Reach for the stars

Hello there bloggers! Welcome to July & also a big welcome to my newest follower, thank you for following my crafty little ideas here in blogland.

My card today was inspired by all those out there that have been sitting exams recently & striving to reach their goals.

Fairies have been the recent theme for our workshops using the beautiful Lavinia stamps designed by Tracey Dutton which we are currently stocking in the shop. 

I particularly wanted to use one the Sweet Poppy stencils also currently in stock & also designed by Tracey.

I wanted to try to do something a little different to the scene scapes that I've been playing around with lately.

I chose the 'Make A Wish' stencil which features a fairy sat on a crescent moon reaching for a star.

First of all I tried using black texture paste through the stencil but after a couple of tries I just couldn't get a good enough image that I was satisfied with.

So, I decided to just draw inside the stencil with a black fine liner pen.

I then coloured in the image with promarker pens for her body, hair & grey shadowing on the moon & then painted her wings & the white of the moon with cosmic Shimmer shimmering iridescent watercolour paints from the Garden Tones set.

I then inked around the edges of the piece of card with peacock feathers & faded jeans distress inks.

Next I drew through the stencil again onto some copy paper, cut the image out & placed it over my coloured fairy design to create a mask. 

I then placed the 'Criss Cross' That Special Touch mask over the top & spread 'Aurora Sparkle' Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture Paste through it to create a starry sky.

The outer background was inked with the same distress inks & then stamped all around the edges with the 'Miniature Stars' Lavinia stamp.

Both were mounted onto black card & the cut circle sentiment was computer generated, inked & added to the bottom left of the fairy with 3d foam.

I tied a double bow with black & blue organza ribbons & added a silver vintage button to the centre & stuck it bottom right of the fairy. I also added some Hobby House chocolate aurora sparklers in the top left corner.

To finish I applied glossy accents over the moon, stars & sentiment wording & then dots of star dust stickles to the miniature stars.

That's it for tonight, hope you like it & hope you pop back again soon.

Amy x 

Fairy festival workshop card

Happy Friday! Hope you've all had a good week so far & have lots of lovely plans for the weekend?

Today I'm sharing with you the card I made for my half of the group to make at our workshop for Chipping Sodbury Festival.

As mentioned in my last post, the theme for the festival this year is 'Disney' & so I decided to use Lavinia stamps to create a fairy/Tinkerbell type of card.

 All the stamps used were Lavinia Stamps which I really enjoyed using.
 The designs are so effective in black silhouette & so I stamped my fairy & the background designs onto rainbow card stock & mat onto black card.
 I stamped my fairy twice, the second fairy was then layered on top of the first.
Her wings were shaped to give dimension & I added stickles glitter glue to add sparkle. I then covered her with glossy accents although this doesn't really show in the photos.

The background was made by cutting a circle out of the card blank. I cut another circle out of rainbow card, stamped & inked around the edges & then I mounted my 'moon' on black card behind my circle aperture to give depth.
The 'believe' sentiment was attached with 3d foam & I added stickles & distress inks to finish.

This card was also the inspiration for my fairy canvas for my window display as seen in my last post.

Here's the finished card on display in my window alongside some Lavinia stamps & other crafty goodies.

Thanks for stopping by, please pop back again soon.

Amy x 

Julia Watts demo day & Festival Window

Hello blog friends, sorry it's been a little while since my last post. Lots has been going on in the land of Out Of The Blue & so my post today will be a bit picture heavy, please bear with me.

On Saturday 7th June we were very lucky to have Julia Watts visit us at Out Of The Blue for a day of demonstrations. 

We had split the day into five 1hour sessions & people then chose which hour they wanted to book onto. 

As always Julia was very informative about all of the products she was demonstrating & some great tips were picked up on how to use the gorgeous new shimmer paints, masks & sparkle texture pastes from Creative Expressions. 

We had all hands on deck in the shop, me running backwards & forwards between the hall & the shop & we'd also enlisted Carole's help to be Julia's 'magic hands' for the day.

It was a very successful day with over 80 people attending in total. We've had great feedback from all who came & I'm sure we will be inviting Julia back for another demo day again soon.

Here's a pic of me giving Julia a little gift to say thanks.

After Julia's visit my focus then had to turn to our window display for the Chipping Sodbury Festival.

Every year the town hosts a festival with lots of events taking place over 1 week. Lots of local people get involved including the schools & there is a street procession with floats & a princess with her attendants to end the week. 

The shops & businesses in the town are encouraged to join in by creating a window display using the theme of the festival.

This year the theme is 'Disney' & there is also a 'spot the error' competition with prizes for the person who can spot the most!. 

I decided the theme for our window would be Tinkerbell/Peter Pan. I ordered in lots of Lavinia stamps & Sweet Poppy stencils as I thought their beautiful fairy designs would fit in quite nicely & we could then use them for our card making workshop for the festival too.

I decided to hand paint 3 canvas panels with one of the Lavinia designs. Here's how it all came together.

You can just about see my pencil drawing of the fairy in this one.

All that was left to do was paint in her wings & add some glitter with sparkle texture paste.

Then I had to attach the 3 panels to 1 big wood panel to put in the back of the shop window. I then made other bits & bobs relating to my theme & added some fairy items that we sell plus some distressed ladders with faux trailing ivy intertwined. 

Here are the finished results.

Did you spot the error?!

Anyway, thanks for staying through until the end!, I'll be back soon to share my card I made for the festival workshop.

Hope you'll pop back.

