Four hares and a toadstool!

This will be my last blog post for a few days, on Tuesday I will be en Suisse.  My sister lives there and I will be spending some time with her and the family and attending my niece's graduation.  Apparently, they have snow there at the moment!!  Winter woollies packed!

This is the card I made with the 'In the Classroom' set this time.  The set consists of four fab hare stamps, a toadstool and a lovely fern frond.  I also used the 'Make a Point' stamps from a previous classroom set.

 

 

I will be blogging from Switzerland, so stay tuned!  If you interested in sewing or quilting, check out my sister's blog

Take care x



Clarity in Cowden

I am back home after having had a wonderful couple of days away in Cowden, Kent at the Clarity Retreat.  I go every year and regularly meet up with the same group of ladies.  We all went to Kent the night before the workshop and most of us stayed in the same hotel, so we had a great time that evening catching up with old friends and meeting some others for the first time.

Then it was off to the workshop the next day - brilliant to catch up with more people (who had stayed at a different hotel) and meet Barbara, Paul and the team.  We did 4 lovely projects including using the Gelli plate - bit messy, but great fun! 

 

To finish the day we had a meal at the local pub in Cowden

 

The second day, we had 4 more projects, including laminating and ironing!  Paul said he'd brought his shirts in (nice try!!)

 

If you like the look of these, some of them will be the projects Barbara is doing at the workshops round the country, so check out the Clarity website and go along.

  

If you are in the Norwich area, check out my Claritystampers East page on this blog - I have added the next dates for the workshops I do.  We won't necessarily be doing these projects (but we will do some!)

Flourishes and Corners

This time tomorrow, I will hopefully be in Kent waiting to meet up with a lovely group of ladies.  We are going out for a meal and then off to the Clarity workshop on Wednesday and Thursday. I am really looking forward to it.  I have been to plenty of workshops, including other Clarity ones, but Cowden is really very special.  There is a wonderful atmosphere there - I wouldn't miss it!
This is another of my DT cards for HSE 24, this time using the remountable set  - Corners and Flourishes. 

I made two borders along the edges of a square piece of Theuva card by stamping the tiny corner stamp back to back
Ink round the edges of the card and lightly sponge colour over the whole area.
I used a Spellbinder DLite die to cut two squares and a small circle
Stamp the corner round the edge of the squares and blend some ink round the edges.
Stamp the greeting in the circle and ink round the edges.
Offset the two squares and stick together with the circle in the centre, mount in the centre of the other square
Stamp the tiny bow from the set, colour in, cut out and stick at the top of the squares
Mat onto the base card and add gems along the edge to embellish

The centre circle is not quite so stark white as shown in the picture here, it is actually more or less the same as the background!

There you have it - I'm off to pack...

Take care x

Different Hummingbirds

Morning all, I have just been watching Maria Simms on the TV doing theuva Clarity shows.  It is lovely to see different ways with the stamps.  This card was shown during the show, so I thought I would share it with you

The Trumpet flowers come in Large and Small sizes and I used both to stamp along a strip of theuva card then coloured in with promarkers.  Ink around the edges
Stamp the large flower again onto a die cut oval of theuva card and colour in the same way. Ink around the edges
The  hummingbird is  created by using fusible film and fibre
Mat and layer everything onto matching card.  I added a touch of glitter pen on the stamen of the flowers and added a couple of gems.
Hope you like it xx

Hummingbirds and Leafy Column

So who has got their heating back on then??  Pretty chilly for the middle of May, but it will all be okay soon because I am going to a Clarity workshop in Cowden next week and it has always been lovely weather in previous years, so I am very hopeful....  Not that it matters a bit what the weather is like, I am soooo excited about going, I just love meeting up with Barbara and Dave and all the wonderful Clarity team and all the lovely ladies who attend regularly and have become friends.
This card is another sample for the Clarity show on HSE 24.  I love both these stamps, so had a good time doing this card!  I also used pan pastels and gilding flakes, two of my favourite products!

• I did the three background strips as one piece and cut it into three
• Using a palette of red pan pastels, shade an A5 piece of linen effect cardstock from dark to light
• Fix with hairspray or fixative
• When dry, stamp randomly with the leafy column using currant Adirondack ink
• Cut into three strips and trim to size.
• Mat each strip onto gold card, then onto a square of black card
• For the main image, prepare another piece of linen card with the pan pastels, and stamp the hummingbirds with currant, emboss with holographic powder
• Here's the tricky bit - cut out the circle background round the birds
• Stick a piece of double sided adhesive on the back of the card, so the circle is sticky from the front
• Apply gilding flakes and scrub with a sponge to remove excess flakes
• Trim the card to size and mat on to gold, then black card
• Stamp the edge of the base card with the leafy column in currant, (I used the third generation to give a more faded look)
• Arrange all the bits on the base card
• To add a finishing touch, I added dots of gold using a gold leaf pen

Did I mention that it was the Clarity workshop next week....?
Janet xx

Up, Up and Away!!

