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

CC&S 159 Colours: To Brighten A Wintry Day

It's my turn to act as hostess for the month at CAS Colours and Sketches. In my first challenge I have chosen some bright colours to cheer up the gloomy, wintry days we have been having in the UK. Hopefully they'll also suit those on the other side of the world where I guess it's the middle of summer!

I've stayed with a Valentine theme so now I have a choice of which card to give my OH! I'm not usually a reds and oranges kinda gal, but I thought that these three colours worked rather well together. I had so much fun with the inlaid die technique a couple of weeks ago that I thought I would try it with a different die. It was trickier as the outline is a lot narrower, more complex and it's easy to stretch it when adhering it to the card but once I'd worked out a way of doing that successfully, it was very easy! The card was finished with a white embossed sentiment and a stray white heart.

Supplies Used:
Die: Heart Ribbon (Memory Box)
Sentiment: Always and Forever (Uniko Studio)
Snippets: Kraft, Orange, Pale Pink & Bright Pink cardstock, White EP

I hope you feel inspired to join us in our challenge this week. Please pop by the rest of the DT blogs to see what these colours led them to create.

Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S #158 Sketch: Always & Forever

This week’s sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches is quite open to interpretation. Because of the simple nature of the sketch, I decided to concentrate on the background. I also wanted to play with my new Always and Forever stamp set from Uniko Studio and with a mixed media technique new to me that I learned by following one of Eileen Godwin’s YouTube videos called the Masterboard/Gesso Resist technique. Alas, I felt that my finished Masterboard even after simply matting onto a card blank was not CAS enough for our challenge so I made another card for CC&S and will post the Masterboard card separately! 

I stamped the smallest flower from the Beautiful Blooms 1 set using Versamark and clear embossing powder onto a piece of violet cardstock. This was simply matted onto a card blank and trimmed to follow Patricia’s sketch. I stamped the image with the flower from the Always and Forever set onto a piece of white linen cardstock and again clear embossed it. The sentiment stamp comes from the same set and this has been die-cut using a banner die. I felt the contrast between the dark mat and the white card blank was too much so added the white punched hearts, but I’m still not sure if that was the right thing to do. Hey ho, it is what it is and done now! I'm sorry for the reflections in the photo but with all that embossing it was difficult to get a good picture without the shine!

I would also like to enter my card into a couple of challenges:

CASology Week #182: Cue Card ADORE

Uniko Studio: Anything Goes with the option of a LOVE theme

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Beautiful Blooms 1 and Always & Forever (Uniko Studio)

Inkpads: Versamark (Tsukineko) & Violet (VersaColor)

Die: Tag Along (Clearly Besotted)

Snippets: Violet & White linen cardstock, Small heart punch

We would love to have you join us in our challenge. You can find the details HERE and you have until Wednesday 3rd February to share your card.

Thanks for visiting!

Stef x

CAS Colours and Sketches Challenge #108

I love using sketches. They give you lots of design inspiration either when you're in a hurry or your imagination seems to have gone AWOL! This week at CAS Colours and Sketches we have a lovely sketch from our hostess, Jacqueline. I've gone with a Valentine's theme as love definitely seems to be all around blogland at the moment.

The banner strips are scraps from my box and surprisingly were not from the same patterned paper pack originally. The stamp is a dinkie from one of my favourite companies, IndigoBlu. This is stamped in Versafine 'Vintage Sepia' which is a great ink for very detailed stamps. It has been die cut with a Spellbinders label die and mounted on foam pads.

I have followed the sketch quite closely as I like to be able to see the original sketch clearly in my finished creation. The sentiment has been attached with a homemade heart pin using a paper clip! I have reprinted the simple directions below if you want to have a go at making some.

Thank you - we had a bumper crop of entries last week. I look forward to visiting your blog and seeing what you make of this week's sketch.

Thanks for visiting.

Stef x

NNBUS Versus RONBUS!

Lots of you will have come across Darnell's quirky blog! She coined the phrase NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) and set up a challenge to encourage us all to use our NBUS to avoid it being forgotten about and left at the back of a drawer somewhere! Some people have interpreted this to mean any stash they haven't used before, even newly acquired items. So I set myself a challenge this afternoon to make two cards, the first using some NNBUS (brand New NBUS) and secondly to use what I'm going to call RONBUS (Really Old NBUS)!

 

Bev' original card used for inspiration

My first card uses some of my sale goodies from Uniko Studio. It uses the Background Builders: Chevrons and the Flower Power 2 stamp sets. I was looking at Bev's Pinterest board for some ideas as her products are relatively new to me and have CASed one of her cards, so I hope she doesn't mind!

I have chosen the turquoise and lime colours (along with black and white) to fit in with the ShowCASe your style challenge #6: Colour challenge. The inks are Versacolor Turquoise and Split Pea. To make the leaves I have coloured a piece of hammered cardstock with Split Pea ink and punched with a Martha Stewart leaf punch. 

This CAS challenge is new to me and this card is definitely where my style is at the moment. I will also enter it into Darnell's challenge and see whether she thinks my NNBUS card is better than my RONBUS one!

My second card uses stuff that I have had for years and personally I don't like it as much as the first card. It reminds me of cards I would have made a few years back and I guess that's why!

The die is an XCut Lacé die and I thought I would use it given its appropriateness to the time of year. The fabric brad is from a set called Riverbank Revels by Trimcraft. I think I bought both these items in a sale quite some years ago! The sentiment stamp is a freebie from a craft mag that I have had for ages. CASology have linked in with Darnell's challenge this week and have NBUS as their cue card so I would like to enter this into their challenge #129 (I think you can only enter once otherwise I would have entered both cards) and also into Darnell's (where I know you can enter more than once).
Edit: I can't see how to enter two cards from the same post on my blog into the same link more than once on a challenge blog.

I have also colour-themed it to fit in with another new challenge to me Colour Me where the colours are Pacific Point and Real Red (along with neutrals).

That's all from me today. I will be back later in the week with my CAS Colours and Sketches card. A new year and I have entered three new to me challenges. Can't be bad!


Take care
Stef x

Made with love... just for you!

I sat down to make my husband a Valentine’s card and had a look at a few challenge blogs for inspiration. I also wanted an excuse to play with my IndigoBlu ‘Poppy Heart’ stamp, Flitter Glu and Mega Flake ‘Winter Dawn’ which I've had for a few months but haven't had a lot of time to play with and now seemed like the perfect opportunity! This is what I came up with (hope he likes it!):

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog: 193 Valentine’s Card
Daring Cardmakers: Love is in the Air
Divas By Design: Love and Romance
PanPastel UK Challenge Blog: 6 Love and Romance
Sketch and Stash Challenge Blog: 107 Sketch and optional theme of ‘Love’