Indigoblu Challenge Mid-month Inspiration

'Brown and Teal'

Materials:-

·         Canvas board 5ins x 7 ins

·         Acrylic Paint – Opaque Teal, Translucent Teal, Semi-opaque Brown

·         Brayer

·         Sepia Burst

·         Indigoblu Stamps – Ledger Background, Looks Like Rain Deer set, Nature 1 set, Discover Your Passion set, Wild Flowers

·         Inkpads:- Archival Potting Shed, Sepia; StazOn Ganache, Teal Blue

·         Mod Podge – Matte

·         Versamark Pen

·         Teal Embossing Powder
S     Self- adhesive gems

·         Alcohol Markers – Light Brown, Medium Brown, Dark Brown, Teal, Blender Pen

·         Sparkle pen - clear

Instructions:-

1.       Load brayer with Opaque Teal paint and lightly roll over canvas. Repeat with Semi-opaque Brown then Translucent Teal, ensuring the covering is patchy in all three applications. Alow to dry.

2.       Squeeze a few puffs of Sepia ‘Burst’ and activate with a fine water spray. Roll a few sheets of  kitchen paper over the canvas to mop the excess water and pigment

3.       Ink up the pair of small trees from ‘Looks Like Rain Deer’ with Potting Soil and stamp over in the far background. To achieve a random effect, press stamp with fingers as opposed to mounting on a block.

4.       As in 3) with Potting Soil, stamp the partial tree on the mid-left hand side of the canvas.

5.       Repeat with Large Cow Parsley stamp and Sepia ink on the middle and repeat with Ganache near fore-ground of the canvas.

6.       Ink the blots from the Ledger stamp with Ganache and as in 3) randomly stamp along the lower quarter of canvas.

N.B. In an earlier life, I think I cut the blots off the main stamp and this made it easier to manipulate, giving a vintage effect.

7.       Draw Versamark stems along the foot of the canvas, add Teal embossing powder and heat set. Draw a line with dark brown marker on the inside of each stem, then soften with blender pen.

8.       On paper, stamp a double consecutive image of Wild Flowers. Colour the flower heads with Polychromos, edge with brown alcohol markers, fussy cut and set aside. At the top, rip along the length of the remaining stamped image, colour over with a teal alcohol pen, followed by a light brown. Apply to foot of canvas using Mod Podge.

9.       Add coloured flower heads to stems using Mod Podge.

10.   Stamp ‘Love to Create’ using StazOn Teal Blue onto paper. Heat set then colour over with light brown alcohol pen. Cut out then outline with medium brown marker. Apply to canvas using Mod Podge.

11.   Stamp out butterfly from Nature 1 twice in Teal Blue, 1^st and 2^nd generation. Cut out all four images, outline with medium brown. Apply sparkle from Sparkle pens.  Attach to corner of sentiment. 

This project was a joy to complete and I must admit, I'm quite taken with the 'look' of the finished canvas although it's wildly different from my usual crafting. 

Stamps can be found via the Indigoblu website.

Thanks for visiting and happy crafting.

Shelagh ;~}

Indigoblu

Clarity Challenge 41 July 2016

‘A Day Out’

Hello and welcome! It's the 1st of July and therefore must be the start of a new Clarity Challenge and boy, what a challenge we have for you this month - namely 'A Day Out.' I had quite a few ideas but finally settled on 'A Day at the Races'  as with all the publicity surrounding Ascot and Glorious Goodwood, it seemed like a good idea and we once had the delightful experience of attending. But . . . then I had to find the horse and the jockey, the first was easy, the second took a bit of crafty craftiness! 

My second project - posted mid-month - reflects somewhere not far from where we once lived and also 'A Day Out' for us with a bit of lunch thrown in. Now, I wonder where that can be?

Materials:-

·         Clarity Stamps:- Horse from Horse and Carriage set; Jockey – modified skier from Sports set; Flagpole from Union Jack set; Lily, Annabel, Rosie, Douglas; Alphabet Word Chains; Small Rose; NDC Edelweiss, Carnation

·         Cardstock:- Clarity Stencil card 7x7 – two pieces; 8x8 card blank

·         Inkpads:- Distress – Iced Spruce, Tumbled Glass, Peeled Paint, Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Tea Dye; Archival Black; Versafine – Onyx Black

·         Pencils:- Faber Castell Polychromos

·         Miscellaneous:- Self-Adhesive gems, large white sticky labels, Micron pen, Black alcohol marker

Instructions:-

1.       Trim one piece of stencil card to 6.75 x 6.75 ins.

2.       Using black Archival, stamp Lily onto stencil card. Stamp again onto a large white sticky label and also a post-it and cut the latter out. Mask main image with this and set aside the image on the label.

