Some Spring Cheer!!

By now regular followers of this blog will know that I live in the south east corner of the UK which is supposedly one of the warmest parts of the whole of the United Kingdom.  I say 'supposedly' because whilst I was watching our local news and weather I was informed that today we were colder than Scotland (the northern part of the UK), and to be honest I can quite believe it as it was freezing out there and has been for the last few days.  We have been well below the average temperature for this time of year as we have only been hitting about 5c - apparently normal temperatures should be around 10 or 11c.

So I thought I would cheer myself up a bit and post up a pretty flowery card to remind myself that it won't be long before all the spring flowers start to make an appearance - with a bit of luck!!

The flower stamp I've used is one of my favourite Brushstroke stamps by Penny Black called 'Blush'.  I simply coloured the stamp with brush markers and then stamped it three times onto my panel without any reinking so as to get some variations in depth of colour.  Along the bottom of the panel I stamped Judikins's Mince Flourish by colouring the stamp using a green brush marker and stamping along the base of the panel - again without reinking the stamp between each stamped impression. The wording (taken from the Penny Black clear Salutations stamp set) was stamped using a Brilliance Graphite Black inkpad and the Denami Large Dot Swirls that you see on the background panels were stamped using the Brilliance Starlite Black inkpad which is much softer than the Graphite Black. 

I hope you like it and reminds you all that (hopefully) it won't be too long before we get some warmer weather!

Background panel - Arabella by Basic Grey from The Stamp Man
Penny Black stamps from Sir Stampalot
Judikins and Denami stamps from Stamp Addicts
Prima flowers, self-adhesive pearls and nailheads from The Craft Barn

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!

When I Could Make Cards..........

Morning guys.  Here's a card that I made last year back in the days when I could craft!!  The main image is a Sugar Nellie stamp available from Funky Kits.  The subtle flower background stamp and the flourish in the top left corner are both by Judikins and the daisy flower in the bottom right corner is a Stamps By Judith stamp. The background paper is by Denami and all of these products are available from Stamp Addicts. Lastly the sentiment is by Craftwork Cards and came from The Craft Barn as too did the tiny Prima flowers.

Here's a close up of the image which was stamped onto watercolour card and coloured using dye-based inkpads.

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

In Anticipation!!

Morning folks!!  Just to prove that I do occasionally use my own Christmas stamps here is one of the cards that I sent out this year using stamps from my snowflake stamp sheet along with some of my favourite stamps.

Unfortunately it isn't often that I just get to make cards for the joy of it and usually I have to stick rigidly to certain stamps or materials but when making my own Christmas cards I can just go with the flow!!  The main (coloured snowflakes) that you see and the white background snowflakes are from my own snowflake stamp sheet. They grey snowflake swirl and the wording are both by Stampendous - not too sure if they are still available as they are a couple of years old!! And of course the large dotty swirls are by Denami - which you will already have seen a lot of on this blog.  I thought I'd be sensible and design a card that didn't need too much colouring in but unfortunately I just had to cut the snowflakes out as it looked so much better and then it looked even better if I layered a smaller snowflake over the larger one so in the end it didn't end up being a quick card after all!  (Nothing new there then!!)

Even though we live in the south east of England they are actually forecasting snow here for the end of the week - although I'll believe it when I see it!!  I'm still keeping everything crossed for snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as I have never known it to snow on either of those days and it would absolutely make my Christmas - I think I need to move to Scotland!!

More Lilac!!

Morning guys.  The sun is actually shining here on the south east coast but I don't know for how much longer as yet more rain and wind is forecast for our area over the next few days!!  Like we need it!!!!

Anyway with the thought of all that gloomy weather I thought I'd post up a nice cheerful looking card - again which goes nicely with my new blog background!!

Quite a simple card this one as I just stamped the poinsettia 3 times and then coloured it using Sakura Stardust pens and a water brush.  The background was mainly stamped using Versamark with the grey images being stamped in Brilliance Starlite Black.  All the images are by Denami and can be purchased from Stamp Addicts.

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My thanks to everyone who has entered and enquired about my Christmas Card competition so far - I can't believe how quick off the mark some of you have been as cards have already been arriving which is great!! Please keep them coming as I am loving seeing what you have done!

Talking of competitions The Craft Barn are currently running a card competition too where you can win some Kadoodle Stamps. Click here to check it out!