How is everyone today?  I hope you are all enjoying your crafting.  I am home after a couple of days in Birmingham - not the easiest of places to navigate even with Ken (my trusty sat nav man with a sexy Australian accent!)  Glad to be home again!
This is a sample card for the Clarity show on the German TV channel, HSE 24, using a kit with all three balloons and the mountains and hills mask.  I have always liked cards with the same image repeated, so this is my take on that idea.

• Follow the same procedure three times in the different sizes
• Stamp the balloon in place, using Archival ink on watercolour card, repeat the image on a sticky post it and cut out to make a mask
• Put the mask in place over the stamped image
• To create the sky, I used a natural sponge with a very open texture and just sponged lightly with denim, mountain rose and raspberry inks. Sponge to a level just below the base of the balloon image
• To create the hills, I used the Clarity Hills and Mountains mask- put the mask in position and sponge Lettuce and Oregano inks
• Move the mask to create a different hill and sponge slate and oregano inks to make a contrasting colour hill
• Remove balloon mask and colour with Inktense pencils
• Mat onto blue card
• Try out your positioning of the three images on to green card before you stick anything down!!
• Mat onto another layer of blue
• I also sponged around the edge of the base card, in the same way I did the sky
• Embellish with card candy

Hope you like it!  xx

Claritystampers East Workshop

It was the Claritystampers East workshop today - I love doing them, even though it is pretty tiring - it always amazes me how you can give different people the same ink, stamps and instructions and get so much variation in results!
Hopefully everyone had a good time, they certainly got plenty of ink on their fingers!
We did work quite hard, luckily we had scrummy cakes from Moira to keep our strength up!!
Thank you to everyone for making it a lovely day.

Here are the projects we did - the stamps of the day were the leafy swirls and butterfly  and the main inkpads used Butterscotch and Stream

Foxgloves

This is one of the cards I did for the Clarity TV show in May.  I love foxgloves, they are amongst my favourite flowers and I enjoy watching bees going in and out of the flowers.  Everyone seems to be going 'arty' these days, so I thought I had better have a bit of a go!  These are big, remountable stamps, I had an acrylic block big enough, but if you haven't, Barbara recommends using a ruler as you mount.  The stamps used are the remountable foxglove set from Clarity

• For the background, I used watercolour paper and lightly spritzed it with water, then repeat stamped the foxglove stamps using multi-coloured dye based inks
• Completely cover the paper, then spritz with more water, so the colours run and blend with each other, there should still be bits of the images left
• Lightly blot with copy paper, then dry with a hear gun
• Ink around the edges with one of the colours from the inkpad
• Mat onto dark pink card and then onto the base card

Main Images

• For the three images, stamp the foxgloves with a black archival and colour in with inktense pencils
• Tear round the edges and mat onto a dark pink card and tear round that
• Mat onto the card

There you have it!
Enjoy your day
Janet xx

Addicted to Gelli - Part two

While I was making the backgrounds with the Gelli plate, I also had a go at using the Splodge Away masks with it - they gave brilliant results.

The paints were from the same Introduction set, this time using red, yellow and blue, rolled out with the brayer.

The message is from the lovely word set from Clarity - very useful because they are remountable, so you can make your own message

• Place the splodge mask over the top, use some copy paper to rub over the mask, so that it picks up the paint and remove
• Place the mask paint side down onto card and rub over with the same bit of copy paper to transfer the paint
• Do another piece of card, but this time use the mask and bubble wrap to make patterns on the gelli plate and pick the paint up from the plate
• Once the paint is dry, stamp and emboss with white powder the Happy birthday message
• Cut out the message and mat onto red and blue card
• Cut out the base square and mat onto red and blue card, then the base card.
• Embellish with a beautiful butterfly die cut from Spellbinders Dlites range
• and some white gems

Hope you like it
Janet x

Addicted to Gelli - Part One

If I am being totally honest, I couldn't get too excited about this new fangled Gelli plate, but I don't like to be left behind, so I thought I would buy one.  I got the smaller size and it sat in the wrapper for quite a while before I opened it and had a go......WOW!  I had so much fun!!  I felt like a proper artist, this is the first card I did - for the Clarity DT, for the May show on C&C.

