Songbird

A disappointing start to a Saturday morning to see yet more snow falling here in the South East of England, its supposed to be Spring. I was sitting drinking a cup of tea and thinking the birds must still be struggling to find food and they have eaten everything I put out recently so I ventured out in the cold with some bread for them. The crumbs were intended for the small songbirds but the first to arrive was the magpie closely followed by the pigeon.

For today's project I wanted to get my entry done for the CASology challenge which for this week is "Song". Songbird is the song I chose.
Last night reading Craft Stamper magazine (page 62 March copy) I also wanted to try the faux airbrush technique and enter the Craft Stamper Take it, Make it challenge where you take the technique and make something. Here is my one layer card:

I die cut some card and used that as the stencil. Using a sponge, dab distress ink in Tumbled Glass and a bit of Faded Jeans then stamp the music using grey versafine ink. The bird and Happy Birthday are all stamped in black archival. All stamps used are Papermania, the music and bird are from Urban Stamps Bird Print and the sentiment from Mix N' Match Celebration.

Stay warm and hope you have a great Saturday.

More Flowers

I was chuffed to bits to win the February challenge on the Show us your Twinchies blog, now I get to proudly display a winners badge. I really enjoy the twinchie challenges because the design team show such a variety of examples for each theme and the entries by others are so creative. There is plenty of time to think about the themes and to produce the artwork as well which is great if you are at work all week and have limited time. Go check it out, these twinchies are addictive and fun.

So, on to the March theme where Challenge 3 is 'Flower or Flowers'.
I seem incapable of using anything other than JOFY stamps recently, I love them so here is another one using  parts of the stamp set JOFY 11 and JOFY 9.

 

The 2 inch square background is kraft card that has been embossed, a scrap from a previous project. For the background I used randomly sponged distress inks and stamped the flowers and word in black archival ink. I used Inktense pencils to colour the flowers and painted over them with water to intensify the colours. Simple but bright and happy which was the effect I was after.

Flowers and Frames

The theme for week 111 at Less is More is "Frame it".
Here is my entry for this week's challenge :

The recipe:

Distress inks for the background - iced spruce and broken china, then spritzed with water.

PaperArtsy JOFY stamp JM11 stamped using black archival ink.

The leaves and buds were painted with bleach to remove the colour.

The frame was inked lightly with broken china distress ink and mounted with foam pads. This was not a die, it took an age fiddling to cut the aperture from a die cut topper I found in my stash.

I recommend using Ranger Manila cardstock for the distress ink and bleach technique. I tried the first version on white cardstock but the colours did not blend so well - in the bin!

Happy Saturday, hope you are having fun wherever you are. x 

Bunnies

Easter is going to be with us before we know it and I wanted to do something a little different for an Easter card. I used the Alice Palace stamp from Crafty Individuals called Crowned Bunnies, stamped them on white cardstock and coloured them with distress markers. This is mounted on blue card and then mounted on Kraft card embossed using a Sizzix beaded ribbons embossing folder. I added a doily strip to the bottom and the card is done. I'm thinking it is a little dark, not a happy bright Easter card at all but I do like those bunnies.

This week's challenge at CASology  is Bunnies so I will post my card there. I love the cute bunny examples that others have made and great inspiration as always on the CASology blog. 

Spots and Stripes

I am amazed at how quickly people who can knit manage to make scarves. My Auntie offered to knit one for me if I sent the yarn to her. The wool was purchased on Monday evening on the way home from work, posted on Tuesday lunchtime and the finished article has just arrived through my letterbox this morning. Less than a week turnaround, fabulous!

So, I need to send her a card to say Thank you.

Inspired by Jen's example for this week's Less is More challenge : One Layer Card with Spots and Stripes, I made this quick card:

The stripes are stamped using Brilliance ink in Galaxy Gold, stamp is from Hero Arts.

To add the spots I used a Crafters Workshop mask called mini punchinella with 3 colours of Colorbox chalk cats eyes.

The flower pot is from Polka Doodles and I added the black doodled lines around the stripes which was the idea from Jen's design that I wanted to try. My hand was not too steady but the doodling ties the design together.

JOFY Stamps

Are we ever going to see some sunshine? Its a grey, cold February Sunday and I reckon if its winter outside then inside there can be Spring. So, today's project was to experiment with my JOFY stamps and try out something a little different .... painting with Fresco Finish acrylic paints, I am starting a collection!
I watched the YouTube video from PaperArtsy this morning with a tutorial on using the opaque and translucent paints so the inspiration for my project came from there.
I used the JOFY09 set of stamps for the images and the butterfly is from one of the new sets, JOFY11.
Here it is:

The thermometer is a wood substrate. First I painted it in Nougat which is an opaque paint and gives a good neutral coverage to the bare wood for adding more layers of paint. Then I used a couple of the translucents for the background, Beach Hut and Hey Pesto. This gives a nice shabby distressed look.
I then stamped the flowers and words in black archival ink and heat set it with a heat gun, just to be sure and because I was eager to get on with this project.
The flowers, leaf and grasses are then painted with watered down layers of paint. I used Pumpkin Soup, Hey Pesto, Hyde Park, Beach Hut and Inky Pool.
I was happy with the result but there was something missing so I stamped the butterfly, stood back, looked at it .....oh no! The butterfly was upside down!! All was not lost because Leandra says in the video that opaque paints really are opaque and will cover up anything and its true. I started again with Nougat over the butterfly and once dry added more Beach Hut and it is fixed. Stamped the butterfly the correct way up, painted it and there you go, finished project.

I also wanted to try out a card, inspiration from a fabulous tag by Linda Cain, thank you Linda.
Distress inks used for the background and drops of water to get a faux batik effect. The flowers are again from JOFY09 .... ah, I have got so much use out of that set .... and coloured with distress markers. It was Linda's idea of using the white pen that I wanted to try but I only had a Sakura Souffle pen in white so I had a go and this is the result. I must add a decent white pen to my shopping list.

Finally for today, another card, this time using two of the new JOFY Minis. Images stamped in black archival ink on white card, mask off the panel so that the background remains white and add distress ink to the background. I coloured the leaf using walnut stain distress marker and the buds in the same. This is then mounted on Kraft card. 

  

Love is in the Air

The Show us your Twinchies challenge theme this month is Love is in the Air so I have made a simple twinchie using some of the stamps from a Wow set called "Is it a bird".
The background hearts are stamped with clear versamark and then covered with pink chalk. The main image is stamped with black archival ink and the little hearts hanging from the tree are coloured with a red promarker.
I hope you like it.