Monday Make with Creative Expressions

Hello!

Seem to have forgotten it is a Bank Holiday, I have no concept of time now that I am retired and living in such a peaceful part of Wales. Nothing reminds me of the day or time other than it being light or dark!

This week I have decided to show you what can be made with some very basic materials and of course the lovely English Country Garden stamps from Creative Expressions.

This is very much a Back-to-Basics project. 3 key ingredients; card, embossing ink and powder along with a stamp and an embossing folder.

After my foray into embossed embossing last week with the blog-hop card, I thought it might be nice to do something similar albeit on a lesser scale. Let me tell you what I did.

I ran a piece of the Coconut White Foundations card through my embossing machine with the Valor folder from Spellbinders on the cross side. 

I then pressed my embossing ink pad onto a large acrylic block.

Next I pressed the bumpy side of the embossed card onto the inky acrylic block. I pressed just firmly enough to get some embossing ink onto the raised areas. This worked better than running the ink pad over the card like I did last week! I suppose it depends on the effect you are going for.

Next I sprinkled some of the lovely Gold Cosmic Shimmer detail embossing powder over the card, tapped off the excess and heat set it. Any areas that are a little lacking in gold can be repeated. The old saying you can add but not take away should be remembered at this stage! Build up the amount of gold you want gradually. Ink again and again if necessary to achieve your preferred level of gold-ness. For me this card was all about less-is-more.

I stamped 3 images onto some more card and embossed them with the same powder. The stamp I used was the Rose Entwined. 

Because I didn't have any gold card of exactly the same colour, I cut my mount from white card and then inked around the edges to a width of about 5mm with embossing ink. You could use an embossing ink pen for more accuracy. Then I applied the gold embossing powder and heat set it. The width that needs embossing depends on the size of the mount you make and you only need to emboss the minimum amount. It is nice when all the golds are the same colour I think.

I made a banner using the Happy Days sentiment from the Desert Daisies set. It worked well as I wanted a ribbon sentiment rather than a tag type and did the same thing as before for the gold mount.

All in all a simple but very effective make. Ideal for a wedding.

Going back to basics provides a welcome change from the complex, highly decorative cards and projects the experienced and well-equipped crafters make. It encourages those new to crafting to have a go. Styles vary, fashions come and go but you each know what you like, what your skills are and who you are making your card or gift for. I was a long time into my crafting journey before I used a rubber stamp and then quite some time after that that I used embossing powder. We all start somewhere and the best way to progress is to master a technique before confusing yourself with multiple layers, assorted techniques and a myriad of paints, powders and inks!

Hope you enjoyed the project this week and that you will be back next week when I will be unveiling a new set of projects made with new Festive products from Sue Wilson!

Have a lovely week! Kim

The Friday Feature with Visible Image.

Hello followers! Here we are again with the Friday Feature. Hope you all had a good week? 

As you know I have recently moved and I needed a little note board and somewhere to hang my keys. I also wanted something to hold letters that needed posting. I was getting frustrated because I would pop into town to get something and then realise I left the letters that needed posting on the table! I was thinking a shelf by the front door, with some hooks for keys and a cork board to pin things onto. 

Well, I didn't need any of that in the end! I found a great functional piece in my local supermarket that ticked all the above boxes, it was a good price but it wasn't the prettiest looking thing on the planet. Now, some may like the original but it really didn't suit me. So I went about altering it, and I am thrilled with the end result!

So here it is before I transformed it using Visible Image stamps. 

And here it is after. 

And here it is 'in use'

I used the lovely INKognito Flower and Bronte stamps.

  

Hope you like the transformation? 

I would like to remind you about the Visible Image Facebook group - HERE

The Visible Image monthly Challenge - HERE

The Visible Image online shop and inspirations gallery - HERE

and my Facebook page - HERE

Have a lovely weekend and I will see you again soon! Comments always read, please, if you have the time, tell me what you think.

Kim 

MOO Mania - #68 - Hot Summer

Phew! What a scorcher! 

Well, it was hot a few days ago but sadly now it has become quite cold and rainy. I do hope that isn't the summer over and done with!

MOO Mania has taken this hot weather as the theme for the current challenge. I used some hot colours for my piece to emphasize the theme.

I added some clear glazing medium to some of the features just to add more interest. Hope you like it?

Kim x

Creative Expressions Blog-Hop

WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

The Creative Expressions Blog Hop has now come to a close.

