The cat and the butterfly

Hello

Today I'm sharing the last one in a series of cards using gel printed backgrounds. I started by adding the foliage in Distress ink and black Archival ink.

The details were added with Posca pens and Inktense pencils.

Here are the other cards made in the same way. They look pretty all together.

Thank you for stopping by xxx

Go wild

Hello

A quick make today where the stamps do all the hard work.

I stamped and heat embossed the PipArt wolf, then masked off the moon and added Distress ink. I added a little background stamping, some Inktense colour and white highlights. To finish off I added the sentiment and a few white spatters for stars.

Thank you for popping by. Have a great day xx

Hare by night

 

Hello

A quick one today to share another card made with a gel plate background, with a layer of dye based ink, followed by a sprinkle of Brusho crystal pigment and a spritz with water. 

I started by stamping the hare and masking off the feet, before darkening the foreground with Distress ink to create hills. 

Then I added some plants with Distress ink for the background and black Archival ink for the foreground. The moon was masked off and Distress ink used to darken the edges. The final touches were added with white gel pen and Posca paint pen. 

Thank you for taking the time to visit. Wishing you a lovely day xx

Magic and wonder

Hello

A quick post today as I'm still trying to get out of holiday mode and be a bit organised. I was extremely lucky to have a wonderful stash of the recent Lavinia stamps for Christmas. We decided to see the new year in quietly at home and I thought what better way than to start the year creating. This is what I was doing at the stroke of midnight...

I'm looking forward to the return of sunshine. It makes crafting and photographing so much easier in natural light.

Hope your year is full of wonder and magical moments xxx

Gated

Hello

A very much needed pick me up this week was the arrival of some new stencils from Gigiocraft.

I love gates, doors, archways and tunnels and always look out for them on visits to new cities. We recently spent time in Liège and found a few lovely alley ways.

I'd set some time aside for a bit of a play. Firstly starting with a gel plate background, building up some layers. I had a rough idea where I wanted the path behind the gate to go.

Now I realised too late I missed photographing the gate going on! I put carbon black paint on the plate with the stencil on top and then printed onto scrap paper, leaving just the ghost print under the stencil. I then printed the gate onto the paper where the beginning of a path was. 

 I kept the stencil in place while I stenciled the trees directly onto the paper.

Next I masked off the gate and built a wall and some vegetation up with more stencils. The trees were filled in with more stencilling and blue was added into the sky.

 At this point I turned to Posca paint pens to add flowers to the trees and bushes.

 With Inktense pencils used for building shadows and depth and gel pen for highlights.

It was a lot of fun and time slipped by so quickly it was three oclock in the afternoon before I realised I hadn't eaten anything. After all there are a lot of dots there!

I'd love to hear your thoughts and constructive comments are welcomed. Thank you for stopping by. Have a lovely week xx

Polar bear

Hello

Now that a birthday has passed I can share this card using a Hobby Art stamp and watercolour, with a few splashes of acrylic white paint.

 

 I made another version with Inktense pencil, gel pen and slightly different colours. 

I found it really difficult to choose between the two. Which do you prefer?

Now that's enough polar bear cards as I have to get packing for a very long awaited trip to Spitzbergen to see the real thing. Wish me luck!

Have a lovely week xx

 

 

 

July Tagalong

Hello

If you've stopped by before, you'll know that this year I've been joining in with challenges set by Isa. For July and August the tag challenge is going to be a mini-tag a week. A good idea as life tends to get a bit busy in the summer. The tags have to be no bigger than 10cm.

The first theme is nice and straightforward 'black, white and one colour.' Perfect for me to use some DaliArt stamps I've had a while.

I've also made a co-ordinating card, but haven't added a sentiment just yet as I don't know what its ultimate purpose will be.

 

Thank you for stopping by. Have a lovely week xx

Seahorse

Hello

Today I'm sharing a card made for a special birthday and also for the #tagalongbasket challenge with Isa on Facebook. The idea of the basket challenge is to use supplies that have never been used or have been unloved for a long time. As my friend is a marine biologist it was the perfect excuse to dig out all of the sea themed stamps and stencils I have, most of which have never been touched.

 

The background was made with Distress Oxide inks through stencils on watercolour paper. 

