Poppy Congratulations (by Carole)

Today sees the first post this month from our regular Guest team Design member Carole Cann. Carole has created a lovely card to inspire you incorporating soft colours, and a wooden heart. 

Carole writes:

Good morning everyone.
I am delighted to be back again as a Guest Design Team member, during February.
I have used the beautiful poppy stamp from Poppy Meadow and the centre of Song Thrush. It is relatively quick to make too.
The poppy has been stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink and clear embossed, to fit onto a DL card base.
I have used a 7cm heart shape as the central element.
As my shape was wood and I wanted the blue to be crisp and clear, I painted it with slightly watered down, white acrylic paint.
When dry, the centre of the Song Thrush stamp was inked with Blue Versafine ink, and the heart was placed over the section I wanted to stamp.
All the colouring has been done with watercolour pencils.
For the top and bottom edges, I drew a line using the same blue as the rest of the card. I then pulled a damp baby wipe along the edge to smudge and soften it slightly.
The joy of poppy stamps is that you can colour them almost any colour that you like. This shape reminded me of blue Icelandic poppies.

I hope that you have enjoyed my post and I will see you next week with my second project.
Thanks, and happy crafting,

Carole.

Summer Song Thrush (by Carole)

Hello everyone, today we have another fabulous project from our Guest Design Team member Carole Cann. 

Carole writes:

Hello again, here is my card for this week as a Guest Designer.

I have used stamps from the Harlequin Rose and Pretty Poppies stamp sets, plus the Garden Lace Scene and Song Thrush individual stamps.
I stamped and silver embossed the panel onto black card and coloured it with mica powders. The whole scene was then glazed, this is a technique I really like on black, as it gives a very dramatic effect.
The border was stamped and silver embossed onto white card and then coloured with Distress Ink. I then discovered, by accident, that the panel sat nicely into the border of the Garden Lace Scene, so I decided to use that as part of the background too. The words are from the Summer Poppies stamp set.

A full description of the project can be found on my blog.

Thank you for looking,

Carole 😃

Carole will be back with her final post for this month next week,

Song Thrush (posted by Claire)

Good morning, how's your week going? It's been quite nippy here but it's nice to get up in the morning and see some sunshine and hear the birds singing. I've used one of my favourite birdy stamps Song Thrush  to make this card, it's one of the Cling Singles Range and its such a lovely image.

I coloured the image with Graph'It markers and layered it up on white card, distressing all the edges with a craft knife and running a black inkpad around the edges for a little definition.

To make the background I used shades of pink, blue and lilac distress ink misted with water and then splashed darker shades of ink over with a paint brush. Next  I added some texture with a stencil and glossy gel medium. I sprinkled glamour dust over the gel for  some sparkle.

To finish off I've added lace, ribbon, pearls and a little resin flower.

Thanks so much for visiting today

Claire xx

A Bird for all Seasons and Ophelia the Mermaid? (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I hope that you are enjoying the range of projects from the Design Team this month. I have chosen to use some of the new individual cling mounted stamps Song Thrush and Ophelia for my projects for you today.

For my first project, I wanted to show the diversity of this lovely stamp, and how it could be used to create cards all year round, so I have made a Christmas card. I started by embossing the image three times, using white embossing powder on some green scrapbook paper, and colouring the image with pencils. I decoupaged the flowers and bird. I layered the image onto kraft card, using some dark red card as a mat for contrast. I also added some holly die cuts, and some more stamping, using a berry stamp from the Woodland Dreams stamp set which I also coloured with pencils. I tucked some flowers from a spare image under the main frame, along with the holly die cuts. I added some shading around the edge of the kraft background, using Festive Berries Distress Ink. Finally, I added a sentiment taken from the Warm Christmas Greetings clear stamp set.

For my second sample, I stamped Ophelia onto a piece of heavy weight cartridge paper, and then masked the image. I coloured the background by blending three different colours of Distress Inks randomly all over the page. I stamped an image from the Texture Fragments stamp set onto opposite corners, using one of the same colours of Distress Ink. I then flicked water onto the other areas of the page and dried it with a heat gun, to emphasise the watermarks.

I stamped and embossed a seaweed image along the bottom of the page, from the Underwater stamp set,  using a blue/green metallic powder. I then added some flowers which I had cut out and coloured with pencils from the Song Thrush Silhouette image. It just goes to show that you can add flowers to just about anything! Finally, I coloured Ophelia using pencils, and matted the project using toning coloured card.

Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx