Saturday 31 January 2015

Last chance saloon!......

 
Morning all,
 
Welcome to the weekend, hope that you have something special planned or maybe you are just going to take the time to chill out, or maybe you might squeeze a bit of crafting in. I know how hard it is to take time out to do that sometimes when our lives are so busy.......
 
Anyway.....It is the last day of our 30% off Hobby Art regular stamps monthly promotion today, so if you have your eye on a set or two on my website then now's the time to grab it as the promotion finishes at midnight tonight! Lots of you have already taken the opportunity.....
 
The quick link to the promotion is HERE...
 
Today I thought that I would show you a card that I made using two Hobby Art stamp sets 'Fawn and Flora' and 'Poppy Scene It' two favourites of mine.....
 
 
I built up the picture using the elements from the Fawn and Flora set at the top right, using Versa Fine Black Onyx  and heat embossing with Wow Clear Powder. I repeated this but this time using the Poppy Scene It set on the bottom left , I love the way you can manipulate the stem of the larger poppies and pods to face right or left.......

 
 
I stamped, embossed and paper pieced the poppy flower heads on to  white pearl card. Then I coloured all of the images with Pro-Markers.......



 
I used a Quickie Glue pen and glitter here and there to add some sparkle.....
 
 

 
I hope that you have enjoyed my little spring inspired Inspiration and I will be back soon with some more......
 
Big hugs Lisa B xxx
 
Fawn & Flora  Poppy Scene-It
 
VersaFine Ink pad - Onyx Black     Quickie Glue Pen       WA01 Clear Gloss


Friday 30 January 2015

Creative Palette Backgrounds, part two

 
Good morning, Kirsten here. Just a quick post to show you the cards I made from the two backgrounds I shared in Tuesday's post.
 

 
 
The first one is the direct to paper background.................
 


 
 I blended Antique Linen distress ink on top & splattered a mix of gesso & water over that - the result is quite a wintry look I thought. I used the same stamps, from Hobby Art Decorative Backgrounds set & Anna's Collection - Just For You set, inked with Versacolor inks for the focal image.
 
(The 30% off regular Hobby Art stamps will end on Saturday at midnight)
 
The second card is the Creative Palette background left as it was..........
  
 



 
Decorative Backgrounds Stamp Set   Anna's Collection - Just For You   Creative Palette 
 
That's it for today. Thanks for looking. Have a great weekend & don't forget to visit the Mega Sale page on the website, there are still quite a few bargains to be had.
 
Kirsten.
 

 

Thursday 29 January 2015

Green and Simple...


Morning all,
I'm hoping that when you read this we're not snowed in!
Excuse the pun on the title of my card, Clean and Simple, Green and Simple...
 
(30% off all regular Hobby Art stamps on the website, ends midnight on Sunday)

 
I stamped the main larger image and the two smaller complementing images onto white card using 
Versamark and white embossing powder.


Then using post it notes I masked off the edges of each piece.


.Next I blended colour from the edges of the post it's with


Then I mounted the finished pieces with foam pads onto a textured white card base.


The sentiment was stamped using Black Onyx Versafine and finally to finish



I hope you like today's make.
Stay safe, warm and dry...
Crafty Hugs xKx

 Wonderful Day  Versamark Ink Pad  Anti-static Pad  
Blending Tool for inks   VersaFine Ink pad - Onyx Black  Hobby House Midnight Magic 5mm Pearls

Wednesday 28 January 2015

A little more Bird Song.....


Good Morning all,

I do hope you are keeping warm and are braced for the cold front that is meant to hit us in the next few days, America has been really effected haven't they, let's hope that we get off a lot more lightly!!!

Thank you to everyone that sent me messages and support and lovely comments regarding our Imagination Crafts on Create and Craft at the weekend, I really appreciate it.....

We are nearly coming to the end of our months promotion on Hobby Art stamps which are currently 30% off of regular stock HERE, the promotion will end at midnight on Sunday so if you have your eye on anything then now is the time to grab it.......

Today the make that I am showing you is using the gorgeous Bird Song Stamp Set from Hobby Art, I adore this set as it is just so pretty......


I built up the scene using the elements from the stamp set and stamped the images with Versafine Black Onyx ink pad and embossed it with Wow Clear Embossing powder....

I then went on to colour the images with Pro-markers, adding highlights with a white pen...

I decided to cut away part of the image to make it pop more off of the page so I used a pencil and ruler to draw a smaller square and then cut out the pieces in between as shown.....

After matting and layering on blue and green card, I covered the card front with a co-ordinating paper and then attached the image.....

I hope that you like todays make and it has given you a little inspiration. Until next time.....

Big hugs

Lisa B xx

Bird Song   WA01 Clear Gloss 160ml        VersaFine Ink pad - Onyx Black

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Creative Palette Backgrounds, part one

 


Good morning, Kirsten here, I hope you all enjoyed the weekend. Today's blog post is quite a long one, so I've decided to split it in two & I'll show you the finished cards on Friday.
 