Firstly, everyone at Creative Expressions would like to thank all of you who took part over the past few days - we've all enjoyed it and hope that you have too. There have certainly been many positive comments along the way, and it seems that everyone has been able to take a little bit of inspiration away with them, which is great news!

My Hop make - Peace on Earth

I personally would like to thank all of my visitors and I hope that you will come back more often to see what I am doing. 

To my new followers, I post every week for Creative Expressions on a Monday. The spot has been affectionately named The Monday Make. I am still showcasing the lovely English Country Garden stamps, but it won't be long to wait for a whole new theme! I received my new goodies today and I am blown away! Can't wait to start sharing my makes with you!

Current theme - English Country Garden

Anyway, back to the winners! All of the winners have now been chosen, so here is the list of lucky people who will each be sent a selection of Creative Expressions goodies! Simply send an email to Tracey with your full postal address and she will  send your prize out to you!

                 Tracey@creative-expressions.uk.com 

Sue Wilson - Jackie Whiteman
Julia Watts - Wendy Armstrong
Tracey Laughton - June Ballenger
Kim Bacon - Lynda Edmondson
Donna Ratcliff - Clai01
Neil Burley - Karen Burton
Tracy Heaton - June Smith
Kerry Hickton - Sam Smithard
Pam Smith - Anne Crawford
Creative Expressions - Crafty Jo

So, well done to the winners, commiserations to those that didn't win a prize but I hope you all left the Hop feeling inspired? I am looking forward to the next Hop already!

Have a lovely rest of the week and hopefully see you again on Monday.

Kim

Monday Make with Creative Expressions

Hello! 

How was your weekend?

I first need to welcome all my new followers and thank all of you that visited me during the blog-hop! I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who have visited me! Thank you!

Hope you managed to do the August Creative Expressions blog-hop that started on Friday? If you didn't do it HERE is the link for the start page. Follow the blogs from the links in each page, leave a comment and be in with a chance to win a fabby prize! It doesn't close till Tuesday 19th at 5pm so plenty of time yet.

Today I am showing a little home decor item. I had temporarily called it the Daisy Dangler and this title seems to have stuck! Officially the stamp is a sunflower but somehow I couldn't find a suitable rhyme for that!

I started by colouring a piece of card using blue/purple tones from the Cosmic Shimmer Water colours, Pastel shades. I wasn't going for a solid all-over colour, I wanted there to be some shading and visual 'texture' with brush strokes showing. I left this to dry completely. Important as the next stage involved heat embossing.

I then stamped and heat embossed the Sunflower Delight stamp in black 5 times and the sentiment from the Anemone Planter once onto this blue coloured card.

I made a cube from another piece of card. I measured the size of the stamped image and based my cube on this. Before I glued up the edges I made sure I added some ribbon to opposing corners. One corner has a loop for hanging from and the other has a ribbon tassel.

I then cut each stamped image and the sentiment out and glued one to each side. I was careful to get the images and the sentiment the right way up.

I added some Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Paste, Aurora, to the edges, the flower centres and the ribbon.

I have an idea that this sort of thing would make a good decoration for the festive season (see how I avoided saying the 'C' word?).

I fancy something in red and green, maybe gold glitter, featuring the stamps currently being showcased in the blog hop. Anyway, I hope this has inspired you in the same way it has inspired me? 

If you haven't looked at the blog hop then might I suggest you give it a go now? Think of all the inspiration!

Have a lovely week, your comments are always read, thank you for visiting.

Kim

The Friday Feature with Visible Image

Friday once more and therefore another project featuring the wonderful stamps from Visible Image. I am still totally smitten with the latest stamp realease. Called INKognito, they are the most inspiring and unique stamps I have seen in a long time.

Flowering Moments

Rather strangely for me, I have taken a liking to the flower stamp. Yes, of course there is a butterfly which I was expecting to be my #1 choice but I really do like this gerbera daisy flower.

I wanted to create something subtle and elegant. I think this card captures the mood I was hoping for. What a lovely wedding card this would make! If you knew the colour theme for the wedding you could make the card using those colours. 

Anyway, I hit upon this idea of overlaying rather than masking (I defy anyone to cut a mask for these stamps!) when I was trying out some new-to-me ink pads. I noticed that the inks were very translucent when stamped having accidentally stamped the purple over the grey on a scrap piece of paper. The idea developed when I found a third colour in the inks that was complementary and lighter, namely the parchment colour.

