not in the order we did them, and a couple got finished off at home the next day.
Janet brought some of her collection of Claritystamps and stencils, and the owls were a recent addition. We stamped the owl in place first, then brushed ink through the stencil - Janet had traced round all the letters with a fine line pen, carefully making some lie over/under others, but I thought it looked ok without, so left it as it was.
The owl was stamped onto 3 different coloured papers and paper pieced over the stamped image, and I coloured his beak and legs in with marker pens. The greeting from the word chain series was stamped onto a separate bit of white card, sponged round the edges and fitted under the tail of the owl.
A mat of black card finished it off.
I had originally done two different colourways to see which I liked better, so finished the second one off later. this time I did go round the edges of the letters, rather wobbly effect on some of them!
The owl was coloured with pencils, and I had to cut round his tail to slip the greeting underneath. This time I trimmed the stencil right to the edges, matted onto brown card and onto a smaller plain square card.

 We also used the other stamp in the set - again stamped first, then the background inks brushed through the arch stencil before colouring the owls in with pencils. A double mat, this time orange and brown.









Moira used her favourite Hobby Art stamps, and started with a small card with a fancy fold out insert spotted on facebook.
The insert had to be made first from a square of patterned paper, as the finished size of this decided the size of the finished card.
I found a sheet with a calligraphy design that I rather liked, but it looked very dull once folded, so I started to brighten it up........
                                                                                     I stamped a leaf four times into the centre, and four small butterflies directly onto the paper, then two large butterflies onto card, which I cut out once coloured with pens and glued over leaves.I think I have worked out how to add them dangling from acetate if i try this again.....
I cut a base card from black card, added red mats to the inside before gluing the folded paper in.
For the cover I stamped a script stamp and the same leaf stamp using distress ink (wild honey?) , added another cut out butterfly and the word stamp - red mat was hand cut, and not very accurately as it turned out!



I was much happier with the last card we did, using brushos - the first time I hadn't taken my brushos with me, too! Base card and the main mat were stamped with a script stamp using broken china distress ink, then brushed with peeled paint and more broken china - the narrow mats are black.
The last one was finished off today, I made a brusho background onto water colour paper, trying to remember which blue I had used - I knew the green was leaf , and finally went for prussian blue instead of the cobalt I normally use. Mat in this case is dark green.

Sunday 5 July 2015

chocolate baroque challenge 12

Colour challenge this time was to use red/russet, orange, green and grey - like a lot of people, the first 3 colours shouted poppy at me!
Easel card, base card and poppy 'stop' are die cut.
Stamp is from the pretty poppies set, stamped with black versafine and clear embossed onto a brusho background, then coloured with a mix of karisma and spectrum noir pencils.
Am hoping I may get another entry done before the deadline