Douglas and the Umbrella.

It is recommended to use Acrylic paints with the Gelli plate, so I treated myself to the Introduction set from Clarity, fished out an old brayer and off I went.

• For the background, I used blue, black, white and a tiny bit of brown, squeezed them all onto the plate and spread them all over with the brayer, to add a bit of interest, I wrapped an elastic band round the roller first.
• Once the paint was spread evenly, I dabbed some bubble wrap over patches.
• Place your card over the plate and smooth over to pick up all the paint.
• I loved the effect!
• I did another, smaller bit in the same way, but with a bit more brown - I used this piece to stamp on
• Once all the paint was dry, I stamped Douglas and the umbrella from the Clarity characters set and the words from the Happy Words set in versa mark and embossed with lovely silver/black embossing powder from Crafty Notions
• Then I simply tore everything to the size I wanted and matted onto dark grey card, then onto the white base card
• Add some white card candy
• Voila!!


 

Diva Red workshop Saturday 4th May

Well, what a fabulous day it was here yesterday (Sunday), bit disappointed with today though, it is warm, but we were promised sunshine and haven't really had any. 
Enough of the weather!  We had a great time at the Diva Red workshop on Saturday!  Everyone enjoyed it and all made lovely cards too!

This was the card I did for the morning, using Lily and Rosie, from Claritystamps they are pretty simple really, I found some lovely paper which I used to cover the front of the card, then stamped the character on another piece of the card and cut out the dress.
Stamp the character again, this time on white card and stick the paper dress over the image.
Mat and layer on coloured card
The strip across the middle is done with coredinations cardstock, which has a different colour core to it.

Emboss the card (I used cogs for Rosie and a floral pattern for Lily) then sand lightly, this takes the colour off the raised parts
Tear to size
I nearly always ink round edges, on this card, I inked round the paper on the base card and round the image.
Now for the bit where you have to be brave - take a fin pen and draw a squiggly line around the edge of the image and the edge of the base card.
Hope you like it x



For the afternoon card, I got out the Gelli plate, which people enjoyed much more than they thought they would!!  It is a bit messy though!

It is almost impossible to recreate anything you do with a Gelli plate, there are tips on how to use it in the Clarity website. (click on the above link)  I used a splodge away mask to create the background here.  I did a second piece with the same colours, just in different proportions and stamped and embossed the flower stamp (an old Anita's one) with white embossing powder, cut out add brads and mat and layer.

Have a look on Moira's blog to see the card she made with this idea - it is fab!

These are my versions of the cards Moira did for the workshop

Pretty Flamingo!

For all you Mannfred Mann fans out there... this was the obvious title for this post!
I hope you all enjoyed watching the Clarity shows, as well as catching some of this wonderful sunshine!
This card was made using the kit from Clarity with both the tall flamingo , the bent flamingo and the grass stamps
So, flamingos - got to have water!  I was pleased with the way this turned out - not quite what I had in mind at the beginning, but then they rarely are!

• I used Theuva card for this
• stamp flamingos in place, but mask a bit off the bottom of their legs, so it will look like they are standing in water
• stamp again onto a post it and cut out to make masks - carefully position over the images (remember to cut the bit off the bottom of the legs!!)
• using a blue Adirondack, ink up a brayer, then run it over a scrunched up bit of copy paper - it will pick up the texture of the paper
• decide where you want your water's edge to be, put a bit of copy paper in the sky end and roll the brayer once across the card
• add a bit of shadow under the flamingos
• tear a mountain mask from another bit of copy paper, or use the ready made Clarity mask and sponge in the mountains
• make a sun mask, and put it in position, then brayer the sky in blues and pinks and sponge a bit of peach too!
• remove all your masks and sponge some peach into the sun
• colour the flamingos with promarkers
• add the grasses at the bottom edge
• mat onto blue, then the base card
• two pretty flamingos!!

Take care, Janet x

Sending you sunshine

Hello everyone,   what a lovely sentiment!  I am sending you all sunshine today - hope you do get some!  I wouldn't want to be anywhere else when I am at home, in the garden with the sun shining - brilliant!
So I thought I would share an appropriate card, which I made for the DT a while ago (pre-blogging days!)
This is all done by masking and then stamping over the top.  The beautiful silhouette stamp is called Meadow dance and it is very high up on the list of my all time favourite Claritystamps!!  The tree and sentiment are also from Clarity.

I hope it is sunny where you are,
Take care
Janet xx