Collage in Orange!

Good evening!
Jo Channon was on Hochanda today with stamps and stencils from AALL & Create, she did a great job and made some lovely projects.

This is one of my samples which I did for the show..

I love watching Abs putting together a collage, it always looks as if everything is meant to be there.  I am not so keen when I have a go...it often looks like a random bunch of stuff plonked down!  I binned my first attempt with these stamps, but I decided to give it another go and am fairly happy with this one.  I am going to keep practising though because I like collage!
I kept the colours pretty simple and added some stencil work in the background.   I love this face by Kaitlin Paltridge - very edgy!

Thanks for dropping by,
Janet xxxx

Botanicals

Good evening,

An evening blog today.  It has been lovely here today and after a nice family Sunday lunch out, I came home and spent some time in my garden.  Yay!  I finally got some gardening done!!  I am hoping I will get more done tomorrow too!

So on that theme..tonight's card is made with two lovely sets by Bipasha and a stencil by Abs

Stamps #153 Botanicals and #207 Botanicals Modified by Bipasha
 and stencil  #30 by Abs

I decided I wanted a bit of a vintage feel to this..
I started by putting ink on the stencil, spritzing with water and pressing on to the card, making sure to blot up any seepage!
I stamped the images all round the card and included some the words too. I added a bit of extra ink round the edges.
I coloured everything in with Inktense pencils and added an extra greeting on a die cut circle
Mount on kraft card and tear round the edges, then mount on the base card.
Thanks very much for visiting
Janet xxx

Hanging about!

Good morning!

July already!  Is it me or is time going by more quickly??  July promises to be an exciting month for me in a crafty sense: I have a workshop with Aida to go to in Essex, a weekend workshop with Olga in Middlesborough and a couple of other exciting things in the pipeline (if they work out!)

stamp set 215 Sleepy Sloths by Olga and stencil 39 Lotza Dotz by Abs

I thought this card had a nice lazy summer feel to it.  This one is pretty much stamping and colouring!  There is also a tiny bit of stencilling in the sky, which doesn't show so much in the picture...
Have a lovely day and thank you for visiting
Janet xxx

Back to Pink!

Good evening,

I still have plenty of samples so I am keeping up with daily blogging!  Today was the workshop I do in Bawburgh and last Sunday it was the one in Great Blakenham.  I have been doing these for years now and many of the ladies have stuck with me since the very first one!  I so enjoy meeting with everyone, it is good to chat and share crafty ideas (and other ideas, for that matter!!)  I provide the original idea then everyone puts their own spin on it (That is a polite way of saying that no-one does what I tell them!!) 
Thank you so much to you lovely ladies for supporting the workshops and making them such fun to do.
These are the cards we did.... Pink is actually one of my favourite colours and I realised I hadn't been using so much recently, so I have rectified that....
We used a selection of stencils and stamp sets 200 Hope and 210 Background Mash Up both by Tracy Evans

Thank you for looking!

Janet xxx

Flowers and Gears

Good evening!

Today was one of those days when you think it's all going well, then you make a basic school boy error......

I had finished most of the card and was just sticking it to the base.  I use double-sided tape and had taken the back off so it was all sticky.  I realised that I hadn't got any base card out, so I popped the card sticky side down on my mat while I went to get the base card... did you spot the error there???

I managed to get the card off the mat with no damage to the card (thank goodness!) but it left lots of sticky tape behind on the mat, which I promptly forgot about until I couldn't get another project I was working on off the mat!!!

Some days I really think I am getting the hang of this lark, then other days I do stuff like that!

Stamp set 195 Flowers and Gears by Olga 

I made this one a while ago now and can't quite remember what I did..but it was something like this...
I blended ink on the card and spritzed and blotted for the background colour, then stamped the smaller gears from the set in the same colours and stamped the bigger gears in black
I stamped the gorgeous peonies separately, coloured and cut out (I know, Veronica!  More cutting out - I think I am ill!!)
I stamped and coloured the leaves straight on the card (you can have too much cutting out!!)
added the greeting and some screwhead brads and a few gems.
Thanks so much for dropping in! 
Janet xxx

Floral scene

Good evening,

I hope you aren't getting fed up of me but I still have loads of samples to show you.....

Tonight's is a clean and simple card made using the delightful Flourishing Vase stamp set by Tracy and Abs stencil #30

I have just posted this card on the AALL and Create Fanatics page (well worth joining!) and had a lovely little conversation with Tracy.  I have only recently come to realise how important doing these tiny bits of art is to me.  It is not just a hobby, it is not just something I do, I have finally realised it is part of who I am!  That is quite a thing to realise!

So onto the card...

Stamp 213 Flourishing Vase by Tracy and Stencil 30 by Abs

For the background, I masked off the bottom part of the card, then inked the back of the stencil with distress inks (I vaguely used blue towards the top and green towards the bottom) I made sure the top of the stencil had ink but I wiped some away from the sides, then spritzed with water and pressed onto the card, making sure to cover with plenty of tissue to mop up any seepage.

Once dry, I stamped the flowers in place and coloured them.  I drew in a line along the bottom of the stems and added a few squiggles, then added some washi tape and stamped the sentiment!

Done!  Nice and easy....

Just a little note, the stems of the flowers can be bent slightly to change the shape of the flower

Thanks very much for visiting!

Janet xxx

Kaitlin's ladies

Good evening,

This evening I thought I would share two cards made using the lovely ladies by Kaitlin. I love these images...

Stamps 218 Flower Kido by Kaitlin and 202 Gears and Elements by Bipasha

Stamp 217 Bug by Kaitlin

I went a bit vintage with this one.  I liked the idea of mixing the two different types of image...
I did a vintagey background with distress oxides, stamped the gears and elements then coloured a few of the elements with darker and lighter shades to add a bit of interest
I stamped the lady on separate card and coloured her in matching tones, then cut her out.  I also stamped and cut out the flowers from the set and put them in place with green brads.  I gave the lady a bit of green eyeshadow to match!  (Is it just me, or does she look like a naughty secretary??)

For the second card, I blended some inks over the card then stamped the lady in place.  Avoiding the lady, I stamped the rest of the images from the set in matching tones all over the background and also used black to add the bugs
I did a bit of shading on the face and added some white highlights with a pen.  It all looked a bit dark, so I decided to stamp the sentiment in white paint over the background too.
I also stamped it in black and added to the card.
I love this sentiment, even though it doesn't apply to me - I would never make 99% angel!!
Thank you for visiting!
Janet xxx