It took quite a long time to colour all of the elements with Inktense pencils and fine liners.

Of course it needed a little bit of sparkle.

When I need a special card I often make multiple elements so that I can pick from the ones that turn out the best. Fortunately there weren't too many mistakes so I managed to make three cards. As so much time and love went into the cards they had to go to people who would really appreciate them...our mums on Mothers Day.

Thank you for taking a look. Have a lovely day xxx

Lace

Hello

Been a busy few days but I managed a bit of relaxing colouring for a February challenge hosted by Calicrafty Pam with the prompt 'lace'.

I'm not keen on lace on projects, maybe a bit of ribbon, it's something about the texture I think, but I do have a lovely lace stencil from GiogioCraft.

It was a good opportunity to get out a Hunkydory stamp I have hardly used.

You can just about see in the detail that I decoupaged the flowers, and I enjoyed colouring the tiny bits of colour in the beads, very therapeutic.

Hope you have a relaxing day doing something you enjoy. Thank you for stopping by xx

 

Joy to the World

Hello

Somehow the end of the year has crept up on me. Just in time I managed to get all of my Christmas cards made AND sent.

I finished off with some snow globe cards using an Apple Blossom die set and stamps from Card-io and various magazines.

I'm looking forward to using the Card-io stamps for some spring birthday cards, so watch this space.

One last festive card using Sizzix dies.

I wish you all happy holidays and best wishes for the year ahead xxx

Bear princess

Hello

I'm sharing another mainly one layer card today. I challenged myself to see if I could do something with the Pink Ink bear hugs stamp that would be a bit more feminine.

 

I made a mask for the bear and crown by stamping the images on paper and cutting out. I used the inner oval and outside frame of a Clarity oval stencil.

First I positioned the paper bear mask to give me an idea where it was going and stamped the crown. 

Then I masked off the crown, put the frame in place and stamped the bear slightly overlapping the crown, so it wasn't perched on the top of its head.

With outside frame, bear and crown mask in place the script was added using a Giogiocraft stencil.

Keeping the crown mask on and swapping the outside frame for the inner oval, another Giogiocraft stencil was used for the flowers. The arcs were added with a PaperArtsy stamp.

I traced around the edge of the oval with a gel pen and added squiggles. Then two shades of grey Promarker for shadows around the bear and the oval.

Finally the bear was coloured with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush.

The sentiment was stamped, embossed and added separately. The only bit that isn't flat.

I like how she is leaning out of the frame.

A good card for my strong, courageous female friends who fight for what they treasure and believe in. I am blessed to have several of these awesome people in my life.

Thank you for stopping by. Hope you have a lovely day xxx

 

 

 

Light it up with a lampshade

Hello

This last week I've been chipping away at a project that I have been forced to take quite slowly. I was given a lampshade kit a while ago and it's taken me some time to decide how to decorate it.

I finally settled on a 'Lavinia' fantasy style scene and chose Inktense pencils as I thought it would look pretty when the light shone through, rather than using opaque paint. I planned it all out first to get the spacing right. You can see what it looked like flat.

Unfortunately the fabric wicked the ink in vertical lines so I had to work slowly in sections and try not to use too much water. 

I used stamps from quite a few different sets including Lavinia, Clarity, Hobby Art and ones from Creative Stamping magazine.

The colours are more muted with the light on but I think it works fairly well.

Of course now I have the old lampshade and I was thinking...what would it look like with a bit of paint on it?!

If you've had a go at decorating lampshades I'd love to hear what you used as I think I could be tempted to have another go.

Thank you for stopping by. Hope you have a lovely week xxx

 

 

 

Gnome one like you

Hello

Today I'm sharing a cheeky little chap from Creative Stamping magazine issue 94. Perfect for this time of year when the garden is springing to life with flowers and minibeasts.

I used a mixture of Distress Ink for the more translucent stamping, Distress Oxides for bolder images, Ranger Archival ink for the black and Inktense pencils for colouring.

 I added some speckles with paint pen and Promarkers to give a bit of texture and create some 'movement' in the background.

Finally a little shading of shadows with the pencils to give a bit of depth. Gnomes are not really my thing but I think this little fellow is quite charming.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. It's always appreciated xx