Poppies by Brenda

Good morning, I hope you are all keeping safe and well during these very troubled times across the World.

My shares today use the new stamps Lesley launched in the March Hochanda TV shows. The beautiful Poppy Ledger features on my card at the top, stamped with Versafine Clair onto an acrylic pain background and coloured with pencils. Random stamping using Make your Mark........this is such a useful stamp set and an essential in your crafty stash, I used some sticky EP to stamp the coffee stains and added gilding flakes.

Here I have used the flower from Glorious, stamped onto an Oxide background, dots added using one of the stencils from the four set Strip Stencils and some doodling around the edges. The random numbering is using one of the stamps from Edgy Edges.

As you will guess from this post the Poppy Ledger is a total favourite with me......they 've not called me the Poppy Lady for nothing all these years! Stamped onto an oxide background, the flowers bleached out and then coloured with Distress Markers and the stencil set used again to add texture paste dots and DI for the squares.

Lesley's beautiful seed heads from the Glorious set have been stamped onto a piece of card that was the waste from my brayer after doing some Gelli Plate backgrounds. I also stamped one of the images from Make Your Mark into the background.

This card features Floral Study stamped first onto the base card using Versafine Claire and then again onto a Whiteboard Trading Heart to create a spotlight. The spotty stencil features in the background again and I used the same colour Distress Markers to just one of the flowers.

Finally Poppy Ledges again.....I did say I like this stamps. A scored and inked base card, circles added using the large coffee stain from Make Your Mark, part of the Poppy images stamped onto a Whiteboard circle and some garden gleaning to embellish......A plant tag for the sentiment and a piece of pea mesh across the bottom.

Stay safe everyone and thank you for your visits today.

Basketful of Blooms by Penny

Good morning peeps I hope you are all well.  It's my job to bring you the last post of this month and I have quite a big project to share with you today.  It features stamps from the Doodle Birds , Doodle Butterfly , Rustic Fragments and Edgy Edges sets, Versafine Clair inks, Distress ink, clear EP and some die cuts from my stash.

On a piece of light green card I stamped one of the texture images radomly in 1st and 2nd generation ink.  I then stamped a dragonfly image in another colour randomly over the card and blended ink around the edges.  I stamped the large floral images in various clours onto white card repeatedly and embossed them with clear EP.  I then fussy cut them and painted any white spaces.

I took a piece of Kraft card and stamped another texture image, a basket weave effect, in brown DI.  I scored and folded three edges to create a 3D basket.  I used red liner tape to construct the basket  and attach it to the background panel.  I then took an ivory base card and stamped several 'worker' images around the edges in different colours.  I attached the background panel with the basket onto the base card, arranged and attached the large flowers in the basket and added some foliage die cuts from my stash.  To complete the design I created a paper bow using the lovely border image.

Thank you for stopping by today, I hope you've enjoyed my post and perhaps I've inspired you a little.  Take care and stay well,


                                    x  x  Penny  x  x

Stamping on Surfaces (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a few more projects to share from last month's TV shows on Hochanda. This time, I have been looking at various surfaces and how the stamps could be used to decorate a project.

My first make is a card, using the Snowdrop Script stamp set, and I have chosen a simple colour scheme of pastel blue, reminiscent of the bluebells that I have chosen to stamp. I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge using Distress Ink, and then stamped the bluebells repeatedly, using blue ink in first and second generation stamping, to create a bluebell meadow. I coloured the images with Koh-I-Noor watercolour paints, using blue, green and purple.

I edged a whiteboard heart with blue ink, and again stamped a single bluebell image and painted it with the Koh-I-Noor paints. I added the word 'Bluebell' to finish.

I took another whiteboard heart and covered it with texture paste. I spritzed the large bird from Doodle Butterfly with water, and pressed it into the paste. I allowed the paste to dry completely, and them coloured the surface with beige coloured ink, adding a deeper colour into the bird image and around the edges with a dry brush. I also added some copper wax around the sides of the heart.

I used a piece of texture card for the background, and painted it using acrylic paint and tinting medium. I added a border from the same stamp set using Archival Ink.

For my final project, I stamped a collection of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies from both Doodle Butterfly and Doodle Birds onto circles cut from Designer Papers 8" x 8"- Chic Script, which I then coloured with pencils. I adhered these to Circular Acrylic Tags, which would make really pretty additions to cards, or lovely gift tags. These were fairly quick to make and colour beautifully.

I hope that you will try out some of the ideas that the Design Team have given you this month with these fabulous stamps. Thanks for stopping by, see you next month!

Judith xx

All Things Bright and Beautiful (by Zoe)

Good morning Lovelies and welcome to my final post of the month.

I adore these stamps, they are so versatile.

I made a set of Greyboard ATC's which I Gesso'd first and just randomly brayered on neon acrylic paints. I used the fragments on the background for texture and heat embossed in gold the main images.

