Butterflies

Some days you just really fancy a good old inky, messy play, and I had one of those days yesterday. Here's what I made and some simple steps if you are interested. Suz xx

I prayed a piece of thick card, probably about 400gsm with Oak House Studio Spode spray ink. I then mixed some of the ink with some Sweet Poppy translucent paste, not too much or it just goes flat. Then I used a swirl stencil and some chipped sapphire TH inks around the edge, and another mask with polka dots .  I inked though a butterfly stencil with Versamark, heat embossing the lower with Stampendous Frantage enamels and the other with clear embossing powder which darkened the colour beneath. I added white Signo pen to the butterflies and also used it to highlight other areas and to frame the beautiful sentiment with swirls and dots. I used a blue pencil to give depth in some areas around the butterflies too. To create the bird cage and branches I used another stencil but this time spritzed Dylusions white ink through. The sentiment stamp was from Oak House Studio, just using archival black ink onto which card which I'd also pre-coloured with the Spode. I might also enter this one into the Oak House Studio challenge as I'm still on the blue theme with this!
Happy crafting all.
Suz
xx

Anniversary Card for my Hubby

So here is a card I made for our 22nd Wedding Anniversary next month. Slight problem that hubby saw it while I was trying to take pics, but he will pretend to be surprised on 25th July!

I sprayed the main card blank with the Oak House Studio 'Spode' blue spray inks, which gave a lovely soft colour. I stamped three hearts using the Walesby Heart, also from Oak House Studio using a Versamark ink pad then heat embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Marine Sea Lustre, which I also used for the Anniversary sentiment. I added ribbon top and bottom to the main strip. I had a piece of blue card which I rounded the corners on, divided into 3 parts and added white dots to with a Uniball Signo white pen, which I also did to the card behind the sentiment. I layered it all up, was happy that it wasn't too girly (it's blue!!!) then smudged a mark on the edge of the main heart bit so I die cut more of the same coloured card and added the swirls to cover it up, but I liked it with that too! Tiny scrap of ribbon on the semtiment, just in a knot rather than a feminine bow, and voila!

I'm going enter this into the June Oak House Studio Challenge

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - and my last DT post for Artistic Inspirations!

Hi all. This is the very last image I'll be using as a member of the Artistic Inspirations Design Team and it must be one of my favourites! I went all out and made 4 cards in one morning, great fun.  Here is the link to this image by Bugaboo  http://www.bugaboostamps.com/Red-Hat-Stella-Block--want-to-have-fun_p_1645.html.
The theme this month over on the Artistic Inspirations Challenge Blog is 'Inspired by a Song'.  So this image with the sentiment "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", that old Cindy Lauper classic, was perfect, in fact I'm listening to it as I type this post!
I added colour with Promarkers, then used the same colours to draw frames on the card blanks to match.  More details at the bottom of this post on the pic. I also discovered the perfect copy paper today for printing my digital images, typical as this is my last one!!! It's Xerox ColorPrint paper, and at 100gsm it is brill. One final tip; to give your digi's the effect of being heat embossed, just go over them with a black Sakura Glaze gel pen - works a treat! Best wishes all, especially all my fellow DT members, loved working with you all! Suz xxx

The pic below shows all 4 images on the 1 sheet of A4 paper. I do it this way to play with colour combinations, but as I liked all of them, and the colour went on so well on this paper, I used em all!

Art Journal Page - Creative Hands

So I've decided to keep all my posts on one blog rather than have a separate blog for the art journaling. I think it gives a bit of variety.

This page I did with my Mum in mind as she's been really poorly in hospital and lives very far away. So this was my way of sending her love and luck.

I used Dylusions Sprays for the background. Drew a hand on some textured paper, painted it, cut it out and glued it on with DecoArt Decoupage medium. I went around it with a charcoal pencil to give depth. I then drew around my left hand twice at the top of the page and added text with a dip pen and white ink around the frame. Not sure I like the main hand too much, but it is my first attempt at drawing a hand and I think the fairies draw the eye away from it!

Then I stamped some fairies. I drew around them with a white charcoal pencil to make them look a bit magical.

I stencilled with a Dylusions Mask and various green inks to create a frame. Stencilled again with the mask using Versamark ink on the right hand side and heat embossed with clear powder for some texture in the background. Finally I decorated the leaves and added some hand drawn leaves to make the hands look like branches. I also went around the journaling to make it stand out a little better.

I really liked how this one turned out. Suz xxx

Altered Art Journal

Here's what I made at todays Andy Skinner Workshop. Great fun. Won't post the details, as Andy will be running more of these, but will put in some pics of the stages. Suz xx

Steampunk Heart card for Artistic Inspirations

This weeks image is a steampunk heart so I used it to make a card for my Dad which was a bit different from the usual run of the mill. He's always hard to make a card for as his only hobbies are watching sport and reading books!
The challenge this month is Anything Goes/ Dies and/or Punches and there winner gets to visit Delicious Doodles - and choose 4 images.
I firstly embossed a piece of black card. Then I brushed across it with some white acrylic ink I had spare from another project - loved how it looked! I printed out the steam punk image. Inked it using a black inkpad then went over the lines with a black fine-nibbed pigment ink pen. I used a quickie glue pen around the outside, covered this with black embossing powder and heat embossed it. I also used a white paint pen but it came out less opaque than I had expected. I used a silver pen to colour some cogs and the chain. I Decoupaged the metal rings and heat embossed them with silver. I die cut the clock face, a couple of cogs for the string to wrap around and a white heart for the background (though I trimmed it down as it was a little too big). I added some jewelled brads to the embossed background, first cutting off the pins with a jewellery wire cutter then using them on the clock faces as hands. I used my cricut for the words then embossed them too and used silver gilding wax. Some ribbon (on a mans card!!!) and bakers twine and there you have it.

             Morning all. Here's my latest card for Artistic Inspirations using images by Kathryn at StampArtDesigns. I also added some coloured beads which were meant to be for nail art to the centre of the flower, and on the shoes and dress. My goodness can they travel far and wide when you drop them (speaks from experience)! This gave me a chance to play with my new H20's and Spellbinder Grand Circles dies! Hope you like it. The challenge theme this week at  is Anything Goes/ All for Mom sponsored by
StampArtDesigns - 5 images for the winner.