Amy x 

Hi bloggers!, just wanted to touch base with you all before the month is out.

May has whizzed by & its been a busy time sorting things in the shop ready for our Demo Day next Saturday with the very talented Julia Watts. We're so excited! 

Anyway, last weekend was the bank holiday & oh my goodness, wasn't it a wet & dreary start!.

After working in the shop all day Saturday we joined friends & braved the wet & mud & camped at Beeches Farm near Chepstow.

On Sunday the weather improved & we set off on a walk in our wellies to find Devil's Pulpit & of course we stopped at the pub along the way for a well earned spot of refreshment!

As we lived in our wellies all weekend I thought this card was quite appropriate to show you in this post!

Its a card I made quite a while ago but looking back I don't seem to have posted it before.

I used my Woodware boot stamp & paper pieced the two boots.
I layered them onto some embossed pearlescent red card with a computer typed sentiment & some hearts stamped onto more patterned paper.

Quite an easy card to make.

Anyway, here's a few pics from our walk.

As you can see Nick & Daisy were really enjoying our 'walk'!!
We certainly needed those wellies!

Can't really tell in this pic but it was actually quite a steep incline

The fab view was worth it in the end though!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend & here's hoping the weather improves in June.

See you soon 

Amy x 

Two years of Out Of The Blue Craft Workshops!

Hi bloggers, what a gorgeous day! Fabulous sunshine here today, hope you've been enjoying the same wherever you are.

May is just flying by & before we head into the bank holiday I wanted to share the fact that our craft group at 

Out Of The Blue has been celebrating 2 years of crafty get togethers this month.

Where has that time gone!? 

Our group has grown from 8 to 16 in numbers since we started & we now gather twice a month.

 Carole & I have made some great friends along the way & we all really enjoy the social side as well as the creative side of our meetings.

Long may they continue!. 

Anyway, Carole & I discussed doing something a bit different for our birthday workshops this month. Carole had previously suggested creating chocolate bar wrappers for a workshop project so this seemed like a great idea for this occasion & meant that our ladies would get a little gift to take home with them afterwards too! The chocolate :-) yum!

I have to say my creative mojo had gone off on a little trip somewhere when I was trying to come up with the samples for my half of our group, but after some perseverance I managed to come up with these

Made using Sam Poole's Doodle Butterfly stamp set

Made with Tattered Florals die & Teresa Collins Paper pad

I used Sam Poole's Doodle Flowers stamp set on this one

Everyone really seemed to enjoy making their wrappers at our workshop & as always they all put their own twist to theirs. They all loved the idea that they could make these for lots of occasions for male or female, young or old. Great for table gifts at Christmas too & could also be personalised with place names.

Here's some of the wraps my half of our group made

So, lots of new crafty bits & pieces have been arriving in the shop in the last week or so getting ready for our demo day with Julia Watts on the 7th June.
 Really looking forward to her coming to Chipping Sodbury & tickets have been selling through steadily.
If you fancy a trip to our lovely town to see her please get in touch for more info.
 The shop number is 01454 312355 or visit Out Of The Blue
face book page.

That's it from me for today, thanks for visiting & please pop back again soon.

Amy x 

Floral layers card

Hi bloggers!. I thought I'd share with you a card I made as the project for my half of our group to follow at one of our recent workshops for my shop  Out Of The Blue. 

We were using a set of floral stamps from Woodware that we have used for several workshops since,  with the idea being to show our craft group the multiple uses, effects & varying projects you can achieve from the same product. 

Flower stamps are always so useful & versatile & this clear stamp  set comes with 3 sizes of flowers that you can layer - layered flowers was the brief for this workshop.

I was very taken with a technique I had seen Sue Wilson use to make a background so thought I'd have a go too. 

On cream card I blended 3 colours of ink & once dry, stamped the 3 sizes of flowers over the top in clear ink & heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

 I then stamped the 3 sizes of flowers over the top again in clear ink but this time heat embossed with white embossing powder. This technique creates a lovely layered & textured background which I then cut down to mat onto cream & then turquoise card. 

I then layered this onto a piece of cream card around which I had stamped the flowers in brown ink.

 Onto the offcuts of my background sheet I stamped & embossed more flowers, cut them out & layered them together & attached them to my card along with some stamped leaves & beige ribbon to co ordinate.

I then stamped the sentiment in brown ink on cream card, cut it into a banner & distressed  it around the edges.

I tucked & glued it under the flower, & curled it slightly to add dimension before glueing into place.

I finished the card by adding some pearl gems & stamping inside the card. 

Hope you like the finished result, I'll be back with another project soon using the same set of stamps.

Thanks for following & leaving your comments which are always much appreciated.

Amy x 

Spring Bunny

Back again with another bunny card made with my newest stamp purchase from Clarity.

I managed to fit in a bit of crafting yesterday when the weather went a bit rubbish & rainy & here's what I ended up with.

I used a mask to create the flowers, stems & butterflies, inking through it with a selection of distress inks.
I inked around a shaped piece of card to create the clouds & blended around the edges with peacock feathers.
The bunny was stamped in sepia & coloured with promarkers, cut out & fixed in place with 3d foam.

I stamped small flowers around the green shimmer paper & layered onto pink & then onto my card blank which I had edged with peacock feathers.

I painted some resin daisies white & yellow & added some gilding wax.

I stamped the sentiment directly onto my card & added some stardust stickles to the stenciled flowers & pearl cosmic shimmer pva to the middles of the flowers & butterflies to finish.

That's it for my Easter card creations for this year.
Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend.

Amy x