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 

Cliffs & Crochet!

 

Things have been quite busy since my last post. We have been sorting out all of the Christmas deliveries in the shop, planning our annual Christmas shopping events & also holding 2 card making workshops. The first was for a local carers group who approached us because one of their members attends our regular workshops, the second was for our usual group of ladies & we are holding another with this same project this Thursday too!.

 

Here's the creations our group made last week

 

The cards were based on a design by Linda Walmsley who is one of the design team members for Indigoblu . Please check out her blog here, she really does some fab designs.

As you can see, our group really enjoyed making their 8 x 8 cards & I just love how they all put variations to the original design to make it their own.

I'm sure our ladies this Thursday will love making it too as we start getting into festive mode.

 

I'd also just like to say a big Hello! to my newest follower Julie. It's lovely to have you here.

Julie is my oldest friend & we have spent many happy hours crafting together over the years.

Julie makes the most beautiful oil cloth bags & if you'd like to see them please go & have a look at her Facebook page Bags By Boo.

Julie has lots of patience & after I told her that I'd taught myself how to chain stitch she kindly showed me how to crochet a Granny square!

Here's my first attempt

 

 

It's quite addictive & during our second crochet get together I think you can see the improvement I made

 

So when I got home I made another!

 



 

Crochet is something I've really wanted to get to grips with & I'm really chuffed with my granny squares. Hopefully I'll produce a blanket at some point ( not in these colours though! ) but for now it will be put aside as I need to concentrate on other more pressing projects.

 

Anyway, see you soon & thanks for stopping by

 

Amy x

 

 

 

 

WOYWW # 224

It's been a busy couple of days since my last post.

  Deliveries have started arriving in the shop ready for the build up to Christmas & we've actually had some decorations & Christmas cards in a bit earlier than usual.

Mum & I were off at a buying event for the shop all day yesterday at one of our gift suppliers HQ, ordering for new year & spring season deliveries.

 We even managed to stop off at the shops on the way home & do a bit of buying for ourselves :)

New shoes!! Yey!!

 

Anyway, today I have decided to take the plunge & join in with WOYWW for the very first time.
 If you'd like to join in too, pop over to Stamping Ground for all the details.

After my post the other day my blog friend Anne suggested that it might be a good place to start for entering challenges & finding new blog friends, so here goes!.

 

 

As you can see there's a few IndigoBlu Christmas stamps there ready to play around with.

I'm working on the next projects for our October/November Out Of The Blue card making workshops & we'll be using these stamps for those.

There's also a few primed wooden hearts & little trays that have been waiting very patiently for me to get around to using &  I have a few ideas in mind.

 I've also got some Woodware fishing themed clear stamps there which I have some ideas for for men's cards,  & tucked in the corner there is a Crafty Individuals robin stamp for me to get cracking on some of my own Christmas cards too, thanks for that one Carole.

As you can see there's the latest copy of Craft Stamper magazine & a few shades of my trusty Distress Inks which I could not be without.

 

What this space to see the finished articles!

 

Thanks for visiting

 

Amy x

 

 

 

Autumn Forest

Well, it seems like ages since my last post!.

 Lots of things have been going on in the world of Out Of The Blue.

We've had a Summer sale to make room for all the lovely new Autumn/Winter & Christmas stock that has started to arrive and there's been lots of planning for our Christmas & New Year workshops.

 Although I love Summer, I do love it when the season begins to change & everything starts to feel, smell & look different.

 We are lucky enough to live quite near to Westonbirt Arboretum & I do like to go along during the Autumn to see all the fantastic colours of the trees as they change. Here's hoping I can fit in a visit this year!.

 

Tonight is our second Out Of The Blue workshop making this card design.

 Last week was the first & everyone thoroughly enjoyed it & bought up all the spare stamps etc.

  I had to place another order with fingers crossed it would all arrive in time for tonight!.

 Yesterday a lovely box arrived containing more stamps & lots of lovely colours of mega flake from IndigoBlu & I have to just say what great customer service & speedy delivery we have had with every order placed with IndigoBlu, something that I think is very important.

The card was made by stamping the IndigoBlu  Bare Forest Stamp onto clear acetate using purple Stazon ink. I was planning on using black stazon but do you think I could find it?

 Nevermind, as I think the purple goes perfectly with the oranges & golds in the Autumn Blaze Mega Flake used for the background.

After letting the ink dry, I applied double sided sheet to the image, stamped side up, then peeled off the other backing & applied the Autumn Blaze all over.

I love this effect & I have to say it was passed on to me by my crafty friend & co teacher Carole who has put a tutorial of this technique on her blog that you can view by clicking  Here.



The backgrounds that the forest is layered onto are  embossed with the Creative Expressions hyper magical embossing folder & highlighted with gold gilding wax.

The leaves were created in the same way as the forest by using the leaves from the IndigoBlu stamp set Bloomin' Great.

The card was finished with some raffia & the 'with love' sentiment.

 

 

 

Thanks for popping by & checking out my project, next time I'll be sharing some Christmas decorations I've been working on for a workshop I've been asked to run for a local craft group in November.

I'd also appreciate any advice you may offer on how to 'up' my followers numbers.

 Maybe I need to make myself enter a few challenges which I may need tips on too!?

 Anyway, all advice & comments are most welcome.

 

See you soon

 

Amy x