New Home Card

Here's a simple 'New Home' card I made using the house stamps I bought along with the Kate Crane DVD (love her work, did a workshop with her in Harrogate last year) from The Artistic Stamper. So it's only right that I enter it into their Anything Goes August Challenge!
Anyway this was made by stamping and embossing onto scrap backgrounds I'd made, chopping them up and swapping bits around (paper piecing!). Before gluing the houses onto a card blank I stamped the sentiment a few times. I stuck the middle house on with raised foam pads to make it stand proud,in keeping with the sentiment. After gluing the houses on I then drew a little border to frame it all.
I made this in a real rush as we were unexpectedly visiting friends in their new home.....then FORGOT TO TAKE IT, lol!!! Suz xxx

Stamping with Corrugated Card

Hi all
This was a quick make to enter the Craft Stamper Challenge.
The theme was anything from any issue in 2014! I chose a simple but fab technique from the September 2014 issue which was the Stamping with Corrugated Card technique inspired by Claudia Neubacher. on page 69.

I used book pages and chalky pink and white paints to create the backgrounds using two scraps of corrugated card for stamping and a brayer. I used a sentiment stamp from Oak House Studio and a Tattered Lace die which I cut 3 times and chopped into for the branches and additional birds - love that die! The focal shape was a frame die with an aperture cut.The flowers were circles of card I cut into scalloped spirals and rolled up with a quilling tool, finally I added a few gems to bring out the purple of the flowers. Photography was a bit dodgy because I had to do this in quick spurts during the late afternoon so finished it in the dark and in a hurry, but hopefully you can see what I was getting at! Ta Suz

How to create the patchwork watercolour backgrounds

Hi all
Very excited to say I've been asked to be on the Oak House Studios design team for the next 3 months. Love Lynnda's spray inks and stamps so this is wonderful news!

The card sample below is one I used in my workshop on Saturday and uses the beautiful OHS Sunflower click here for details. There are two ways of creating the background; one uses squares of coloured tissue paper the other is to make your own coloured tissue paper using spray inks on recycled tissue paper from packaging - guess which we used! So once the paper is cut into squares you take a piece of card, must be thick enough to take water - so watercolour paperis good- spray it with water, lay down the tissue paper making a collage complely covering the paper. Keep spraying water on the back of the tissue paper and use a paint brush or your fingers to burnish the paper so that it completely makes contact with the card (otherwise you will get some white patches - though that can look cool). Leave to dry. Once dry the paper simply falls away leaving a beautiful pastel patchwork background that you can stamp on as usual.

Once I'd stamped the Sunflower I used Aquamarkers and dragged the colour down the petals with a waterbrush. To finish off I drew swirls around the stamp (to cover a mark!!) added cosmic shimmer glue to the middle and sprinkled on tiny small black sparkly gems.. For the mid layer I usedanother OHS stamp called the English Garden Words stamp, which worked a treat as a backgound. Details here. Great fun! Hope you like it, why not have a go yourself.

Suz xx

Watercolour background technique with Clarity Stamps

Here is a quick post to show the sample card for my workshop this Saturday. We will make various watercolour backgrounds using a technique I've come up with (will post details after the classes) and using the beautiful Clarity Hummingbird and Vine stamps. Hope you like it - I loved making it!
Suz xx

I'll enter this into a couple of blogs as I've not participated for a while. Hel's Sheridan's Sunday Stampers  which this week is 'Backgrounds' and the Clarity Stamp Challenge which is 'Feminine' and I thing this card with the pastel background, vines and hummingbird fits that. 

I wanted to make a quick and economical wedding gift for a friend who's getting married as our main gift was vouchers. So there I was in Ikea and saw this lovely little flower pot, but a bit too plain! I rubbed a little Archival Cobolt Blue ink around the edges then quickly, before it dried, I rubbed it all around with a bit of kitchen towel that had a splash of alcohol handwash on it to smudge the colour all around the base. I then just stamped randomly using the beautiful heart from Oak House Studios o a stamp block, rolling it across the surface. It worked a treat so will enter it into the Oak House Studio Challenge which is wedding themed. ! You could do this for the table centre pieces too, co-ordinating the colours and stamp to the wedding theme! Suz xxx

Simple fella's card

Not that the fella getting the card is simple, that'd just be rude, but it was a simple card to make.  It's for my bike made uncle who is currently restoring some old two wheeled thing he treasures!

I stamped and embossed the Clarity Stamp motorbike image with a Cobalt Blue Archival ink pad. Printed out the sentiment on my PC, layered the bike image & sentiment onto blue card (which had been white but I coloured it using Chipped Sapphire distress ink, did the same for the background mat). Then I layered some patterned paper and a bit of ribbon, which was a lighter blue but I ran a deep blue alcohol marker over it to darken it. Popped it all together, added a few blue gems and voilà!

Think I'll enter this into the Clarity Challenge - my first one ever I think! Suz xxx

Journal Pages - Nostalgia/ Technology and Courage

So here are the latest two pages I made for the Journal 52 FB group. Tehnology and nostalgia were two separate themes but I couldn't help feeling nostalgic when I thought about 'old' technology and how much things have changed so that was a fab excuse to combine the two....I wonder how we will network and blog in the future??? Acrylic paints, home made gelatine plate, die cuts, stamping and hand lettering in this one.

 

Courage is a funny thing. So whatever the change you would like to make in your life, I wish you the courage and love to do it.... Suz xxx