Beautiful Bird and Fanciful Flowers by Penny

Hi there - Penny here again with three projects to inspire and hopefully encourage you to have a go at creating them yourselves.  The first is a little mixed media canvas featuring the gorgeous Bird of Joy stamp, a couple of stencils including the Useful Leaves, and some metallic paints and texture paste from my stash.
I took a small canvas and painted it with black gesso.  When dry I stamped and embossed the image using clear ink and powder in the centre of the canvas.  I then painted it with acrylic paints,  adding gold paint around the words to make them pop.  I added some more paint using a sponge to give the piece more texture, then stencilled some glitter texture paste over the sponged areas.
I used the Useful Leaves stencil across the top of the canvas and attached some die cut foliage as well to frame the focal image.  To complete the piece I punched a couple of holes in the top and threaded some cord through to be able to hang the canvas up.

My second project for you today is a pretty, romantic card featuring the lovely French Heart stamp, a small heart from the Harlequin Rose set and a sentiment from the Loving Sentiments set, colouring pens, Distress inks, the Useful Leaves stencil, a tag die, a script stencil and and some ribbon from my stash.
I began by stamping the heart in grey ink onto colouring card and coloured it with pens in muted colours.  I die cut the image into a tag, embossed it and added ink around the edges.  I stamped a sentiment onto the tag, then punched a hole at the top and threaded some ribbon through.  I added some glitter to the flowers and set the tag aside to dry.
On a white base card I created a background of leaves and script with inks through the stencils, and stamped some small hearts randomly over the card.  I blended some ink around the edges of the card and attached the tag.

 

My final project for you today is a mixed media card featuring the beautiful Medici Flower stamp, plus images from the Gothic Fragments and Butterfly Poppy Collage sets, Distress inks, white charcoal, grey Versafine ink, colouring pens, texture paste, a die cut, gold Liquid Pearls and a gold pen from my stash.
I stamped the Medici Flower in grey ink onto colouring card and coloured it with the pens.  I die cut and embossed the image with a circle die, added ink through the die like a stencil and edged it with a gold pen.  I put dots of gold pearl drops into the middle of the flowers as stamens then set it aside to dry.  Next I created a background on a piece of white card, blending a few Distress inks together.  I then stamped some Gothic windows and Latin script randomly over the panel, faux bleached parts of the windows and added highlights with white charcoal.  I used gold pen around the edges of the panel then matted it onto black card.
On a white base card I applied black texture paste through a brickwork stencil to compliment the Gothic windows, and let it dry.  I then stamped a sentiment onto a spare piece of background card, cut it into a panel, edged it with gold pen and added some gold pearl drops.  When everything was dry I attached the background panel to the base card then added the focal and sentiment panels in 3D onto the card.

I hope you have all enjoyed these projects today, they are all great fun to create and can all be adapted with different colours to suit any requirements.  Thank you for dropping in, I'll see you again soon,

                                                         

Penny

Gothic Card (by Penny)

Hello everyone, today we have another project from our Guest Design Team Member Penny. She has created a fabulous Gothic style card using a range of techniques.

Penny writes:

To create my card, I used stamps from the Gothic Fragments and Words of Love stamp sets. I used Distress Inks, dies, stencils and an embossing folder from my stash.

I created the background by blending Distress Inks onto a piece of card, faux bleaching, stamping and stencilling. I added some die cuts and a sentiment.

You can find more details about Penny's project over on her blog. Penny will be back next week with her final project for the month.

Sending a bouquet (by Corine)

Well here we are in 2017 and we are welcoming back Corine in her guest position for January, I knw she has some wonderful projects lined up for you so here we go with her very first of this New Year.

Hello!

Here I am again. In January I will post three times a card as guest designer. I am very pleased to do this. My first project is a card with one of the Ornament stamps on a Gelli Plate Background. 

