And here is Colton (Part 2)

 And I am back with my second post! (Post 1 is here.) Here is Colton, also a newly released Polka Dot Pal from Barbara Sproatmeyer one of the Artist/Illustrators at Whimsy Stamps! 

So this is Beau's brother Colton who in honour of her decorating his Studio has decided to do a portrait of her! His currently creative influence is mainly Van Gogh, lol.

He is coloured with polychromos with a few spots of white posca pen. It's not essential to use a white pen for highlights but it really makes them pop!

Here is what the stamp set looks like in he shop:

And here is a close up of my version:

Everything but the sentiment and the room are parts of the stamp set! There are so many cool items to build up a scene or even a background paper to match him! I was tempted but went with a sploshy 1980s colour themed paper as I had for Beau. (Using distress inks and HA AC026 Brush Strokes Stamp Set.)

I added a sentiment (in Courier New Font) on afterwards because I couldn't make up my mind what occasion I wanted to use him for! So this sentiment is removable at the moment! Thought this would be a cute birthday or Valentines sentiment. Do you know what song it's from?

Loved the challenge of making up a pair of cards, feel really honoured that Barbara let me play with her new stamp sets! The scale of real stamps is often much smaller than I print digital stamps so I had to think carefully how to cram in as much detail as possible, luckily Barbara's stamps are drawn beautifully and are a pleasure to use.

Thanks for joining me on this release day! Make sure to check out all of Barbara's super stamps in the Whimsy shop and why not check out her blog where there is often inspo and a giveaway to take part in! Win win!

Beau and more later....(Part 1)

Sharing a pair of cards today featuring two of the newly released stamp sets from Barbara Sproatmeyer! She is one of the artists/illustrators at Whimsy Stamps and Beau (and later Colton) are two new Polka Dot Pals released today! Both with an artsy vibe!

Here is Beau, she has spent all day decorating her brother's (Colton!) art studio. I like to invent a little narrative as I colour. I know, it's bonkers. There is a clue to the geographical location of this studio within the picture!

Apart from the sentiment, masking tape and room background all of these stamps are part of the set! Just tonnes of options for creating a decorating or painting scene with them. I was spoilt for choice.

Here is the full stamp set:

And here is my creation close up:

She is on kraft card and I coloured her with polychromo pencils. I added a few touches of white posca paint and white gel pen. Sentiment made on the computer and is Mister Sirloin font.

I didn't have a background paper that I liked so I made one! I used distress oxides also on kraft paper and then cut down to size. This is one of my most used Hero Arts Sets, Brush Strokes AC026.

Bling was from the stash, and I am really happy with how she came out - adding a smear of paint on her face really made me happy with her!

Thanks for joining me for this post, in a couple of hours I will post part 2, Beau's brother Colton! Why not check out Barbara's blog to see her makes with the new releases next?

Gelato messing.

Helen recently donated me a very nice Chocolate Baroque Stamp set that has a GIANT Patchwork butterfly stamp in it. I really want to combo it with Gelato's to make a cool card. This has involved a lot of messing about with Gelatos, and believe me, it's very messy!

Last session I managed to have a few left over trial bits that I thought I could make into a quick birthday card. Because the one gelato is metallic, the sheen made it a bit prettier in real life than the pic. It's not an exceptional card, but not bad from leftover messy bits.

This is the smaller butterfly from the stamp set. To make the background I made a swooshy gelato base, layed a stencil over the top and then with a wet wipe rubbed through stencil. This is still prolly the nicest thing I have found to do with gelatos. We are still awaiting the successful giant butterfly card, it hasn't happened yet! :)

Greeting is from Hero Arts - Message with Flourish, I wish it was straight, argh! :)
Stencil from Creative Expressions - Doodle Squares.
Gems from stash.

Pix's Favorites.

