Framed Tile Pictures

So....................I've been asked if I can show/tell how I made these framed tile pictures that Leandra showed on the video release of my launch night which you can find here.

I'm afraid that I don't currently have a step out for these - I am planning on making some more of these in different colours and hope to do a 'step out' then but it won't be for another couple of months. So meanwhile this is what I did...... I began by sponging on Snowflake Fresco Finish onto a 4"square plain glossy ceramic white tile  and then built up my design in much the same way as described for the heart fridge magnet in the previous post.

My first idea was to use the tiles as coasters but as soon as I tried to brush on a sealing glaze it began to remove the paint so I had to change my mind - hence making them into pictures!

Below is how the Cosmos tile looked before it went into the frame.

And the Allium tile -

I would still really like to make these into coasters but I need to find a way of sealing them successfully and I don't really like the idea of mixing up some sort of resin as that sounds a bit of a palaver!! I did wonder about a spray on sealant but I need to find one that won't mind water and heat - if anyone knows of anything that would be appropriate please do let me know!

Unfortunately once they went into the 6" deep box frames (which I purchased from Hobbycraft) you could no longer see the Lilac Fresco Finish that I had edged the tiles with.

A closer shot for you -

And here's the Allium one -

They still look pretty but not as pretty with the lilac edging showing!!

I promise that when I next decorate another tile I will take step-by-step photos so you can see the process but in the meantime I hope this helps!

Cosmos Heart

Hellooooooo......................yep, I'm back again with another more detailed step out for you. On my 'launch night' over on PaperArtsy's blog I showed a step out of a papier mache heart using this new stamp set designed by 'yours truly'!!

But I actually had a lot more step outs than what I showed last week so I thought I'd take the opportunity to show you them on here so that you can really see how I go about building my projects!

So this is what I gathered together before I made a start on this project (see above).

 So to begin I gave the papier mache heart a base coat of Snowflake so that I could begin adding colour onto a white base. As you can see I used the reverse side of a small piece of Cut-n-Dry foam to apply the acrylic paint.

 Next I sponged on A Hint of Mint which is a beautiful (very pastel) shade of green - to be fair you can't really see any difference from this photo and the one before but I promise you it is on there and it did tint it a beautiful pale minty green!

I then stamped the frond grasses along the bottom and sides of the heart using a small piece of Cut-n-Dry (again) to apply Sage paint to the stamps. (This was my first time stamping with acrylic paint and I was amazed at how well it captured all the fine detail of my stamps.)

Next I stamped out one of my flowers using black archival ink but you might be able to see that as the papier mache isn't a smooth surface there were parts of the stamp that missed. However I always have a black multi-liner for occasions such as these so I just drew the missing bits back in!

I then began painting my petals in with Sherbert and Lilac Fresco Finish - both of these are opaque colours so I dipped my paintbrush into water each time before picking up some paint in order to make the paint a little more translucent.

As you can see from the picture above I carried on adding layers of Sherbert and Lilac in this way with a wet paintbrush and then did the same with Pansy - using a wet paintbrush to blend this darker colour into the lighter colours. (You can still see the stamped detail showing through these layers of colours due to applying them with a wet brush.) I then painted in the stems with Sage (also an opaque colour) but this time my brush was only slightly damp and you can see how that then obliterates the stamping underneath.

Here's a bit of a closer shot so you can see what I mean!

After painting in the flowers I felt that the grasses that I had previously stamped with the Sage acrylic paint were too pale so I traced over them with a light green Copic marker.

I felt that the heart was still lacking some colour so I then chose to sponge Sherbert all around the edges which immediately framed the flowers and added some much needed subtle colour.

I had purposely left an area vacant on the heart in order to stamp some words onto it. Before stamping my word with Pansy Fresco Finish I painted a little strip with Snowflake Fresco Finish in order to help frame the word. (As these stamps are based on Cosmos flowers which bloom mid to late summer I wanted the words on this stamp sheet to reflect warm summer days hence the words 'dreams', 'dreamy' and 'days of summer'. Even though 'days of summer' is all one stamp, enough room has been left between the words so that you can snip between them with scissors to give you more variations on this theme such as 'dreamy summer days', 'summer dreams' 'dreamy days of summer', 'day dreams' etc...)

Before adding Pearl Glaze to the flowers, word panel and the edges of the heart I added little dots of colour to the dots on the flower and grass stems and then drew all the detail back in onto the flower petals using that same black multi-liner that I spoke of before! (I tend to have several of these to hand in all different sizes but the one I used for this project was a 0.1mm.)

