Setting the Scene (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all keeping well. I am sharing more projects today from last month's TV shows on the Craft Store, where we showcased the fabulous Retro Vases and Retro Floral stamps. As I mentioned in my last post, if you would like these stamps, you can give Lesley or David a call at the unit, and they will take an order from you, as these stamps are not available on the website.

I decided to create a little scene for my first card. I used some torn strips of paper to create some hills, using Distress Ink and a blending brush. I added a circle mask to create a sun. Once the background was created, I chose some suitable silhouette stamps from the two sets and stamped those using various colours from the Versafine Clair range of inkpads. I used first and second generation stamping to create some depth to the foliage. The little butterfly stamp comes from the Butterfly Blush stamp set, so useful for this kind of scene. The sentiment comes from the Life is so much Better stamp set.

My next two cards followed the same basic principles, I used a piece of fabric and stamped circles in analogous colours, (next to each other on the colour wheel), using different sized circle stamps from the sets and coloured Archival ink. I then chose some of the retro images and stamped over the top using black Archival ink.

For this first card, I used an inky plate background.

For the second card, I used a Brusho background. Matting the layers onto black card adds more definition. The sentiments are from the Say it Vertically stamp set.

My final card was a quick card created straight onto a card blank. I stamped three vases using Versafine Clair ink, which I masked with Masking Tissue. I then coloured the floral staps with brush pens and stamped them above the vases, before removing the masks. I added a bit of shading with a grey pencil to 'ground' the vases.

I really had a lot of fun working with these stamps, and hope that you have found some inspiration in my projects. Thanks for stopping by, take care,

Judith xx 

Kaleidoscope of Spring Butterflies by Brenda

Morning to you all, the final collection of samples from last month's Hochand shows. 

A Brusho background with a die cut trellis as a base for a kaleidoscope of Butterflies using Butterfly Blush, silhouette stamps are a favourite with me so these Butterflies tick all the right boxes and I make no excuse they are coming up again in the card below.

I used Versafine Clair inks and kiss stamped the Butterflies onto various CB backgroind stamps and fixed into place over he trellis.

For this one I used the circles from Strip Stencil set using DI's to shade the edges then with the stencil still in place stamped worker stamps from Eastern Grasses and Fresh Florals and placed a butterfly over each using the same set and kiss technique as the card above.

Thistle Butterfly takes centre stage in my final card stamped using Distress Markers direct to stamp onto a panel created by masking, inking and stencilling then dragging some of the colour from the image.

Thanks for your visit and kind works of encouragement which are always appreciated.

A little bit of sewing by Rachel

 Hello there! Rachel here today with my third and final installment from the February shows. This first piece gave me lots of joy in the making. I used a piece of calico and stamped on it using the main honeysuckle butterfly image in versafine ink. I then painted it using translucent paints and then I got my needle out and simply stitched around the outline of the flowers plus the stamens. I then added the ring and folded the extra fabric into the back and covered it with felt to make a small hanging picture.

This next piece was made using one of the wooden plaque/signs from the website. First I used gel medium to adhere one of the black and white papers to the plaque then stamped butterflies from the butterfly blush using pink ink onto card and then overstamped using the corresponding stamps from the just butterflies set before fussy cutting.

This final accordion card was made using all of the butterfly floral stamps each stamped in versamark on black card and set with white embossing powder and then roughly cut out and mounted onto black and white papers.

Hope you have a lovely day - I will see you next month!

Hugs

Rachel xx

Butterfly trio by Brenda

Morning Peeps, popping in with a few more of my shares from last month Hochanda shows, starting with one showcasing three Butterflies from Butterfly Blush, using Versafine Clair and kiss stamped onto various CB background stamps. The background is stamped with the postcard from Baroque Ephemera 2 and to finish some watery DI's in coordinating colours flicked onto the background.

Another Oxide background with gold paint flicked over it, Briar Rose Butterfly stamped and heat embossed with detail gold EP, coloured and cut out. The lovely sentiment is from Loving Sentiments.

A simple one to finish using another of the images from Briar Rose Butterfly stamped and coloured onto a fancy die cut mat and a bow added to carry the colour.

