Oak House Studio October Borders and Frames challenge

This bright sunny card was made using OHS stamps and embossing powders. I stamped out hearts from the Stitch in Time stamp set in 4 different colours; firstly using a clear embossing ink pad then adding embossing powders: I heat embossed with pearl gold then copper detail powders. For the third and fourth colours I used a golden yellow and burgundy ink pad and embossed with the clear embossing enamel. I cut out all the hearts and arranged them as shown with one of the button stamps embossed in the copper colour for the middle piece, and also for the sentiment. I Then took a piece of cream card and stamped the frame border using clear ink and the pearl gold embossing powder and for the inner frame on the white card I again used the Golden Yellow ink pad and clear embossing enamel. I finally added a ribbon in a complementary colour and to that added a button. A cheery card great for a get well. For a more detailed list of the products used visit the Oak House Studio Blog. Suz xxx

Upcycled paper bag

 For this weeks project I decided to upcyle a plain brown paper bag (courtesy of the local Chinese take-away!!). It was the prefect size to put some parchment magazines in which I'd bought for my Aunts 97 year old mother, who still makes all her own cards and goes to her painting club on a Friday morning. Oh I hope I can do that at 97!!!

I added a piece of white A4 card which I'd spritzed with Brazil Nut spray ink then torn around the edges. I die cut the words using my Cricut Mini and sprayed them with my three main colours of Brazil Nut, Citrus Yellow then Paris Pink. 

 I then used the yellow and pink sprays on some old  'brief tape' (used in the old days to wrap the 'paper briefs' given to Advocates in the Crown Court. This was given to me years ago by a friend who worked for a Solicitors, but due to its course nature, off white colour and floppy texture I'd never used it. Now I've found how well it took the spray inks I'll be using it lots! I used it to make the bow, decorate the handles and as a band of colour under the sunflowers. Little hint here is to use the yellow first. This gives a better orange and prevents any being bright pink which I didn't want for the Autumnal Challenge - but will love for another time!

Perfect fit for the parchement mags!

 The sunflowers were stamped and embossed with the Copper Detailed Embossing Powder onto yellow card, then I just used a watercolour brush to again add a mixture of the sprays to colour. I didn't use the paper in the pic above with the orange/ yellow ribbon - that was just to show how you can create a beautiful bit of coloured card by soaking up the sprays from the ribbon. So no wasted colours! Have fun, Suz xxx

Autumnal Colours

Here are two projects I've designed for Oak House Studios Autumnal Colours Challenge. Both are cards, one is a traditional simple combo of stamping and watercolouring. The other is a bit more abstract.

For the Sunflower card I stamped and embossed a central image using the OHS medium sunflower stamp and the OHS copper embossing powder. I Stamped the image again with black archival to make a mask which I cut out. Then after laying the mask I stamped another flower either side of the masked image and embossed with Pearl Gold embossing powder.- which I also used for the sentiment. I went around each image and the sentiment with a Spectrum Noir alcohol marker (EB2) for a little deptth  I then coloured these with watercolour paints.

 For the heart card I took a plain Kraft card 5x7 blank. Sprinkled embossing powders randomly over the card and spread around with my finger to give a swirly look then just heated from underneath so the powder didn't just blow away (as it wasn't fixed to the card with anything). I did this with the Copper, Pearl Gold and Seafoam white embossing powders. Then I sprayed the card with some OHS spray inks in Brazil Nut and Paris Pink to give the background a bit of interest.

 I took the Walesby Heart stamp and stamped onto pink card. Sprayed it to death with the inks. added some gel pens to the hearts and dots then, once dry I inked all over with a Versamark pad and embossed with Crystal Sparkle embossing powder which completely changed the look and gave it a sparkle with lots of different tones (love it!).

 I die cut 4 corners from black card then used gilding wax to give a metallic look. Die cut wings from pearl white paper. Wrapped some wire to create the shapes on the heart and across the card. Added silver pearls and hand wrote letters. I went around the letters and edges of the corners with a Pitt black marker pen and smudged to soften the line. See top card for the finished article as this pic was taken without some elements. Good messy fun! Suz xxx

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.