Tuesday 25 June 2013

Ella Bella Blue

Hi all, another week has passed since my last post & I just don't know where the time has gone yet again!. I have great intentions of posting a few times a week but my plans always seem to get scuppered.
 I'm squeezing in this post whilst getting myself & my 3 year old ready to leave the house to get to nursery & my afternoon working in the shop.
Hoping to get crafting this evening when I get home as it's Daddy's turn to read the bed time story & tuck her in tonight.
 
My card today is one I made a little while ago using the Ella Bella stamp from IndigoBlu.
 
 
I stamped Ella Bella in peacock feathers distress ink & heat embossed her with clear embossing powder, I then distressed around the edges of the card with shabby shutters & brushed corduroy & used a pair of scissors to distress the very edges of the card.
She was mounted onto aqua card & then a piece of kraft card that was embossed ( can't remember which folder!) & a bit of brushed corduroy on the raised areas.
The background was stamped using the tendrils of her hair all around the edges also with peacock feathers & distressed further with scissors & the same colours as before, & mounted onto a kraft card blank.
 
 
I stamped & distressed the sentiment with brushed corduroy & attached it with 3D foam & added some sheer ribbon, flowers made with my tattered florals die & some gold flat backed pearls.
 
 
I love using IndigoBlu stamps at the moment & I'm really looking forward to placing another order for the shop & getting my hands on some of their new Christmas designs.
 
See you again soon, thanks for taking a look & as always your comments are very well received.
I'm trying to be really good at commenting on all of your blogs too!.
 
Amy x
 
 

Wednesday 19 June 2013

All You Need Is Love - Beatlemania!

Hello there my crafty friends & a big 'Hello' to my new follower Sharon.
 Thank you for joining me & taking the time to see what crafty projects I've been creating.
It's very exciting when someone new joins us!
 
 Hope you all had a good week last week? Mine was full of all things Beatles. Might seem a bit odd but let me explain.
Every year we hold a festival in Chipping Sodbury over the space of a week. The local community are encouraged to join in & attend the various events taking place in the town & the week ends with a street procession led by a carnival princess & decorated floats & a 'Last night of the proms'.
 The local businesses are all asked to join in by decorating their windows with the theme of the festival which this year was Beatlemania to celebrate 50 years of The Beatles.
 
Here's a few pics of my window display
 





 
As you can see, we won second prize in the Best Dressed Window competition!
 
Carole & I held an afternoon workshop on Friday & the card design was based on one of The Beatles songs. Carole came up with the design for this workshop & we used a stamp by Crafty Individuals that was perfect for the theme. The stamp had jumped out at me when we were on the Crafty Individuals stand at the NEC trade fair back in February, so we knew straight away this was the song we would be basing our design around.
The stamp was used to create the heat embossed background, the stopper on the base of the card & the flower which was cut with the Sizzix Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die, this has become a firm favourite of mine.
 
Here's the card we made at our workshop


We also used the Creative Expressions Heart Lattice A4 embossing folder
 (like gold dust to get hold of at the mo!) 
All our ladies really enjoyed the workshop & the new ladies who attended did a great job even though they'd never used any of the techniques before & I'm pleased to say a few more spaces on our regular workshops got booked up as a result!
 
Having made the above card, I couldn't help use the same layout to create a couple more.

I couldn't resist adding a bit of black soot distress ink to this one & although I really like the effect, I think for a 'love' themed card it may be a bit dark.
 
We had just had a new Creative Expressions delivery in the shop, & I thought this heart stamp would fit the theme too, so I added a bit of  red & some roses to the mix ( although it looks a bit orange in the pics!) & I think this is my favourite.

  


 
Well, thanks again for taking the time to look at this long post today!!
I'm off up to the shop now to change my window display & looking at how sunny it is already today, I think I might melt in the process!
Later on I'll be preparing all the bits & pieces for our next workshop tomorrow evening which will be the same project as my previous post.
 
See you soon
 
Amy x

 

Saturday 8 June 2013

Beside the Seaside

Morning all, hope the sun is still shining on you all? Looks like it's going to be another beautiful day here, hopefully it will still be nice tomorrow on my day off too. Although some of my Sunday will be spent preparing my latest window display in the shop so technically I'll still be working.
 
My card today is the design my half of our Card making workshop group made at this Thursday evening's class. A bit of a seasidey theme with a hint of vintage.
We used the 'Beside The Seaside' stamp from Crafty Individuals.
 
 
I knew I wanted the beach huts to be in the background some how, so after playing around with Labels Seventeen Spellbinder this is what I came up with.
I cut the two pieces of card, one with a fold to form a hinge to attach to the other. I then die cut the frames into them so they pop up. I did this by only having half the die on the cutting plate & the rest over lapping the edge so that only half of the shape cuts. ( I hope this makes sense!)
I then cut & embossed the frames fully to go over the top, & inked them with peacock feathers, mustard seed & brushed corduroy distress inks.
The background was spritzed with cosmic shimmer spays in mango & Egyptian blue & these were also used to colour the crochet ribbon strips.
The images were stamped in black ink & heat embossed with clear embossing powder & then coloured with water colour pencils & blended.
I finished with a few shells from my current nautical display in the shop!

 This is Karen's finished card
 
 This is Leanne with her version of Carole's design
 
 And this is a close up of Leanne's finished card, she was really chuffed!
 

These two cards were made by two new ladies to our group who had never tried any of the techniques we used at all before. They enjoyed themselves a lot & I'm pleased to say they have booked up to come along to our classes again.
I think they did a great job!
 
As always, thanks for stopping by.
 Your comments are much appreciated & I really enjoy reading them.
 
 
Amy x

Monday 3 June 2013

Poppy Heart

Well I don't know where that last week went, & now we are into June!
 At least we are now experiencing some Summer weather at last & I'm pleased to say our camping trip over the bank holiday was a great success due to the sun shining.
 
My post today is a wooden heart decorated with blazing poppies in blues.
Both the MDF heart & Poppy stamp are from Indigo blu.
The sentiment is a Creative expressions stamp & the butterfly stamp is one by Kanban that I've had for ages.
 
 
I gave the heart a layer of white gesso & when dry applied a layer of aqua acrylic paint.
I then stamped the Blazing poppy directly onto the heart with black ink & coloured areas with promarkers .
The areas around the image & the particularly the edges of the heart were sanded back to reveal the white underneath.
I stamped the poppies onto white card & coloured with promarkers, I then cut them out & shaped them with my fingers to make them look more 3D.
These were then stuck onto the flowers on the heart with cosmic shimmer pva glue. I did the same with the butterflies & added stickles glitter glue here & there & gold cosmic shimmer pva dots in the centres of the poppies.
The sentiment was stamped in black & heat embossed with clear embossing powder.
Lime green ribbon to hang finishes the heart.
 



Thanks for visiting my blog, please pop by again soon to see what we're up to in our next workshops, the next one is this Thursday & we will be using Crafty Individuals Stamps.
I'm off now to get packs together for our group of crafty ladies.
 
Amy x