Helen very kindly stamped me some of her new Mama Elephant set, Pix's Favorites. They were great fun to use and colour, I went with copics and tried a new colouring style, but I find it hard not to keep adding shadow! :)

I also tried a few new background techniques with the distress inks. I used water directly onto a blended background but moved the water to resemble clouds. The middle one is just a blend over a Memory Box Birch Trees stencil, and in the third one I filled in the background, then used the stencil and removed ink rather than added it. Makes a kind of spooky background I like! :)

So this is the watercolour cloud background, the grass is Grass Border by Lawn Fawn.

This is using a stencil in a more traditional way, tho oddly I don't think I have ever used a stencil like this before, normally I use it for paste and sprays.

Final spooky background. The sentiments on all the cards are from Hero Arts and are called "Messages with flourish". (CL738)

Love these stamps, they are so cute! :) Nice to have the chance to make some cards just for fun, and not for an order, don't get the chance much these days :)

HA CG248

Funny post title, but I think this stamp should be the star of this blog post!  I'm loving the "large solid flower" from Hero Arts, CG248. I've used it for so many things already and I've still got lots more ideas to try too.

After using it with brushos I tried it with distress inks to form a patterned background. I used silver ink with blues and greens and then printed greetings on coloured vellum and mounted them on top. The font is "Blessed Day" which is my favourite font at the moment. Is is weird to have a favourite font?

As with all Hero Arts Cling stamps, it stamps brilliantly, even when I had to use some low quality ink to touch up the silver distress ink (which is a bit fickle).

Combo of three great products!

These cards use a combo of three great products -

• Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Sketchy, A6, Stamp Set - Falling Feathers.
• Hero Arts Cling Stamp, CG244 - Large Fabric Design
• Brushos (on White Embossing.)

And here is the result -

Add added some enamels dots and banners to turn them into birthday cards :)

Sophie's Christening Card.

Don't often get to make a christening card, so it was especially nice to make this one for little Sophie.

This is a bit of a homage to Hero Arts. I've used two of their stamps here, the "Large Solid Flower" (CG248) again, (it's proving very useful), and a stamp set called "Playful Animals" (CL155), just the elephant and giraffe.

I created a batik effect for the background, heat embossing the flower stamp in white and then spraying the card with water and dropping brusho powders onto it.

The sentiment is printed on vellum and wrapped around. The font is East Coast Stationery.

I used the same batik effect for the animals, and added a tiny bit of black fineliner to make them more defined. Purple enamel dots added to the corners after.

Brushos!

Just wanted to update you with some images from my initial foray into Brushos! I wanted to make some background images to use on cards, using white emboss resists and watercolourish backgrounds.

So this is a shot after the heat embossing, adding dry brushos and then spraying water on top. The droplets can be dabbed away from the embossed areas afterwards. Stamp: Sheena Douglass, A little bit sketchy, falling feathers.

Same stamp set but this time I sprayed with water first and then dropped the brushos in tiny amounts on top! I like this better but it is hard to control the amount of powder you drop!

Also tried a more careful measured approach using this Hero Arts CG248 Large Solid Flower, and I think it works fine with a less intense look too.

Really happy with them, going to watch some more tutorials on how to use them now I grasp what they are about! :)

More bike cards!

Not sure how many bike cards I have made, but here are two new ones! :) Both are commissioned cards for a family that are into bikes, and I've made lots of cards in the past for them, so the struggle is making something new! This card is using my new set of stamps from Lawn Fawn called " Blue Skies" (LF511) and an old favourite set by Hero Arts called "Joy Ride" (CL481). I stamped the balloons without their baskets and then stamped bikes where the baskets had been. Then I masked the balloons, and text (It was all on one layer) and used the distress ink + cloud mask technique for the background. The balloons are coloured with Copics and the added clouds are a diecut from Joy.

I managed to acquire some new cards from Paperchase that had been rejected for some reason, and a few had this great bike backing paper. I cut them up and then decoupaged on some of the bikes, as I had multiples of the same bike card. The greeting was printed onto the red backing paper and the bikes stuck on top of that. Added a bit of bling on the "Dad".

Sew Special Sheila.

Commissioned card for Sheila's 80th birthday. Theme - machine sewing! :) I continually try to make an orange and green combo card, and I don't know why I keep doing it! It's really tough I think, and I'm not sure I succeeded with this card either. It's hard to get the right balance, but as I was matching the backing paper from the start off, it kind of had to be tackled.

Ingredients:

• Elements from Hero Arts Sew Crafty Digikit
• Papermania/Do Crafts Happy Days 12x12 pad
• Chipboard Mannequins from Craftworkcards.com
• Joy Wood texture paper bloc (15cmx30cm)
• Die cut paper embellishment pack from Paperchase.
• Distress Inks, White ink, Heart pins, Card, buttons, thread - all from the stash. 

Close up detail. Singer Sewing Machine image from Google, recoloured using Paint Shop Pro.  Cotton reels, Scissors and buttons all elements from Hero Arts Digikit. 

More Christmas Cards.

Some of these I made to send myself and some were commissions.

It's getting super hard on line to track down whether images are copyrighted or not. I suppose I should say if I am claiming the artwork as my own, because I would happily credit an original artist if I could find out who it was....and as I only make one card with it, the lack of mass production and making money from it would probably influence how an original artist would feel about it perhaps?
I don't know though, I'd be pretty cross if my artwork was on line with no watermark and anyone could use it. Hopeful I have found images safe to use - I'm saying this because I couldn't track down where the Scrooge Silhouette was from, anywhere!

Die cut window and snowflakes. Hero Arts stamp background behind window. Fussy cut dog silhouettes. Blue pearls.

Hunkydory frames and papers. Die cut icicles. Hand drawn Church scanned and put into grey scale. Green pearls. The church is Trinity Methodist Church in Shifnal.

This was a special card for one of my bezzie's Mum's to give her daughter. They've just had a baby and the wall paper in the picture is the same as the paper in their nursery. Die cut window. Hero Arts stamped scene behind window. Greeting from Hunkydory. Bottle, chair, bear and box all stickers from the Royal Doll's House Sticker Book by Usbourne 2013.

These ginger bread/cookie toppers and papers were all freebies in a magazine and I've been saving them forever. The main ginger bread men were stamped and coloured with copics.

I've been loving the kraft card this Christmas. This was a combo of two stamp sets for the bunnies and the base of the snow globe. I used two circle die cutters to make the right size snow globe outline. Stamped bunnies coloured in with  polychromo pencils.

I promise this was appropriate wording for the sender/recipient! :) I printed out the Scrooge silhouette and masked off the writing, then cosmic shimmered the background and added some bling. I like the effect.

Sheena Douglass Stamps painted with watered-down distress inks. Snowy night sky made by flicking water onto a dark distress ink background.

Final card for the post. Just made me chuckle :)

Christmas Card Workshop, back in November!

This might seem like a very late post, but honestly there is a reason. Although I would love to show you what we made that day, on the day - I can't if the cards might be received by people that might see them in advance. Now we are safely past Christmas, I can assume most have been seen and I am free to post!

We actually made 12 cards on the day, so here are a few of them. Most of them had room to add extra personalisation after, so these are the cards as I used them, rather than made them originally.

Distress Inks masked background with flicked water to make snow effect. Die cut sleigh and trees. Stamped fairy lights with added bling. 3D foam mounted greeting.

Cuttlebug embossing folder snowflake background. Die cut snowmen. Spotty ribbon and tiny bling.

Artemio Type F Pinguins with Sledge Wooden Stamp. (not sure if that's just a typo, or really Pinguins with an I?) Coloured with Polychromo pencils. HA greeting stamp. Stamped snowflakes in white. Mounted on Kraft Card.

Die cut sleigh, icicles and birch trees. Distress ink sky background with water flicked on to make snow. Joy wood paper as background.

Die cut snowflake frame and landscape scene. Sky using a white correcter pen on blue paper. Embossed background with added bling. 3D foam mounted greeting.

Snowflakes die cut from top layer. 3D foam mounted onto white card blank. Same die cut snowflakes from red card set inside the snowflake shaped gaps. Add bling and stamped sentiment.

Set of Golden Anniversary Cards

I was asked to do a set of golden anniversary cards all for the same couple and because I've made a lot of cards for this family -  I had to go for something new!

First card was inspired by a lovely card made with dies by Inge Groot. I don't have the dies, but I managed to draw it all ok and cut out the parts. I hadn't saved it initially to use as a wedding card but I thought it made a new modern twist on the "golden" theme.

The second card was using stamps from Hero Arts  - Fantastic Flourishes CL106 and a freebie heart stamp from Craft Stamper Magazine. I also used a scan of a marbled background that Helen and I had made one crafty session, recoloured it and printed it onto cream pearlescent paper. Added some gold stickles afterwards for additional bling.

Final card was using a Butterfly Heart Memory Box die. I used it in the traditional way on plain white paper and then re-cut it from three different goldy papers which I paper-pieced onto the white version. It was a little bit time consuming but not too hard. I might have another go at this with some different kinds of papers, it's a very versatile die.( Thanks Helen ;) )

Arty Impressions Cat Lady Stamps

I love this stamp set! It's actually a full set of stamps to make a triple fold card, featuring a "cat lady" and all her cats. It's the only Arty Impressions set I have and I am impressed with the attention to detail and quality of the stamps.

You could stamp them directly onto the cardstock but as I wanted to colour them with Copics ( which bleeds through to the other side) I decided to stamp them onto a nice smooth paper and then cut them out. Is that sort of cheating? :)

I've started to collect some prefered colour sets for colouring in various types of cats ( Colours of cats??) and it's handy when colouring my own digi images too. So my current Ginger Tom palette is -
Stripes - YR31, YR23, Y38, E33 and shadows in W1. Eyes in any yellow or green handy, and nose in whatever flesh/pink is to hand :)

I've decided finding other peoples cat stamps that I enjoy using is excellent research for my own enterprise. I quite like having very few details when I'm colouring the cats, but without a bit of guidance where paws or tails might be, it definitely slowed the colouring mojo! I don't like when the stripes are pre-drawn though. Do you?

 Thoroughly enjoyed the process and love the card that resulted (passing it to a friend for her birthday, not selling this one) and it's made me think how I might make some cat "scenes" to stamp in layers of my own.

Additional Birthday Greetings by Hero Arts, "Birthday Messages" CL139


Entered into Crafty Addicts Challenge 2, Spots or Stripes/Anything Goes Am hoping all these stripey and spotty cats will fit the criteria :)

Paint Swatch Cards

Had to break away from the Knitty Kitty Digi Launch and work on some card orders! I've wanted to try a "Paint Swatch" card for a bit and my friend (Thanks - Susan!) picked me up some paint chips from the DIY store. ( Paint swatch/chip? I'm not sure, but if you want to Pinterest for ideas, either term seems to bring up the projects using them.)

Here are the finished cards, I'm not sure I've done the ombré effect justice with this design? Might try another one of the suggestions for how to use them to create cards. It's a very frugal design though, using punches that rarely see the light of day, free swatches, part of the sequin hoard and some stamps I already had in the stash. (Also free DL card blanks my friend Helen gave me!) I tried it with free hand scrolls but wasn't happy with the result. What do you think?

"Happy Birthday" Stamp from Set 345 Fairy Doodles by Buzzcraft.

Scrolls are "Fantastic Flourishes" by Hero Arts, CL106

Hero Arts Stamps :)

I admit, more evidence of me hoarding stamps and not using them!! This is a lovely stamp from Hero Arts called "Friends" (CG111) and I've had it ages, but never played with it. I tried it several ways and this turned out the nicest, but I think it deserves some more fiddling with. In the background I have used a couple of stamps also from Hero Arts from a set called "Brush Strokes" (AC026) and distress inks.(Seedless Preserves, Shaded Lilac and Worn Lipstick) I was going for a one layer card but ended up decoupaging the flowers and colouring them with copics and then added a bit of bling too. Shhhh,, I just can't help myself ;)