Follow Your Dreams Esme

Well Hello there!

As you've probably noticed I've been missing for a while.

It's been a busy old time since my last post with preparations for Christmas in the shop.

The gift side of the shop goes a bit mad at this time of the year & we also hold our annual Christmas Shopping Evenings at the beginning of November. Not to mention half term holidays in October & Daisy's birthday party which I was brave enough to host at our house!!.

 

 

My project I'm sharing today is a Birthday card for my friend's daughter who turns 6 this week.

You may remember my card for her brother Finley featuring the Max Rocks stamps from Visible Image.

For this card for Esme, I have used the Fairy Dance stamp from Stampendous.

 

 

I wanted to keep this card very girly as it is going to be put in a frame & hung on the wall in her bedroom. So of course it had to be pink, purple & sparkly.

This stamp was the perfect image as when us 2 mums get together Daisy & Esme are forever dancing & twirling around in pretty dresses practicing their ballet moves!.

 

 

The image was coloured with my Inktense pencils & an extra skirt added over the top of the original to add dimension.

The Follow Your Dreams sentiment from Visible Image was stamped over a blended Distress Ink sky & foliage was stamped down the edges in green using a Lavinia stamp.

 

 

The image was layered onto white card & a background made with Brushos. The larger background was a mix of picked raspberry & dusty concord over stamped with a rose design, also from Stampendous.

I embossed around the edges with sparkly pink Wow! embossing powder & added a cluster of flowers & leaves & of course, lots of stickles glitter glue.

 

 

Thanks for visiting.

I hope to be back again very soon.

 

Amy x

 

 

 



Summer smile

Hello there blog friends & Hello September!.

I can't quite believe Autumn is almost upon us.

Although I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to Summer, I have to admit, I have been enjoying getting back onto a routine with school runs & set hours working in the shop this week.

It's also lovely to have lots of new goodies arriving in the shop for the Autumn/Winter season & I really do love all the colours this season will bring.

Today's project is a card made using the Chrysanthemum background stamp from Wow!, clear embossing powder & Distress Inks.

The background was stamped twice onto white card with versamark ink & clear embossing powder. 

Chipped Sapphire, Picked Raspberry & Peacock Feathers distress inks were blended randomly over the background.

I selected some of the flowers from one of the backgrounds & cut them out to layer together to make the flower embellishment.

I stamped the smile sentiment onto a strip of card with blue archival ink & blended the distress inks around the edges after cutting an inverted 'V'.

The strip & embellishment were then stuck in place onto the background which was then mounted onto a matching layer & then the card blank. A droplet of Cosmic Shimmer Pearlescent PVA glue was added to the centre of the flower to finish.

Very easy & relatively quick to make but quite effective.

Thanks for stopping by, please visit again soon, your comments are much appreciated.

Amy x 

Clean & Simple designs for Out Of The Blue

Hello again blog friends.

Today is Thursday & also the day we hold another of our Card Making Workshops at Out Of The Blue.

We held the same workshop last week with the theme of CAS cards - clean & simple.

This is not a genre of card making I normally turn my hand to very easily as I sometimes struggle to know when to stop adding more to my designs. 

Less is generally more with clean & simple cards along with a good amount of white space.

However, once I sat down & got started making my samples for the Workshop, I really got into it & was pleased with the results. 

So, here's what we've been creating for our August workshops

These cards are all A6 in size & made using the Flower Head Stamp set from Woodware & Color box cats eye que ink stacks in various colour combinations.

These stamps are great as they stamp a solid flower so no colouring is needed as the ink does all the colour work for you!. So, dead easy & quick too!.

We used masking techniques to layer the flowers one behind the other & some of the flowers had more than one colour ink applied.

Finishing touches were stickles glitter glue, faux pearls, ribbon & cosmic shimmer pearlescent PVA glues. 

I'm particularly liking the Decadent Teal & Decadent Grape colours in the range by Phil Martin & have ordered other colours, due to arrive in the shop today.

We intend on completing at least 3 cards each if time permits but there's always lots of chatter & tea & cake at our workshops so we'll see how it goes!.

Thanks for stopping by

See you again soon

Amy x 

Thank you teacher

Hello & welcome back. It's been a while since my last post so I have a few projects to share with you over the next couple of weeks.

 I've been pretty bad at checking out what you've all been up to lately too, so now that the school holidays have arrived I'm hoping to catch up with you all very soon. 