Months ago, I got the Stampendous Creative Palette from Lisa & it has sat on my craft table ever since, waiting for me to do something with it. As I've been making lots of backgrounds this month, I thought I would have a play, using Versacolor inks.  
 
What Stampendous says:
 
"The Creative Palette from Stampendous, is a monoprinting plate that will allow you to create an infinite variety of backgrounds and textures for your mixed media canvases, art journals, scrapbook pages, cards, home decor and other projects.
An indispensable tool, it allows you to use acrylic paints, inks and other mediums together with stamps, textures and tools to create a unique impression every time.
Palette measures 8.25ins x 10.75ins."
 
When you take it out of the packet, you remove one of the acetate covers - make sure you keep the cover for when you've finished. The palette is very thin, only a few millimetres thick & it's very flexible, so put it on a smooth surface, I used my craft sheet. It's sturdy, but also slightly soft & sticky - like gelatin in fact. Keep sharp objects well away from it!
 
I chose the brightest Versacolor inks I had for the first layer; Boysenberry, Turquoise & Ash Rose & swiped them randomly over the palette. Then I laid a piece of 90gsm copy paper on top. The first time I did this I used a brayer over the copy paper, but the ink didn't transfer particularly well, so I reapplied the inks, stamped onto them with Split Pea Versacolor, using a stamp from the Hobby Art 'Anna's Collection - Just For You' stamp set & rubbed over the paper with my hand.
 
This was the first print, palette on the left, paper on the right...........
 

 
 
I added more stamping, using Hobby Art's Decorative Backgrounds set & more Versacolor inks - Heliotrope, Orange, Cyan............

 
Here's a close-up of the stamping............

 
 
You can see there's still a lot of ink on the palette, but by now it was dry (but not permanent). Afterwards, I thought that I could have spritzed water onto it & pulled another print, so I shall try that another day.
 
The next step was stencilling. I used white Versacolor through the Imagination Crafts Wall stencil.........


 
This was only slightly visible on the print......
 
- Remember you can click on the photos to enlarge them -
 

 
 
I added some final stamping with black Versacolor, which faded to a dark grey on the print.............

 
 
I decided that would be the final step & here's the finished piece, I like that you can still see each layer of stamping & stencilling...........
 
 
 
 
To show you how different the colours are I took another piece of the 90gsm paper & applied the inks directly to it, following each step as above. This is the result.............
 

 
 
I definitely prefer the paler version, but this one has possibilities & I'll show you the cards I made with both of these pieces on Friday.
 
The palette cleaned up very easily. Even though the first layer of ink was dry, it came off immediately with both water & baby wipe. I did think that residue from the baby wipe might affect the palette, so I sprayed plenty of water on it & used a soft cloth to dry it.
 
Do cover the palette with the acetate sheet & put it back in its packaging as soon as you're finished using it. I left mine on the side of the table for a little while & it picked up debris very easily. It was easy to remove the debris, but if something sticks permanently to the palette you will lose that smooth surface.
 
In conclusion, I can only say that I need to use the Creative Palette a lot more before I can decide if I like it. I wasn't impressed by how quickly the ink dried on it. I did try Adirondack inks & the first colour was dry by the time I put a third one on, so that was no use - and I know Adirondacks can be used on the Gelli Plate, which is much thicker than the Palette, so I'm guessing that has something to do with it.
 
I need to use it with paint & try to build more layers, so I shall attempt something for next month's projects.
 
Until Friday, happy crafting.
 
Kirsten












Monday 26 January 2015

Your Birthday's Humming!!

 
 
 
 
Good morning all, hope you're all well and had a good weekend.  Mine was taken up with crafting and I was in my element :o)
 
Today's card is made using some Hobby Art stamps that are still on special offer.
 
 
First of all I chose a 6 x 6 card and stamped around the edge using the Hobby Art Birthday Vase Set
you have a choice of words and rearrange them how you like, then just added a little squiggle around the edge too :o)
 
 I then took a flower and humming bird stamps and arranged them on a piece of 4 x 4 white card as below:
 
 
I took a pencil and marked under the stamp where I wanted the humming bird to go:
 
 
I moved the stamps out the way and went ahead and stamped the humming bird with the tip of his beak on the pencil mark.  I created a mask of the humming bird using the Woodware Mask-It then stamped the flower image over the top:
 
 
Once I removed the mask I decided to do a little paper piercing by stamping the flower image onto a piece of Anna Marie Dotty Pink Card and cut around the frame.
 
 
I used a combination of Imagination Craft Silkies and Water Colour Pencils to colour in the images, then finished off the Humming bird with a little clear Wink of Stella, unfortunately it didn't photograph very well, but hopefully if you're at the next workshop you'll see the finished card there :o)  I used a little of the Tim Holtz Spun Sugar Distress Ink around the edge of the images to take off the stark whiteness.  I then mounted it on to black card and more dotty card, and using foam pads mounted the images onto the card, here it is again.
 
 
Thanks for dropping by, I hope you enjoyed today's blog, and look forward to see you all here again on 6th Feb.