MOO-MANIA Show us your Texture

Hello! Just a quick pop in and out, I have a mountain of things to do, all of them important and many that need to be done a.s.a.p!

This time on MOO-MANIA the theme is Texture and I have chosen to use some embossed card which I added some silver gilding wax to. This emphasizes the raised areas. I added some faux gems and some lovely metallic thread as extra textures. 

When I was preparing for the photo, I thought that I would add even more texture with the backing paper and used some snakeskin textured black card. Right, enough! I need to do other things. 

Hope you like my MOO?

See you soon and have a great time crafting! Kim x

Monday Make with Creative Expressions

Boy do the days go quickly here in Wales!! Seems like I have barely hit 'publish' and it is Monday all over again! 

Today sees the second blog using these fantastic new 'English country garden feel' stamps from Creative Expressions.  I have used a pretty stamp, Anemone Planter, this time with the 'With Love Always' sentiment from the Rose Entwined set. I know, I have mixed my image and sentiments up again but they do all work together really well. 

I first coloured a piece of white card with Tim Holtz Distress inks. I used my favourite colours. Peeled Paint and Faded Jeans. I applied the ink with a brayer by smearing the ink pads onto an acrylic block, one colour at each side and picking the ink up from there with the brayer. 

Then with some careful splattering of water, not too much, and dabbing off with a piece of kitchen towel I added some visual 'texture' to the flat brayered colours.

Next I stamped the image and sentiment and embossed with white embossing powder. 

Using just a slightly damp brush I picked up some of the colour left on the acrylic block and coloured the flowers. leaves and borders. I stuck with blue for the flowers, green for the leaves and used the best match for the borders. Quick run around the edges, again with the most appropriate Distress ink, after rounding off the bottom corners and the main feature is complete!

Mounted on to a piece of blue card with the bottom corners also rounded off and job done!

A very simple card and hopefully you think this is a very pretty card. I certainly like the result I achieved and it does show off the stamps well I am sure you will agree.

 Hope you come back for more next week? Any questions or comments will be gratefully received.

Kim 

The Friday Feature with VISIBLE IMAGE

Whoop whoop! Another Friday is upon us and thus another Friday Feature is here for you!

The guys at Visible Image have just come back from a very scorchio holiday, they had a great time but are back now in the thick of it with a show to go to this weekend. Boy they never seem to rest those two! I bet they were talking 'shop' even while they were away!

Which show you ask? The Great British Craft Festival – Stoneleigh Park, near Coventry, is my answer. Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th August. They are on stand D3. If you can, pop over and say 'Hi' to Helen and Mark. They will be the ones with the gorgeous suntans!

If you are lucky enough to be going then you will see some amazing samples the DT made using the latest stamp release, INKognito. They are fan-tab-u-lous, and I am not just saying that 'cos I am on the team! These stamps are really beautiful and lend themselves to a variety of styles, but are particularly good for those of you that like journalling.

Right, my project for today features the heart and the Live Life Now sentiment.

I used a new-to-me product, Dylusions ink sprays (only got mine 2 weeks ago, I know lots of you have been using them for ages!) for the background and gilding flakes for the stamped images. Word of warning, be very careful not to let the gilding glue dry on the stamps. This goes for ANY stamps, Visible Image stamps are pretty robust, but the gilding glue is not designed for use on stamps really and it does dry pretty quickly. It would mess up your rubber stamps too if left on there. But don't be frightened of using it. Just apply some glue to a flat surface, I use an acrylic block, (again wash quickly after use) and pick up the glue with the stamp just as if you were inking it up. Then stamp and leave to go tacky, apply the gilding flakes and voila! 

Hope you like it?

  

Make sure you check out the Facebook group - HERE, the Web site - HERE and the Monthly Challenge - HERE. Be in with a chance to win £20 worth of stamps of your choice by simply entering a project made using a Visible Image stamp.

Comments are nice to read, now that you are here perhaps you want to leave one? Thank you!

See you next week for more Fun on Friday! 

Kim 

Monday Make with Creative Expressions

Start of a new week and I hope it goes a lot better for me than last week! Suffice to say I have a new heat gun, a repaired Cuttlebug and a new printer. Why? Well all three items decided to break last week. 

Today sees the start of a new month of makes with Creative Expressions and some new stamps. These are a lovely set featuring English country garden flowers and some lovely sentiments. 

I have chosen to show you a project I made using the Sunflower Delight stamp. At the time of being given the stamps to work with it was still unclear which sentiment would go with which flower so I opted for the Happy Days wording from the Desert Daisies set. 

Triple Sunflower card

I also used an older stamp for the background, Botanical Spray. It is the one I used for the Gilded Box, such a versatile stamp.

The colouring was done using the pastel set of Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour paints. This set is a beautiful collection of colours reminiscent of an ice cream parlour! But looking at the project these colours don't need to be pale and quiet! Look how they shout out, all zingy and zesty!

First I took a piece of plain A3 white card and coloured it in a loose rainbow style with the paints. Remember my old mantra about colouring more than you need so you have spare should you need it but also so that you can choose your favourite areas. 

