Simply Shepherd's Purse

Good morning and happy Sunday,

It is raining like it is set in for the day here, so I am going to finish off my samples for the Clarity TV show next Sunday, there are some fab new things coming up, so don't forget to tune in!!

Yesterday, I did the Claritystampers East workshop in Bawburgh and last Sunday, I was at Great Blakenham, so I am posting two of the cards we did at these workshops.  We used the lovely Shepherd's Purse stamp set, designed by Amanda Branston, a very pretty and versatile stamp set!

The first card  is a very simple design, firstly, create a rectangle aperture by masking the card, then add yellow ink (I used Mustard seed and Fossilised Amber).                                                 Keep the mask in place and stamp the words all over the background using yellow ink                                             Remove the mask and stamp the flowers in place, then use some water to lift the colour from any flowers that are yellow. Colour the seed pods green with pencil,                               Draw a fine black line round the rectangle shape and also round the edge of the card, then add some green round the edge of the black lines.                                                                         Splatter some green ink and finally use white gel pen to colout the flowers

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the cards made by the Bawburgh group, I am making a cup of coffee in the background of the first one!!  Thanks to Veronica and Heather for the photos

  

This was the third card, made using Brushos.
We used watercolour paper and spritzed lightly before sprinkling a tiny amount of the brushos on, then add more water and watch the colour explode!
I always wimp out a bit and tone it down by dabbing with kitchen towel.  Veronica, who is a bit addicted to Brushos, said that you could put another piece of card over the top and get two backgrounds for the price of one! ((Worth a go!)
I gave the ladies several bits of card to play with and I have to say, there were some most fabulous pieces of work created!
The idea was to get a darker background piece and a lighter piece to stamp on.
Once everyone had created their masterpieces, it was just a case of stamping on the lighter piece and colouring in the leaves.  I left my flowers as they were, but if you want them white, try using bleach to lift the colour
All finished in time to get home and watch the cup final (if that's what you wanted to do!!)  I think everyone enjoyed that, even though it did get a bit messy!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Janet xxx

A spray of flowers

Good evening,
Thank you for visiting my blog.  I have been doing part one of my Claritystampers East workshops; Great Blakenham today and Bawburgh next Saturday.  I won't post those cards yey, I'll wait until after Bawburgh, so I will show you the last of my DT cards for May.  The next lot of stamps have arrived, so I will be making cards with them tomorrow - some more lovely stamps for you to look forward to!!

There are no stamps used on this card, just  stencils - the lovely Flower Power stencil which is the same shape as Jo's bubbles  designed by fellow DT member, Jo Rice.  The two work really well together.
I used yellow fresco chalk acrylics to colour the card, then once that was dry, I attached the stencil and added grunge paste all through it.
I used the fresco acrylics to colour it once it was dry, then added a few of the smaller bubbles from Jo's bubbles in each corner.

Hope you enjoy the extra day off work (if you are lucky enough to get an extra day off - I know plenty of people still have to work!)

Take care
Janet xxx

A simple wedding invite

Good evening folks,

Thanks very much for dropping by.  I am right in thinking it's May am I?  Apparently it hailed here today, I tend not to notice when I am at work, but Simon told me!

I have been getting lots of exciting parcels recently - I have decided to have a proper go at Zentangle and have bought the most lovely paper to work on (I have a bit of a thing about card and paper, I just love those expensive artist's pads - not that my art is anywhere near good enough to do it justice!)
More of that to follow when I have had some practice.

My card today is a very simple wedding design, I like wedding cards to be simple, plus if you have to make loads, you don't want it to be taking too long!

This is one I did using the next set of Wee Folk stamps The wedding collections, very useful sets  to have, not only for weddings, but also anniversaries and occasions in general.

