SDC 225 - Alphabets

SDC 225 - Alphabets

Sooooo, normally when a challenge is set I like to try and get it done asap. However with Christmas and all well darn, it just had to wait. I am however very happy with the finished result and it is my last Christmas card of the year for my crafting friend Rebecca, she has it now so it's safe to post.

The challenge was set by Claudine Criner, her theme "Alphabets".

"Use your alphabet stamps or image stamps to create a letter of the alphabet".

My chosen letter was W for warm, winter, wishes.

I began with a white card blank and added a few base layers to work on. The uppermost base layer was stamped and embossed with white detail embossing powder.

A "W" was cut from cardboard and distressed by removing parts of the layers to show the corrugated detail below, this was then dry brush painted with white chalk paint.

Not happy with that finish I added another layer, this time I swiped the embossing ink over the raised edges and embossed with white embossing powder.

The snow people were stamped onto watercolour paper and coloured with distress inks then sealed with distress glaze.

Snowflakes were die cut and embossed again with white embossing powder.

The snow at the bottom edge was torn card and the edges, yes you guessed it heat embossed in white.

The warm, winter, wishes were stamped using an alphabet set and die cut.

Everything was arrange and stuck down.

Tah Dah!

Last Christmas card sorted hope you liked it Rebecca.

Just to say I loved the card and gift you made for me here is a virtual hug and kiss for you.
oxo

To see more Alphabet inspiration pop on over to the Stampotique blog here.

Finally, "Happy Christmas everyone!".

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 12

Day 12

Today is my final day in 12 days of Christmas card making, all of my postal cards are now done and in the post.
 I do still have other cards to do tho, special ones that get hand delivered and ones I can't put on the blog until they've been delivered.
 So here is my day 12 card.

Yes it is another Indigo Blu, this time stockings, the set comprises of 2 stamps a base  and top. The base stocking was stamped 3 times on patterned card and 3 times onto  brown card, then cut out and layered up.
Once the elements were dry the top stocking stamp was stamped with embossing ink and a wow embossing glitter was used to add a touch of bling.

Christmas wishes was stamped and added to the card.

Mission complete 12 days of constant card making I'm almost ready for Christmas now,
a few more cards and I guess I ought to get the tree up.
Jess has been going on since the 1st of December and Georgie wants to celebrate her birthday first, 6 days to go George.

 A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,  best wishes  you all. 
 
Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog I'm going to take a little time off over this festive season and refresh my crafting mojo.
 Bye for now.

Sue X
 

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 11

Day 11

Today we have another JOFY stamp or two this time stamped and cut out and mounted onto a piece of dry embossed card. The colour was added to the embossing folder then run through the machine. I love the effect sort of Christmas jumper/socks, warm and cosy.
Colours were kept to a minimum red and golden yellow for warmth.
The rest speaks for itself.

 

Day 11 over one more to go.

 

Sue X

 

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 10

Day 10

Todays card was definitely a quick one, good old JOFY Christmas trees stamped 3 times onto text paper. Colour was added to the paper using a brayer with distress ink ( 3 shades) and cut out.
The trees were then stamped onto plain smooth card, the tree planters were stamped onto red cardstock, cut out and stuck into position along with the trees. Christmas was stamped directly beneath the tree bases. Gold perfect pearls were added to the trees.
Pale grey distress ink was used to colour the stars and Christmas lettering and to add a grounding to the trees. This was then mounted onto red card and then onto the card blank.

 

Tah Dah!

 

Day 10 Complete.

 

Enjoy.

 

Sue X

 

Twitty the Owl

Introducing twitty the Owl, Tuesday my sister in 

law and I spent a few happy messy hours making a canvas of a whimsy animal.

Just in case you don't recognise the animal it's an owl.

We began by painting the base, two blues and a green random blocks blended together with a dry brush technique. The darker colour was then used to stamp small dots and the green send to stamp the numbers. Spray ink lids were used to add the light blue/yellow circle splodges, the opposite end was used to create the dark rim.

 

Splatters of white were added to the canvas.

The Owl was added by making a white image from gesso and then adding the colour with watercolour pencils, gradually building up the colour tones to add the shape and bring  twitty to life.

A white sharpie added a few final details and hey messy paint day complete.
 

