Aurora on a Monoprinted Background

So where has the last two years gone! There have been huge changes for all our family. We have moved away from Lancashire and back to Norfolk, close to the coast. My mum is now living with us and I have a new job working in a secondary school fifteen minutes away. Instead of volunteering with Guides, I am now working with Rainbows - very different! Our children too have all had big lifestyle changes including making us grandparents for the first time!

Now that my craft space and other things are reasonably sorted, I can finally give myself some creative time again! And in these strange times we are currently going through with Coronavirus sweeping across the world and taking many lives with it, it's nice to find some sanctuary away from the news and making the most of time spent at home. So many well-known crafters are giving up their time to keep us entertained and educated through facebook live videos, there is no shortage of inspiration and I thank everyone who is finding some way of doing their bit to keep our creative community going!

I have decided to resurrect my blog as a reference point for my creative makes and have vowed to post more on other social media platforms too! So now that her birthday has past I can share a card that I made in the last week for Kes.

I created the background on my Gel Press using Brushos. I scrunched up some paper and used it with Distress Inks to add some texture especially around the edges. The main image and the blossoms are stamped in black and coloured with inks; the ivy and the thistles are stamped in grey. I added a masked moon with some sparkle around it as well as on the fairy wings and falling from the flowers (though it doesn't show up well in the photo).

Supplies Used:
Brushos: Lime Green, Turquoise, Violet & Yellow
Distress Inkpads: Dusty Concord & Peeled Paint
Lavinia Stamps: Aurora, Small Trailing Ivy, Star Blossom & Thistles
Versafine Inkpads: Onyx Black & Smokey Gray
Snippets: Sakura Gelly Roll pen (Clear Star)

Stay safe and well
Stef x

Mixed Media Valentine

I was lucky enough to receive a subscription to Craft Stamper for Christmas and a project in the March edition really caught my eye when looking for some Valentine inspiration. I haven't copied Tracy's project but have been inspired by the design and by her sketch to make my card.

I made a masterboard by brayering 'Blue Oyster' acrylic paint lightly in patches onto a piece of 300gsm card and then with a dry brush/baby wipe applied patches of 'Mermaid', 'Jade', 'Lime Marmalade' paints and white gesso until I was happy with my background. I then dry brushed it with the Interference paint which gave it a gorgeous opalescent sheen in places. I stamped the background script with Distress ink.

I don't have any mdf shapes so I made my own heart embellishment by die-cutting a heart five times from strong grey card and sandwiched them together. I applied texture paste on top and left it to dry before adding patches of 'Mermaid' and 'Lime Marmalade' paint and then overpainting with 'Park Lane'.

I dry brushed two doilies, one for the outside and one for the inside with 'Mermaid', 'Lime Marmalade' and 'Park Lane' paint. The sentiment was printed using my Dymo Letratag gadget with paint smeared over the top.

I cut a piece of the masterboard to fit my card blank using a dark blue mat. The doily and the sentiment were stuck to the card colouring around the edges with a blue pencil to embed them into the card. Scraps of ribbon, lace and cotton thread were stuck to the doily before placing the heart on top. I finished by making some marks with white gesso and splattering blue paint and white gesso to tie everything together. The piece of the doily that was left over from the front of the card was put on the back for interest and the remaining doily was stuck inside with the other part of the sentiment.

Supplies Used:
Acrylic Paints: Blue Oyster, Jade & Mermaid (PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk); Lime Marmalade & Park Lane (IndigoBlu), Interference Green (DecoArt Fluid)
Stamps: Background Script (Lavinia Stamps)
Inks: Stormy Sky (TH Distress)
Dies: Classic Hearts (Spellbinders)
Snippets: 300gsm card, Thick grey card, White doilies, White gesso, Pearlescent embossing paste, Blue pencil (Derwent Cumberland), Ribbon, Lace, Cotton thread

Tracy's original

I would like to enter this project into the following challenges:

Country View Crafts: February 2018 Anything BUT Cute

Happy Little Stampers: February 2018 Anything Goes With Dies

I seemed to have everything everywhere while making this project but I really enjoyed doing it! Thanks for visiting.

Stef x

Bleeding Art Tissue Technique Playtime!

It's half term which means I've found a bit of extra time to play! I first saw the bleeding art tissue technique on the fabulous Eileen Godwin's blog and she has since made a YouTube tutorial which explains it really well. I bought some of the tissue a few weeks ago from Amazon and when I was thinking about what to do for my first project with it I found three challenges that combined so well with the technique that I vowed I would have a go this week.

I have used some of my favourite white linen cardstock as a base for the technique. I chose pinks and blues because I really wanted to enter Lavinia Stamps Challenge #5 as Eileen is on their DT. Their theme this month is to use 'Blue, Pink or Both', together with Lavinia stamps or dies. I have used three different stamps: Sky (the musical fairy) inked with Versafine, the Spiral of Spells inked with Memento and the fairy dust from another set which has been inked with Versamark and embossed.