I always use lovely card for wedding stationery,This time hammered card, one of my favourite textured cards.
I die cut all the squares for the mats and also the little oval - I stamped the image first, then die cut (much easier to get the image central that way!)
I used a purple archival ink for the stamping and blended a little round the edge of the oval.
I was struggling to find something to go behind the image, then it occurred to me that I had got a serrated edge to my square, so I could use some lovely matching thread I've had for ages! I even had exactly the right colour! I stuck it on the back and wound it round the card, then stuck my stamped couple over the top.
Hope you like it
Janet xxx

Fresco bouquet

Good morning lovely people,
It is an absolutely lovely sunny morning here, I hope it is the same where you are.
I am preparing for my Claritystampers East workshops over the next two weekends, I also want to do a card for the next Less is More challenge, the theme this week is 'Hello Sunshine' and as it happens, my new pearlescent Pan Pastels arrived just after I read the post, and there is the most gorgeous yellow and orange in the set, so that's just got to be done!
My card today is made using the beautiful Silk Ribbons Bouquet set from Claritystamp.  This was designed by lovely Julie Owens, a fellow Clarity DT member, she is one talented lady!

I used my new Fresca chalk acrylic paints to do the background, I just lightly brayered lots of colours all round a piece of gelli card
I stamped the bouquet onto a separate piece of white card, then stamped the separate flowers onto spare pieces of the 'fresco'd' card.
I coloured the smaller parts of the bouquet with distress markers, then cut out the flowers and applied them over the top of the image and down the side of the card (after matting and layering!)
I added some glitter to the flowers, as a finishing touch.

The 'Thank You' comes from the new Wedding Stationery set

Hope you like it, don't forget to leave a comment!  I am getting better at replying!

Have a lovely weekend
Janet xxx

Chromo and alcohol

Good morning and happy Thursday!

I am pleased to say that there are house martins back in the nest boxes outside my bedroom window.
They seem late back this year and I was getting worried that they might not turn up at all - but they have, so that's ok!  I always enjoy having them around, they make such a lovely chattering sound.

Today's card was inspired by one I saw by fellow DT member, Lynne Hammond, using chromo card and alcohol inks.  This card is ultra glossy and works really well with alcohol inks

I ran the 'Flare' stencil through my grand calibur to emboss the card, then covered it with the stencil and added the alcohol inks over it - I used mainly pinks with a touch of brown and a bit of the metallic pearl.
Remove the stencil (clean it with the blending solution or nail varnish remover!)
I did the scene by stamping from the wee folk fairies sets with archival ink.  I drew the hills with a black fineline pen, then coloured in with distress markers.

All stamps,stencils and chromo card are available from Claritystamp

Hope you have a great day
Janet xx

Early morning 'Hi'

Good morning everyone, It's looking like it's going to be a lovely day here, so I thought a quick cheerful card would be appropriate

I used Fresco chalk acrylics to colour the yellow background, then sponged some orange through a floral stencil.
When it was dry, I used a black fineline pen to squiggle round the petals and add some lines and dots.
I stamped the 'Hi' using a Clarity alphabet set, in orange, the went round the letters with my black pen.

Hope it's a lovely day wherever you are!
Janet xxx

Another challenge - water

Good morning.

A bright and early post today, I wanted to show you the card I have done for my second challenge over at the  Less is More blog 

It is good for me to have a bit of a theme to work to, it seems to trigger a different part of my brain, rather than having to think what to do from nothing.
The theme for this challenge is Water and it has to be a one layer card ie the design is done on the base card with no layers at all.  This is what I did:

I masked off a border round the edge of the card.  I picked up some Sail Boat Blue ink on my brayer, then ran it over scruched paper to give it some texture, I ran that across the bottom edge of the card.
I stamped the lovely couple in the boat on the water, then the bullrushes.
I used torn paper and lettuce ink to add some hills in the background, the brushed some more blue for the sky and added a touch of watermelon.
Then added the flock of birds.
I removed the masking tape and squiggled two lines round the frame and coloured in with  pencils using blue first, then green.

All stamps used are from Claritystamp

Janet xxx

Shepherd's Purse

Good evening bloggers.

