The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge

Well it is Friday which means that it is time for another Stamp Man challenge.  This time around we want to see some oriental cards - click here to go to the Challenge Blog and find out all about it as well as see the stunning cards that the rest of the DT have made to inspire you.

As some of you are aware I do have my own range of oriental stamps so this was the ideal time to dust them off and use them!  Normally the first thing that pops into my head when I think of oriental are the colours red, gold and black but I thought that I would steer clear of these and go for pretty colours instead to show that oriental can look great in delicate colours too.

So here is what I finally came up with using my Japanese Plum Blossom set but as you can see I couldn't resist adding some black accents to it!

The background for the card was made using one of the beautiful Starburst Stains called Frosted Forget-Me-Nots which is available to buy on its own or if you have the Icicle Creek Starburst Stain set you'll find it in there too.  I then simply stamped the panels using stamps from the Japanese Plum Blossom sheet and a Stormy Sky Distress inkpad.  As you can see I couldn't resist using my Floral Lace Martha Stewart edging punch on the bottom panel as I thought this went so well with my main image!  The wording was stamped using a black Tombow pen (as this is infact all one stamp), so I just inked up the 'friends' part first and stamped it at the top of the card, cleaned my stamp before inking up the rest of the sentiment and stamping it near the base of the card.  The accent strips of paper were off-cuts from the background that I stamped with the plum blossom branch and a black inkpad before trimming to size and adding to the card.

I stamped the main image using black StazOn and then watercoloured the flowers and branches using Tombow pens and then painted the background with the Frosted Forget-Me-Not stain.

In order to add a touch of gold to the card I then used a glue pen in the centres and stamens of the flowers, allowed the glue to turn clear and then applied gold leaf to it which when it catches the light really lights up.

Anyway I hope you like the card and feel inspired to give The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge a go!  Good luck!!

Last Minute Christmas Challenge

Good morning everyone.  Here I am again with my second card as my stint as guest designer for Allsorts. This time the theme is Last Minute Christmas so for this I chose to go with a favourite Penny Black stamp of mine called Christmas Park. Because this is a Brushstroke stamp it is really quick to do as you just colour the stamp with waterbased markers, stamp it out and hey presto you've got a lovely coloured image already for you to mount up!

For the rest of the card I simply tore a piece of Magnolia paper (one of last years designs) and stuck it to a white landscape card and added some scraps of co-ordinating card along with tiny punched out snowflakes.  The wording is also a Penny Black stamp but I omitted the word 'Merry' and just inked up 'Christmas'.  Then of course with it being a Christmas card I added lots of stickles glitter glue!

Here's a closer look at those trees for you.

As you can see I inked them up with blue and purple coloured water-based pens (Tombows) to give a frosty/icy feel to them.

Don't forget to nip on over to the Allsorts Challenge Blog to see the rest of the wonderful cards that the DT have created and also to find out what you can win if you enter!  Have a great weekend!

A House In The Country

Hi guys.  I had fully intended to post earlier than this but you know the story by now about how time flies etc...!!  As you know a few days ago I was talking about making Dad his Father's Day card - well this is what I finally came up with!  My Dad was born in the country and grew up there and only moved away when he married my Mum - he has always dreamt of returning to the country but unfortunately the price of houses in the middle of nowhere are out of his monetary reach so I decided to recreate a house in the country for him for his Father's Day card this year!

As I mentioned previously I always struggle with mens cards as not only do I find subject matter hard to find but I also have to resist on 'prettying' them up.  However this year I think I rose to the challenge as I didn't even apply any glitter glue - although I did want to!!

For the background of the card I used some scenic stamps by Stampscapes which I stamped using Frayed Burlap Distress ink onto green Bazzill card.  I have got loads of these stamps in my stamp collection which I absolutely love but it has been quite a few years now since I have played with them.  The detail on these stamps is just amazing and the way these stamps join seamlessly together is fantastic.  For those of you who have never come across these stamps before they are sold in the UK by Serendipity. Click here to go view their website.  The quality and detail of the stamps is outstanding.  After using them for the background on Dad's card it has made me want to start using them again to create proper scenes - I just need to find some time to play!!

Anyway here is a closer look at the bottom right corner of the card.  Because of the texture of the Bazzill card and the fine detail of the stamps - it gave a patchy effect which I actually found perfect for this type of background as I really didn't want a solid look for this. (I also decorated the inside of the card too with these stamps but I'm afraid I got carried away and wrote in it before I photographed it so I'm afraid I can't show you the inside!!)