It's just been such a hectic time lately!.

My daughter Daisy has just finished her first year at infants school. As a thank you to her teacher & teaching assistant the mums all clubbed together to buy vouchers. 

Daisy also wanted to make something a little more personal for them just from her so here is what she made for them - with a little bit of help from me!. 

We made these 2 hanging canvases. 

Each was painted with turquoise chalk paint & then embossed with the leaf pattern using  grunge paste through a leaf mask from creative expressions.

While the Grunge paste was still wet I sprinkled it with one of the gorgeous new colours of embossing powders by Wow! called Long Island Teal which we are now stocking in the shop along with the other new colours.

This was then heated with a heat tool causing the paste to bubble & the powder to sink in & also end up with a layer of gorgeous gold sparkly teal on the surface.

We stamped branches & owls & coloured them with promarkers.

These are both stamps by Creative Expressions.

We coloured 3 owls & cut & layered them up with 3d foam.

The little punched heart was also heat embossed with one of the new powders from Wow!. This colour is a fab pinky red called Florida Sunset.

To finish, we added the 'thank you' sentiment made using a Wow! stamp, some stamped & coloured leaves & some small punched flowers embossed with Wow! Mulberry mist with pearl PVA centres.

Daisy wanted to write her own message on each of them so I drew some lines on some turquoise card & once she'd written what she wanted to say, we stuck them to the back of each canvas with some ribbon in between to hang.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my little blog.

Please leave me a comment if you can as I always read them & they are greatly appreciated.

See you again soon 

Amy x 

Live Your Dreams

Welcome back blog friends. I hope you're all enjoying the beautiful sunshine we've been having recently?.

Hopefully it will now continue, fingers crossed into July when we get to take our annual holiday in beautiful Dorset.

Today I'm sharing a card I made using the Lost In Thought stamp from Indigoblu.

I created the background with black & brown Brusho paints, over stamped with Honeycomb Background using white paint & sepia versafine ink.
I distressed around the edges with a pair of scissors & blended brushed corduroy & black soot distress inks.
Stampendous shabby white Frantage was sprinkled here & there to add some texture & light.

I stamped the girl in black & used the Brushos as watercolours to paint her. I was aiming for a kind of grungy look.

I cut around her leaving a few millimetres around the edge.

She was then mounted onto the background, to the right with 3d foam.

The Live Your Dreams sentiment from Visible Image was stamped in black & heat embossed with clear powder, cut out & distressed with brushed corduroy. 

This was then added to the background with 3d foam.

I mat & layered onto card distressed with brushed corduroy & then onto a craft card card blank.

I think this card would be great to give a teenager, maybe off to college or uni.

Finally, here's a picture of me with my little Oompa Loompa!

Her school had a float in the Chipping Sodbury Festival procession the theme of which was Musicals & they chose Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

See you again soon

Thanks for visiting

Amy x 

' Over the Rainbow ' Chipping Sodbury Festival workshop 2015

Welcome back.

 Today I'm sharing the project my half of our Out Of The Blue craft group made for the Chipping Sodbury Festival.

Every year in June, over the period of about a week, the town & community get together to share various events in the town.

There is always a theme & the week culminates in a Street carnival complete with floats & a carnival princess!.

This year's theme is 'Musicals' & we decided to choose The Wizard Of Oz as the theme for our card making workshop which took place yesterday evening.

The perfect stamp set for the occasion was yet another from Visible Image, my current stamps of the moment!.

Here's the card my half of our crafty group made

I loved colouring Dorothy with my Inkense pencils. They give such vibrant colour results & for this particular image I much preferred the effect of these watercolour pencils in comparison to another Dorothy that I had coloured using promarkers.
The design for the yellow brick road & scenery was created using a Sheena Douglas mask & the Brick Wall stamp from Visible Image.
For the grass I used the Tall Grass stamp & the Winter Tree stamp for the trees.

Distress inks used were Shabby Shutters, Pine Needles, Mustard Seed, Festive Berries, Peacock Feathers, Chipped Sapphire, Dusty Concord.
Dorothy's ruby slippers were embossed with Stampendous red glitter embossing powder & touches of red stickles added the final touches to the trees & poppies.

