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

Cute Critter Canvas

 

Hi all, this project was inspired by Tracy Scott, classes available at Art From the Heart with the lady herself next class Sunday 29th November.

 

I've seen lots of different versions of cute critter canvas's and decided to  create my own.

 The Canvas was a 6" x 6" box which had been previously sprayed with Dylusions ink sprays, Rock Salt had been applied while the ink was still wet then dried with a heat tool. The salt was removed to reveal a wonderful textured looking background.

 

 

I needed to use this one and so decided on the cute critter to make a Christmas gift for my niece. I set about adding more stamping, spraying in the same colour family. Followed by ink splatters in Black archival ink.

 

Sometimes I feel the background is too nice to cover up and have to take a leap of faith hoping that I won't ruin the whole project.

 

 

I roughly sketched the critter then infilled it with white gesso it's at this point when I realised the inks were water based and so my job was made harder by the fact the first layer of gesso started to reactive the ink. oooops!

The second layer sorted out that little problem tho.

 

 

Water colour pencils were used to add colour to the project.

 

 

 

I've since sketched a few other critters and so Christmas will be sorted for my young relatives.

 

Sue X



MDF A4 Journal

Here is another quick project in MDF very popular at the moment!

 

 Here goes.

Take one A4 MDF Journal, using a brayer add a coat of gesso.

As the layer is thin and even drying time is not to long, quicker if you zap it with a heat tool.

 

 

Using three blue tones and three lighter lemon/yellow tones of paint apply them randomly again with the brayer until you are happy with the combination.

 

 

A touch of stencilling in the darker of the blue paints.

 

 

Using a plastic card lines of white gesso was added in a, "pleasing to the eye" mannor.

A paint lid  in a similar size to the circle mask was used to add white gesso to the edges of some of the circles all randomly.

 

A text stamp added a little more interest in Watering Can Archival ink. Followed by stamping Heartfelt Creations leaves in black archival ink around the edges of the front and back of the Journal, these were then coloured with a touch of translucent green paint in a couple of shades using a paint brush. A tiny bit of white was added to the tips of the leaves. 

 

Heartfelt Creations Sunflower stamps were stamped in black archival ink onto white card cut out then  coloured by double dipping them into shades of yellow distress ink. The edges were blended with brown distress ink, this was also added to the centre of the flowers.

 Leaves were stamped onto old book pages, cut out and coloured using green distress ink.

Flowers and leaves were arranged and stuck into position, the long stems were hand draw with and archival pen.

 

To finish the look a black charcoal pencil was drawn and smudged around a few of the circles and distress ink was added to the edges of the MDF boards.

My well used Dymo added the Words Art Journal.

 

 

Here are a few close ups.

 

 

 

Sue X



Quick Christmas Decorations

Just thought I would share these MDF shaped Christmas Decorations which I made last week.

 

 

The tree and snowflake were painted with white gesso using a brayer once dry two shade of  green paint for the tree and two shades of blue paint for the snowflake were randomly combined and painted on using the brayer. This added a touch of texture to the project.

Random stamping with a text stamp in white gesso was added for more interest.

White gesso was then applied to the edges using a very expensive tool (my finger) to create fake snow effect.

Leaves were die cut and double dipped into two shades of distress ink to create the foliage. A touch of cheesecloth was pulled apart to layer and attach to the project. Regular garden string was wrapped around the tree trunk for texture, to make hanging easier a loop of string was added to the top.

Shop bought flowers and berries were used for quickness then it was all stuck together.

 

 

The bell was covered with decoupage paper which is slightly thicker than tissue paper.

Again I began by gesso-ing the base and letting it dry, next a square of the paper was placed on top of a layer of slap it on glue and gently smoothed over then leave it to dry before you trim off the excess.

Very important to let it dry.

Once dry use a sanding block and work around the edges, (paper side upwards using the sanding block from top at a slight angle \ to bottom). It will only take a moment and you will achieve a lovely even, smooth edge. Stamp onto with white gesso and add more to the edges for a snow effect.

A Quicky glue pen was used to add fine glitter to the bell clacker and lower edge to add a touch of sparkle.

The bell was then decorated as before.

 

Hope you like them!

 

Sue X