Imagination Crafts Tutorial

It's time for my tutorial over on the Imagination Crafts Blog.

Here's a sneeky peek of my project today & if you hop over to the blog you'll be able to see what I made & how I made it.

Also, to celebrate the launch of the new revamped
 Imagination Crafts Website they are giving away lots of Imagination Crafts goodies that you could win simply by liking their Facebook page, following their blog & linking up to the blog. The lucky winner will be drawn towards the end of February, so what are you waiting for!?.

I will be back again soon.
Thanks for stopping by & as always, your comments are much appreciated.

Amy x

Out Of The Blue January workshops. Calendar card 2015.

Well, its been a hectic couple of weeks!. 

We're into Trade fair season in the shop at the moment with lots of planning for new stock & trips to shows to view & order.

 New displays have been taking shape in the shop which is great after all the Christmas decorations & Sale items. I love Christmas but our stock starts arriving in August/September so the novelty wears off a little after December!. 

 We've also had 2 card making workshops to prepare for & it was lovely to get back into it after our Christmas break.

This month we were missing Carole as she's been having a bit of a busy time at work recently, so rather than splitting the groups onto 2 tables I taught everyone as one big group for both dates.

We thought we'd start the New Year workshops off with a Calendar card using Jofy stamps from Paperartsy & inspired by the ones featured in the Craft Stamper magazine.

Here's my design

As you can see, I went for an easle card design.
The background was created with blended Distress inks & the flowers were painted with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour paints garden tones set.
The calendar tab was from the pound shop & came in a pack of ten, bargain!.
The stopper is a refill notepad for some flipnotes that we sell in the shop. Both of these were stamped & decorated.

Here's how both weeks groups got on making it.

Everyone really enjoyed using these lovely stamps & pretty paints & we all agreed these calendars would be great to make to give as a Christmas gift or to sell on your stall at a craft fair.

We're all looking forward to our next workshops in February which will have a love theme.

Thanks for stopping by.

See you again soon

Amy x 

Imagination Crafts Inspirational Project - Altered notebook, birds on a branch

Hello all, it's the 15th of the month so that means it's time to share with you another inspirational project for the Imagination Crafts Challenge Blog.
Please pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the design team have created & to join in with the challenge.
The theme is always anything goes & there is a prize to be won too!.

This post may be a bit picture heavy so you have been warned!.

I had a couple of blank, plain brown notebooks that had been waiting for me to do something with.
I decided to alter one of them & here's how I did it:

I gave the notebook a coat of white gesso as a base.

Next I cut & embossed a piece of blue card to fit the front cover. It didn't have to be blue, it was just what I had to hand at the time.

I then used the Imagination Crafts Birds On A Branch stencil with some silver texture paste.

Once dry I then stuck the embossed layer & the bird design panel onto the front of the notebook & painted over the top with anotger coat of gesso & heated it with a heat tool which made the texture paste bubble slightly with the heat.

I then began to blend some blueberry ice & gooseberry fool inkadink inks from the brights set over the note book.
Then I added water & dried it off with my heat tool.
I loved this effect!.

The next step was to blend some distress inks to add an aged effect & then I replaced the stencil & added black soot distress ink to make the birds stand out a bit more followed by some treasure gold gilding wax.

I die cut some flowers with my tattered floral dies & added gilding wax & micro beads to the centres to tone in with my colour scheme.

I decorated the back cover & the inside covers to match attaching ribbon between the layers to tie the book together.

So, that's it!. Thanks for staying til the end!.

I'll be back again soon with the first project of 2015 for our Out Of The Blue Workshops that start this week.

Amy x 

The last Christmas wish

The decorations are well & truly down for another year but I just have one more Christmas make to sneek in!.

This is the card I made for my Mother & Father in law & also for my crafty friend Carole who teaches our workshops with us at Out Of The Blue. 

I also made the same card in traditional reds & greens for my Mum & Dad & Auntie & Uncle. 

The poinsettia is a Woodware clear stamp which is really lovely to use as are all of their stamps. 

I stamped in black & coloured with dusty Concorde distress ink as watercolour & cut & layered the flowers together.

 The leaves, berries & die cut flourishes were washed with pine needles. 

The embossed lilac background was enhanced with treasure silver gilding wax as were the edges of the die cut stamped sentiment.

The finishing touch was just to add diamond Stickles glitter glue to the petals & berries to add a bit of sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by

Amy x 

Imagination Crafts Inspiration 1st January 2015

Happy New Year!! & welcome to 2015!.

I hope you all had a great time last night seeing in the New Year?.

Today I'm sharing my inspiration project for the Imagination Crafts Challenge Blog. 
Each month there is a new challenge with a prize to be won & the theme is always 'anything goes'.
Please pop on over to check out the projects by the other DT members & join in with the challenge too.

To make my card I cut a circle in the centre of the card & on the waste I used the Butterfly & Daisy stencil with black stars Sparkle Paste.
I then used the same stencil & paste on the front of the card blank, masking areas where I didn't want the design & then I reversed the stencil to mirror the image so that the daisies are leaning inwards.

I stencilled just the butterflies onto clear acetate & when completely dry I cut them out & creased them along the length of their bodies to make them 3D & attached them to the front of the card either side of the circle.
I blended black soot distress ink around the edges of the card & circles.

I cut a strip of white card onto which I stamped the sentiment from Visible Image & layered onto black card.
I shaped the card with my fingers to make it have a kind of wave effect & then stuck it into place at the top of the card to finish.

I hope my card has inspired you to take part in the challenge.

I'll be back again soon, thanks for stopping by.

Amy x