Florals and Marks (by Sandra)

Hello

I am sharing some more of my cards made for the March shows on Hochanda.

My first card is a clean and simple card using stamps from the  Make Your Mark set.   These are stamps that I would normally use in mixed media, but it just goes to show how versatile and fun these stamps are.  I stamped with Archival Ink and masked each circle off with Masking Tissue.

This is the beautiful Poppy Ledger set. I love how the fresh poppies work so well with the old ledger background. The background is made with Distress Inks and the poppies are coloured with watercolour pens.

Here, I have cut a section of the Poppy Ledger with a scalloped die and layered up onto some card. I have made a background using the small stamp from Make Your Mark which Lesley made from sticky tape!

My last card is the Floral Study set.  I stamped in Versafine Clair ink and used Distress Inks to colour in the flowers. 

Thanks for looking
Sandra x

Book Making and Making Marks (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a few more projects to share with you today showcasing the fabulous stamps that we brought to last month's TV shows on Hochanda. The collection of stamps had a little bit of something for everyone, and I enjoyed working with them so much. I am sure that you will love them too!

My first project is a handmade book, I love books, and used to buy so many of them. Nowadays, I like to make my own, from simple accordian books, to fabric covered books that I have stitched together and used more complicated bookbinding techniques. This project uses a corrugated cardboard envelope that I received from a mail order company, and I have simply taken advantage of the fold of the envelope to create the spine of the book. I folded twelve pieces of drawing cartridge in half, splitting them into three groups, and these became the signatures of my book. I popped the pieces inside each other, so that I had four pieces of drawing cartridge sitting neatly inside each other, in groups of three. I made three holes up the fold of each group of paper.

I cut the cardboard envelope to make a cover so that it was slightly larger than the drawing cartridge, and made three lots of three holes in the spine, which would enable me to sew each signature into the cover in a simple bookbinding method. There are lots of You Tube tutorials for this, just do a search online for 'simple bookbinding', and you will find lots of help. If I were to make another one of these books, I do think that I would put washi tape on the spine for added strengthening, but I am not intending to put this book through a lot of tough use, so it will probably be okay.

I used bookbinding thread to sew the signatures into the book, but you can used dental floss if you do not have any specialist supplies.

I used black card as a matting layer, this really sets off the zingy colours that I chose for my masterboard background. I used Distress Inks to blend across some drawing cartridge, and added tone on tone stamping using the bubble wrap effect stamp from Make Your Mark stamp set. I added the cracked stamp and circles in grey ink, and some of the word clusters to build up the background. To finish, I stamped the large circle using black ink onto a piece of scrap card, added the words once more, and matted it onto black card, to create a topper. I felt that these words were perfect for a journal, and especially in these uncertain times, they can remind us that life is not so bad after all.

You could create lots of these masterboard backgrounds and cut them up to make cards, bookmarks, book covers, all sorts of projects, it just goes to show that these mark making stamps can be the stars of the show and not just for backgrounds.

For my next project, I created a background of soft greens, and added leaves and a word cluster from the Glorious stamp set using a darker green ink. I stamped the Floral Study onto a smaller piece of card, and coloured the image using watercolour pencils. I edged both pieces of card with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

The background on this card contains a bit of everything! I coloured the drawing cartridge using Distress Ink, and added some stamping using the Large Crackle Background stamp. The circles,words and bubble wrap image are from the Glorious stamp set, and I have used the Chocolate Baroque Strip Stencil set. I have stamped and embossed the Poppy Ledger image onto kraft card using white embossing powder, and coloured it using Koh-I-Noor paints.

Finally, a super quick little masculine card using kraft card once more. I used the tape image from Make Your Mark and three different colours of ink; red, brown and white. I then stamped the sentiment onto one of the strips, which is something that Lesley had always envisaged with this strip image. You could change the colours, as some of the other Team members have done, and make really colourful versions of this type of design.

Thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx

Colour bursts by Brenda

Hello everyone, I never make any secret of the fact I love using colour in my work and today I have a collection of vibrancy to share.