Once this was completely dry, yes it has to be bone dry, I stamped and embossed the sunflower 3 times using black embossing powder. I tried to get a good cross-section of colours in the background. I cut these out and mounted them on a 'barely-there' black card mount.

Next I stamped and embossed the remaining card using the Botanical Spray and clear embossing powder. 

To make the background more interesting I then re-painted the colours over the top of the clear embossing. The trick was to not be precise about matching the colours but to allow some overlapping of colours so if you look at these close up shots you can see where the under colour is showing through the second coat. So for example where the undercoat was yellow blending into green I allowed the second coat to be more of the green blending into the blue.

Does that make sense? I can feel a step-by-step coming on.......

For the sentiment I stamped and embossed in black along an off-cut of the card. 

All in all this is a pretty little card, full of colour and sunshine!

Hope you like my project, please feel free to leave a comment and if you have any questions please ask! 

Thanks for dropping by. 

Kim 

August Challenge with Visible Image

WOW! Did you see the fantastic entries for last month?

Were you the lucky winner? 

A little later than usual due to the holidays, the new monthly challenge goes live at Visible Image today. Why not take a look at the other DT projects over on the blog to get your creative ideas flowing.

My make is a little different this time, I have decorated some candles using the More than Words set/Thank You and the Bronte Script. I find decorated candles a really useful stand-by gift for those moments when you don't quite know what to get for somebody, or for when somebody needs a gift quick, like the neighbour who looked after your cat, or when you are asked to donate a prize to the school fete.

They are decorated using stamped tissue paper which is then heat welded onto the candle. Ah! You thought because the Visible Image stamps are flexible that I wrapped the inky stamp around the candle. Tried that, the ink won't stick!

Of course you need to be careful with candles when lit. They will burn as normal, but I would still treat them with the respect they deserve. Lit candles should never be left unattended.

I will take my Health and Safety hat off now.....but I needed to say it. Thanks for bearing with me! To be honest most decorated candles will stay unlit as they are more of a home decor item than a practical one, but they do still 'work' after being decorated.

So, pop over to the Visible Image blog - HERE - and follow the link to the August Challenge area. Or go to the Facebook Group - HERE - to see the DT inspirations and upload your entry. It always amazes me how differently we interpret the stamps! 

Have a great day and I hope to see your entry this month!

Kim

Anniversary Heart

A few days ago my husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Naturally I made him a little something. 

Just thought you might like to see it now that it is safe! He thinks it is fantastic and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. 

I used glitter, yep, I know, not something that I use often but this was Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture paste. I actually really like the effect it created tone on tone. I think I may be converted!

I first covered an MDF heart with some crimson card and then spread the texture past on through a mask. When it had dried I used some gilding was around the edges of the heart and then gently applied some to the surface of the glitter paste. I have no idea who made the stamp I used but it is one of my older wooden mounted ones which I have kept because it is such a nice font and a lovely sentiment. I added some suitably romantic charms and ribbon to hang it.

Of course there is a personal sentiment written on the back but that is between me and my OH!

Kim x

The Friday Feature with Visible Image

Really? Friday already! Where has this week gone? On the plus side, it does mean I get to share with you my Friday Feature!

This week I have made a very simple card using one of the new, what do you mean you didn't know? Yes, NEW stamps from Visible Image.

I am very partial to butterflies as you know, but this gerbera-like flower is gradually making its' way up there into my Top 5 favourite Visible Image stamps.

Using only 2 colours, other than the white of course, I would say this is a CAS card but some of you might not agree. At what point does a Clean and Simple card become not a CAS card I wonder? I shall ponder that thought later.

I stamped the flower four times onto a piece of white card leaving plenty of space for cropping. I then cut them out deliberately avoiding having the centre of the flower in the middle of the square. I played around with the position of them until I was happy and then stuck them onto a piece of pink card. I then cut a piece of white card to the same width as the new square and stamped 2 more flower heads. Once again I stamped them to be 'off the page'. Using a navy ink I stamped the sentiment directly over the flowers on this panel. I decorated each of the 4 flowers with a navy gem and mounted the whole thing onto navy card before putting onto a white card blank. So there it is, what else can I say about it? 

  

The only thing left for you to do is to pop over to the Visible Image web site and check out all the other fantastic DT samples, and maybe you will be inspired to have a go yourself at making something fantastic. You could enter it into the monthly challenge and be in with a chance to win some Visible Image stamps.

There is also the Facebook group which is a great place to meet like-minded stampers, get to hear about all the latest products, and chat with us guys at Visible Image.

I for one am hoping that today is a 'good' day as I have had a couple of craft-room disasters. First my heat gun broke. I am not prepared to play around with electrical tools so I have had to order a new one which is going to take 3-5 working days to get to me. Living in rural Wales isn't all good you know! Then my darling little Cuttlebug decided to throw a cog! Yes, I have a Grand Calibur but that is too big to be heaved on and off the desk. Now this I was happy to try and fix. A few screws and Bingo! She is working again! Now they do day that things come in threes.........fingers crossed for today then! I just better not go near my Scan'n'Cut hey.

See you next Friday, have a good weekend.

Kim x