Category: Art and crafting styles

Yes my other postcard swap is what I have to share with you tonight. The theme was chicks, lambs, bunnies but I went slightly off piste with a nest of eggs… well they nearly are chicks! 

I decided to do it all on camera… so here is the YouTube video. 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

Is 173 a happy number? Well this ATC certainly is! 

A simple ARC made using a woodcut from my Artful Days goodie box, some scrap distress ink and painted paint, bookprint and ribbon. All mounted onto the fresh mint ATC blank. 

Cute and simple!

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

I really can’t stop using my distress oxides. They are so lovely to use I just can’t put them away. 

Here is a card I made just when I was playing! 

You can probably tell this actually was an ARC but I wanted to offset the butterfly more than would normally be accepted so turned it into a card instead. 

This was the starting point. A painted piece of paper (probably brayering off during gelli plate play) and a scrap of patterned paper. I love those rich colours of the paints and the texture the layers create.

Next up more layers. Book print and tissue wrap layered over the top. Some of this is translucent and others not. Love the effect this creates. Then added distress oxide on the top. 

Next the panel for the topper to sit on.  A piece of mixed media cardstock which has plenty of oxide smooshed on and layered up. I also added a little stamping using the World Map stamp. 

Next is the butterfly. I added gesso to the chipboard embellishment and then added distress oxide onto it with a little water. I then heat embossed the whole embellishment to ‘set’ the colour and make it glossy. 

I finished the card off by mounting this into a Navy cardblank I made and it is just waiting for a sentiment or a reason to give/send it. 

Lovely! 

Just adore that background… and counting this in my ATC challenge! 

Happy crafting!

Catherine 

Another ATC to share with you today… must admit my rate of production of ATCs has slowed of late but know I am well ahead of schedule so not worried about meeting the challenge. It has been good to vary the projects a little more instead. 

Anyway that aside today’s project is the fairy atc above…. and it’s another YouTube video. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Another day, another swap! 

Today is a postcard swap where the theme is to “flourish”. I started off with quite a thick chipboard that I cut to 6×4 and covered with gesso.  

Once that was dry I added modelling paste through a Tim Holtz stencil. 

Next I started to add colour. First magenta and purple using the decoarts fluid acrylics and then some distress oxide on top. 

Next I added the wild flower image with white embossing powder and added a rough frame doing the same on the edges.  There were some wet parts  (impatient me) which also had some powder catch which left some other white parts. I liked this though. It gave it a rather loose feel.

I then added the sequin waste layer and some embossed Tim Holtz butterflies and then the Indigo Blu sentiment which I stamped and coloured using the distress oxides.

Really happy with how this finishes up. Hope the recipient also likes it too. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

I’m up early and still feeling poop as I adjust to medication  but thought I could do something positive and write up a blog post. Here are three ATCs made for a swap where the theme is The Blues. I went for a sea theme but started by grabbing three off cuts which had blue themes. 

The first and third were gelli print off cuts and the middle one was a palette with some modelling paste through a stencil. 

I completely transformed them to make my atcs… I can’t believe how differently they ended up from these starting points.

The one on the left was the one on the right hand side. I added some of the rich turquoise ART alchemy paint and then some embossing in a blue using the Indigo Blu stamps. I then heat embossed the seahorses and the sentiment in white powder. 

The middle one got a coat of the decoarts Ultramarine blue over the base and then a few layers of scraps before I added the fish and sentiment. 

The final one was the one on the right. I added the opal magic blue/pink all over it and then added some stamping and embossing randomly with the blue powder. Then I added the layers of scraps and the focal image of the seaweed and sentiment. 

All of them I trimmed or tore them to a slightly smaller size and then added them to a light blue base. 

Really pleased with how they all turned out. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Hi there.

Today I have a card I made for a colour challenge swap. 

Here is the prompt… 

And here is what I made…. 

I made a background using distress oxides using a mixture of stamping and blending and smooshing. I then added the white stencilling using gesso on the top. Once it was dry I added some doodling to turn the stencilled circle into a flower like the picture. I also added layers of coloured card and sequin waste.

Cute. I love sentiment from the sticker box and all done. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

I have a whopping 14 ATCs to share with you! Get ready for a lot of photos. 

The starting point was the a3 sheet I did gelli plate printing on ahead of the class in early March. 

I never did get around to doing anything with it until last weekend.  When I gave up the temptation to cut it into atcs. 

I cut it a little smaller than the blanks and then cut black cardstock as the mounts.  This is just some of them. 

I then sorted them into some groups, grabbed versamark and embossing powder and went to town! Such fun! 

I started with these four… 

… a simple sentiment was all they needed I felt. I used for all of them my mixed powder which is red and black and gives a lovely mottled effect. 

Next was these two… 

I particularly like the one on the right where the pattern looks like a sunrise. 

The next three were using the big bold flower stamp from Artemio with different patterned petals. 

I also chose some sentiments from a magazine stamp set again mixing in the white embossing. 

I kept to that theme for the next few too. 

Again Artemio stamping combined with magazine stamps. 

The Artemio stamps were used for these two as well. Love these images even if they are a tad too big for atcs. But these partially stamped images worked fine.

And finally one more flower one but this time using two different stamps and the two different embossing powders. 

I do have a couple of pieces of the paper left to play with but I think 14 is pretty good for one session! 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

Whilst I was trying to sort out the piles of stuff on my craft desk I came across a lovely gelli print I had made last month and decided to do something with it . I decided to keep it simple and just add a bold image and sentiment and make it into a card.

I chose the Kim Dellow Paperartsy stamp and once I had stamped it using archival I then coloured the image using distress oxides inks. This provided a subtle colour.

I then stamped the sentiment using the Emma Godfrey stamps. I edged the paper with black ink and then adhered it to the cardblank. So much a lovely way to use up the gelli print. 

Happy crafting! 

Catherine 

I thought I should just do a post with so the random atcs left to blog from last month…. So here goes.

This is a painted background and then some bits and pieces from the desk … pretty butterflies! 

Another pretty butterfly sticker and a background that has lots of layers of ink and paper and paint … pretty.

A picture from the Artful Days goodie box plus some bits from other swaps. Also love the moody background piece using distress oxides which is an offcut from another project.

Right I think that’s all the random bits from March finished off. 

And three more for the challenge. 

Happy crafting!

Catherine