Everyone really enjoyed the Workshop & we are now planning the projects for July & August dates.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you all have a fab weekend. I have a rare Saturday off as its Daisy's first time on the float for her infant school. Can't wait to see all the little ones dressed up as Umpa Lumpas from Charlie & the chocolate factory!!

Amy x 

You Rock Finley!

Hi everyone, sorry its been a while since my last post.

 Things have been busy as usual in the land of Out Of The Blue with lots of sorting & planning for our Summer Sale which is coming up shortly.

Also in June we will be holding our card making workshop for the Chipping Sodbury Festival. This year's theme for our workshop is The Wizard Of Oz for which we'll be using stamps by Visible Image.

Today, the card I'm sharing was also made with Visible Image stamps. You may have noticed, I'm really enjoying using their stamps at the moment!?. 

This card was made for my Godson Finley for his 10th birthday.

His mum asked if I could make it so that after his birthday it could be framed to hang in his bedroom.

His favourite colours are red & green so, of course I had to incorporate those. 

I used the Max Rocks stamp set, promarkers to colour Max, Brusho paints, distress inks, Time Holtz alphabet stencil & Visible Image Grunge Check Background stamp.

I really enjoyed making this card and hope you like it too. 

Brushos are fun to use & are featuring on lots of blogs at the moment.

 We are now stocking them in the shop so it was great to get my hands on a set of 12 colours & have a bit of a play around with them. Watch this space for more projects featuring Brushos!.

Thanks for stopping by & I promise to be a better blogger & make a massive effort to check out what you've all been creating since my last visits & comments.

See you again soon

Amy x 

Out Of The Blue all day workshop with Visible Image & Pauline Butcher.

Welcome back, thanks for dropping by & joining me.

It's been a busy old time for us at

 Out Of The Blue.

In the last 2 weeks we've held 2 of our own evening workshops & also hosted an all day workshop with Visible Image & Pauline Butcher at the Compass Inn.

It's the first time we've hosted a workshop for the whole day & I'm pleased to report that it was a great success.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day which was packed with lots of crafty tips & techniques from Pauline, a roast dinner!, & lots of products to buy including Visible Image stamps brought along by Helen & Mark.

I was able to join in too which was lovely & here's what we made

We also had time at the end of the day to play around with some Brusho paints & tags that Pauline had brought along.

Everyone loved getting their hands on these & were amazed at the results. I'm pleased to say we now stock Brushos in the shop & they are already proving to be very popular.

Here's the tag I made

& here are some that some of the other ladies made

Here's some pictures from throughout the day

We are now planning another all day workshop for later on this year so watch this space or email me for details if you are interested in attending amyj.rus@gmail.com

See tou again soon

Amy x 

Classic Car

I've just got home from our Out Of The Blue workshop.

Even though its been a long day I still need to sit down & unwind before I head off to bed.

So, I thought I'd write this post & share with you the projects we made this evening.

With Father's Day coming up in June we thought we'd have a Father's Day/male card theme.

We used Visible Image stamps to create our cards.
Classic sports car was the main feature with Tyre marks, Grunge Check background & Metal plate forming the background.
Our group had the choice of which sentiment to use, Live the life you've imagined, No matter your age you'll always be a classic & & Father's Day Stamp set.

Everyone enjoyed making the cards & we actually finished ahead of time!, we quite often overrun past our 2 hour workshop time so this meant we were able to sit & enjoy our tea & cake & have a bit of a crafty chat.
We had 4 new crafter's joining our group so it was a good opportunity to get to know them too.

This month we celebrate 3 years of holding our card making workshops.
It's great to still be introducing new crafter's to our group & sharing all of our crafty little ideas with each other.

Thanks for visiting my blog & leaving me your comments which are very much appreciated.

Amy x 

Visible Image Butterfly Wreath

A late post this evening as I have been busy preparing packs & equipment for this weeks Out Of The Blue workshop on Thursday.

We are going to be using stamps from Visible Image for a Father's Day/ masculine card.
In fact, we'll be using Visible Image stamps for our June festival workshop as well as hosting a full day of card making this Sunday at the Compass Inn at Tormarton with Helen & Mark from Visible Image. Pauline Butcher from their design team will be teaching the workshop for us.
I'm really looking forward to it & the Sunday roast we'll all be enjoying as part of the day too!.

I've been using Visible Image stamps myself recently for some projects I've had in mind for a while.
One of which is my project today, a Spring Wreath using the small & large Butterfly stamps, particular favourites of mine.