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 9

Day 9
Today's card is another simple one the colours were basically stormy skies (blue grey colour),
watering can archival ink (grey) and black.
A week ago I had to go to town and on my travels popped into WHSmiths where I found a magazine with a cute scenic die cut, so I treated myself and decided to use it.
The die was cut in double sided sticky paper (can't think of the real name), which is basically a layer of glue between layers of non stick paper. One side was peeled away and attached to a circle of pale grey card, the other side was then peeled away and fine glitter was sprinkled over the top then burnished in. This was then mounted onto black card.
A strip of card was then stamped several times with Christmas words, inked with distress ink and mounted onto black card.
Another edge die was used to create another layer and left white, all the bit were arranged and stuck into position.
A bit of string tied round the card and some little gems added the finishing touches.

Tah Dah!
Day 9 complete, 3 more to go.

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards -Day 8

Day 8

Back to Baubles for a quick one, card that is.

 

Sue X

 

SDC 224 - Sequins

Stampotique Design Challenge this week is,
Sequins!!!!

Valerie has set us a challenge this week use  "Sequins in your project" this is what she said.

"Let's see where your creativity takes you.  Sequins come in every size, shape and colour and can be used in so many ways.  Where will they end up in your project?"

Now I'm not a sequin girl and happen to come across some by pure chance, that's why this project is so late as I was going to give it a miss. However as you can see I made it.

I've given boots a Christmas fairy makeover, pink and sparkly with angel wings and a halo.

Boots was stamped onto watercolour paper and then onto copy paper, the copy paper version was cut out to make a mask and the wings were positioned with a stamp positioner.

The image was then coloured with distress inks pale pink and blue grey, (totally not me).
These colours were chosen because of the colour of the sequins but as you can see I've layered it a few times, the bottom layer was left over from a previous project and has many colours  in it.
A touch of grounding was added and the sequins glued into place.
Tah Dah!

Better late than never.  If you would like to see more pop on over to the Stampotique Challenge Blog.


Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards -Day 7

Day 7

 I do love Christmas, but when the pressure is on to make Xmas cards I seem to hit a brick wall.
Hence my challenge to self, at least this way it forces me to do cards.
Fortunately I don't have to make that many.
So here is day 7 a die cut number.

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 6

Day 6

I love snowmen at Christmas, it would be nice to see actual  snow at this time of year but in good old uk you can never guarantee the weather.
This card is made from stamping a JOFY stamp onto card stock an colouring with stress inks.TH on the edge snowflakes die was cut along the top edge, magnolia snowflake was die cut on a strip of pale grey card. The waste was used to to create a ribbon and the shapes added randomly and mounted onto a different piece of patterned paper.

 Day 6 done and dusted!

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 5

 Day 5

Isn't this fun, a fab way to get those cards done just it time for Christmas and in the post.
Stampotique stamp again today basic stamping, layering and a few well chosen words.

This was actually stamped last year, it was my friend Rebecca's which she loaned me for a few days. It has lay un coloured since and so in an effort to use up my bits and pieces I coloured it with distress inks.

Hope you like it.

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards -Day 4

Day 4

Here is a simple card a touch of stamping,
 a tad of glitter, a tiny amount of cutting and that's it fini.

 

Sue X

 

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 3

Day 3

Today is a magnolia day and this is what I've produced.
A friend once said its OK to do cute at Christmas and to prove the point here is a cute, cute Chris Moose Magnolia Style.

I pulled out all of the papers I have two or three of, note to self use the papers they are gathering dust.  These days I tend to make my own backgrounds, so I did a mixture of both adding stamping to patterned paper.
This wasn't a quick card to make I didn't think I would finish it, hats off to everyone who must spend hours making detailed cards similar to this.

Hope you like it.

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 2

Day 2

For today's project I'm going to use another Indigoblu stamp this time the holly set, this consists of a two layer stamp set. I should warn you I did buy three so they may be very similar in appearance.
The holly was stamped onto a variegated  green card, the berries were painted white so that when painted red they stand out more. The top layer stamp was stamped in flitter glue, chocolate flakes added then burnished into the glue and the excess removed with a scrubby.
The leaves were cut out nod inked with distress ink. A background was made using JOFY snowflakes in watering can archival ink this was mounted onto black card.
A die cut sentiment was mounted onto black card and the holly was arranged around the outside.
The berries had a helping of glossy accents and a touch of wink of Stella added to parts of the snowflakes.

Tag Dah!

Day 2 Complete.

Sue X

Twelve Days of Christmas Cards - Day 1

Last year I thought of a way to help make my Christmas cards and get them posted in time for well, Christmas.

This year I decided it was a tradition that needed to be kept up to encourage me to get stuck in and get them done.

I do love th this time of year but since having the girls I seem to have no time to enjoy it.