For the main panel I chose to use stamps by Art Impressions (availabe from my good friends at Sir Stampalot) which is yet another stamp company that I love but rarely have time to play around with now!  (For those of you who have got my Basics and Beyond DVD I used the same techniques to create this panel as I showed in the last section of the DVD where you ink up the stamps using water based pens and stamp them out several times fading out the ink.)  For the house and fence I actually used a dark grey pen to colour the stamp and then watercoloured the images by scribbling the pens onto a palette and picking up the colours with a damp paintbrush.  The wording was taken from my Fancy Flourish stamp sheet. (Available from The Craft Barn.)

Here's a closer look at the main panel so that you can see the detail a bit clearer.  Making these sort of cards where you are using lots of different stamps to create a scene or a picture really appeals to me as this is when stamping starts to become more of an art form although it's a bit scary as well when you haven't done it for a while!!

Anyway I hope you like it - it's a bit different to anything else I've posted for a while I know, but sometimes it is nice to return to things you haven't done for a while!!  It is actually a year since I have picked up any Art Impressions stamps and probably about 5 years since I've done any sort of work at all with the Stampscapes range but bizarrely I still rate them among my favourites - strange eh??

Bright Flowers

Morning guys.  I know I keep saying this but I really don't know where the time keeps going to!!  I had fully intended to post something up yesterday and what with one thing and another I never got round to it!

So before I start seriously crafting and lose myself for hours I thought I'd post this card up now!  I had a few days off over Christmas and sat down and played around with some of my stamps and this is one of the cards that I produced for Sir Stampalot.  Sir Stampalot have been really good to me over the years and I am always promising them to send them some cards and finally I made good on my promise!  The main image is by Penny Black and called Windflower which I inked up using brush markers and lightly spritzed with water before stamping it out - just like you see me do on the Basics and Beyond DVD.  The wording was taken from a Penny Black clear stamp set, the flourish (on the flower panel) is by Judikins, dotty swirl is by Denami and I have absolutely no idea whose the flourish is in the bottom left corner of the card - it's too long ago!!  I do remember that the green panel was embossed using my Stylized Flowers Cuttlebug folder!

By the way.....................why is it that when you duplicate colours from a real life flower it ends up looking not quite right??  I actually took these colours on my flowers from real life flowers that were in a gardening catalogue and I don't actually like mine whereas the proper flowers looked great!  NOT FAIR!!

Penny Black stamps and Marvy Le Plume II markers from Sir Stampalot
Judikins and Denami stamps from Stamp Addicts

Poppy

Oops - didn't get around to posting this card up yesterday after all!  We are having a lot of building works done here at the moment so things aren't always going according to plan currently around here!

Anyway here is that other card from Saturday's morning class using those same two Penny Black clear stamp sets again of Flowers & Wishes and Illumination along with the same materials from the last post.  This time the flower was stamped onto the panel and masked before adding the rest of the stamped images and background colour.  Once again the whole card was created through the use of stamps, inks etc...

Here's a better view of that poppy panel so that you can see the detail.  I wanted the flower and the wording to stand out the most so these were stamped in black in order to achieve this.  The poppy was coloured using water based markers along with a water brush then soft white highlights were added using a white colouring pencil.

I hope you like it.

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By the way don't forget if you fancy a real challenge this month to head on over to The Craft Barn's blog and enter their Mini Album competition.  Each day different pages are being loaded up to give you lots of inspiration and I must say that the DT have done an absolutely amazing job!!  Even Sandy (Mrs Craft Barn) has contributed to this challenge too so you definitely need to click here to go and view and find out how to enter.

Flower Vases

Hi guys.  First of all my thanks to all the ladies who came to my classes yesterday at The Glitter Pot.  It was lovely to see some faces that I already knew and some new faces too - I hope you all enjoyed it!  (Katherine - I don't know if you read my blog but if you do I forgot to give you your project sheet before you left so if you would like to email me I will send you one!)

Our class in the morning was very technique based.  It's been quite a while since I've done a class like that but I must say that everyone did really well especially as there was a lot to take on board!  The class did run over a bit but I think everyone in the end managed to get both this card done (the easier of the two) and the other one which I'll show you tomorrow.  Absolutely no backing papers were used at all on this card - everything was achieved using two sets of Penny Black clear stamps - Flowers & Wishes and Illumination along with Shabby Shutters and Antique Linen Distress inks, Tuxedo Black Memento inkpad, Versamark inkpad, clear embossing powder and a blending tool. (All of which can be purchased from The Glitter Pot apart from (currently) the blending tool which can be bought from The Stamp Man.  These two sets of stamps work really well together - the Flowers & Wishes set is full of outline images and the Illumination set contain bold/solid flower stamps. When you combine two different styles of stamps (like these) you can achieve some really great looks with them.

The vases of flowers were done using water based markers and a fine mist spritzer then the background was created around them using the supplies mentioned. 

