Category: Art and crafting styles

Last in our current round of bunting for UK stampers forum and there is an Anything Goes theme this month.

I started with a watercolour background and a bit of random stamping and then added some papers and edged them with Inktense pencil. Next I added some texture through a stencil.

This made me go for an underwater theme…

I chose to stamp the mermaid from Magical Days onto some glossy cardstock I had added distress oxides to. Then I die cut it out.

Next I found a die cut in the stash as a gift with a swap that worked perfectly… I heat embossed it and then added some bubble stamping on the background.

Next I adhered everything and then stamped and embossed a sentiment from another stamp set.

I then added some silver posca pen dots to frame the bunting.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I have two ATCs I made for the positive quotes/Affirmations themed swap for this month over at Artful ATCs Facebook group.

I went for two very different styles.

The one on the left I used a patterned paper that really appealed to me with all the envelopes and travel themes and did some ripping and inking . I then chose a sticker from the Art by Marlene pack to add to it.

The other I used the Beautiful You stamps adding light colour with distress inks and embossing the sentiment on to the top.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I made a postcard at the weekend using Art by Marlene collage papers and a Gorjuss stamp which I’m sharing here today…

Just love the bright and cheery papers and decided after making the background that they would work perfectly for paper piecing the Gorjuss Girl.

I coloured her and the bunny in with promarkers and then added the dress and tights using the papers.

I added more pattern to the green panel with some more stamping and then added some doodling with my white posca pen and black spectrum noir sparkle pen.

Then I used the Art by Marlene sticker and added it to cardstock adding a shimmery watercolour border before cutting it out and adhering it all.

Super happy with this and the sparkly features.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I have a swap I made where the theme was Frosty for the nine inchies.

I started with a piece of 3×3 watercolour and added distress oxides and then added the stamping using white embossing.

Next I stamped a snowman three times onto shrink plastic, cut them out and shrank them. They make such cute embellishments. I also die cut two snowflakes and shrank them too.

I found a cute tree button and threaded it through with some twine. I then stamped trees onto two of the inchies and the sentiment/title onto the other one.

I then used another panel and added the same distress oxides onto that and temporarily adhered the inchies onto this, along with the label.

Hopefully the recipient likes my frosty inchies.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Howdy readers…

This week we have a technique based challenge over at Back to Basics and Beyond … salt technique.

I haven’t used salt with my watercolours as a background very often so it was fun to experiment and ended up with three panels…

I cut them down and used each in a different way. One I used an indigo Blu stamp set and heat embossed the fish and the sentiment.

I then added a little more colour onto the fish using distress oxide and my waterbrush.

Then I added layers under the panel in contrasting colours including the ribbon and the pearls.

Now the second card I kept quite simple with a silhouette stamp and added gold edging and some patterned paper and then sequins to finish.

Then the final one I used as a piece of actual patterned paper.

I added the stamped image and some other layers of patterned paper. I added the kraft tag to balance the kraft in the coffee cup colouring.

Love all three of these cards… And love being reminded of what a lovely effect the addition of salt is to the watercolour background.

Can’t wait to see how everyone else used the salt technique in their creations! Here is the blog.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I have some bunting to share which is for the UK stampers forum swap. The theme for this swap is Monochrome, so I went for the turquoise colours as my monochrome.

I stamped the beach hut from Marlene using the archival inks and then used distress crayons to watercolour the image. I also added some ink blending round the edge and a little bit of stamping to provide some texture. I then splattered the art alchemy sparks paints to give it some shimmer. Next I added the hand stamped sentiment and edged it with some Inktense.

I love this image and the gentle finish this bunting had.

It’s been a fun swap to get involved in and I’ve loved creating the flags and receiving some fun bunting in return.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I decided to join in on a map twinchies swap where the rule was to make 4 twinchies with a map theme.

I have quite a lot of old atlas pages in my stash so used some snippets of those as the starting point cutting each to 1.75″ square as I wanted to mount them with a frame.

Then I added a thin layer of gesso and then distress oxides in aged mahogany, vintage photo and walnut stain.

Next I took a stencil and sprayed the distress resist through the stencil and this creates an interesting texture and meant when I added more oxide it created pattern too as it resisted the colour where the spray was.

Then I added some sepia archival to the edge of each panel.

Next for the mounts I created a panel with alcohol inks and the mixative to create a shiny and metallic red and brown background and cut that into 2″ squares.

I mounted the map pieces onto the alcohol ink background twinchies.

Next to choose my images for my twinchies… I chose a Creative Stamping magazine travel themed stamp set.

After stamping I used my Prismacolour to add colour to them…

Then I did some fussy cutting…

Then I added the compass image onto each of the map pieces…

And arranged the pieces I had as focal images to check I was happy with them before adhering them and in the case of the signpost snipping off the extra bit.

I decided that the words needed some more emphasis so tool leftover of the alcohol ink panel and mounted them onto this and then jobs a good’un!!!

Super happy with my map themed twinchies… And hope the recipient likes them too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I have the three coins I made for the UK stampers forum swap this month.

I kept them similar to the ones I made for the swap I host in terms of the theme of words to live by… and they had gelli printed bookprint as the background.

This time I added so.e white posca pen to define the stencilled pattern on each coin once I had adhered them.

Then added some stamping onto each using the leaves from Petal Palette and some inking using vintage photo round the edge.

Then I had a hunt in my box of scraps and found some quotes I had printed ages ago but they worked perfectly for these I thought…

I thought these made lovely coins and really loved the colour scheme I chose with those paints on the gelli prints.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Well the coin group started off on another theme on the 1st January… words to live by. I thought it would be good to see positive words and phrases … it’s going to be interesting seeing everyone’s response and interpretation.

I was a little late making mine as I usually make mine just before the month starts but just didn’t get a chance over the festive season.

But here they are…

My word is Grow… I chose this word a couple of years ago and this year it rang true when I was thinking of this challenge. So grow it is…

I gelli printed some bookprint with a few colours of Paperartsy fresco finish paints and used a stencil to get some pattern in the background. Then I used an old but favourite stampin up stamp to get the tree onto the bookprint.

Next I adhered these to the wooden coins I have a stash of and used sandpaper to ensure a nice smooth edge. I edged them with black and the used my white posca pen to make the trees white with lots of white blossom.

I decided they needed more colour so out came pink paint to add pink blossom. I did this using the end of a plastic paintbrush to add the tiny dots.

Next I used the same pink paint to paint some edges of the book paper and stamped grow onto it using black ink. I cut these out and adhered them onto the coins adding black to the edge to frame the sentiment.

Love how these came out! Hope the recipients in the swaps like them too.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Another circle journal page, this time for Claire and I fancied playing with texture… lots and lots of texture.

I started with some gesso to provide a sketchy backdrop. I loved the kraft cardstock that the journal was made from so wanted to preserve that for the edge of the pages.

Once that was dry I added texture paste through a stencil and left it to dry.

Next I added some more texture using the glass bead gel and again left that to dry.

Then I added colour using the distress stains in twisted citron, cracked pistachio and peacock feathers. I then added some strips of papers and some twine. I also added some other stamping in the background to add some different areas of colour.

I also added the cute wooden birds which I added colour to using the oxide and some clear embossing powder to add shine.

I wanted to add some darker colour so I added some Inktense and some splashes of black ink in places to add a different contrast.

Then created the focal point of the stamped element and the sentiments for the titles with embossing and inking.

Super happy with the way this came out and how different it is from my previous pages using these colours… it’s amazing how the colours can lend themselves to these different pages.

And if you are interested I made a video of the process… here it is.

Happy crafting!

Catherine