Purchasing Christmas gifts seem to have taken over and the stress of not getting the exact item requested is upon us.

Anyhow enough of the moaning lets get on with the fun part. 

Day 1

Yay, for this card I first of all created a master board using various stamps and masks layered and coloured on top of each other.
(Distress ink through circles mask/stamping snowflakes with white paint/stamping star stamp with archival ink/ colouring mini circles on stamp with red perfect pearls/colouring small stars with pencils/using a quickly glue pen to add a few sparkle glitter edges).

 

This was followed by stamping Indigoblu baubles, tree pronged from dylusions and a JOFY sentiment. The baubles were painted with a matching solid colour acrylic paint.

The second stage of the Indigoblu stamp was stamped using embossing ink then heat and bond embossing powder was used to add Indigoblu chocolate flakes.

 

 

 I do have flitter glue but somehow this way is less messy, it also adds a bit of dimension as it is more raised than using the glue. Watch out though you don't want to scrub to hard when removing the excess flakes.

This was all layered together with a touch of plain coloured card.
One down Eleven to go.

Hope you like it.

Sue X

Crafting supplies used:

SDC 223 - Quick and Easy Christmas Card

Quick and Easy Christmas Cards is the new challenge for this week over on the Stampotique  Challenge blog, you can see the DT's inspiration for this topic here.

 

Nellie van Leeuwen is our hostess this week and here is what Nellie says about this challenge:

"It's that time of the year that you know you should have started earlier with your Christmas cards. So now you have to come up with some quick and easy (yet stunning) Christmas cards"

 

Well I'm not sure my card is stunning it was however so quick to make I forgot to take photos.

What more can I say one 5" x7" card base, watercolour card cut to size and a bit of masking and stamping.

Followed by a touch of colouring using distress ink as a watercolour, the card took about half an hour to make (I will be making more).

 

Hope you like it.

 

Sue X

 

 

 

 



Christmas Wreath

I've had a jolly old time making Christmas Decorations. A Christmas Wreath was on today's list to complete, it began life as a MDF shape one part of two which my friend and I bought at Ally Pally a little while ago, I had the small one and Rebecca had the larger one.
The base coat was a layer of white gesso to act as a primer, the second was a coat of  mermaid blue.
A layer of crackle glaze and then snowflake on top, sit back and watch the magic.
The whole thing was lightly sanded to bring out more cracks.
A touch of brown distress ink finished off the base.

The next bit I forgot to take pictures, I had prepared a few die cut poinsettia's, to be honest I am amazed they survived being out on the table as my viscous  kitty normally rips my papers to shreds.

All that was left to do was stick beaded stamens in the centre's. The fur tree sprigs were die cut then triple dipped in three different greens and left to dry. 

As you can see it looks a bit bare, I also had left over pine cones and berries which I had prepared for a different project, to these I added white gesso to give the impression of snow and glittered them at the same time using gesso as a glue.

3D Matt Gel was used to stick all of the elements to the MDF and left to dry.

White paint was also added to the edges of the lettering and flowers and left to dry.

I printed off several templates of reindeers and combined them to make one I liked then cut two out of card board. These were glued together and bits of the top layer were torn off to reveal the underneath. This was painted brown, then a lighter brown was dry brushed on top followed by a touch of white gesso applied to the top edges (and glittered). Sorry no pic's.

 

 

With that all done my only decision is with or without the reindeer?

I'd love to here your opinion.

Sue X



Santa's Slay

"Slay Bell's Ringing", etc.

 I made this on Tuesday with my Sister-in-law my slay was tiny in comparison to hers,
hence why no photos too busy gossiping, drinking tea and getting messy.
The MDF Slay had a few wooden snowflake embellishment's stuck to the sides and was given a coat of white gesso. Texture paste was added to the slay to add interest.
Small polystyrene balls were stuck to the top edge of the slay, treasure Gold in a mixture of White Fire Gold and Silver was added to highlight areas and also the edges were distressed with vintage photo distress ink.
The leaves were die cut and double dipped into two different greens, cones, berries and flowers finished the look.

White gesso was added to the top edges  and to the berries, flowers, leaves to give the impression of snow which was also glittered while it was wet.

Here is one side.

Here is the other side.

 



 

Here is a close up.

 

 

Hope you like it.

 

Sue X



SDC 222 - At the movies

The challenge this week over on the Stampotique blog  is, "At the movies".

My initial thought was oooooo so cool, followed by bother what am I going to to.

