Anything Goes at Stamping Sensations in February

This month at Stamping Sensations we are making it really easy for you to enter with "Anything Goes". That's right, you can enter anything you like as long as it has some stamping on it, and for an added incentive the winner will receive a fabulous £35 gift voucher from Little Clare Designs!

I have a really special card to share with you today that was commissioned for a very special lady who was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours List.

Don't forget to enter the challenge to have a chance to win this fabulous prize...

Pax

This picture is inspired by nature. It started life as a plain A4 picture frame from that large Swedish store.

 

"Pax"

There are layers of lace, texture paste, paperclay embellishments and white diecut card stuck down to make a scene with lots of texture before the whole thing is coated with a few coats of white gesso and left to dry.

 

"Background texture comes from lace, paste & diecuts"

I used cheap gesso which needed quite a few coats, but I won't make that mistake again and have bought myself some better quality stuff for future projects!

 

"Flowers are a mixture of paper and paperclay"

Some pearls are added to some of the flowers.

 

"Bird and nest"

Some straw with a few flat-backed pearls makes a pretty nest for this little wooden bird.

 

The last step is to spray the picture with inks of different colours to highlight areas and add some interest.

Entered for the following challenges:

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

My goodness, time flies at this time of year. There is so much to do before Christmas, but there's still time to make a few cards and this month we are making it easy for you at Stamping Sensations. Share one of your handmade Christmas cards with the theme of "Winter Wonderland"and you could win a fabulous prize from Stamps by Chloe. Before you head on over to our challenge blog to see my teamies' wonderful creations, here's a little inspiration from yours truly...

 

The background uses the new distress spray stains. Texture paste is added through a stencil to make the trees, and the deer in the background stamped. The foreground deer is diecut from adhesive cork which gives a fabulous texture, and to finish it off I added one of my decorated wooden snowflakes. Have fun making your cards and we can't wait to see what you create.

Tuesday Technique - Decorating Wooden Shapes with Distress Spray Stains

 

Have you ever wondered what to do with those wooden embellishments that you bought (it seemed like a good idea at the time m'lud!). The new distress stains are great for this. They make it so easy to decorate a load of shapes at the same time as making some cool backgrounds for your cards.

 

 

1. Place a sheet of smooth white card on your non-stick crafting sheet and arrange the wooden shapes over the top.

2. Spray splodges of different coloured distress stains. I used Picket Fence first, then added Tattered Rose, Broken China and Faded Jeans.

3. Remove the shapes to a clean sheet of paper and sprinkle heat-emboss in clear. I used a clear holographic powder on these snowflakes for added sparkle. The great thing about distress stains is they stay wet for a while, so it's a perfect ink for embossing.

4. Here's the free background you created once the shapes are removed, and below are some more closeups of the snowflakes...

 

If you like, you can turn the shapes over and repeat the process, then add some jump rings and use them in your cards or in jewellery or ornaments, etc. I'll be sharing a card next week that features one of these snowflakes.

 

This is why you need a big non-stick mat (some people use a box to spray in, but I'm not that organised)! Don't worry though, it cleans off with a wipe. Oh, and don't waste all that lovely ink on the mat. Spritz with a little water and drag some card through to create another background :-)

Christmas is coming..

...it's only November, but Christmas is just around the corner and this month at Stamping Sensations we have a nice and easy Christmas theme for you, so get started on those Christmas cards!

The background of my card is made using Tim Holtz' snowflake stamps with an embossing resist technique and Peacock Feathers distress ink. The sentiment is cut from a scrap of the decorated card, and the card itself is finished with a few gems, some ribbon and a couple of handmade stickpins.

As always, we have a fantastic prize for the winning entry on our challenge blog, which is a £35 store voucher for Little Clare designs.

A Goldfish Bowl

This card was a lot of fun to make!

"A Goldfish Bowl"

I started by making a box from white card and cutting the aperture before decorating the front with some wood patterned paper and blue distress inks. Some acetate was sealed behind the aperture and the background sealed in place.

"Fish"

The background actually started out as this inked scene...

"Inked Scene"

I wanted something really colourful, and found this in my "ones I prepared earlier" file lol! Anyway, I used a Sizzix stamp and emboss set over the top of this together with some clear heat-embossing to create the "fronds", and went over the whole thing with darker inks to mimic the bottom of the sea. It was cut down to size to fit the base of the box, and the fish were attached using little strips of acetate and dabs of glossy accents so they wiggle when you move the box.

"Fish!"

Before glueing the lid down, some little drops of glossy accents are added to the acetate and some seed beads and shells glued into the base of the box to look like the bottom of the bowl.

"Shells"

The white box is wrapped in a brown card wrapper decorated with door stamps heat-embossed in gold.

"Happy Birthday"

Warm Autumn Colours - October at Stamping Sensations

Wow, October is here already. What a wonderful warm September we have had here in Northern Ireland, and the trees are looking fantastic in all their Autumn glory, so what better inspiration than nature for this month's theme at Stamping Sensations and we are asking you to produce something with "Warm Autumn Colours". Share your creation on the challenge blog and you have a chance to win a fabulous prize from Imagination Crafts.

For my project this time I chose to make an easel card a la Sue Wilson. You can make the front of the card any size you like (as long as you have an envelope to fit!), and then just adhere an easel stand to the back cut using the Tim Holtz Sizzix Bigz easel die.

 

I started with a piece of faded orange backing paper from DCVW Pumpkin Patch, then overstamped with some of my favourite meadow stamps, colouring some in and creating a leafy frame. Various autumnal shades of archival inks are used to give some depth.

 

The bird is stamped from a Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz set in archival, and overpainted using watercolour paints. I love the effect you get using this technique, which allows some of the stamp detail to show through the translucent paint. The branch and tree trunk are painted in by hand to match, using the same colours as the bird to tie the scene together.

I matted and layered onto gold and brown cardstock and could have left it like this...

 

... but instead diecut a lot of leaves from Pumpkin Patch patterned paper and used them to decorate the frame giving the feel of a bird peeping through the leaves.