I took a piece of A3 white card and simply stamped a row of purple flowers then a grey row and then a cream row. Within each row i made sure the flowers were close but not overlapping. With the second row I stamped in the places between the purple flowers and the cream row was pretty much a copy of the purple row.

Finding a nice section, I cut the piece to size, added a ribbon and the sentiment, mounted on some purple and grey card stock and hey presto! 

I am actually tempted to dash off now and make another card in a different colourway. If you are new to stamping this card is really quite simple although it looks complicated. If you have trouble with colours then look at something that you have in your home that has 3 colours, maybe a rug, the curtains, the wallpaper, a vase, your favourite item of clothing and see what colours there are on there. 

Don't forget to check out 

• the Visible Image web site - HERE
• the challenge blog - HERE
• the Facebook group - HERE
• my Facebook page - HERE

So, I end with the customary 'Thank you!'  for visiting and I hope to see you again soon. Comments are always nice to read if you have the time to stay and write.

Kim

Creative Expressions August 2014 Blog Hop - Peace On Earth

Welcome to the Creative Expressions
 August 2014 Blog Hop!

Hopefully you got here from Tracey's blog but, if you didn't, go to Creative Expressions News Blog!  to get to the starting point. The journey through the blogs will hopefully inspire you and there is the chance to win a fabby prize along the way! 

Peace on Earth 

These new Christmas designs from the Singles Range at Creative Expressions, include seven different stamps. As you will see from the various samples made by the Design Team for the Blog Hop, they do not just have to be used as they are but can be altered and interchanged to give lots of different options.

One randomly selected person commenting on this blog post before the closing date will win the following fabulous prize, which includes some of the new stamp designs.

This is the prize - comment on my blog and you could win this!

For my project, I used the Peace on Earth stamp set along with some of the pretty pearly swirls.

• I started by stamping the image onto some of the lovely Foundations card stock in Cobalt with clear embossing ink and then used Cosmic Shimmer True White Detail embossing powder.

The fine border for the mount.

• The image was then cut out and mounted onto Foundations White card stock with a 'barely-there' amount of white card showing. The borders on the stamp itself are quite narrow so I made my white mount about the same.

• Next I moved on to the background for the card. This was a voyage of discovery! I am going to use this technique again! I took a piece of the same Cobalt card and ran it through the embossing machine using a small patterned embossing folder. I used the Spellbinder M-Bossabilities Simplicity folder. 

• I intended to only gloss the tops of the embossing but got a little carried away and ended up clear embossing over the whole thing! You could do either.  Just swipe the embossing ink 'carefully' over the raised areas! I was a little heavy handed and was using a brand new ink pad! But the end result was pretty cool I think. I used Cosmic Shimmer Detail Clear. I cut the card down to suit the size of the white embossed stamped image.

• The shiny blue background card was then stuck onto the card base with Cosmic Shimmer Glue (boy how I     L-O-V-E     this glue!!). I left it to dry under some thing heavy to make sure the embossed card stuck truly flat. The CS glue is perfect for this sort of job but a little bit of weight just helped with the now very thick card especially at the corners!

• The main white image was then stuck to the base card. I used white card as before and kept the border to a minimum again.

Shiny! Use your pearls exactly how you want.
Cut them to fit.

• To finish I used a variety of bits from the Creative Expressions self adhesive swirls in pearl. Now being the frugal crafter that I am, and because you can, I cut the swirls to suit the space. I will have used some left over bits from other projects and cut into some new ones to get the coverage I wanted.  It is hard for me to say what I used exactly but you can be quite 'clever' with these self adhesive pearls.

So there we have it, a pretty little card featuring these new fantastic stamps. Hope you have enjoyed my blog today. I will be back on Monday with my Monday Make for Creative Expressions. 

Thank you for visiting my blog, please leave a comment below in order to be in with a chance of winning a prize!

Once you have done that, you will need to click here to visit Donna's blog and then continue the journey.

To help you along the way, here is the full list of blogs for the August 2014 Creative Expressions Blog Hop:-

1. Sue Wilson

2. Julia Watts

3. Tracey Laughton 

4. Kim Bacon (you are here)

5. Donna Ratcliff

6. Neil Burley

7. Tracy Heaton

8. Kerry Hickton

9. Pam Smith
10. Creative Expressions 

The start page, prize details and how to take part can be found by following this link

Creative Expressions News Blog. 

The blog hop starts on Friday 15th August at 6am and ends Tuesday 19th  August at 5pm.

Thank you for taking part in our Blog Hop – good luck but most of all have fun!

Kim