'Love You' card using Woodware 'Lovebirds' stamp set & Koi Brush Markers.

Welcome back & Happy Valentine's Day!.

Thank you for visiting my crafty little blog. Today I'd like to share a 'Love' inspired project made using the Woodware 'Lovebirds' stamp set.

The 'Lovebirds' were stamped in clear versamark ink onto watercolour paper & heat embossed with white embossing powder.

Next I coloured/painted the birds using various colours of Koi brush markers, water & a paint brush.

I used blues & greens of the same pens,water & a large, flat paint brush to create a colour wash for the background. The flowers from the same stamp set were second generation stamped randomly over the background with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink.

The 'Love'  & 'You' are from a stamp set by Wow! Embossing powders.

These were stamped in Picked Raspberry Distress Ink onto water colour card, cut out, distressed around the edges & mounted onto lilac card & then onto the background, one above each bird.

To finish, I added some polka dot lilac ribbon across the bottom of the card.

Thanks for stopping by, please pop by again soon to see some more of my crafty little projects.

Amy x 

Jeepers Creepers! Woodware sneaker card.

Welcome back to my crafty little blog.
Today I'm sharing a card design we made at our card making workshop at my shop Out Of The Blue in Chipping Sodbury near Bristol.
This card design went down very well with our craft ladies. They said it would be perfect when they find it hard to come up with a card for a male or someone of that 'inbetween' age.

For this card we used the Jeepers Creepers Sneaker stamp set from Woodware.

The main sneaker image was stamped twice in black ink & heat embossed onto watercolour card & then coloured with koi brush markers.
The images were cut out & holes created to thread twine through for the laces.
One sneaker was layered with 3 d foam onto the other.

The backgrounds were created with the background sneaker stamp & the other stamps in the Jeepers Creepers set.
The sneakers were raised up onto die cut circles along with the sentiment.

Thanks for visiting my blog.
Please leave me a comment & pop back again soon.

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 

' 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 

Flutterby Butterfly

Hello & welcome back.

 Phew! What a busy week its turning out to be.

 This week we are hosting our annual Christmas Shopping Evenings at Out Of The Blue, with last night being the first of the 3 evenings. 

I was kept very busy running up & down the stairs, topping up items that had sold, chatting to our loyal customers & handing out festive drinks & nibbles.

Looking forward very much to the next 2 nights which are no doubt going to be just as busy, so I thought I'd grab these few spare moments to share my card with you.

It's a pop up box card that my half of our workshop group made a little while back using Visible Image  stamps.
Visible image design & make all their own clear stamps so if you're not familiar with them, please check out their fab products, some of which we are very pleased to stock in our shop.

I've used 4 stamps by Visible Image, Large Butterfly, Butterfly, Butterfly Sentiment & Tall Grass.

I used a template to create the base box card out of a sheet of A4 cream card. There are lots of instructions on how to construct pop up boxes of varying sizes available on YouTube etc.
 Once constructed & decorated the card folds flat enough to fit inside an envelope.
 I created my own background paper by making a piece of A4 card wet & then using Cosmic Shimmer Water Paint Garden Tones set & applying the various colours in patches.
Once dry the background has a beautiful shimmer to it.
I then stamped the 2 sizes of butterfly stamps randomly with distress inks that toned in with the shimmer paint.
The A4 background card was then cut into panels, mat onto lilac card & applied to the panels on my base box.

I stamped & embossed 3 large butterflies & 4 small butterflies & painted them with the same Cosmic Shimmer paints & cut them out.
I added distress glitter to the butterflies & made antennae from craft wire with tiny beads on the ends.
I stamped & embossed the Tall Grass onto lilac card several times & then cut around it & glued it inside the inner supports inside the box & onto the back panel.
The butterflies on acetate were then glued in & around the grass so they appear to be fluttering .

I stamped the Butterfly sentiment on to the offcuts of my background sheet & chopped it up, attaching it to the very front panel with 3D foam pads.

It was great fun making this card & although it was maybe a little time consuming to complete within the 2 hour workshop timescale, many of our class members came back to show more pop up cards they had then made at home based on this design.

These butterfly stamps are some of my favourite stamps to use & are great for lots of occasions.

I'd like to enter this card in the Visible Image November Challenge.

Thanks for visiting

See you soon

Amy x 

Season of Joy

Phew, what a busy week!. 2 workshops for Out Of The Blue & non stop Christmas deliveries & sorting to do in the shop. 

The weather seems to be changing & customers are buying with Christmas gifts & crafting in mind.

This first card is the project my half of our group made on Thursday at our Out Of The Blue card making workshop.

 It was quite a busy 2 hours with lots of heat embossing & stencilling with texture paste.

The card was made with the Season Of Joy Dreamweaver stencil & silver embossing paste.

After applying the paste onto purple card the paste was heated with a heat tool until it bubbled & added texture.

Here is a closer view of the texture achieved by this technique.

The background was made by embossing white card with an embossalicious embossing folder through my grand calibur.