3.       As in 1), stamp Annabel on main card, sticky label and mask; repeat with Douglas and Rosie.

4.       Stamp flagpole onto card to create rails, onto post-it for masks and onto sticky labels. Mask rails.

5.       With all masks still in place, stamp horse images in first and second generation Onyx Black ink between the rails. Stamp corresponding images of horses onto white sticky labels and set aside.

6.       Ink the skier but remove the inked skis and ski-poles with a wet wipe. Over-stamp the horse images in first and second generation with the ‘altered’ skier on main card and repeat to fit.

7.       Again with all masks still in place and having added a ‘sun’ mask, sweep over the Distress inks to create a suitable background.

8.       Remove the masks and colour the main images around the edges. (They will be covered by the sticky label images.) Colour the main sticky label images to match. Cut out images and attach onto main card.

9.       Cut out rails from white labels and adhere over stamped rails on main card. Cut out the horse images from the labels and attach over the corresponding horses.
10.   On a scrap of white card (mine was pearlescent) stamp and colour the Eidelweiss, Carnation and Rose and add to Lily, Annabel and Rosie as 'headgear.' Form a small rose from scrap of card and add to the Douglas image as a buttonhole.

This was my first attempt and although I prefer the background on this one, the horses were too black for my liking. 

11.   Stamp the sentiment in Black Archival.

12.   Add shadows to suit with Polychromos.

13.   Add a few bird images and grass tufts with a fine Micron pen.

14.   Draw a border around card using a black alcohol marker.

15.   Add the white 7x7 ins mat then adhere to the 8x8 card blank.

Et voila! A Day at the Races.

Looking forward to your ideas and projects, can't wait to see what your inventive minds come up with! The Clarity Challenge is open for anyone to enter but please have a look at the guidelines; details to be found at claritystampchallenge.blogspot.co.uk and products from claritystamp.co.uk. The winner is rewarded with a £50 voucher to spend on Clarity products. Go on, go on, go on - you know you want to! 

Best wishes,

Shelagh

The Making Lady 

A Star is Born!

A Star is Born 

(made with my great niece in mind)

I've created this card with my great niece in mind as she is soon to celebrate her third birthday. The sentiment has an acetate spring on the reverse to create some movement and I think she will enjoy playing with it. 

Items used:-

• Polkadoodles Winnie Fruit Punch Downloads
• Pearlescent cardstock
• Worn Lipstick Distress Ink
• Embossing Folder
• Star Die Set (Sizzix)
• Small black self-adhesive gems
• Corner rounder
• Fine black pen

How to:-

1. Cut around dancer, topper, filmstrip, leaving a small margin/border. (I found this easier by outlining with an Ice Grey 1 or 2 alcohol marker.)
2. Make an easel card with a front valley and mountain fold to act as a stopper.
3. Die cut star and strip; emboss with folder. Round corners on main card and strip and glue strip to main card. Outline with fine black pen. Sweep over Worn Lipstick lightly.
4. Add the dancer to embossed die cut star and adhere to front of card to suit. Place self-adhesive gems around to suit. Glue film reel to front.
5. Add topper to a piece of pearlescent card and outline as in 5). Edge lightly with Worn Lipstick. Add filmstrip and stars and attach to easel part of card.
6. Die cut sentiment and glue onto the die cut star, which is the remainder from the main figure. Lightly brush with Worn Lipstick. 

Et voila - 'A Star is Born!'

I hope the instructions have been straightforward and helpful - once a teacher, always a teacher!

Hope to see you again soon. 

Best wishes and happy crafting!

Clarity Stamps Challenge 40 - June 2016 Mid-month

Masculine

'A Horse with no Name!'

Materials:-

·         Stamps:- Clarity – Filigraphy Frame, Wooden Horse, Chequered frame from Brilliant Work of Art Set, Alphabet Word Chains

·         Cardstock:- Clarity Card; black, cream pearlescent from stash

·         Stencil:- Lattice Stencil NDC 16

·         Inkpads:- Archival – Potting Soil; Distress – Pumice Stone, Antique Linen, Tea Dye

·         Miscellaneous:- String, Cork mat

Instructions:-

N.B. This is stamped in black and not the 'Potting Soil' used for the actual card.

1.       Using Archival Potting Soil, stamp Chequered Frame centrally onto an A6 sheet of Clarity Card (coated cardstock.) Dry with a heat gun.

2.       Stamp the Wooden Horse centrally inside the stamped frame, again using Potting Soil and allow to dry. Make a mask by stamping the horse onto a post-it note and cut out.

