Clarity Challenge February 2016

'Love'

'Heart to Heart!'
or 
'Hart to Hart!'

Hello, thank you for visiting and welcome back to Shelagh-land after what seems to have been a very long month. I seem to have achieved a fair bit since the beginning of the year- not least tidying all my Clarity stamps and stencils and clearing out some of my teaching resources to make room for them. 

The theme this month is 'Love' and my first step was to assemble all the Clarity stamps I deemed appropriate. However, I had been looking forward to using this stencil but it arrived just a little too late for my Christmas cards and next Christmas is a little to far off as yet so I came up with this idea but first had to check it would work as you'll see below. The only other issue was finding hearts that were small enough to fit in and they came courtesy of the shamrock from the 'Lucky' set and the 'Love is in the Air' set. So here we go!

Materials:-

·         Clarity canvas:- one 8 x 8ins, one 12 x 12ins

·         Clarity Stencil:- Deer

·         Clarity Stamp:- ‘Love is in the Air’ set; ‘Reindeer and Let Heaven’ set; ‘Lucky’ unmounted set; Birdsong set.

·         Colorbursts:- Pthalo Green, Ultramarine Blue

·         Inkpads:- Distress - Stormy Sky, Weathered Wood, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss, Mowed Lawn,  Old Paper, Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs. Memento – Nautical Blue, Pearlescent Thyme. Adirondack – Red Pepper.

·         Grunge Paste

·         Pens:- Sakura White, Micron Black

Instructions:-

1.       First of all I experimented with the Deer stencil on paper with Candied Apple Distress ink (Only chose this colour as it was in the kitchen and I wanted to check the colour vibrancy.)

I stencilled the deer, complete with antlers facing one way then washed the stencil, masked off the antlers and stencilled through again on the flip side. The idea worked so now I could proceed!

2.       Spritz the 8 x 8ins canvas lightly with water; apply blue Colorburst to the top third and Pthalo Green to the remainder. Spritz again to disperse the colour pigment. Allow to dry.

3.       Place the deer stencil in the centre of the coloured canvas and apply Grunge Paste. Allow to dry. (Wash and dry stencil.)

4.       Flip the stencil to have the deer facing the other direction, mask off the antlers as described in 1) to create a ‘Doe’ and apply Grunge Paste again. Allow to dry while rinsing off the stencil.

5.       Replace the clean stencil over the Doe and with make-up sponges, lightly colour with Old Paper, Antique Linen and a smidgeon of Gathered Twigs.

6.       Remove the masking tape and repeat with Gathered Twigs only for the Stag. Add shade using pencils like Polychromos or Spectrum Noir.

7.       Tear a hill mask from scrap paper and create a hilly background using Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky, Peeled Paint and Forest Moss. Add definition using some colouring pencils as in (6).

8.       Stamp a couple of the ‘Love is in the Air’ images onto scrap card using Red Pepper, concentrating on the heart balloons; add clear detail embossing powder and heat to set. Cut out the heart shapes and set aside. Repeat this process with the Shamrock from the ‘Lucky’ set and cut out the leaves individually.

9.       Place the hearts in the gaps between the antlers to suit and glue to the canvas.

N.B. I put some white glue on the back of my hand, spread it out thinly then dabbed the hearts over. This gives just enough glue to stick down the card hearts.

10.   With a black Micron pen, add faux string to suggest the hearts are suspended from the various antler points. (I added a few ‘Quickie Pen’ glue spots and dusted over some fine colourless glitter.)

11.   Using the pearlescent green inkpad, stamp a random border at the foot of the canvas with the heart grass from the ‘Love is in the Air’ set. Add highlights to the hearts with a white gel pen.

12.   Stamp the antlers from the Reindeer stamp and second generation Nautical Blue ink up the right hand side of the canvas.

13.   Repeat this with the twig from the ‘Birdsong’ set up the left hand side of the canvas.

To finish, I added some pencil shadow under the deer images and the hearts then deepened the yellow spot in the sky before mounting it onto the 12 x 12ins canvas. (I used a sheet of Clarity double sided sticky.)

Et voila! Heart to Heart (or 'Hart to Hart') is complete! 

'Love' is the theme and I'd love to see what you can design and make over the coming month as I know how artistic, creative and inventive you are. 

To enter the Clarity Challenge all you are required to do is to create an original project using Clarity stamps, stencils or Groovi plates, take a photograph and either post it on your blog or send it along with your name to Claritystampchallenge@hotmail.com and it will be posted on your behalf.

The Clarity web-site can be found at www.claritystamp.co.uk and Clarity also has a Facebook page - https//:www.facebook.com/claritystamp.co.uk

     
     Meantime - KEEP CALM AND KEEP CRAFTING  XX  ;~}

Thank you again for popping in. Have a great month!

Best wishes,

Shelagh (The Making Lady)