Keeping it Simple

Hello, I am here to share some more of my samples from the February show on Hochanda.

These were all relatively quick to make with some stamping and embossing and a little bit of colouring.

My first piece uses an MDF board which I have covered with Chocolate Baroque Black and White Paper (Series 2) using a gel medium. I'm not sure if these are still available, but Series 3 are!  I have then added some watercolour inks, starting with purple, then blue and green. When it was completely dry I stamped the Carnation from Fresh Florals and a sentiment from Artistic Affirmations and embossed in white.

For my next card I used alcohol inks in shades of purples and blues at the top and greens at the bottom on some yupo paper. I then stamped a dragonfly and a few butterflies from Butterfly Blush using Alcohol Lift ink. I did the same with some of the foliage stamps that were also on the show and added a sentiment from Sow the Seeds.

My next card uses the Daisy stamp from Fresh Florals. I stamped with Archival and used watercolour pencils for the flowers and Distress Ink for the edges. I have added a sentiment from Fly Away with Me.

This card uses two of the foliage stamps from Eastern Grasses. I used my stamping platform and stamped the larger of the stamps first, rotating my card each time. I then used the smaller stamp to fill in the gaps. I coloured the open seed heads with a red glaze pen and added the sentiment to the centre. Very quick, but effective.

My last piece features an accordion style card from a die. I stamped the butterflies and dragonflies from Just Butterflies onto some white card and die cut the panels out and glued onto the card base.

 I love how the stamp sets mix so well with each other.

See you soon

Sandra x

Bold and Beautiful Butterflies (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I am sharing more butterfly cards with you, following on from my last post. Butterflies are such a universally popular image, and I hope that you will enjoy what I have to share with you today.

I created my first card using the Just Butterflies and Butterfly Blush stamp sets. I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge using Distress Oxides and then stamped some of the butterflies from Butterfly Blush using Versafine Clair. I added some white dots using charcoal through a stencil, however, you could achieve a very similar look by using white paint and one of the dotty stamps from Make Your Mark.

I added some texture paste to a piece of MDF, and once it was dry added some paint and gilding wax. I stamped and embossed the butterflies, cut them out and layered them up onto the panel. The sentiment from Butterfly Mind was stamped onto a spare piece of background.

The following two cards are older projects, but once again, I hope that you do not mind me sharing them with you. I masked off  the edges of the cards, and added Distress Ink in the centre of the cards. I was aiming for aurora borealis effect, and hopefully achieved that feeling in these cards. I added water splatters, and then stamped the foliage from Briar Rose Butterfly along the bottom using black ink. The butterflies were stamped onto sparkly acetate using Archival Ink and I added coloured vellum to the back, but you could just stamp them onto card, colour them as normal and use a sparkly pen over the top to achieve a similar look. The sentiments come from the Birthday Words stamp set.
 

By changing the colours and foliage, you can create a completely different look, these are really pretty and would make a nice set to give as a gift as well.

 

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and take care,

Judith xx

scenic butterfly (by Veronica)

 A lesson in how to drive yourself nuts here, made worse by my not having cleaned the lovely patchwork butterfly stamp properly!

Inspired by some outline stamps seen recently, I thought I would have a go at using the butterfly in a similar fashion. The stamp was too mucky for me to just ink up the edges and wipe any overspill off with a wipe , so I tried masking the centre of the wings before inking the edges of the stamp and the centre body - after many attempts I got a pair of masks that worked fairly well and gave me a reasonable outline once I removed the masks and stamped the butterfly.

A second mask for the negative image was much easier! Once this was in place, I inked a background into the butterfly frame using distress oxide inks, then stamped the silhouette grasses stamp using black versafine ink, and added some small butterflies from butterfly blush. A quick sponge round the outline and a black matt finished the first off.



The orher two cards used the same technique and stamps but with an extra mask so that I could stamp a background scene as well, using the bridge image from kingfisher song. The base card  for the second card was inked randomly with the butterfly stencil.





I really enjoyed doing these once I got the masks sorted out, but don't  think I will be repeating it any time soon....at least not unless I get a clean stamp.........

