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 

' 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 

Visible Image Butterfly Wreath

A late post this evening as I have been busy preparing packs & equipment for this weeks Out Of The Blue workshop on Thursday.

We are going to be using stamps from Visible Image for a Father's Day/ masculine card.
In fact, we'll be using Visible Image stamps for our June festival workshop as well as hosting a full day of card making this Sunday at the Compass Inn at Tormarton with Helen & Mark from Visible Image. Pauline Butcher from their design team will be teaching the workshop for us.
I'm really looking forward to it & the Sunday roast we'll all be enjoying as part of the day too!.

I've been using Visible Image stamps myself recently for some projects I've had in mind for a while.
One of which is my project today, a Spring Wreath using the small & large Butterfly stamps, particular favourites of mine.

The base for the wreath is a polystyrene ring I bought a few years ago that's been in my stash waiting for the right project to be used.

I stamped goodness knows how many small & large butterflies!, painted them with Cosmic Shimmer Water colour paints, cut them out, shaped them & glued them to the ring with a glue gun.

The ring had been painted first with turquoise paint in case gaps showed through the butterflies. 

To the large butterflies I added wire, curled antennae & the bodies of all the butterflies had drops of cosmic shimmer pearl PVA from the Phil Martin range.

To hang the wreath I added ribbon, a bow & another butterfly to decorate.

The overall effect of all the butterflies clustered together is very pretty & I am pleased with how this project turned out.
Although very easy to do it was quite time consuming & I was seeing butterflies in my sleep by the end!.

Thanks for stopping by, if you fancy coming along to our Visible Image workshop day this Sunday we still have a couple of spaces left. Please see the details below & get in touch.

Amy x 

Singing Star

Welcome back blog friends.

Its mid way through the week & I for one am looking forward to the bank holiday weekend ahead.

Not much planned at the moment other than working Saturday & then relaxing with the family Sunday & Monday.

Maybe I'll be able to fit in a bit of craft time somewhere too!.

Today I am sharing a card I made using Visible Image stamps Sing, Galaxy & Soul Music

This card is currently sat on the shelf in my shop right next to the stamps themselves. I'm sure it won't be long before we need to reorder as these are lovely stamps to work with & Helen & Mark's range of designs is great.

The singer was stamped onto white card in black ink & heat embossed. I used black soot distress ink to blend around her & the galaxy stars are stamped in black & heat embossed in silver.

I stamped the singer again & filled in the lines on her dress with a sakura pen & then cut her dress out, shaped it & stuck it into place on top of the original dress to add dimension.

I stamped & embossed the black background card with the music from the Soul Music set in silver embossing & added a touch of treasured silver gilding wax around the edges.

I stamped the Sing sentiment, mat & layered it & stuck it into place in the top right corner of the card.

We are really excited to be hosting a special day of crafting with Visible Image on 17th May at a local hotel & restaurant.

Its going to be a fab day with a Sunday roast included too, yum!.

The very talented Pauline Butcher will be teaching the workshops on the day & Helen & Mark will be coming along bringing lots of their lovely stamps to sell.

Here are all the details, if you fancy joining us please get in touch on the number below.

Thanks for stopping by

See you soon

Amy x