I used Watercolour markers and spritzed with water to create this background. Versafine Clair inkpads are fabulous and such a great variety of colours. I used those to build my images up. More fragments in the background.

I used Crushed Olive Distress Oxide inkpad to stamp my envelope.

I used a whiteboard tag from the website, with Distress Oxides- Black Soot, Antique Linen, and Evergreen Bough, to create the background. The alphabet I kept as one and stamped using the Evergreen Bough. The beautiful edge is heat embossed in gold.

And finally a whiteboard heart ATH from the website, Distress Oxides-Shaded Lilac, Lemonade and Marigold. I heat embossed the bluebells and word, coloured in using watercolour markers, I edged with a gold wax.

Thanks again for stopping by, see you next month.
Have a wonderful day and happy crafting xx Zoe xx

Quick Cards (by Christine)

Hello everyone, today sees the final blog post this month from our Guest Design Team member, Christine. She has made some speedy cards for your inspiration.

Christine writes:

Hello everyone.

My final blog post for March!

The first project comprises four examples of quick cards to have available in your stash! I used four mini gelli plates of different shapes, Distress Inks and stamps from Rustic Fragments set to give detail. I then chose some beautiful floral stamps, colouring in two of them with sparkle pens, but leaving two of them simply stamped, (I thought the colour from the gelli plates was enough). Floral stamps used are:

Rose Set
Rose and Thistle set
Medici Flower
Rose Stem Script

The second card was also quite a fast one to achieve. I had a circles stencil on my desk so chose blue, pink and yellow Distress Oxides and mixed them across the stencil. I cut the resulting image into different widths of strips and glued them across a piece of white card on the diagonal. Once complete, I cut out a 5" square then stamped one of the Geometric Trading Hearts with Versafine Clair Onyx Black in the centre. On a remaining piece of the striped background card, I stamped one of the sentiments from the same set.
Mounting on black card was the final step before adding to the card blank.

My final card showcases the stunning stamp sheet called The Folk Art Garden.
The first step was to create the background using the Open Weave stamp and Distress Ink. I then stamped the image with Versafine Clair Onyx Black ink and coloured it with pencils. When I was finished I added Glossy Accents to the butterfly and then glitter around some of the elements. The sentiments are from The Folk Art Garden stamp set.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog posts and look forward to catching up with you later.
Happy crafting!

Christine
xx

A Snowdrop spells Spring by Brenda

Good morning to you all, I hope you are all staying safe and well during these very difficult times. 

Snowdrops are one of the first signs that Spring is on it's way so the beautiful Snowdrop Script was very appropriate for the shows and for this card I kept to soft yellows and greens of Versafine Clair, using worker stamps to create the background, an acrylic block and inks for the focal panel and the stamped the image with Verafine black, bleached out the colour from the Snowdrops and added some glitter to the flower heads.

I kept this one monochrome with just a pop of red to draw the eye. The flowers are from Doodle Birds and Doodle Butterflies stamped in Versafine Clair, a panel across the middle stamped with Edgy Edges and a couple of Dragonflies from the Butterfly set.

A Whiteboard Tag inked with Oxides, to get a softer and more controlled inking I dab my inks onto a piece of acetate, spritz with water and then apply from the top onto the tag (or card as the case may be). Random stamping using elements from Edgy Edges and Rustic Fragements.....this is such a useful set and a must have for your crafty arsenal, flowers from Doodle Birds, small Butterflies stamped and cut out and sentiments stamped onto Aida fabric.

Three apertures cut with a die and placed over backgrounds inked with Oxides and over stamped with images from Rustic Fragements in coordinating colours of Versafine Claire, then Butteflies, a Bird and Flower from Doodle Birds and Doodle Butterflies again stamped with Versafine Claire.

Simple masking and inking with DI's, some stencilling and then the Bluebells and sentiment from Snowdrop Script stamped with Versafine Claire.

Myself and the team always appreciate your visits and encouragement, many thanks from us all and stay safe.

Let's Doodle! (by Sandra)

Hello

I am sharing some more of my cards from the February show on Hochanda

These cards were made using the fun Doodle Birds and Doodle Butterfly Rubber stamp sets.
The stamps are great for giving a silhouette look whilst still being able to see the background.

My first card uses stamps from the Doodle Butterfly set. I used Brushos for the background, I then stamped the Border and Bird.  The sentiment is from Edgy Edges. 
I finished the card by blending around the edges with Distress ink and layering onto a piece of card.

My next card I used pale green Distress Inks for the background.  I stamped one of the Birds  from Doodle Birds and added a little "perch" from Doodle Butterfly. I then added "foliage" made from another of the birds tail and the Peacock Feather. Sentiment is from Words of Inspiration.

For my next card I used my stamping platform to repeat stamp the flower head from Doodle Birds in lovely citrus colours, I then die cut a circle and stamped the butterfly.

My last card I blended Distress Inks for the background and used a variety of stamps from  both sets of stamps because they work so well together!

Thanks for looking
Sandra x