I must admit that when I first came across rubber stamping I thought 'What is so great about stamping out an image and colouring it in?', but of course rubber stamping can be so much more than that as you can see here.

Anyway I hope you like it!

Lilac Windflowers

Morning guys.  I was going to post up the other Craft Barn Funky Flowers card that we did but on reflection I thought that I would give them a rest and pop this card on here instead.  This was a result of one of my 'play' sessions that I had just after Christmas when I had a little bit of time!

The main image is by Penny Black and is called Windflower - hence the title!!  The wording is also by Penny Black and is from their clear Salutations stamp set - both of these items I got from the lovely people at Sir Stampalot who do a vast range of stamps!

The flowers are a bold stamp so I used my water-based markers directly onto the rubber stamp, then lightly spritzed the stamp with water to blend the inks and stamped out onto card. (You can see me do this technique on my Basics and Beyond DVD.)  To soften the white background I took my Judikins Mince Flourish stamp (Judikins), coloured the rubber with a water-based marker and stamped down the left side of the panel. Using this same marker I then lightly sponged the background. 

The dotty stamp that I have used as a border is by Denami. This stamp, the Judikins stamp and the ribbon came from Stamp Addicts.

Hope you like it!

A Flower For You!

I thought that today we would have a rest from the Funky Flowers (as I have more of these to show you) and go with a card that I did last summer for my Colouring Techniques DVD.

As I think we all know by now, I love the colour lilac and if I combine it with another colour it is normally with blue but for a change I decided to go with green for this card and I was actually quite pleased with the colour scheme.

The main image is by Penny Black and was stamped onto watercolour card and then watercoloured using water-based markers along with a water brush.  The flourish stamp (Judikins) that you see around the panel was stamped using a green water-based marker and then I gently traced over the stamped impressions with my water brush to soften the lines.

The flowers were punched out from Basic Grey background papers and Bazzill cardstock using my retro flower punches.

Materials used:
Penny Black Mouse from The Glitter Pot
Judikins Mince Flourish (around main panel and on green panel) and Mince Flowers and Leaves stamp (on lilac panel) from Stamp Addicts
Retro flower punches from The Hobby House
Friends Always stamp from a Hero Arts clear stamp set from The Glitter Pot

Hope you like the card!!

A Lovely Time

Hey guys.  I'm under strict orders from my chiropractor to rest for the remainder of the day but I've just got to update my blog first!  (You know how it is!!)

Lisa- you are an absolute genius!!  Yesterday Mum and I (finally) went shopping to Tunbridge Wells and it was just what I needed!  I had a thoroughly nice time - just having a change of scenery was great!  Although all the bargains had been snapped up from the January sales, I still had a really nice time and came home with my purse rather a lot lighter!!  The best thing though was that going around the shops things kept jumping out at me and I now feel quite inspired and am in a much more positive frame of mind, so here's hoping I won't be struggling so much in the next few days with my card making!!

The trouble with feeling so inspired was that my mind was really buzzing last night and consequently it took me ages to get to sleep as I just couldn't switch off!  This morning though I woke up to find that the landscape had been dusted with icing sugar!  We had had a very light sprinkling of snow last night on top of the frost and it really did look as if someone had taken a very big sieve and dusted our little corner of the world with sugar!  It wasn't enough to cover the ground entirely so it didn't cause any upset around here.

The card that I've loaded up today is another one that I did last summer.  The main stamp and the faint background stamp are both by Penny Black and the black fine flourish is from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet. The sentiment is a little pre-printed die-cut from Craftwork Cards from one of their Oh My Words collection. These are great time savers and they do a huge variety of different words in both this oval shape and in circles too.  The main image was coloured using water based markers.  Here's hoping you like it!!!

Watercolour Flowers

Morning everyone.  First of all my thanks to those of you who have commented on my last two posts especially to those who commented about my colouring!!  I really feel do love those Copics!!

For todays post though I thought I would go back to a technique that I used to do years ago (which you will also find on my DVD - Basics and Beyond).

I have always loved Penny Black stamps and in particular their Brushstroke range as you can make such stunning cards with these with very little effort.  Also because there are no stamped outlines you can pretend that you actually painted it yourself!!  To get this sort of effect you need to use water-based pens such as Marvys or Tombows.  You then take several complementing colours and colour directly onto the back of the stamp, spritz with water and stamp out onto your cardstock - simple but very effective!!  (Look out for a project coming soon in Craft Stamper using these stamps where I show you step-by-step how to do it!)

And here is a close up of the flowers.  The particles that you can see are specks of glitter glue as I always lightly add a touch of glitter glue over these stamped impressions to give them life!

Stamps used:

Main flowers and wording - Penny Black from Sir Stampalot

Flourish - Judikins from Stamp Addicts

Dotty swirl - Denami from Stamp Addicts