3.       Place mask over dry horse image.

4.       Place post-it sheets onto the frame including the chequered borders.

5.       Place Lattice Stencil over masked image to form squares and brush with Pumice Stone. Remove stencil. Lightly dry with a heat gun. Polish with kitchen roll.

6.       With perimeter masks still in place but having removed the horse mask, brush again with Antique Linen.

7.       Place post-it masks to cover the interior of the frame including the chequered squares.

8.       With Potting Soil, stamp a circle from a corner of the Filigraphy Frame at each corner of the masked frame. Repeatedly stamp the same Filigraphy corner to fill the gaps between the corners. Allow to dry then polish as before.

9.       Using a mini blending tool, sponge Antique Linen around the extreme edges.

10.   Now sponge a little Tea Dye over this to create a graduated colour.

11.   Stamp ‘equus’ from the lower case Alphabet Word Chains using Potting Soil onto the line of lower squares.

12.    Trim left and right hand sides.

13.   Mount onto black card. Colour string randomly with Tea Dye. Allow to dry then tie around opposite corners of mounted card. Adhere to cork sheet.

14.   Mount onto cream card.

I wasn’t quite happy with the finish of the card as it seemed a bit ‘flat’ so I pressed a small area of a scrunched-up baby wipe on each tile – success - instant distressing!!

And here we have . . . . . a horse with no name!

Some more ideas I roughly tried before settling on this one.

Indigoblu - Surprise, Surprise!

Indigoblu Challenge - May 2016

Surprise! Surprise!

'Surprise! Surprise!' is my interpretation for the Indigoblu Challenge 'May All Your Dreams Come True' inspired by a long-stifled desire to appear out from a birthday cake!

The card has three sections and the top area (unseen) is folded over to create balance.

• Stamps:- Indigoblu Floral Swirl A6, Sewing Mends the Soul, Large Snowflake
• Inkpads:- Versafine Onyx Black, Distress Inks - Black Soot, Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick, Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral, Candied Apple.
• Clear detail Embossing Powder
• Polychromos
• Card - white, pearlescent black
  

1. Cut rectangle of white card 6cm x 19.5 cm and fold into three 6cm x 6.5cm. 
2. Stamp Floral Swirl with second/third/fourth generation Onyx Black randomly onto each section and emboss with Clear Detail; sweep Worn Lipstick and Abandoned Coral over with blending tool, followed by Black Soot around perimeter. 
3. Spritz with water and mop with kitchen roll.
4. Mount onto pearlescent black. 
5. Stamp lady from Sewing Mends the Soul set; colour with Polychromos; cut around female image.
6. Stamp Snowflake twice in Onyx Black and emboss with Clear Detail; colour randomly with listed Distress Inks apart from Black Soot; score at every peak and trough, cut once to circle centre and alternately mountain and valley fold. 
7. Arrange folded circles around the female form and glue in place.

Clarity Stamps Challenge 40 - June 2016 'Masculine'

Clarity Challenge 40 – June 2016

‘Masculine’
'Happy Landings!'

Hi and thank you for visiting my blog. 

Well, this is supposed to be 'Flaming' June but here in Aberdeen it's flaming cold!! Our daily 'constitutional' (along the beach esplanade today) saw me kitted out in my winter windproof jacket complete with gloves. Even the seagulls found it too tiresome to fly against the wind and were huddled along the groynes. 

A 'Masculine' card/project is always a trial for me and this month was no exception. (My masculine cards are often of the 'pick and stick' variety - and what's wrong with that I ask myself as it can be quite therapeutic in its own way!!!) Anyway, I looked through my Clarity stamps and stencils, selected some of each then got on with the task in hand. I liked the resulting prints from the inked stencil and then decided to experiment further. 

I hope you find the 'making' process below helpful. 

Materials I used:-

·         Stencils:- Clarity - Fish Stencil  NDC 12, Lattice Stencil NDSC 16

·         Cardstock:- Clarity Stencil card 7x7

·         Inkpads:- Versafine – Onyx Black,  Versamark; Ranger Distress Inks – Squeezed Lemonade, Fossilized Amber, Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Mermaid Lagoon, Black Soot

·         Paints:- Fresco Finish – Snowflake, Nougat, Antarctic, Bora Bora, South Pacific, China

·         Miscellaneous – Wooden Plaque, Pebeo Gedeo Mixtion Relief, Pebeo Silver Leaf, Dark Grey Alcohol Marker, Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens – Clear, String, brayer, WOW White Twinkle embossing powder

Instructions:-

For the plaque:-

1.       Remove the existing string from the plaque. (I found the wooden plaque in a bargain basket and paid 99p for it.) Base coat the wooden plaque on all sides with Snowflake and leave to dry. (NB – I needed four coats to obliterate the original writing on the plaque.)