Once the Pearl Glaze had dried the whole thing had a thin coating of Gloss Glaze purely just to protect the heart.

And here it is all finished with some tiny rhinestones added. This is actually a fridge magnet so they make great little handmade gifts!

 Many thanks for stopping by and taking a look - I shall try to do more step outs in the future but meanwhile I have quite a few other bits and bobs to show you that I've been creating recently so do stop by again!!

By the way as I write this my stamps are back in stock at The Craft Barn!!!

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/carleycards
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United Kingdom
Artist Trading Post, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey, Essex.
Blade Rubber Stamps, Bloomsbury, London.
Clacton Arts and Crafts, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Countryview Crafts, Potton, Bedfordshire.
Craftylicious, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
Imagine That..., Upminster, Essex.
Loobi Crafts, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
Papermaze, Ipswich, Suffolk.
Stampers Grove, Edinburgh.
Swanstitch, Deal, Kent.
That's Crafty, Romford, Essex.
The Artistic Stamper, Faversham, Kent.
The Craft Barn, Merstham, Surrey.
The Craft Box, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The Craft Den, March, Cambridgshire.
The Forget Me Not Kraft Kabin, Hockley, Essex.

Continental Europe
Expression-Hobby, Marcinelle, Belgium.

PaperiSaDe, Turku, Finland.

Kerudoc Creation, St Yvi, France.

Stempelfee-Shop, Hilden, Germany.
Stempeloase Munich, Munich, Germany.

Bianca's Toko, Drenthe, Netherlands.
Hobbycompleet de Duif, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Leuke Stempels, Nijverdal, Netherlands.

Big Time Stempel, Gockhaisen, Switzerland.

USA/ Canada
Frantic Stamper Inc, Eagle Point, Oregon.
Simon Says Stamp, Columbus, Ohio.
Tupelo Designs LLC, Sugarland, Texas.
Vintage in KC, Johnson, Kansas.
- See more at: http://blog.paperartsy.co.uk/2016/02/new-pa-products-feb-2016-kay-carley.html#sthash.QSpFRDPd.dpuf

United Kingdom
Artist Trading Post, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey, Essex.
Blade Rubber Stamps, Bloomsbury, London.
Clacton Arts and Crafts, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Countryview Crafts, Potton, Bedfordshire.
Craftylicious, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
Imagine That..., Upminster, Essex.
Loobi Crafts, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
Papermaze, Ipswich, Suffolk.
Stampers Grove, Edinburgh.
Swanstitch, Deal, Kent.
That's Crafty, Romford, Essex.
The Artistic Stamper, Faversham, Kent.
The Craft Barn, Merstham, Surrey.
The Craft Box, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The Craft Den, March, Cambridgshire.
The Forget Me Not Kraft Kabin, Hockley, Essex.

Continental Europe
Expression-Hobby, Marcinelle, Belgium.

PaperiSaDe, Turku, Finland.

Kerudoc Creation, St Yvi, France.

Stempelfee-Shop, Hilden, Germany.
Stempeloase Munich, Munich, Germany.

Bianca's Toko, Drenthe, Netherlands.
Hobbycompleet de Duif, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Leuke Stempels, Nijverdal, Netherlands.

Big Time Stempel, Gockhaisen, Switzerland.

USA/ Canada
Frantic Stamper Inc, Eagle Point, Oregon.
Simon Says Stamp, Columbus, Ohio.
Tupelo Designs LLC, Sugarland, Texas.
Vintage in KC, Johnson, Kansas.
- See more at: http://blog.paperartsy.co.uk/2016/02/new-pa-products-feb-2016-kay-carley.html#sthash.QSpFRDPd.dpuf

United Kingdom
Artist Trading Post, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey, Essex.
Blade Rubber Stamps, Bloomsbury, London.
Clacton Arts and Crafts, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Countryview Crafts, Potton, Bedfordshire.
Craftylicious, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
Imagine That..., Upminster, Essex.
Loobi Crafts, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
Papermaze, Ipswich, Suffolk.
Stampers Grove, Edinburgh.
Swanstitch, Deal, Kent.
That's Crafty, Romford, Essex.
The Artistic Stamper, Faversham, Kent.
The Craft Barn, Merstham, Surrey.
The Craft Box, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The Craft Den, March, Cambridgshire.
The Forget Me Not Kraft Kabin, Hockley, Essex.

Continental Europe
Expression-Hobby, Marcinelle, Belgium.

PaperiSaDe, Turku, Finland.

Kerudoc Creation, St Yvi, France.