Starting with the Whiteboard tag at the top which I treated to generous amounts of acrylic pain and gesso added with a brayer, pattern added using the square mask from Strip Stencils and random patterns using Make your Mark. Next I stamped seed heads from Glorious, sentiments and flicks of white pen.

The background was the brayer 'waste' from making the above tag and the same stencil set used to add some patterns, I like to apply paint or ink or in this case gesso to the stencil, dampen with water and then place onto the background and gently rub to release the patterns. The flower is from Glorious and some added background using Make your Mark. The sentiment is stamped onto a lolly stick which I painted with gesso to bring down the colour.

A Whiteboard Tag inked with Oxides and stamped with Floral Study coloured with watercolour pens. Again I have used the Strip Stencils in the background. I added some seam binding and a few sequins.

The seed heads from Glorious stamped onto a Gelli Plate background, coloured with pencils and stamps from Make your Mark around the edge. As with one of my cards earlier in the month the strip across the bottom is a scrap of pea netting from the garden, I rather like the organic feel it gives.

And finally there had to be another using the lovely Poppy Ledger which I stamped with Versafine Claire, coloured with Distress Markers and used a die set to create the card.

Stay safe and well everyone.

summer poppies

Poppies always remind me of summer and sunshine,  and I think we all need a reminder of better times now .
I have  two versions of a card using the lovely poppy stamp from last month's Hochanda shows to show you today. I adore poppies, so I really loved this one, and kept things fairly simple.
For this first one I used a sheet of card that had been coloured with a very dilute walnut stain spray and stamped the image using black versafine ink and clear embossing powder.
The poppies were coloured with alcohol markers to make sure they stood out from the background.
The base card was randomly stamped with just the poppy part of the stamp using distress ink and holding the stamp in my hand. The mat is a dark brown card



For the second card I wanted the poppies to really stand out, so stamped in black onto white card, and then just part of the poppies in black onto a Tando  circle . I coloured just the poppies with alcohol markers then lined the circle up with the base image before adding a black mat layer.
Base card was sponged with hickory smoke distress oxide round the edges and parts of the ledger stamp stamped randomly to create the background.

Glorious Circles and Kraft Poppies

Good morning peeps, I hope this finds you all healthy and happy.  This is my first post this month and I have two very different cards to share with you.   

Glorious Circles.

For this project I have used stamps from the Glorious and Make your Mark sets;                   Chocolate Baroque Strip Stencil, acrylic paints, Distress Inks, black Versafine ink, clear EP.

I had some backgrounds already made from the second CB Craftalong so I took one of them to use for this project.   I used  one of the CB stencils to apply white gesso randomly over the background.  I then stamped the two circle images in black ink and embossed them with clear EP.  I stamped and embossed the floral sprig in the same way in the center of the larger circle.  I then painted the flowers with DI, stamped and embossed a couple of leaves then painted and cut them out.  I attached them to the background with 3D glue.     

On a white base card I stamped the dotty image around the edges in  one colour and then the smaller circle image in another.  I trimmed the background panel and added ink around the edges and attached it to the base card.  I added a sentiment panel to complete the project.

Kraft Poppies.

For this project I have used stamps from the Make Your Mark and Poppy Ledger stamp sets; CB Kraft Card, Distress Inks, sepia Versafine, black Versafine, clear EP, and a black pen from my stash.
   

I began by taking a piece of Kraft card and stamping the Poppy Ledger image in black then embossing it with clear EP.  I used  DIs to paint and colour the image. 

I then used the crackle and smaller ring images around the edges of the card, stamping them in sepia ink repeatedly and in first and second generation ink.  I added a border with black pen around the edges of the Kraft card, then attached it to a white base card.  I created a sentiment panel in the same way and attached it to the card.

Thank you for stopping by today, I hope you have found this post inspiring and enjoyable.  I shall be back later in the month with more crafty fun to share!

Until then take care and stay safe,


                                  xx  Penny  xx

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.