This week the challenge was set by Corrie Herriman this is what she has said about the theme.

"Make something this week inspired by the movies or a movie star and as always, have fun!!!"

So here goes this is what I've come up with.

"That Darn Cat", originally made in 1965 and re-made in 1997. I must admit I wasn't born in 1965 not far off tho and growing up the original film with Hayley Mills was one of my favourites along with Parent Trap (again the original). We always had cats growing up and still have them now  (only 2 tho) they each have their own character,  Penny - female tabby aka viscous kitty. Thomas - male tabby/white adopted when his mummy sadly left us, very much a loving lap cat but aka killer!
Last week I came back from taking my youngest to the cinema  (teacher training day) to find an adult squirrel placed neatly on the door step as stiff as a board.

Back to the project. I decided on a journal page, this is how it was made.
Many, many moons ago I discovered die cutting and have a huge selection of old style, what I call chunky dies collecting dust. In amongst these was a film strip, yeah! Perfect for this weeks challenge.  A Stampotique  kitty was stamped onto acetate as if he was walking, the film strip caught him at a different points. I then flipped over the acetate and applied a yellow and amber alcohol ink to give an aged look.
 I used watercolour paper as a base to spray Lindy's inks onto. Followed by random stamping of a wall stamp and another stamp to create a Grounding at the bottom of the page.

Various stamps were "stamped" onto watercolour card, coloured and added to the journal page. The black squares were waste from the die cut film and pin wheel used on another project. I felt I wanted to use them to add an extra layer of interest. Stitching was added to the edges in black.

Good old Dymo added the title.

 

Here are a few more photos. I love the spray texture that has come through on the water colour paper.

Pop on over to the Stampotique Challenge site for more inspiration.

I know I'm early this week but I'm hoping to start Christmas cards tomorrow as hubby is away in London (working)  so I have my craft space to work in. Yeah!

Happy Crafting everyone!

Sue X

SDC221 - Take a Box

Take a Box 

This week over on the Stampotique Design Challenge blog Samantha Read has challenged us to make a project from a box, a cardboard box. I'm sure there was a song about living in a cardboard box once. 

Anyhow moving swiftly on, I took a card box that measured 6.5"x8.5" which had been used and was now empty ready for up cycling and this is what I came up with. 

  I took an A3 piece of card and scored lines down at 7"1"7"1", all will become clear as we all know most score boards are 12"x12". Score at 7" fold and butt this new edge up to the guide, score at 1" fold and butt this new edge up to the guide again score at 7" fold the new edge butt up to guide and finally score the last 1". There should be a small amount left which needs to be trimmed to about 3mm to act as a tuck in flap. That is what is suppose to happen but  I must admit I did go slightly wrong, I had made one of these recently and should have double checked but I was in the flow and dived in, I did correct it though hence why the pictures don't reflect the above correct measurements.

 

Next job was to trim the length, to make life a little easier I folded the A3 card at one of the central score lines and cut it down to 9", this made a wrap to go around the box.  Wet glue was used to secure the box centrally to the inside of the wrap. 

 

 

 Ribbon was then secured around the centre with super sticky double sided tape.

Then came the fun messy bit applying a base coat of colour on three A4 pieces of card. I used pink, orange, yellow and white paint applying it with a sponge randomly.  The excess paint was used up through a TimH line/stripe Stencil randomly on the card and squashing the  round sponge down to create large circles.

 

 

Once dry the next layer was white gesso, lines were applied with the edge of an old credit card, home made stamps were used to add circle prints.

 The paper was cut to size to cover 4 sides 2 x 7"X 9" and 2 x 1"x 9".  

 Black was the next layer a small lid was used to add solid-ish circles in groups of three, the other end of the lid made hollow circles. Sequin waste was used as a stencil to add more detail. White was added with a white sharpie pen. Text was also stamped randomly in Archival watering can. 

 

The edges were aged with Black distress ink, Random stamping of the Stampotique seaweed stamp in black archival on the bottom edge and Stiching was added to the four  pieces then positioned on the box over the ribbon and stuck down. The front image was stamped onto an old book page and coloured with watercolour pencils, White sharpie added more detail the image was then decoupaged onto the front cover. The letters for the words Note Cards were stamped cut out and stuck into position.

Tah Dah! Mission complete.

 

The left over/waste card was used to make small note cards to go inside the box, thank you and just a note sentiments were made with my trusty dymo. That's all for now folks, if you want to have a look at more box project inspiration check out the Stampotique blog here. 

 

Here are a couple more photos.

 

Sue X