Let Your Dreams Take Flight (by Asha)

Hello, friends! It's the start of a new month and let's get this party going with another collection of amazing stamps. I made a dreamy, pastel candy floss inspired Art Journal page showcasing 3 stamps sets that the Design Team will be featuring this month.

The butterflies, coloured with alcohol markers, are from the Just Butterflies DL sheet. The white swirly design is from the Patchwork Butterfly A4 sheet, stamped with white acrylic paint. The little dragonfly silhouette is from the Butterfly Blush DL sheet. To add some background interest, I stamped the leafy stalk from Briar Rose Butterfly A5 sheet and script from Mini Scripts A6 sheet.

That lovely sentiment is from Butterfly Dreams A4 sheet.

As always, I have details of the tools and products used on my blog. Thank you for stopping by and drop in soon for more designs by the team. Wait till you see what they have in store for you ... AWESOME!

Beijinhos,
Asha

Fifteen Minute Cards

Hello everyone, welcome to our second Fifteen Minute Blog post of the month. In these posts, we aim to bring you lots of ideas that are simple and quick to make, but still have lots of style and creativity that will please and impress the recipient. We will give you lots of tips alongside our projects and links to our own blogs where you can see the projects in full. We are joined by members of the Guest Design Team each month, who also share lots of their beautiful designs with us.

Anne has created three pretty floral cards for us this time, using delicate blues and lilacs to enhance the images, creating a soft water-coloured effect:

Dominike has used vibrant yellow tones to create gelli print backgrounds, adding stamped images, and leaving lots of white space for a classic CAS feel to her cards:

Rachel has made two beautiful cards for us using some of our bird stamps. She has used water based markers, stencils and Distress Inks to complete her cards:

I have made a card using stamps from the Butterfly Blush stamp set to create a background, and then added a co-ordinating image from the Just Butterflies stamp set, you can find further details here:

Vronnie has created a fun steampunk card using images from the Steampunk Birds stamp set. The muted background draws the eye to the vibrantly coloured birds:

We have two delightful tags from Magda to share with you. The first is a pretty floral tag, using Dylusions to create the background:

The second is a textured Christmas tag:

Brenda has created some beautiful cards again for us this month. The first was made by creating a background using Brushos. She then stamped a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration stamp set and a focal image from the Butterfly Flourish Swirls stamp set, using gold embossing powder:

She created another Brusho background for her second card, onto which she repeat stamped leaves from the Autumn Poppy stamp set, and heat embossed with copper embossing powder. Using the same ink and powder, she embossed a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration stamp set onto a strip of vellum, and embellished the card with some twine and two leaves die cut from offcuts of the background.

For her third card, she created a background using an acrylic block which had gridlines, inking with different colour Distress Inks, and spritzing with water before stamping and overlapping the colours. She then stamped an image from the Glorious Spring stamp set and added a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration stamp set with Black Archival Ink.

She stamped the Flora Musica image with Versafine Onyx Black Ink, and embossed with clear embossing powder. She coloured the image with sparkly pens and inked the edges with Distress Inks. She matted and layered the image with co-ordinating card and tied some organza ribbon.

Creating a background with Distress Crayons, she then randomly stamped sections of the harlequin stamp from the Decorative Edges stamp set and added a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration stamp set. She stamped and cut out an image from the Tangled Butterfly stamp set and coloured it with the same Distress Crayons.

With the remembrance season drawing near, Breanda has created a lovely Poppy card for us, and we have so many poppy images on the website that could be used for this idea. She masked a circle and a sun, and brushed Distress Inks to create a background. She stamped a poppy image and coloured with sparkly pens and stamped a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration stamp set. After matting onto co-ordinating cardstock, she added black seed beads to the centres of the poppies.

Zoe has created a series of floral cards for us, all using gelli plate backgrounds:

Thank you so much girls for your beautiful projects.

We hope that you have enjoyed our selection of designs, and please do visit the individual Design Team members' blogs for more detailed explanations of their cards and tags. We will be back next month with more short cuts and time saving tips for you.

Thanks for stopping by,