The base for the wreath is a polystyrene ring I bought a few years ago that's been in my stash waiting for the right project to be used.

I stamped goodness knows how many small & large butterflies!, painted them with Cosmic Shimmer Water colour paints, cut them out, shaped them & glued them to the ring with a glue gun.

The ring had been painted first with turquoise paint in case gaps showed through the butterflies. 

To the large butterflies I added wire, curled antennae & the bodies of all the butterflies had drops of cosmic shimmer pearl PVA from the Phil Martin range.

To hang the wreath I added ribbon, a bow & another butterfly to decorate.

The overall effect of all the butterflies clustered together is very pretty & I am pleased with how this project turned out.
Although very easy to do it was quite time consuming & I was seeing butterflies in my sleep by the end!.

Thanks for stopping by, if you fancy coming along to our Visible Image workshop day this Sunday we still have a couple of spaces left. Please see the details below & get in touch.

Amy x 

Singing Star

Welcome back blog friends.

Its mid way through the week & I for one am looking forward to the bank holiday weekend ahead.

Not much planned at the moment other than working Saturday & then relaxing with the family Sunday & Monday.

Maybe I'll be able to fit in a bit of craft time somewhere too!.

Today I am sharing a card I made using Visible Image stamps Sing, Galaxy & Soul Music

This card is currently sat on the shelf in my shop right next to the stamps themselves. I'm sure it won't be long before we need to reorder as these are lovely stamps to work with & Helen & Mark's range of designs is great.

The singer was stamped onto white card in black ink & heat embossed. I used black soot distress ink to blend around her & the galaxy stars are stamped in black & heat embossed in silver.

I stamped the singer again & filled in the lines on her dress with a sakura pen & then cut her dress out, shaped it & stuck it into place on top of the original dress to add dimension.

I stamped & embossed the black background card with the music from the Soul Music set in silver embossing & added a touch of treasured silver gilding wax around the edges.

I stamped the Sing sentiment, mat & layered it & stuck it into place in the top right corner of the card.

We are really excited to be hosting a special day of crafting with Visible Image on 17th May at a local hotel & restaurant.

Its going to be a fab day with a Sunday roast included too, yum!.

The very talented Pauline Butcher will be teaching the workshops on the day & Helen & Mark will be coming along bringing lots of their lovely stamps to sell.

Here are all the details, if you fancy joining us please get in touch on the number below.

Thanks for stopping by

See you soon

Amy x 

Pop up card workshops April 2015

Hello blog friends!.

 Well, its been a busy time since my last post.

Lots of new goodies have been arriving in the shop & we've been busy with our monthly workshops.

We've also been organising a special crafting event coming up in May when Visible Image will be joining us with Pauline Butcher for a whole day of crafting.

More info on that in a future post.

Today, I'm sharing the pop up cards we made at our workshops the last two weeks.

We used the pop up die & stamp set to match by Stampendous from WoodWare.

First up is the card I made as a sample followed by my group's creations with their own choice of colours.

So, here are my half of our group's creations, all coloured using distress inks as watercolour paints.

The die cuts all the pop out elements to add your stamped images to. It also has edge cutters & the oval & label style dies to use for the sentiments. 

So, a very handy die set & it proved to be very popular at our workshops this month with me having to reorder die & stamp sets in time to sell for the following weeks class.

The stamp set contains 2 vase stamps, a rose cluster, a daisy stamp, leaf stamp, butterfly & hydrangea cluster.

My group used the rose & daisy stamps, Carole's half of our group used the hydrangea. 

Here's the sample card I made using the hydrangea.

If you hop over to Carole's blog here you will see the cards her half of our craft group made using the hydrangea stamp from this set.

There are also now a few more stamp sets available to go with this die set. I like the look of the Woodland/forest animal set & we hope to have it in stock in the shop very soon.

Some of you already follow Carole's blog so you will know that its nearly 3 years since mum & I asked Carole if she would like to join us to help teach our workshops to help promote our shop Out Of The Blue & the products we sell.

I'm pleased to say our workshops continue to be very popular & many firm friendships have been formed along the way.

We also have new crafters joining us for nearly every workshop & its great when our members come into the shop following a class to let us know how much they have enjoyed creating our projects.

So, enjoy the rest of your weekend, thanks for stopping by & I'll be back soon with more info about our special Visible Image workshop day.

Amy x