Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone, hope you are all enjoying the lovely weekend. I have neglected my blog for a couple of weeks as I have been decorating the dining room and then it was the school holidays so no time for crafting!
I made this card for my mother in law using the HobbyArt stamps and thencoloured with promarkers. The eggs were from an Elusive Image set. I stamped the base egg in a pale blue and then overstamped it with the speckled egg using a brown dye ink. I had a spare 15 minutes this afternoon and that is how long this card took to make so simple pimple!

Heart Plaque

I have used this technique on numerous occasions as I love the effect this Elusive Images stamps gives when it is stamped into Hearty Clay.

The base used is a plain wooden panel bought from Hobby Craft, which I have coloured using distress and alcohol inks. I then placed a stencil in opposite corners and applied sno tex paste over the top. Holes were punched using a Crop O dile and the dangley hearts are shrink plastic versions of the large heart on the plaque.

Hope you all have a good weekend. Bye for now

Wooden Bangle

It's the end of January and my blog posting has been almost non existent! I will try and make up for it with this wooden bangle that I have customised. Nothing flashy as I am still experimenting, but I painted the whole bangle with a sage green acrylic paint and then stamped the design with black staz-on. The rubber stamp is from a set designed by Elusive Images. I found a black ProMarker was perfect to edge the bangle, much easier than fiddling around with a paint brush. I then added two coats of Glossy Accents to add a slight sheen and to protect the paint. I have a couple more of these to play with so I hope I can come up with something a little more adventurous for next time.

Thank You Cards

The free stamp from Craft Stamper magazine this month came in very handy to make my thank you cards for our Christmas presents. I stamped the lilac card with a script stamp from hero arts and the main swirl stamp which I think came from Galaxy stamps or something like that! I stamped the free stamp designed by Elusive Images into purple paper clay and cut around the image. When it was dry I went over the image with silver rub on to high-light the raised area. The sentiment has been printed from my computer and mounted onto a piece of silver mirri card which has had the corners rounded. To finish off I justed added some purple ink to the edges of the base card.

Retro Flowers

Afternoon all. The card I have today has been made using the Retro Flower stamp plate from Elusive Images. There are some fantastic images in this set so I will definitely be dipping into these again. I have used a mixture of chalk and distress inks to stamp the vase and flowers.
I made the flower in the top left corner from three punched flowers that have been cut up and glued together. It is something similar to Maria's rose design that can be found here, but I have changed the centre. The leaves have been cut from a Quickutz die and coloured with green distress inks. That's it for now folks, short and sweet I know but we're just dashing out for some scrummy tea :)

Sew Simple!

Today I have a stitched flower card to show you. The stamp is from Elusive Images and has been stamped onto Grunge Paper. The image has been distressed around the edges with distress ink and the main flower design has been painted with Inktense water colour paints and then stitched. The backing papers are both from Dovecraft paper packs. The base paper has been inked with Peeled Paint Distress Ink. The happy birthday was stamped onto the same base paper and then stuck to some spare card to make it rigid so that it could be mounted onto the card with foam squares. As you can see most of the corners have been attacked with a round corner punch.

July Graphicus Challenge

Evening everyone, I was lucky enough to visit the Newbury Stamp Show yesterday and came across a lovely lady from Lex Craft Supplies who happened to have Glenda's latest stamps! It was very hard to choose between the three fantastic sets but in the end I chose the Seahorse and shells set. I am really pleased with them and think I will probably be entering more than once this month as I have so many ideas. I chose to work with reds and browns for this card and started by punching a large square from a post-it note to make a mask for the tiled background. I sponged Antique Linen distress ink in the squares, trying to line them up carefully as I went. I then stamped the starfish and shell in each square using sepia Versafine ink. The shell panel was stamped with the Versafine as before but before I started I made a mask of each of the designs (using post-it notes)so I could make the shells look as though they have been stamped behind each other. The shells have been painted with inktense water colour pencils. The panel has been edged with a brown marker pen and then worn lipstick distress ink sponged around the edge. The worn lipstick was also sponged around the tiled background. I found some string in my bits a pieces box so used it to decorate the sides of the panel which was stuck to the card with Glossy Accents.

Graphicus April Challenge

This months Graphicus challenge is very much in keeping with the season as the theme is Blossom with the colours being pink and green. As you can see I have used no imagination whatsoever and done exactly as it said!:) The stamps used are by Elusive Images and they come from the Orchard build a tree stamp plate. The trees were stamped with light brown and the blossom was stamped using a couple of pink shades a light green and the odd dab of white all from the chalk ink range. The tree background has been painted with the Derwent Inktense pencils and a water brush. The border has been stamped with the blossom stamps but the green used is peeled paint distress ink along with the pink chalk inks. The border has been cut from an A5 card and glued to the front of the card using silicone glue. I have blended the colours in the border and trees by sponging some extra chalk ink to blend it all together.

Your Special Day

I had forgotten how much I liked the brass stencil used as the centre piece of this card until I dug it out for my yellow beaded canvas a short while ago hence why it has been used again. I coloured some chip board with green tinka billa ink and then placed the Plaid stencil onto it, securing it with masking tape. I then applied snow tex paste to the stencil and when it had dried I brushed some faded jeans distress ink to add a slight blue tinge to the white snow tex. I then dabbed clear drying glue to the image and sprinkled with the blue glitter which was a free gift with a magazine a while back (can't remember which one). The chip board has been edged with the blue ink and then mounted onto some olive green glossy card. The base card has been stamped and clear embossed using a scroll corner from Elusive Images and stamped in a blue pigment ink. I then went over the whole card with Peeled Paint Distress Ink using a sponge.
The paper flowers from Kaiser Craft have been stamped on using the scroll corner and the Peeled Paint Distress Ink and finished off with a small green button from Paper Mania. The greeting has been created on the computer and printed onto white card then coloured with the peeled paint. I then layered it onto the olive green glossy card and attached it to the base card using 3mm foam squares.

Graphicus, March Challenge

Good morning everyone, it's lovely and sunny with a perfect blue sky here today, so I thought I would post my Graphicus Challenge as it is a nice sunny yellow inspired piece. Glenda set the March challenge as the colour yellow and the title Song. Mmm I thought..... what could I do to incorporate both of these elements and use Elusive Images stamps. Well I came up with this creation, when you see the title you will probably think Cheesy! but I couldn't stop humming the tune!

I started off with an A5 canvas board and spritzed it with yellow and orange glimmer mists (sorry can't remember the exact colour names), then I stamped the corner swirl and daisy collage stamp onto white tissue paper using light brown staz-on, which I then glued onto the canvas with watered down PVA glue. When dry I sponged the edges with yellow acrylic paint. I found a brass stencil in my stash that had a similar pattern to the Elusive Image corner stamp so used in the opposite corner with snow tex paste. When this was dry I dabbed it with the yellow acrylic paint. The butterfly has been made by stamping the butterfly stamp into green hearty clay and cutting out. when it was dry I dabbed yellow glimmer mist over the surface and attached wire and beads as the antenna. It was attached to the canvas with silicone glue. The title was stamped with an alphabet set in black staz-on. The holes at the top and bottom of the canvas was made using a Crop A dile and the beads threaded onto beading wire. To finish off two paper sunflowers were added using silicone glue. Voila!

Blog Candy from Elusive Images

Wow, there is some fab stamps up for grabs on the Elusive Image Design Team's blog. Take a look, I don't really want to encourage anyone else to apply because I want them all, but unfortunately I have to!!