I used stamps from the sheets:

Palm Fan Baroque Ornament

Gothic Fragments

Mackintosh Sentiments

• Create a background with acrylic paint on a Gelli Plate. 
• Stamp the ornament from the Texture Fragment sheet with Brilliance ink. I used Lightning Black. Use a template with leaves and sponge Memento Luxe Olive Grove. 
• Sponge Distress ink Seedless Preserves around your background paper and stamp the text with black ink.
• Emboss the Palm Fan Baroque Ornament with gold embossing powder and colour it with Zig markers.

I hope you enjoy my first creation and I will see you soon

Corine

Thank you so much for this beautiful card Corine, I love the idea of creating all that interest in the background. We look forward to seeing what you have in store for us next week.

In the meantime please keep popping in so that you can catch up with all the beautiful designs that our fabulous team made for our debut shows on Hochanda.

Shimmering Poppies (by Penny)

Hello everyone, today sees the second of our posts this month from Penny Butler, our newest Guest Design Team member. This week, she has created a lovely poppy themed card for you. 

Penny writes:

Hi there, this is my second visit here and I've got a Poppy card for you today, featuring stamps from the Gothic Fragments and Poppy Meadow stamp sets, using the caught in crystal technique.

I started with a piece of white card and stamped the window slightly off centre. I masked the image and blended Distress Inks all over the panel. I faux bleached a stone wall effect on the background, making a stencil by die cutting a piece of scrap card and sponging water through it. I added some shadows by stippling grey ink through the stencil. I then stamped some grasses along the bottom of the panel. After removing the mask, I coloured the window image with water-based pens used as watercolours. I then stamped a sentiment using black ink.

I stamped and embossed the poppies onto acetate in black and turned the acetate over. I coloured the image with alcohol markers. I applied floor polish with some glitter added and then placed some crumpled tissue paper on top. When the polish had dried, I cut around the image, and attached it to the panel. I matted the panel onto some black card that I had embossed and gilded with metallic wax, and then attached this to a card blank. I finished the card with some red ribbon and a bow.

I hope that you've enjoyed this post, thank you for popping in :)

Penny will be back next week with her final project of the month, using the first set of stamps that she ever bought from Chocolate Baroque.

brusho halloween

 I watched Lesley demoing a new way of using brusho powders on the Craft Channel last week, and just had to try it out! To a certain extent it is more controllable, but you still get the colour variations.
I used tags, and they were small enough for a trial run but large enough to work on - and Halloween images as it is that time (and I'd managed to find a set!)
Stamp set was nevermore, and I stamped the images first, then added the brusho.
Basically, you sprinkle the powder on very meanly, then use a brush and clean water to activate the brusho, working on a small area at a time and keep wiping the brush clean as you go. I used black brusho, hoping for a varied sky effect, and was quite pleased with the effect I got, even if it was a bit blotchy in places.
I used a window stamp from gothic fragments as a base for the window shape on the top part of the tag, and a much heavier sprinkle of black brusho.

Similar method for the second tag, apart from using the window stamp as a more defined arch, and yellow ochre brusho to colour the stonework.

Thanks Lesley for the idea, will be using this again!
Hope you enjoyed seeing these, more details on my blog
vroncards.blogspot.co.uk
Have a great weekend
Veronica

Mini Indian Elephant Canvas (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing a mini canvas for this month’s texture theme.

Materials:

• Gothics Fragments, Texture Fragments, Indian Elephant, Words of Inspiration stamp sets
• Mandala Stencil (Martha Stewart) and fossil stencil (Andy Skinner)
• Mini stretched canvas (21 X 14.5cm), watercolour card (20 X 14cm), scrap stamping card
• Mod Podge (Matte)
• WOW embossing powder (Gold detail)
• Ink sprays with mica – archival type, waterproof when dry (teal, pale pink)
• Inkpads: archival dye (teal), Versamark
• Sakura Starlite pens – archival glitter (green, blue, pink, purple)
• Coloured pencils (greys)
• Viva Décor Glitter Paste (603 teal)
• Microbeads (pink multi)
• Alcohol marker (teal) and fine tipped marker (cerise)
• Acrylic paint (cerise pearl)
• Decorative corner punch
• 3D glue gel