Thank you for visiting.  I have been getting cards sorted for the next workshop and am quite pleased with things so far..... I got a bit carried away and put an egg on to hard boil to make an egg salad (yes, I really am that healthy.....stop laughing!!), then I went of to do a quick job and completely forgot about it!  Fortunately I had put a good amount of water in the pan, so it didn't boil dry! It was definitely hard boiled though!

Anyway, today's card is one I made as a sample for the Clarity show on Sunday - what an amazing show that was!  Sell outs all over the place and a good laugh at the squeaky bench!!

This lovely set of stamps feature Shepherd's Purse and is designed by Amanda Branston -  I love it!

I used Clarity card and brayered sunshine yellow most of the way down the card, but leaving a bit of white at the bottom, then I used a darker yellow, then an orange, then a red each time coming down  a bit less distance so the previous colour still shows at the bottom and the top corner gets darker and darker.

Once I was happy with that, I stamped the Shepherd's Purse in place, made sure it was dry, then lifted some colour from the flowers and seed pods by adding some water, then dabbing the colour with tissue.

I coloured the pods green with distress markers and used a white pen to do the flowers.

I splattered some of the red ink over it, then used a black fine line pen to go round the edges

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend
Janet xxxx

My First Challenge

Hello folks,

Thank you for dropping in to my blog.  I have decided that I need to get a bit more involved with this blogging lark, so I have entered a challenge!  I saw a post by Jo Rice where she showed a lovely card she had entered for a 'Less is More' challenge and I thought 'Well, less is more is my thing' and I had the day to myself today, I'd done the cleaning, been and voted, done some gardening, so I felt now was the time!!

The theme for the challenge is to use two colours that are opposite on the colour wheel - I went for purple and yellow, which is not a combination I use often, but I rather like it.

I masked off the card to leave a rectangle open, which I brayered some sunshine yellow adirondack ink.
With all the masking in place, I used butterscotch to stamp the head of the allium in the background.
I removed all the masking, then stamped the two alliums from Claritystamp with Deep Purple archival ink
I brayered very lightly round the edge of the card, then flicked some of the buttercotch ink over it
I mounted it onto matching card - then decided to add a touch of purple glitter to the flowers (not sure that shows up very well!)

Now I've just got to figure out how to get the card onto the blog page!!

I'm not sure what is going on with the edging - it doesn't look like that in real life - in fact you can hardly see it, but in some of the pictures, it looks a bit weird!
Anyway, thanks for visiting
Janet xxx

Cards, chat and cake on Saturday

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying the bank holiday weekend - usual thing here for a bank holiday - rain! Still maybe tomorrow will be better......

My card today is one I did for the Diva Red workshop with Moira on Saturday.  I treated myself to some Frsco Chalk acrylics (if you know me, you don't need to ask how many!!) and I have been thoroughly enjoying using them, so I wanted to have a go at the workshop.

To make the background for these, I used a smooth white card and added a tiny drop of paint on the back of a piece of cut 'n' dry foam.  I put the paint on the card in a couple of dabs, then blended them  The paint dries very quickly!  Keep repeating this with different colours until you like what you have.  I then used some of the paint to 'inkup' the crackle stamp and stamp that over the card too.
I cut the card to the size I needed for the card, then stamped the Clarity butterfly on a spare piece and added the metallic glaze which leaves a lovely shimmery finish.

Cut the butterfly out.  Stamp the background piece with grasses using black archival and add a sentiment, then add attach the butterfly.

As always, all stamps (and the chalk acrylics) are from Claritystamp.

The next two cards are the ones Moira did for the workshop, using Hobby Art stamp sets.  The cute little bird is stamped, coloured then cut out and attached to the die cut part of the image

The birds on the wire are stamped on a piece of card, the the posts are drawn in and the flowers all stamped.
The birds are stamped again onto fusible fibres, cut out and stuck over the main stamped image.

Lovely effect.

We all had a great time, chatting and making cards, as well as sampling Veronica's delicious cakes, not a bad way to spend your time eh?

Have a great weekend
Janet xxx