Spring Garden (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with a Spring themed card using the beautiful new release stamp 'Walled Garden' and one of my old favourite sets  called Glorious Spring.The winter seems to have been very grey and wet so I thought it was time for a reminder that Spring isn't too far away (hopefully)

I began by stamping and masking the primroses from Glorious Spring on watercolour card. Next I stamped the Walled Garden and then the two rabbit stamps, I didn't bother to mask the Walled Garden stamp. Next I inked the sky using Tumbled Glass and Broken China distress inks applied with an ink blending tool. To create the clouds, I used a very wet paintbrush to create some cloud shapes in the sky. I left the water for a minute and then blotted with kitchen roll. I coloured the images with distress inks and inked around the edges with brown ink. The sky looked a little blank so I stamped the sentiment (again from Glorious Spring) in the cloudy sky.

I matted the image on kraft card and added a bow, paper flower and a filigree corner from my stash.

Thanks for visiting today

Claire xx

The view from the garden wall (by Lesley)

Hi everyone, today I am actually posting one of my own pieces of artwork. Seems ages since I was let loose on here! Anyway, this one was designed for the TV show when the stamp launched last month and I made it to demonstrate a couple of new techniques. Bit of a long one, so maybe you need to pull up the chair.

• To create the sky take a piece of 300gsm white cardstock, cut to 5" square. Tap three colours of distress inkpad on to an acrylic block, I used Barn Door, Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade. Spritz with water and then drag the block along the top half of the card.
• For the grass clean the block and repeat the same exercise using Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage and Mustard Seed.  If you want a less 'yellow green' grass then leave out the Mustard Seed. Again spritz with water and drag along the bottom half of the card, allowing the colours to slight overlap the sky.  Set aside to dry thoughly.
• Stamp the Walled Garden on to a self adhesive label with Jet Black Archival ink and colour with Distress inks and a water brush. When dry, cut out. TIP: Don't worry about the trailing rose stems on the top of the wall, you can draw these back in later.
• Peel the backing off the label and position on the background, then trim around the edges.
• To create the walled effect take another piece of 300gsm white card, approx 5" square, an old credit card and Vintage Sepia Versafine ink. Run the long edge of the card through the inkpad and then 'stamp' random lines horizontally across the white card. Keeping reinking the credit card and continue until you have covered in one direction (side to side).
• Now repeat, this time stamping vertically between the horizontal lines. You want this criss-cross stamping to resemble bricks. It doesn't matter if it is uneven. Sponge Old Paper Distress ink around the edges of the card to give an aged appearance.
• To distress around the edge of the card use either a distress tool or run a pair of scissor blades backwards and forwards over each edge to rough up the cardstock.
• To assemble, glue the background to the faux wall and then attach to a 5.5" square blank Kraft card.
• Finally draw back in the trailing rose branches using a black fineliner pen.

I love 'painting' with an acrylic block and of course if you change the colour combinations you can have a winter or a pale summer sky, brilliant green fields or something a little more subdued. Best of all you will always 'paint' a unique background since the inks on the block will spread out on the card differently each time you do it. I hope you will try these techniques and create your own view from the garden wall.

Thanks for dropping by and please call again soon for more beautiful creations from our fabulous team.

walled garden

this is a BIG stamp, almost 5" across, and easily makes a card on it's own.
I stamped using black versafine onto white card, and also onto masking tissue. I cut out the archway from the masking tissue, and masked off the rest of the image so that I could create a scene in the archway using the mini tree stamp that comes as an extra.I used distress ink for the tree, stamping aagain without re-inking for the further tree and using a waterbrush to drag the colour out to make the grass. A tiny bit of tumbled glass added for the sky with the waterbrush.
The main image was coloured with a waterbrush to pick up watercolour markers scribbled onto an acrylic block.
Image cut to size, matted onto an olive green card, then onto a base of watercolour paper coloured with brusho powders that I had lying around that just seemed to go with the colours I had used.
The white base card was 15x15cm, and was complately coverd by the watercolour paper.

An Old Postcard (by Asha)

Good morning, fellow Chocoholics. My turn today to share a project and I'm playing with one of the new cling singles called Walled Garden. Here's a simple project that you could easily make without getting too inky. I was inspired by my grandmother's very old holiday snaps. 

To recreate this old postcard look, start by stamping the image on cream cardstock. I coloured it with alcohol markers, but pencils will work well too. Lastly, ink the edges with Distress Ink. To soften the wall I added stamped the falling ivy from the June Fairy DL sheet.

I've made a simple card but with this stamp you can do so much more. Come back soon and be prepared to be wowed by the rest of the team. As always you'll find more detail about this card on my blog.

Thanks for stopping by and have a beautiful day!

Beijinhos,
Asha

Celebrate the New Year with New Stamps (by Lesley)

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year and are feeling ready to face 2016.  I wouldn't blame you if you weren't. Rubbish weather, back to work, dark mornings and nights - not a lot to put a smile on your face there. So I hope that seeing these gorgeous new stamps will gladden your heart just a little and inspire to get back to stamping and crafting.

Last month we exclusively launched two new individual cling mounted stamps on the Craft Channel and today they are now on general release.  Walled Garden and Another Brick in the Walled Garden are cling mounted and cut out ready to use as soon as you receive them. And both stamps benefit from having a Free unmounted bonus stamp included in the pack.

Here is the Walled Garden, with the silhouette tree that stamps perfectly in the archway.

Another Brick in the Walled Garden (and yes the association with Pink Floyd's immortal song is intentional!) has a silhouette flower stem that can be used to add extra interest around the wall.

Sue has drawn two wonderful images that will be can be stamped and coloured with whatever medium you choose.  Whether you are a novice stamper or you have a wealth of experience these stamps will be so useful for a variety of projects and occasions.

You will have already seen some of the excellent samples from the Design Team girls and I have to say they really did the stamps justice with all their TV creations. They featured on the TV along with our Steampunk Butterfly and Steampunk Travel sets, so watch out for more inspiration using all these stamps during this month.