Stempelfee-Shop, Hilden, Germany.
Stempeloase Munich, Munich, Germany.

Bianca's Toko, Drenthe, Netherlands.
Hobbycompleet de Duif, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Leuke Stempels, Nijverdal, Netherlands.

Big Time Stempel, Gockhaisen, Switzerland.

USA/ Canada
Frantic Stamper Inc, Eagle Point, Oregon.
Simon Says Stamp, Columbus, Ohio.
Tupelo Designs LLC, Sugarland, Texas.
Vintage in KC, Johnson, Kansas.
- See more at: http://blog.paperartsy.co.uk/2016/02/new-pa-products-feb-2016-kay-carley.html#sthash.QSpFRDPd.dpu

Allium step out

See..................as promised I am back!!!

So without further ado I promised to show you a more detailed step out of how I created this framed picture.

Using the Allium stamp set

 

So here goes......

 Above are all the materials that I gathered up in advance including a 6x6" piece of white canvas.

 As you can see I both masked off a border around the square piece of canvas and then taped it down onto my craft mat so that it wouldn't move around. I then prepped it with Snowflake using a piece of Cut-n-Dry.

 Next I took another piece of Cut-n-Dry and sponged over the panel with A Hint of Mint whilst doing this I picked up a tiny amount of the Lilac Fresco Finish on my piece of Cut-n-Dry and continued dabbing and mixing it with the Hint of Mint. As I dabbed and sponged onto the canvas I was able to still allow some of the Snowflake base to show through.

 Next I stamped grass all the way across the panel using Sage Fresco Finish.

 Then I arranged two of the Alliums onto the piece of canvas so that I could judge where I wanted them to be.

 Then after removing the stamps I sponged Sherbert where I thought the Allium heads would end up being.

 Next I stamped the leafy sprig using Sage Fresco bending and arranging it onto the block before stamping it out so that it would fit nicely around the Allium heads.

 Next I stamped out all my main imagery using black Archival - again shaping and bending the stems before stamping them out. (For this stamp set I purposely designed the components all with straight stems so that they could easily be manipulated on a block to bend either to the left or right thus giving more versatility to the stamps.)

 After stamping out all my main imagery in black, I was then able to fill in any gaps with a butterfly which was stamped with Sage Fresco and then painted with Fresco Finish paints.

Then I painted in all the other imagery using Fresco Finish paints and also added dots of colour to the grasses to represent some tiny little flowers.

 As all the Fresco Finish paints I was using to paint with were opaque I had lost a lot of the detail of the imagery so I painstakingly drew it all back in with a black fine-liner!

Now this next bit is definitely normally unheard of...................... I reached for a needle and thread!!!!

As you can see from this close up I chose to sew on some clear seed beeds to add both texture and interest to the Alliums.

Then lastly I glued on some tiny rhinestones. Once the glue was dry I then mounted it into a deep box frame.

I am afraid that all the pictures really don't show just how pretty this is!! Unfortunately this was created on one of our really wet/dark days where it never got light so you'll have to take my word for it that it does actually look quite nice!!

If anyone fancies doing this as a class at my home in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex or if anyone would like me to teach a class at their shop/store please do email me :).

I'll be back again soon with a more detailed step out of the heart fridge magnet using the Cosmos stamp set...............

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/carleycards
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I've Designed Some New Stamps!!!

So sorry for my lack of blog posts but I can now reveal that I have been 'super busy' behind the scenes designing two brand new stamp sets for the PaperArtsy Eclectica range!!!  I am SO excited to finally be able to show you them :)

If you go over to PaperArtsy's blog you will be able to see the wonderful samples that my very talented team created using these new sets plus a couple of step outs from me.

I would just like to thank my team mates - Emma Humphreys, Chris Dark and Helen Chilton for all their hard work and stunning samples and also Leandra from PaperArtsy for inviting me to become a guest stamp designer for their Eclectica range - it has been such an amazing and thrilling time for me!!! Below is a video of Leandra showing these new stamps and the amazing creations of my fabulous team.

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Tomorrow I will show you the Allium step out (from PaperArtsy's blog) in a bit more detail.

Meanwhile I have just set up a brand new Facebook page that I will be using to post future classes, card samples etc.... so it would be great if you could pop on over and give it a like!!

Plus I have now set up both Twitter and Instagram accounts too so it would be fabulous to gain some followers!!  I have no idea as yet how to use them but I'm sure I'll work it all out eventually!!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaycarley.designer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/carleycards
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kay.carley/
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/kaycwilson1/

See you tomorrow.............