I also wanted to enter Happy Little Stampers Sketch Challenge for May. I only discovered Happy Little Stampers quite recently and along with it the equally fabulous Loll Thompson's blog. Loll is on the HLS DT and makes wonderful CAS cards. Their sketch features circles of colour. Hence I chose circles as my theme: the bleeding art tissue circles, the Spiral of Spells stamp, the fairy dust stamp and in the background some inking through a piece of sequin waste. I did end up turning their sketch 90 degrees as I found my finished piece looked better on my 5x7" card blank this way round.

I also really fancied entering the current Time Out Challenge #31. Their theme this fortnight is 'Grunge with the optional twist of embossing'. I make so many quite CAS cards these days that I really fancied the challenge of combining grunge with CAS and I hope the team think I have pulled it off. I was going to distress the edges and maybe add a few splatters but something said I should stop and not overdo and maybe spoil it!

I finished the artwork by embossing the fairy's wings (though this doesn't really show up on the photo). I used a mat of dark blue card and finished with a computer-generated sentiment onto a piece of blue vellum which I've then cut into a banner.

Supplies Used:

Tissue: Spectra Art Tissue (Amazon)

Stamps: Sky (fairy), Spiral of Spells, fairy dust (Lavinia Stamps)

Ink pads: Blue Lagoon (Versafine), Summer Sky & Angel Pink (Memento), Versamark

Embossing Powder: Stardust (Funstamps)

Sentiment Font: Angelic War

Snippets: White linen cardstock, Sequin waste, Powder Blue Promarker, Blue textured cardstock, Blue vellum (Papermania)

I really enjoyed taking time out to experiment with a new technique today and join in a few new challenges. Thanks so much for stopping by. I will be back tomorrow with this week's card for CAS Colours and Sketches.

Stef x

Thistles and Wild Flowers

I've been playing around with stencils and paste and made this card for my friend Tracy's birthday. The background was made using textured paper coloured with Pan Pastels. The stamped thistles are from one of my favourite companies Lavinia Stamps with Distress inks. The paste is a pearlescent one from Dreamweaver used with a Sweet Poppy stencil (designed by Tracey from Lavinia Stamps) called 'Wild Flowers'. Inspiration for the shape came from this weeks 'Less is More' challenge.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:
Lavinia Stamps Challenge #3: Add Something Pink
Less Is More Lucky Dip Week 165: Round and Round

Thanks for looking!
Stef

CAS Autumn Tree

I wanted to make an Autumn card for my brother's birthday on Friday and taking inspiration from some of the CAS challenge blogs came up with the following design. My main inspiration came from sketch #10 on Less is More. I used a circle aperture card blank and created a background using my Ink Dusters, a moon mask and Distress Ink Pads (Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage, Dried Marigold, Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap).



















I stamped the image (Oak Tree/Lavinia Stamps) in Frayed Burlap/Peeled Paint and used gilding flakes (Yorkshire Dales/Indigo Blu) to highlight part of the tree trunk and branches. The card was finished with a simple sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

Happy birthday Neil and enjoy your holiday!

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:
Less is More: Week 139 Sketch #10
Addicted to CAS: #23 Code Word - Autumn/Fall
Addicted to Stamps and More: #64 CAS
Crafty Little Fairies: Autumn Colours

Stef

Making Twinchies with my Lavinia stamps

I was having a look at Lavinia Stamps great new challenge blog the other night, wondering what I could make to enter their second challenge. The theme is 'Bright and Beautiful' and it immediately reminded me of the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small', and so the idea started to form... I also hopped over to one of their designers, Eileen's blog (which is great by the way) and she had been making 'Twinchies' for the 'Show Us Your Twinchies' challenge blog. I had never come across Twinchies before so that was it - I had to have a go and combine the challenges.

Show Us Your Twinchies Challenge #4

The Twinchie challenge theme #4 is 'Spring' so that fitted perfectly. For my 'small creatures' I stamped Tracey's two pixies onto shrink plastic and made a background with inks, sponges, tiny star shaped sequin waste, a moon mask and a water spritzer, finishing with a few drops of fairy dust (Stickles). I was worried that the images would come out too small but actually they were perfect for what I wanted. So here we have my first ever Twinchie with the tiny pixies dancing at the vernal equinox!

Lavinia Stamps Challenge #2

For the Lavinia Stamps challenge, I made two more Twinchies, as before and graduated the different coloured inks so that they changed from earth to sky as you travel up the card. I used two more of Tracey's stamps, 'Slender Mushrooms' and 'Spiral of Spells' one on each Twinchie and mounted them all onto different coloured scalloped squares and then onto a tall white card blank. And so you have it - my take on 'All things bright and beautiful' and my first ever Twinchies!