A Distant Folly by Penny

Good morning lovelies, I am so pleased to be back again to bring you this project.  I hope I find you warm and well - and hopefully not snowed in! If you are snowed in then grab a cuppa and a biscuit and join me for a few minutes of crafty inspiration.

This card was one of my samples for the tv shows last month featuring the beautiful Scenic Countryside stamps.  I have used stamps from the Sunburst Scenes, Country Views, Landscape Edges and    Words to Dazzle and Sparkle sets.  I have also used black Versafine ink for stamping and alcohol pens, Brushos and Distress Inks for colouring.

I began this project with a piece of whitecolouring card and stamped the wall image at the bottom of the card.  I used stamping tissue to mask the image then stamped it again to extend it the full width if the card.  I stamped several other images to create a scene and coloured them all in.  I added some hills and slopes with a black liner pen, to connect the separate images.

I used white charcoal to add some clouds to the sky, and some highlights on the river to give the effect of ripples.

I removed the masks from the wall and used a paintbrush to add water to each stone.  I then sprinkled black Brusho over the wet stones, I wanted the random colour burst of Brushos but with a bit more control.  There are so many lovely tones and colours in the black Brusho paint and I think they give a realistic look to the wall.  I wanted the wall to pop a bit more to give the scene perspective so I stamped it again onto acetate in black and embossed it with clear powder.  I then fussy cut it and attached it to the scene.

Using a large white base card I stamped several smaller worker images around the edges in different Distress Inks.  I then blended one of the colours around the outer edges of the card.  To complete this design I stamped a sentiment in black ink on the focal panel, edged the panel with black ink and matted it onto black card before attaching it to the base card.

  

Thank you all for joining me today, I hope that you have enjoyed this project and that it might inspire you to try something similar or at least get your crafty mojo going!

Take care until next time,

  Penny

Altered Book (posted by Judith)

When Glenda sent me the new Country Views stamp set, I fell in love with the little folly stamp on the plate, and wanted to make this a focal point of a project. I have made altered books before, and decided to make one for a Design Team piece.

Now for those of you that are horrified at my alteration of a good book, I will tell you where I get my books from! I buy my books from charity shops, so the proceeds always go to a good cause, and I choose books that have seen a better life, and have therefore outlived their usefulness.

Once I had cut a circle in the front cover of my book with my trusty Tim Holtz Tonic scissors, I painted the book first with gesso, then a couple of coats of acrylic paint. I mixed the colour myself, using a couple of colours, to achieve the shade that I wanted. I then dry brushed a darker colour around the edges. I embossed one if the fabulous new Texture stamps onto the book with gold embossing powder. I tore a loose circle shape out of the first few pages, creating a niche, and then stamped the folly stamp onto a spare piece of card. I coloured the image with Polychromos pencils, and blended the colours, adding extra shading where necessary. I then inked around the image with Distress Inks, before fixing the card into the book.

I wanted to add some flowers, and was undecided as to which colour to use, so I looked at a colour wheel for inspiration. The opposite colour to the zingy green that I had chosen for my book, was a lovely plummy pink colour, so I went with that, and added some ribbon in a similar shade as the closure for the book. I stamped and cut out some leaves from the 'Woodland Dreams' stamp plate to go with the flowers, as I love the leaf on this stamp plate, it is a firm favourite of mine. I also added the sentiment from the same stamp plate.

These stamps are so much fun to work with, and I really enjoyed creating this project. Keep checking back to see what the other members of the Design Team have come up with over the next few days. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx