single layer card.

I need cute card for next week.  As it's a certain young ladies birthday. So I created this card using some stamps from Lavinia stamps and a couple of stamps I bought at the Stamperama craft show last week. On this card I have stamped Lori the rabbit outside the scene looking in.

The birds are literally  part of the " in the Harbour " stamp, by stamp addicts. If you look at the boat cards in the post below you'll see the birds are on this stamp.  I cut the birds off the stamp so I could use them on their own.
 

On this version I added a row of trees and swapped the wild flowers for toadstools and used a different fence.  I missed out the birds and added a the sun going down behind the hills. I swapped Lori out for Pippin.

On this version I changed the position of the sun and the toadstools.

I also missed out the row of trees and changed the colour of the sky.

The hedgerow beneath the trees in this photo was created using just the tip of the rounded tree used  in second photo. I masked off the area under the tree with scrap paper and stamped just the top of the tree multiple times over the edge of the masking paper.

In the harbour.

Last Sunday I went to the Stamperama craft show in Newbury.  There were only three stalls I really wanted to visit and one of them was the Stamp Addicts stand. I visited their website the night before and made a short list of stamps I would like to buy. Unfortunately they only had two of the stamps that were on my list. This stamp one is called "in the harbour"  and it's by Stamp addicts.

I also went looking for images of cards made using this stamp on the internet, I only found two samples, both of which were on display at the craft show and neither were my style. So I 've had to do my own thing with this stamp.

 I decided I wanted a moody sky on this first card, so I blended some yellow and grey ink into the sky area and also on the shore.

 I used Copic markers to colour the boats and the wall. 

For the rest of my samples I chose to do blue skies using torn paper and  blended blue ink to create the wispy clouds.

I used warm grey ink pads for the shore with subtle touches of green here and there , Which don't show up in this photo.  Again using Copic markers to colour the boats and wall.

 On this last card, I added some tree tops. This was because I somehow managed to get an inky mark in the sky so to cover the mark I stamped some trees. Hubby pointed out the trees were not straight, my reply....it's a windy day.

Lots Lavinia Stamps

I have been distracted from crafting and blogging by the lovely weather we have had.  When it's dry and sunny, it's time to get out in the garden to do lots of pruning,  fence painting, cleaning and painting a few pots, planting up the pots and  generally tidy up. I have to say it's been a lot of  hard work, but well worth the effort. I also made a little friend while working outside. He pops in  every day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a few snacks in between. He will come very close and sit in the feeder next to the garden table and cocks his head to one side as I sit close by and talk to him. He doesn't seem to be too bothered that I am sat so close if I put my hand out I could touch him. You probably think I am crazy talking to a blackbird, but as he sits there with his head cocked to one side and looking directly at me, he really does look as though he is listening to every word I say. 

My son tells me that birds recognise faces, so maybe he has seen enough of my face over the last few weeks to recognise me and trusts me enough to realise, I will not hurt him. If this is the case I feel truly honoured.

The weather has taken a turn now and we've had some heavy rain and a thunder storm, which will do the garden good and give me some time to catch up with my crafting and blogging. 

I used a whole host of stamps from Lavinia stamps to create this card. I used Stampin up ink pads, Blending brushes,  seven or eight colours of posca pens for the flowers, plus a black Versafine Clare ink pad.

Coffee filter hydrangeas

 About two years ago I started making these hydrangeas,  I'd been looking for a suitable container for them every time I went shopping, but could never find just what I had in mind for them. So I lost interest in the flowers and stashed them away. Last week I was looking  at garden ornaments in Home Bargains and spotted a small tin bath. That was exactly what I wanted and that in turn inspired me to getting out the re inkers and coffee filters and start making.

I posted a photo on facebook of these flowers and received a few requests for instructions on making them.  Although I had already written a post on the making them two years ago I have decided to re write it, as I have changed a couple of  things to make construction easier. I also think I was on another planet when I wrote the first post, so here's  hoping the  re write, with extra photos will make more sense.

You'll need :

8 large basket type coffee filter papers for each flower.

Re inkers, in hydrangea colours. 2 pinks, 2 blues,  1green and  1yellow.

3 spritzing bottles 

Green garden wire 

Florist tape, optional 

Tools.

Scissors, hot glue gun, a stapler, and wire snips.

Something to display them in, 

 Brown Oasis for artificial flowers.

Take two coffee filters, fold them in half and keep folding them in half, four times in total if I remember correctly. 

In my last tutorial I said dye the coffee papers first. In this re write I recommend cutting out the flowers first. I'll  show you the reason why later in this post.

Draw a four petal flower at the top and give that flower a long neck and shoulders, as in the photo below. Cut out the flower, neck and shoulders carefully.

Open out each coffee filter and check that all the flowers are single and  not connected to the one next to it.  If  you find you have some flowers  still connected snip them apart.

On a plastic sheet, spritz the centre of the coffee  filter with a little plain water.

Spritz  a couple of the flower stems and flowers with a little diluted yellow or lime green ink.

 I have used a little spritz of lucky limeade on some. Google hydrangea images for ideas on colours. You'll see a touch of yellow or green in most of the flowers, especially the white variety. 

The beauty of Hydrangeas is they come in may colours pinks, blues, white and even lilac and purple. I am partial to the blue ones myself, but they turn pink in my garden... even when grown in pots.

Then spritz on a diluted pale blue ink on the rest of the coffee filter. I used Bashful blue, which I realize many people wont have now.  Diluted Seaside Spray is a close alternative,  but any blue that is close to a baby blue will do,  Alternatively you could use Orchid oasis water down of course. 

I use roughly 6 or 7 drops of ink to two table spoons of water. If you want a stronger colour add a couple more drops of ink, and if you want a paler colour add more water. It's a good idea to test your mix on a spare coffee filter before applying it to your flowers, so you can adjust the intensity.

While everything is still  wet  add  just a couple of fine spritzes of a darker cool blue to one or two small groups of petals. I used Starry night. on a couple of my flowers and night of navy on a couple of the others.   BE CAREFUL.  Not to spritz on too much of the darker blue. You only need a very small  amount on the edges of a few flowers. If you feel you have used too much, spritz the area with clean water to help dilute it.

Take care at this stage the filters are quite delicate at this stage, so handle them gently. If you lose a flower or two don't panic, it won't show in the finished flower.

Now fold the filter in half, and in half again and hang up to dry. On a nice day and if you don't mind your neighbours thinking you've gone mad, hang them outside on the washing line to dry from the corner so the petals are hanging down. They'll take about ten minutes to dry. 

On a wet day rig up a mini washing line over the kitchen sink/ drainer.

I used garden wire wrapped around the cupboard handles.

Because I didn't have much space on my makeshift  line I had to hang several filters together , which meant they took an awful lot longer to dry.

Now the reason I said  cut the flowers out first and to hang each filter from the corner, is so that the ink can drain  down to the tips of the petal, which will give a lot of the petal tips a darker edge. I think this effect gives the petals  more depth to the flower giving a  realistic look. You won't get that edge on all the petals but that's ok.

 If you stain the coffee filters first as I did on my first three flowers. I found I was cutting that lovely  dark edge off and binning it. My last photo will be a picture of the first three flowers without that edge, I think you will agree it does make a big difference.

Once dry,  you can start assembling the flower head.  With each coffee filter folded in half , just once, and  stack eight.  Make sure the petals are pointing out and not trapped between the layers of the filters.

Another change I made from my original post where I glued each layer together was to just staple the layers together.  Just two staples does the job just fine. No messing with glue and waiting for it to dry or set, and no burnt fingers.

The next step is to add the stem.  I cut a length of garden wire to approximately 12 inches, I folded over one end by about and inch. just to give the glue a bit more to grab onto.

Find the centre of the coffee filter and glue the wire in place.

Now I found it impossible to take a photo while doing the next bit, as I need two hands to hold my camera.  I placed a line of hot glue across the first half of the filter and began to roll the filter into a cone shape, keeping it fairly tight to the wire at the bottom.

The second half was easier as the cone was shape was now formed.

 

Add more hot glue and continue to roll.

You may find as I did, that the layers are a tiny bit flappy on the outside, to remedy this just squeeze little hot glue between the flappy bits. Alternatively you can bind the cone and the stem with green florist tape. I did bind my first three flowers with tape, but when I made the second batch I really couldn't see the point as you don't see the stems. If you want to bind the leave to the stems then you'll need to bind the cone and stem for good adhesion.

Now the eagle eyed among you may have spotted I only used four coffee filters for this post, to save me time. I  still got a good flower, but it's much looser and limper and lacks body  and the petals droop and its lost the wow factor the eight filter flower has. But as I didn't need another flower, this one was made purely for this post so you guys can see how they were made. so I am not too worried about this one.

 The Leaves.

The leaves are made from coffee filters too.  I folded two green coffee filters into quarters and drew on

the rough leaf shape you see above and cut out four at a time.

 Word of warning here,  To get the leaves dark green was a real mission and a half. I spritzed them with a very strong solution of green, so strong in fact they looked almost black when wet. However when they had dried they were quite a muted grey green, I ended up spritzing them 5 times and allowing to dry between spritzing. I think If I were to make them again I would probably just paint them with neat ink.  I used Evening evergreen on these leaves with a squirt or two of night of navy.

I had trouble with the first batch of leaves I made, so I knew this leaves were going to be a challenge this time.  They looked more like cabbage leaves. Not a good look for a hydrangea.

Other ideas might be to cut the leaves from evening evergreen card, or try water colour paints or food colouring.

Once I had achieved a reasonable depth of colour in my leaves, I used a hot glue gun and sandwiched a length of garden wire between two leaves.

My final tip on these flowers, after a time the colour will fade a little if kept in a less well lit part of the house, but they will fade a lot if kept in a sunny spot.   All is not lost if  they do fade,  simply wave them in the air and give the tips the lightest of sprays with the same colour diluted ink and hang them upside down to dry.

No darker tip on these.

Well I think that is all I have to impart on making these flowers I hope you find this useful and will have a bash at making them yourself.

misty morning scene

A quick post tonight and something a little different for me . To create this quick scene I used stampin up  Slate grey ink and a blending brush to create the sky and water.  I blended in the islands with  little help from a sheet of paper to keep the base of the and straight.

I used Versafine Clare black ink for everything thing else, using first and second generation stamping.

The grass stamp is from |Lavinia  stamps, The mini tree and deer are stamps I bought many, many years ago, and can't remember the name of the makers. A white gel pen was used to drawn in a few highlights across the water and where the land meets the water.

 

Floral tent fold card

 I bought the Two Tone Flora stamp set a couple of months ago, so I thought I had better get it out and play. This is a nice set to work with,  it reminds of a very old set called stippled blossoms, which is still my all time favourite floral stamp set. I think this set might be my all time second choice.

There is not much I can think of to say about this card, it's a pretty straight forward flat card that won't cost a fortune to post.   I made this as a 6 x 4 tent fold card. 

New home card. DIY, draw it yourself card.

Quite a few of my friends and family  have had the  moving house bug over the last year or so. 

I have found this quite frustrating from the card making stance. I don't seem to have any stamps suitable for that occasion.

 Disappointingly Stampin up don't and haven't sold a moving house stamp set for some years.

 Moving house is a momentous and very stressful occasion and needs to be marked with a card,  if not a huge moving in party, one where everyone brings a wallpaper scraper to strip the walls, while you serve wine and cheese. ha ha.

 I lived out of suitcase until I was 19, so I didn't have much to move when I settled into my first house, I'll call it a house rather than home as it was a very empty house and nothing like a home for some months.

 14 years and two children later, I moved to a bigger house and swore I was never moving again. 30 years on I'm still here.

Anyway out of frustration I decided to drawing some for the event.  Drawing is not one of my skills, but I thought I'd give it ago. I sketched out my rough design on a sheet of A4  paper in pencil almost filling the sheet.  I did a lot of rubbing out  at this stage. Once I was sort of happy I drew over the design with a  very fine pen and rubbed out my pencil lines.  I photo copied the drawing once to check my design. 

At this point I noticed a few bits I didn't  like, so with a correction pen I covered them over and re drew the offending article.

I  photocopied my image again reducing the size by around 40 percent.

I know the perspective is completely wrong, I know my boxes are wonky, but I really don't mind and I don't think anyone receiving one of these cards will mind too much.

  

Beautiful Thistle

Here are two cards I made a couple of weeks ago but never posted, due to being admitted to hospital with pneumonia. I am recovering at home now, but I'm not really up to doing much crafting as yet, so posts will be a bit thin on the ground for a while.

I fell in love with Stampin' ups  Beautiful Thistle stamp set, as soon as I saw it, probably because I have had a liking for pretty thistles since I was a child. So I knew I was going to buy it even though I 'm not sure how much use I will get out of it.

 I used Copic markers to colour the images on these cards. I used a white gel pen to highlight the leaves and petals. 

 

 To create the background, I blended a little brown ink around the edges and worked in towards the middle. Then splattered some ink over the top using a stamp and write marker pen with a diffuser gadget or the pen puffer as I like to call it.

On these cards, I used the  S.U deckled edge rectangle dies for the layers. These are a new addition to my craft stash. I really don't know how I missed these in the catalogue. I love the fact the spacing between each die is even on all sides. 

A lot of experimenting

This card was inspire by a video by Amanda Branston that I found on Lavinia stamps Facebook page. Amanda used Yupo paper and alcohol ink to create a wonderful background for her stamping. Unfortunately I have a few issues with my lungs, which puts me off using any substance that may affect my breathing.  Yes,  I know a lot of these things are low odour but just because they are low odour doesn't mean there are no fumes... it just means you can't smell them as much. I have come a cropper a few times using low odour products. So I am more cautious now. 

 I desperately wanted to create something similar so I thought |I would play around with re inkers and brusho powders to see if I could create something vaguely similar. Well , I am sad to say, I didn't create a background anywhere near as nice as Amanda achieved with her alcohol inks and Yupo. But after working my way through a whole block of watercolour paper, I did eventually produce a few backgrounds that were useable but still not what I wanted.

 My homemade gell plate was a bit cracked and dented so before I could do anything, I had to melt it down in the microwave  and pour it into a shallow circular container and leave it to set. Once it was fully set a daubed small amounts of various colours of ink and spritzed with water.  Then pressed the paper on top of the gell plate.  My first mistake was using too much re inker and too little water.  My second was using too much water and so it went on and on. 

 In the end I found mixing up a tiny amounts of brusho powders with a little water and adding drops of  three different colours to the gell plate with a pipet, then spritzing with a little water was better but still a long way from what I wanted.

Then kind of by accident, I created something that was fairly close to what I was aiming for.  See the header photo.  My gell plate was so mucky with the residue from previous attempts I couldn't be bothered to clean it properly as I'd almost lost the will to live.

 I just dotted some brusho mix on one side of the gell plate and pressed the paper on top giving me those lovely colourful watery marks in a peachy orange colour. The very pale peach on the opposite side is just the residue from the gell plate.

The green version didn't work out as well, but I decided to stamp on it to see how it turned out , the photo above doesn't do it justice the colour are much stronger in reality and I thought it was a little too dark and sombre so I splattered it with bleach. giving  a little more interest and  creating lighter patches.  I also added a gold rim to the edge of the circle using gold wax polish.

 I found this a difficult card to photograph , the colours are stronger in reality

 Using purple and black ink and the same stamps I used for the focal point,  I stamped the background on pretty peacock card stock.

Gatefold card

We all need a bit of inspiration from time to time and need to hop on to Youtube to find something that  inspires us and kick starts the mojo. Which is exactly what I did before creating this card.

I came across a video by Jo Rice on making this gatefold card. I thought it was very pretty, and  a bit out of my comfort zone, but  I wanted to have a go  at making this card anyway. Especially as I had received the fir tree stamps for Christmas and hadn't yet used them. It was the perfect excuse to get them out and start stamping.   

Once I had made the card, I remembered why I am not a great fan of gatefold cards. I think we waste our time decorating the front panels of this type of card.  The only time you see the front panels are when it's closed, but it won't stand when it's closed, so the side panels are folded out, hiding the artwork, and revealing a fairly plain, uninteresting central panel that's often totally unrelated to the outside artwork. which has also been written on by the sender. Not something I personally would want to put on display. I want to see the beautiful artwork.

I think that's why I was drawn to this card, I loved that Jo decorated the central panel to match her front panels. The sender wouldn't want to write on a beautifully decorated panel and would automatically write their greeting on the back or one of the inner side panels.

As I sit here writing this  I am wondering what it would be like if  I made the two front panels again (excluding the moon) and stick them to the inside panels to create a panoramic scene and maybe just put one scene and a sentiment on the outside...  I think I may try that.

Forest scene treat bags

I said I would do a quick tutorial on how I created my little forest scenes. These images were created on cheap and nasty  6x4 envelopes, which I sealed,  then cut the top end off to create a new opening, and used these as treat bags. 

I blended yellow (S.U. Barely Banana, which is a pale warm yellow, not a citrus yellow)  ink around the edges of the envelope, working my way towards the middle, the yellow was stronger at the edges fading out as I worked towards the centre. I left a white patch in the middle. The yellow needs to be blended carefully, as you get to the middle it needs to be very pale where it meets the white  so you don't have any harsh lines.

Once the yellow was applied I blended in some  pale papaya ink, ( another S.U ink which is a pale orange) working over the yellow edges and the corners, applying less and less ink as I worked inwards. I didn't want to cover all the yellow.

I tore a sheet of copier paper and placed it over the top section of the envelope and blended a lime green ink on the bottom section to create the woodland floor. I also used the edge of the torn paper to create some contours in the ground. You'll see these in the photos below.

I stamped a tree trunk either side of the envelope. I masked off the trunks using the sticky edge of a couple of post it notes.  Then stamped the trunk again diagonally.

Using my stamping platform  I secured my piece of work with the magnets.  I positioned the CLEAN mice stamps, where I wanted them to be on my work and closed the platform to pick up the stamps.

 I inked up the mice stamps using Versafine Clare Nocturn and closed the platform again to transfer the  mice image to my work.

 The mice stamps are from Lavinia stamps.( In fact all the stamps I used on this project were purchased from Lavinia stamps)

The beauty of using a stamping platform is, That if your image doesn't stamp correctly you can ink up the stamps again and stamp over the previously stamped images.  This will fill in any misses perfectly, providing your work hasn't moved at all. Always lift the platform door carefully to ensure your work doesn't move.  Sometimes the stamp will stick to your work, so if you're not careful your work can move.

If you don't have a platform and you get small  misses you can usually fill these in with a small paintbrush and the ink you used for stamping.

Once the mice were stamped  I could start stamping the foliage. I used the leaf creeper stamp to form the overhanging greenery.  I stamped in a yellow and lime green ink.  I finished off with a few stamped in Versafine Clare  Shady lane. I like this ink,  it gives good coverage, especially for silhouettes.

I masked off the tree trunks again, and stamped some wild flowers over the masked off areas, so they appear to be behind the trees. I used red ink for some and dark blue ink for others. I dotted some Posca paint over the top of the flowers in a lighter colour for a little more dimension.

Then stamping some ferns at the base of the trunks in lime green, and shady lady.

I wasn't completely happy with my fern stamping, so when the ferns where dry I stamped a small branch over the bottom of the envelope and up over some of the ferns in brown Versafine Clare.

 Versafine inks take much longer to dry, so I gave it some drying time before dotting  white Posca paint on and around the branches to form buds and flowers, disguising  the areas I wasn't too happy with. I added a few more flowers to the foreground again adding tiny dots of  Posca paint to the blooms.

 After waiting for the paint and inks to dry,  I coloured the tree trunks with Copic markers. If you look at the photo above the lower mouse looks odd, almost as though he is floating. He needs to be grounded.

This is easily done with a piece of torn paper placed over the mouse with his foot poking out  and brushing a tiny amount of a darker ink over the edge of the paper and  his foot.

If you are very confident you could bring this ink shading downwards to form the shadow. I am not that confident, so I added some shadows beneath the mouse with black chalk pastel and a tiny, stiff paint brush. Because I can rub out the chalk pastel if I mess up.

 This is not my normal style, so I did feel a little daunted when I decided to have a go at creating these scenes. But it really didn't take that much effort or time to create these images.  Which is just as well as I need to do 3 bags each week and I don't have vast amounts of time to waste on something that will end up in the bin a few minutes after they sweets have been devoured, ha ha .