2.       Place at a distance from each other on a craft mat pea-size blobs of China, South Pacific and Bora Bora. Starting with the darkest, brayer colours over the plaque at random until the entire surface is covered. When dry, add small areas of Nougat and Antarctic to suit.

3.       Place the Lattice stencil on the dry plaque and by using the edges of the ‘squares,’ lightly draw in pencil lines to form the suggestion of squares for the net. Roughly draw over the pencil lines with grey alcohol marker, then clear Sparkle pen; now draw fine lines with the ‘Mixtion’ over these, leave to dry for a few hours then apply the Silver Leaf.

4.       Sponge Black Soot around the edges. Set aside.

Top Left - stencil after prints 

Bottom Left - First print

Top Right - Second print

Bottom Right - Third print

For the fish:-

1.       Cover the Fish Stencil with Onyx Black, place on a sheet of 7x7 card, cover with a sheet of copy paper then place between relevant embossing machine plates and wind through the machine. Repeat to obtain second and third generation prints. (I gave the prints a blast with my heat gun to set the ink and I also washed the stencil in soapy water.)

2.       Replace the stencil over the first generation printed silhouette and sponge through a variety of Distress Inks listed above. (I offset the stencil slightly to create white areas.)

3.       Leaving the stencil in place, sponge over Versamark ink, remove stencil and add White Twinkle embossing powder. Heat set. Clean stencil.

4.       Repeat 2 and 3 with either second or third print.

5.       Trim the paler image along the outside line. From the darker image, cut out the fins, tail and backbone (NB No animal or fish was harmed in this process LOL!!) and glue into position with white glue.

Top Image a 'mock-up' of the plaque to ensure the image fitted.

To assemble:-

1.       Coat the reverse of the fish with matte Mod-Podge and place (or PLAICE!!) onto plaque to suit. Thread through string.

And there we have it –‘ Gone Fishing,’ ‘What a Catch,’ Happy Landings,’ call it what you will!

Some more ideas for the 'fishy' stencil.

 Top image - Translucent paste on acetate then whilst still wet, sprinkled with a variety of fine coloured glitter and mounted on black card.

Bottom image - inked through stencil onto white card; translucent paste on acetate then stencil replaced over image when dry and inks applied as below; the acetate image is then replaced over image on white card but slightly offset to give a 3D illusion. 

Below - Translucent paste through stencil onto a wooden 'label' which has been painted with Fresco Finish  paints; glitter applied over.

Thank you for taking the time to peruse the above.

It's now time for you to have a go at this month's 'Masculine' Clarity Challenge. All the details can be found on the Clarity Stamps website and please ensure you use Clarity stamps, stencils or Groovi plates (or indeed a combination of these) to create your masterpiece. Looking forward to viewing your worderful pieces of artwork!

Best wishes,

Shelagh

(The Making Lady)

claritystampchallenge.blogspot.co.uk

claritystamp.co.uk

barbaragrayblog.blogspot.co.uk

The Posing Peacock - Chocolate Baroque Challenge May 2016

Chocolate Baroque Challenge

*Stamps          - Chocolate Baroque Birdcage Collage, Steampunk Christmas, Music Fanfare

*Inkpads         - Archival Black, Stampin Up Wisteria Wonder, Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi, Distress Dusty   Concord, Wilted Violet, Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint

*Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens - Clear

*Polychromos

The Posing Peacock!

Double-stamped  tree from Steampunk Christmas.

Sponged background over 'torn copy paper' hills.

Overlaid layers of Birdcage Collage.

Birds and flowers highlighted with Clear Sparkle pen.

Music Fanfare stamp to create 'bubble border' (first, second, third generation stamping and over stamping.

Five Layer Parchment Birthday Card

Five Layer Parchment Birthday Card

Clarity Groovi  - Plate Mate 

                         Plates:- Nested Hearts, Nested Circles, Frilly Circles, Lace Flowers,                                    Diagonal Groovi Grid

                         Borders:- Ribbon and Stitching, Ribbon and Hearts, Occasions 

Parchment       - White - Clarity Groovi; Turquoise and Rainbow - Pergamano

Pens                - Distress Markers - Scattered Straw

Tools               - Embossing styli, single piercing and twin piercing styli, Solingen scissors

                         

Completed 

Five Parchment Layers

 Base Layer - White

 Turquoise pierced and embossed overlay

 White Daisy and Heart Circlet

 Individual Daisies Images

When assembled, mounted onto rainbow parchment then onto 8x8 card