How it was done:

1. Spritzed the watercolour card with water, teal and pale pink inks. Laid down the fossil stencil while wet and left to dry overnight. The ink gets pulled under the stencil by capillary action giving a negative image.
2. Randomly stamped the background with the texture stamp and teal archival ink.
3. Stamped the gothic arch and sentiment with Versamark and heat embossed with the gold powder. Coloured with the glitter pens and fine tipped pink marker.
4. Applied glitter paste with a palette knife through the mandala stencil. Whilst wet dropped on some microbeads – pressed lightly into surface. Dried overnight.
5. Stamped elephant with Versamark onto scrap stamping card and heat embossed with gold powder. Coloured with glitter pens and grey pencils, Cut out and shaped slightly. Glued to card with 3D glue gel.
6. Punched corners and outlined with teal marker.
7. Coloured outer edges of canvas with acrylic paint.
8. Glued the card to the canvas with Mod Podge. Also applied over the top to seal the image. Note: I thought that my pink fine liner was archival but it was water soluble! Hence it bled and smeared across the canvas when I applied the Mod Podge – eeeek! However it did add to the texture effect – tee hee.

Gothic Heart Frame (by Julie)

Hello, Julie here and today I have an up-cycled photo frame to share with you all.

I love the Gothic Fragment stamp set and decided to combine it with the Mini Script set to create a piece of home decor that could easily be given as a gift.

The frame has been covered in a selection of Twinchie and Inchie white lined board tiles from Tando. The smaller 1 inch tiles have been used with the Script designs and stamped with sepia and grey Versafine ink and then coloured with various Distress inks such as Weathered Wood, Tea Dye and Antique Linen. The larger 2 inch tiles have been stamped with Versafine ink as before, using designs from the Gothic Fragments and coloured with brush markers and Distress inks before adding white, paint pen highlights. After gluing the tiles to the frame I added gold gilding wax around the edges.

The centre piece has been created by placing a metal heart, cookie cutter over one of the Gothic Fragment stamps and then pouring in melted Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. Once the UTEE has cooled and set, remove the cookie cutter, peel away from the stamp and apply gold gilding wax to the raised areas of the heart. Stamp a piece of spare card with the Fragment stamps and colour with Distress inks. Cut to size and then glue the heart into place.

Many thanks for stopping by and hope to see you again very soon.

Julie xx

steampunk (by Veronica)

 Apologies to anyone who is getting fed-up with my current steampunk craze, you will be pleased to hear that I am running out of ideas!

For the first of my posts this month I have a card and a couple of Lesley-style notebooks to show you.

Our theme this month is textures, and my card is a very simple one using embossing folders and soft form relief paste together with the  owl from steampunk birds.
The background was a piece of textured matt silver card sprayed with walnut stain ink.
I used silver soft form relief paste on the owl, then carefully trimmed the spare round the edges.

 If you saw Lesley's recent shows on the Craft Channel, you will have seen her make some lovely notebook
 covers using brushos and tissue paper. I am always happy to play with brushos, and crumpling tissue paper is dead easy, so I just had to have a go.
In hindsight, I should have gesso-ed the covers first, as some of the print shows through, but i was very happy with how they turned out.
The first one used blue and green brushos, and the window from gothic fragments covered with black soft form relief paste . I added some decoart antiquing cream in patina green over the window, then some gold wax to highlight the masonry.




For my second try I used leaf green, turquoise and purple brushos, and the cockerel from steampunk birds with the silver soft form relief paste.
I will definitely be making more of these notebooks, they are great fun to do and will make nice small gifts.

 Thanks for looking, and keep checking back to see the gorgeous samples from my teamies.

More details on my blog
vroncards.blogspot.co.uk