Through the arched window

Hi all, as promised my post today is a card I made using the Tonic Domed Window Die & Window Basket Die.

I've had great fun playing around with this die & have lots of ideas of future cards & projects I'd like to make using it.

In my last post my card made using this die was quite clean & simple really. This time I wanted to do a card with a bit more of a distressed look to it.

After cutting & embossing both the window & the window basket, I distressed them with brushed corduroy distress inks.
On white card & using brushed corduroy, I stamped the tree design & the owl leaves & flowers. The owl was stamped twice. This is a Kanban stamp set that I've had for quite a while.
 I cut around all the leaves, flowers & owls & then coloured them with brushed corduroy, peacock feathers & mustard seed. I also die cut some of the leaves from the Window Basket die & coloured those as well.
I cut a cloud shape from a post it note & used it as a mask with peacock feathers for the sky behind the tree & stuck the window frame over the top.
I used turquoise card & a couture creations embossing folder, craft card & a dark teal card all mat & layered & distressed around the edges with the blade of my scissors.

The owl, leaves & flowers were layered & stuck into place & I added a few punched craft card flowers too plus some glossy accents & gold cosmic shimmer pearlescent pva to finish.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my blog.
See you again soon!

Amy x

 



Window Basket of Flowers

Hello all!

 Sorry I've not posted anything for a while. It's mainly due to my Mum (& business partner) having a weeks holiday plus staff being on holiday.This means more hours for me working in the shop to cover for them & fitting those hours around my 3 year old & getting workshops organised plus all those boring everyday things we all have to fit in too like housework!.

Surprisingly, I have managed to get a bit of crafting done in between (pictures to follow shortly), & had a weeks holiday myself too which was lovely.

 

Anyway, this week we had another Out Of The Blue card making workshop.

We decided to use some Tonic dies, the Domed Window & Window Basket.

We have only just started stocking Tonic products in the shop so Mum & I thought a good way of introducing them to our crafters would be by using them for one of our workshops.

 

After having a play around here is the project I came up with for my half of our group to make.

 

Having made the purple version first, I thought it would look good made in other colour ways too & thought my ladies might like to choose which of these two options they were going to make.

 

The background is embossed using the Creative Expressions Heart Lattice embossing folder & I've rounded the corners using the Tonic corner punch to match in with the domed shape of the window frame. I've used spotty paper behind the frame & also some clear acetate to give the effect of glass, although my pictures don't really show this clearly.

 

The Tonic Window Basket die not only cuts the basket but also the leaves that I've used on my cards. It also cuts a row of small flowers to fit behind the basket but I decided not to use that. Instead I cut some flowers from assorted spellbinders dies & used some punches. These were then inked & layered together & finished with some cosmic shimmer pearlescent pva dotted in the centres.

 

 

 

 

Here are some pics of some of our regular crafters hard at work!

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

And here's our crafty friend Carole, obviously enjoying herself too!

 



 

Our ladies really enjoyed making their cards & we sold out of the Window Frame Die straight away!

 

Here's some of their creations

 

 

That's it for today.  I'll be back soon with another card made using this die.

 

Thanks for stopping by & please do feel free to leave a comment, it's much appreciated.

 

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

 

 

Amy x 

 





 

 

 

A very vintage birthday

Hello bloggers!

 Well, I hope you've all been taking advantage of the fab weather we've been having? It's just what we've all been waiting for & I spent my Sunday out in the park all day with friends & family enjoying a picnic & playing rounders ( badly!).

 

Today's post is the project my group will be making at our card making workshop this Thursday & the following Thursday.

Twice a month my shop 'Out Of The Blue' holds workshops where Carole & I teach a group of 16 ladies. 

 Our workshops have been running for well over a year now, still going strong & growing all the time.

 

 

We'll be using Crafty Individuals  ''Hats and Bonnets' stamp and also their 'Floral Frame' mask to create the background.

The image was stamped in black memento ink on white card & coloured with promarkers. I also filled in all around the ladies with a grey promarker & outlined them with a darker tone of grey to make them stand out a bit more.

Then I distressed around the edges of the card with seedless preserves, milled lavender, shabby shutters & bundled sage distress inks & mat & layered onto card that I'd edged with a promarker to tone in.

I positioned the mask onto some glossy white card stock & inked through only the top right section with the above colours. I then repositioned it & did the same with the bottom left section so that my stamped image sat nicely within.

I found that the inked areas had a more defined edge by using glossy card but that once the ink had sunk into the surface I was unable to add any more colour or blend, so I added each colour a bit at a time.

Once I removed the mask I blended the two greens all over the remaining white areas.

 

Next I cut & embossed two medium spirals out of the glossy card with my Bitty Blossoms Spellbinder I blended with the same distress inks as before & added leave cut with my Foliage Spellbinder. These were then glued into the corners of my card.

 

 

I stamped the sentiment in black, again on glossy card & blended with distress inks & edged with promarkers & positioned it to the lower left of my card over a strip of lilac crochet ribbon.

The whole thing was then layered onto white card edged with a promarker & then onto a white card blank.

I think our ladies will enjoy using this stamp on Thursday, it's got a very classy, vintage feel to it which I really love & we've not really used masks very much so far.

 

Please pop over to Carole's blog in the next couple of days to see what her half of our group will be creating with the same stamp & photos of us all on the night.

 I've had a sneaky peek at her card & it's gorgeous!

 

Thanks again for stopping by, hope you like my card & as always I'm very appreciative of your comments.

 

Amy x

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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