Underwater Wall Hanging (by Penny)

Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that I am introducing a new member of our Guest Design Team on the Design Team Blog today.  Our newest member is Penny Butler, who has long been a staunch supporter of the blog, our Facebook group, and also our Challenge Blog. You can find beautiful examples of Penny's work on her own blog, Lady Penelope's FAB Crafty Blogspot. Before we take a look at Penny's first project, we are going to allow her to introduce herself to you:

Hi I'm Penny and I am very delighted and honoured to be asked to share some projects with you all. I've been crafting and drawing since childhood, art was always my favourite subject at school! I live in Somerset with my Husband and our cats, (mad cat lady alert!). We have four children and two lovely grandsons. I have been crafting as a hobby for over twenty years, dabbling in textiles, dress making, glass painting, beading, silk painting and more. About sixteen years ago I was introduced to card making and stamping - and that was it! Nowadays my main crafty passions are stamping, scrapbooking, mixed media and home decor - especially up-cycling! I don't really have a particularly crafty style, as I like all sorts, but I DO love colour! One of my projects involves using the first stamps I ever bought from Chocolate Baroque - Christmas Flourish. I hope that you enjoy the projects :)

It was lovely to get to know you a little better Penny, and without any further ado, here is Penny's first project for us, a piece of home decor made using stamps from the Underwater Kingdom and Seadragon stamp sets.

Penny writes:

I used a panel of greyboard as the base and painted it with white gesso. I used some acrylic paints in blue, green and silver, painting and blending them in stripes across the panel. The silver makes the other paints appear pearlescent. I then stamped and embossed some seaweed and the palace.

I masked the palace and brayered some texture over the whole panel using some crumpled paper. I used Brushos to paint the seaweed, rubbed off the mask and painted the palace. I mixed some silver paint with the Brushos to make them pearlescent. I stamped a sentiment randomly several times, stamped a couple of mermaids in second generation ink, then gave the panel a coat of varnish.

On a piece of white card I stamped and embossed the Sea Dragon and a few other images. I painted them in the same way and cut them out. I gave each image a coat of varnish, then adhered them to the panel. I punched a couple of holes and added some ribbon for hanging the panel.

I hope you enjoyed this project, thank you for visiting :)

Penny Butler.

Thanks so much for your inspirational project and detailed explanation Penny. We look forward to seeing another project from you next week.

Underwater Tangled Mermaid (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with my first sample made using the gorgeous new stamps Tangled Fragments. I've combined them with an old favourite, the beautiful mermaid from Underwater Kingdom

I began by stamping the mermaid with Memento Tuxedo Black and colouring her with Graph'It markers before masking her with some masking tissue. I stamped the lovely fragment in the background using a Waterfall Big & Juicy inkpad and then inked around the edges very lightly with distress inks (Tumbled Glass and Shabby Shutters). I  removed the masking tissue and added a shadow around the mermaid with my markers

The background was made with the Waterfall Big & Juicy inkpad, I swiped it over my craft mat and misted the ink with water before mopping up with a square of white card. I over stamped with the same inkpad, again using the beautiful fragment stamp. I used the excess ink on my craft mat to colour some seam binding ribbon.

I used some little pearls in the corners and added a sentiment from Loving Sentiments and popped on a little turtle charm to finish off.

Thanks for visiting today

Claire xx

Mermaid Landscape (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with  a card created using the beautiful new stamps 'Magical Landscapes', such a beautiful selection of images and although they'll work perfectly with all the lovely fairy stamps as soon as I saw this image I knew I wanted to use it with this mermaid from Underwater Kingdom

The background was made using distress inks, tumbled glass, shabby shutters, salty ocean and mowed lawn. I also used some of the ink from my craft mat to colour the ribbon. I overstamped the background with one of the stamps from Abstract Fragments and embossed with white embossing powder.

The image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with Graph'It Markers, I added some 'waves' with a white sharpie pen and glitter. I also used the Crafters Workshop Tile Texture stencil with clear gel medium and once that was dry I inked with more Tumbled Glass and Broken China distress ink.

I've distressed all the edges with my craft knife and added shells, pearls and cheescloth from my stash to finish off.

I hope you're enjoying all the inspiration with this months gorgeous new stamps

Claire xx