feathered friends (by Veronica)

 

Staying with feathers sort of, this time this time mixing bird stamps from the retired list. The first sample is very simple. the strip of birds from fly away with me stamped in black on white card, trimmed round and mounted onto black card then onto a white card blank. The sentiment from live out loud also stamped in black and edged with black card.

The owl from wise owl was stamped in black onto white card, clear embossed and coloured with marker pens, cut out and mounted onto a distress oxide background edged with a swirl stamp from dawn chorus and a marker pen along the edges. Sentiment from sing your song.
 

Making Your Scrap Papers Work For You (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I hope that you are keeping well. I have a couple of projects to share with you showcasing some of the retired stamps that we brought to the TV shows on Create and Craft last month. The TV shows were so busy, and if you were watching, you would have seen that we had to change our demos, sometimes in the middle of what we were doing, it certainly made us think on our feet! 

I wanted to share two of the projects that I talked about during the shows, although one you did not see in its completed version, I made a different version on the show due to sellouts of the stamps that I had planned to use.

Often we have bits of card and paper in our scrap boxes that do not seem to go together, a piece of card left over from a crafting session that is blue and purple, and a piece of brown card. Whatever would make them work in a project together? 

I like to mix and match my scraps together, and can easily put these pieces with each other by using toning inks. I used the piece of tea dyed card as the large background, stamping a small worker stamp randomly all over using various shades of blue and purple, then edging the card with a blue ink. I then stamped a large flower three times onto the blue/purple card using purple Versafine Clair ink and clear embossing powder. I cut the flowers out and adhered them to the background, adding a piece of scrap corrugated card underneath the third one to raise it up slightly. I can add a sentiment at a later date when I know what the card will be used for.

My second project was created by taking a piece of greyboard and painting it with white paint. I added torn strips of book paper and then painted the whole piece with acrylic paint. I chose a pretty green paint, and some touches of plum around the edges. The green paint allowed the book pages to still be seen, as it was not completely opaque. I added some stencilling with Plum Archival Ink, and stamped a pretty leafy sprig from one of the retiring stamp sets, Take It or Leaf It.

I chose some patterned papers to stamp and emboss birds from Sing Your Song, Live Out Loud, and Fly Away With Me. I added a bit of colour using Distress Inks and a blending brush to make the papers fit my colour scheme. I also had some left over card from another project, which had originally been blue and green. It did not match my colour scheme, but I had some of the plum paint from this project on my craft mat, so I spritzed it with water, and splattered it over the card, to tone the card in with this project.

A very simple way to get the card to match. I then stamped the sentiment onto a die cut piece of the card, and sponged some of the Plum Archival Ink around the edges. Finally, I attached the birds to the leafy branches, and attached the sentiment to the panel.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I will be back later in the month with more projects to share.

Take care,

Judith xx

Using Scrap Paper as a Focal Point (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I am back with my final projects using the lovely bird stamps featured in last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I have created two cards using scrap pieces of paper as the main feature, to show that sometimes what might be considered as something to throw away, can be made into a great feature for your cards and other projects.

For my first card, I made a background using Distress Oxides in three different colours, and then stamped some foliage from the Nature Swirls stamp set to create a scene using coordinating dye based inks. I stamped and embossed some of the images from Sing Your Song and Live Out Loud, using Versamark and some two tone embossing powders onto scraps of Lesley's My Floral Soul papers. I cut the images out, and added then to the scene. These papers are so lovely, I want to use up every last inch of them!

For my second project, I decided to use the large owl from the Wise Owl stamp set as my focal image.

I had been making some gelli print backgrounds, and had a scrap piece of paper that I had cleaned the brayer with. The multi coloured greens looked lovely, and the paper was too good to waste. I stamped the owl using Versamark, and added two different shades of embossing powder before heat embossing. I then stamped some of the swirls from Let Your Heart Sing and Dawn Chorus, using black ink, and added some flowers from Orchard Design A Tree. I also added the sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set.

For the background, I used a gelli print created with green ink and bubble wrap, and stamped some of the feathers from Wise Owl and Dawn Chorus with Versamark, and swirled some mica powder over the top. I added matting layers of black card to complete the project.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

Chorus of Birds (by Julie)

Hello, today I have two more bird themed cards.

My first card is a simple little card stamped with Let Your Heart Sing and Live Out Loud.

The little bird and foliage silhouette from Let Your Heart Sing was inked up with blue Versafine and stamped along the bottom edge of the card blank. The rest of the card blank was edged and coloured with Distress inks.

The topper is from Live Out Loud and was stamped onto spare stamping card with blue Versafine, before being coloured with coloured pencils. You will see the edges have been torn and then coloured with Distress ink, before mounting onto the card base with 3D foam pads.

I started the background of this card by applying Distress inks and stamping the small feathers from Let Your Heart Sing and Dawn Chorus randomly across the card using Sepia Versafine. The lines were added by inking the side of a stamping block and applying to the card as well as adding brown inky splodges, to create a grungy looking background.

The tree silhouette from Live Out Loud was stamped onto spare card, before being cut out with a circle die and then coloured with Distress inks. The bird house was stamped onto spare card with Crimson Versafine, before being cut out. Both were attached to the card with 3D foam pads.

The card was finished off with the Live Out Loud sentiment.

Thank you for stopping by and please call back soon for daily Design Team inspiration.

Julie xx

tweet tweet (by Rachel)

Hello there! Rachel here today with another post with samples from the December shows. I love these stamps...I think they are so very versatile.  In this birdhouse I used stamps from  live-out-loud and fly-away-with-me.

I also used a script stamp in the background and added a melting pot flower too.

For this card I used the same two stamp sets working this time onto a gelli background that I had created using paints.

Finally in this card I used wise owl rubber stamp sheet - firstly with the gelli plate to create the background and also stamping in paint and fussy cutting the main image. I also used the sentiment from the live out loud sheet.

I hope you feel inspired by these makes and use the ideas to inform your own makes! Big hugs rachel xx

Golden Dawn - by Penny

Goodly morning peeps, I hope this finds you all well and warm today.  I'm back today with my second post of this month, a cheerful card from the December tv shows featuring the beautiful Bird stamps.  So for this project I have used stamps from the Let Your Heart Sing, Dawn Chorus, and Live Out Loud  sets; Distress Inks, Versamark ink and gold EP.

I took a piece of white card and, using a couple of stencils from my stash I created a scenic background with a bright sunburst created with Distress Inks.  

I then stamped the Dawn Chorus collage image at the bottom of the panel using Versamark ink and embossed it in gold.  I repeated the process with two bird in the grass images.  I wanted the images to be seen clearly above the first one, so after embossing them I lengthened the grass on one of the images by painting an extension with a fine brush and glycerine, then embossed it as normal.  I stamped and embossed the poem at the top of the panel and added gold pen around the edges of the panel.   

I matted the panel onto black card and set it aside.  On a white base card I stamped several worker stamps from all the sets around the edges with DI then attached the focal panel to it.

Thank you for popping in today and spending a few minutes with me and these beautiful stamps.  I'll be back later in the month with some more crafty fun and inspiration.

Take care until next time

                         xx  Penny xx

Birds at any season (by Magda)

Hello,
during this month I am posting projects with the beautiful stamps Lesley showcased on Hochanda at the beginning of December.
Birds can be used at any season to send warm messages to friends.

For my projects I used Versafine  Onyx Black for stamping the following stamps:
Let your heart sing
Fly away with me
Live out loud
Fat Robin

Distress Ink Pad through stencils or used as a wash allowed to change the white cardstock  and a tag into a colorful background

These following 3 cards explain my interpretation of research done on the relationship between the  bird, primary colours and songs. 

 Blue Bird : a song by Paul McCartney

Red Bird : a Children's song 1966 renewed in 1994

Yellow Bird :  an old Haitian Folk Song

I hope you enjoyed my post and thank you for passing by 

Magda

A Bird Song (by Judith)

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year to you all. I hope that you had a good break over the festive period, and are looking forward to the year ahead. As you read this post, I will be at the studios with Lesley for our Birthday TV shows, featuring some beautiful products, and I really hope that you can watch the shows, either live, or on catch up over the next week.


My project today features stamps from last month's TV shows, when I was unfortunately too ill to help Lesley out. Nonetheless, I love these wonderful stamps, and wanted to make something to share with you. I have chosen a fabulous sentiment from the Live Out Loud stamp set, which I feel is a really affirmative and positive message to give someone, especially if they need cheering up.


I created my background by using a piece of Textured Art card, blending Brushos with Tinting Base, and dry brushing the colours over the background. I coloured a whiteboard heart with the same colours. I stamped an image from the same stamp set onto the heart, and then used the leaves as a border. I used Jet Black Archival Ink for the stamping.

I will be back later in the month with more projects to share with you. Thanks for stopping by,


Judith xx

Live out Loud by Brenda

Good morning, Brenda here with my first post of January sharing some of my Bird creations from Lesley's recent Hochanda shows. 

As I have been rather poorly for the last couple of months I am being ably assisted by hubby in writing up my posts, I can push inks and paints about and my stamping platform is a wonderful asset but not too good stringing the words together so we will blame his lack of crafty knowledge if there are a few faux pas!

The top card started with an oxide ink background panel with repeat stamping using the flourish from Dawn Chorus and the focal panels with images from Live out loud, again using versafine black and heat embossed with detail clear embossing powder. The edges of each panel inked with versamark, dusted with detail gold powder and heat embossed, then layered up with foam pads to give some dimension.

I am rather obsessed with MDF monolith's, they make a nice change from cards and are fun to work with. This one was given a quick coat of gesso, followed by Little Birdie chalk acrylic paint which I am equally obsessed with along with the Little Birdie crackle medium which I also used on this piece. It really is one of the best I've used and perfect for both the experienced and new crafter. Next some texture paste added through a stencil and the Owl from Wise owl stamped with Versafine black and gold accents added to both the Owl and stencilled elements. Some feathers from Dawn Chorus stamped here and there, sentiment from Sing your song, ribbon and finally liquid pearls to highlight.

Finally a bright and cheerful card using lots of masking and the bird images from Fly away with me, I created masks for the three images, using three lovely bright colours of Versafine Clair inks and just repeat stamped using the masks to move across the squares of card. It takes a little time but is fun to do and providing you remember to place the mask where you have stamped you can't really go wrong.

Many thanks for popping in today and wishing you a Happy and Crafty 2019.

Sanskrit Proverb by Glenda

This simple card features stamps from Indian Textiles and the saying is from Live Out Loud.  
The proverb really means a lot to me - you can read more about this card over on my own blog, glendawaterworth.com.

I've been trying to get into the habit of blogging about our Stamp of the Week on a Friday, but the last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle to fit it in.  So I've decided that instead of writing a whole blog post about it, I will simply put a link in the sidebar.  You should be able to see it there on the right.  It's at the top now, but I will probably move it down a bit, so don't forget to check in on a Friday to see what is on offer each week.