Before running it through, I applied perfect medium to the debossed side of the folder. The clear ink was then transferred to my piece of card as it went through & the pattern was embossed into it at the same time.

Once removed from the folder, I applied silver embossing powder all over the piece of card & heat embossed it.

I then inked the embossed stars with dusty concord distress ink.

Areas of the scenery were enhanced with the same ink to create shadowing & depth &  I also applied treasure gold silver.

Final touches were silver & lilac ribbon tied with a double bow & some die cut & embossed Snowflakes edged with silver.

I also made the same card to show it in another colour way.

Finally, here's the card we made at the workshop on Tuesday. An additional workshop to our normal schedule.

We were asked to do this workshop as part of the Discover South Gloucestershire festival 2014.

This card was designed by Carole, my co workshop teacher & everyone really enjoyed making it, including me.

Its made using the Dasher & Tree stamps by Sam Poole from Creative Expressions. 

 If you don't already follow Carole's blog please pop over & check it out at 

Carole's Crafty Creations

She makes some beautiful cards & other great crafty projects.

Right, that's it from me for tonight. Its way past my bed time & I have another busy day tomorrow in the shop.

Thanks for joining me & please pop back again soon.

Amy x 

Festive Tree

Well, I can't believe we are on the verge of October already & that its been so long since my last blog post!.

I must apologise for my absence & lack of commenting on your projects but its been quite a busy time.

Covering staff holidays, our own holiday, Hubby's 40th & our little Daisy starting school has meant not a lot of time for blogging I'm afraid,  plus we are now on the build up to Christmas in the shop with lots of ordering & deliveries to sort.

Anyway, I have managed to fit in a bit of crafting time recently, mainly playing around with ideas for our Out Of The Blue workshops. So hopefully I can get back into the swing of things & post a bit more regularly.

My card today was the result of playing around with some  Dreamweaver stencils ready for our October workshops.

We did one of our 1st Christmas workshops a couple of years ago using this Dreamweaver  tree stencil with embossing paste & mica powders so I thought I'd use it in a different way for this card.

I started by creating my background with alcohol inks on glossy white card stock. The technique I used was one I saw on  a youtube tutorial, there are quite a few videos on there showing this technique. 

I randomly dripped 2 different colours of alcohol inks ( in this case red & green ) all over a sheet of acetate. I then dripped blending solution randomly over the top to dilute the colours & allow them to spread out a bit more.

Next I put my glossy card face down on top of the colours & placed another sheet of acetate over the top to create a sandwich. I then pressed down & rubbed my hand over the acetate to spread the inks around & allow the glossy card to pick up the colours.

This creates a completely random, quick drying effect 

I cut down my background & used a snowflake background stencil, also from Dreamweaver & inked through it with festive berries & evergreen bough distress inks.

I off centred the tree to the right & spread black glossy embossing paste through it. I then left this to dry.

I stamped the Phill Martin Christmas sentiment on the offcut of my background, cut it out & backed it onto red card.

I die cut & layered my snowflake in red & green ( Spellbinder Snowfkake Wonder ) & added a black pearl to the centre.

I tied some red ribbon & added it to the left of the tree & attached the sentiment & snowflake near the top. 

To finish, I mat & layered onto red & green card & added red, green & gold stickles to the baubles & star at the top of the tree.

Well, thank you for taking a look, I hope you'll pop by again soon. 

I'm going to make a big effort over the next few days to stop by & catch up with what you've all been up to.

See you soon

Amy x 

Blue borders

Hi there bloggers, hope you're all enjoying this glorious sunshiny weather!?. I'm hoping it continues into next week as I've got the week off, Yey! 

My card today was made when I was playing around with ideas for last week's workshop at Out Of The Blue.

 We are concentrating on the products Julia Watts used at our demo day at the beginning of June so it encorporates a That Special Touch mask, Cosmic Shimmer water colour paints, a Creative Expressions Frame Stamp & Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture Paste - my favourite product to play with at the moment!.

I started by using the Sea Green Sparkle Texture Paste through the Filigree mask & setting it aside to dry for a good few hours. 

I tried heating with a heat tool but it didn't really work very well. So, whilst I had a few pastes & different masks at hand I set up a bit of a production line & tried out a few colours & designs, so be prepared for a few posts featuring this technique!.

Next I stamped with faded jeans & heat embossed the sentiment & Garden Frame inner & outer frames & die cut them with Spellbinders Lacey Squares which fits this stamp perfectly.

I then painted the design with Golden Aqua, Golden Pear & Golden Malachite water colour paints from the Garden Tones set.

I then layered onto pearlescent lime green card & pale blue card & mounted into the centre of my sparkle paste background.

Around the outer edge of my card I added dots of pearlescent PVA & a double pale blue grosgrain ribbon bow in the bottom right corner finished with a turquoise resin rose in the centre.

That's it for today, I'm off to get ready for work.

 Just had a new delivery from Creative Expressions so I'm going to be drooling over the new Sue Wilson dies & new colours of Sparle paste that just arrived!.

Hope your day is a good one & thanks for all your lovely comments.

Amy x