I love a traditional Christmas image, in this case, Jayne's Carol Singers from Claritystamp. Rather than stamping and
colouring the image in a more traditional way, I decided to give it
more of a water coloured look. I then created a background to turn the
topper into a Christmas card. Many of these stamps are in the Christmas sale at Claritystamp until midnight tonight.
I
stamped the image - designed by the late Jayne Nestorenko for
Claritystamp - onto a piece of card (10.5cm x 13cm) in Antique Linen
Distress Oxide. It is a technique that I have seen which allows the
line art to fade into the background once the image is water coloured,
creating a more painterly effect.
I used my Ecoline pens from Royal Talens to add colour, scribbling them
onto an acrylic block and picking the colour up with a water brush. I
started with warm grey and warm grey light for the stone work.
Next I used sepia and sepia light for the pew.
For the girl's outfit I used scarlet and for the boy's deep green. The
foliage was coloured using fir green and the mittens in ultramarine
deep. Once I had finished the remaining water colouring and the topper
was dry, I drew some of the features back in using a Sakura micron pen.
For the background, I stamped and heat embossed six of the Clarity
Christmas carol music staves onto a piece of card measuring 13.8cm x
20cm. They were stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed in detail
white embossing powder.
They didn't stand out from the background until I blended a layer of
Festive Berries Distress Oxide over the top and buffed up the embossing
with a clean piece of paper towel. I used the German version of Silent Night, but the English version is also available.
This was matted onto a piece of green paper (20.5cm x 14.3cm) and added
to a piece of A4 hammered card stock, folded in half to create an A5
card blank.
The topper was matted onto another piece of the same green paper and added to the background with foam pads for extra dimension.
Yet another use of my ombre backgrounds, this time for a child's birthday card. The daughter of friends was three yesterday and this is the card that I made for her.
I used another of my water colour ombre backgrounds for this card and built up layers of cogs using stamps, dies and a stencil.
Just to show that large stamps can be used on smaller projects, I created an inspirational tag/bookmark using one of the Circus stamp sets designed by Leonie Pujol for Claritystamp.
I had a play with shrink plastic to create this sample using the mythical creature stamps from Claritystamp.
As my husband's birthday is on Christmas Eve, I took a rest from Christmas projects and made a gift tag for his present. Once again I played with my Ecoline pens from Royal Talens and stamps from Claritystamp.
Once again, I had a play with my Royal Talens Ecoline water brush pens. This time I tried them out on several different surfaces, from stamping card to a paper towel, both directly on the paper and adding them with a water brush. From my play, came this Christmas Gift Tag.
For this card, I tried different ways of stamping onto watercolour card, having coloured directly onto stamps using the Ecoline water colour brush pens from Royal Talens. All stamps used are from Claritystamp.
I was playing around on copy paper, trying out a new technique. The result became a Christmas card topper. Without looking closely, you would never believe that it started as a piece of cheap copy paper.
I decided to relax by colouring in a lovely traditional Christmas image: Jayne's Carol Singers from Claritystamp. Rather than stamping and colouring the image in a more traditional way, I decided to give it more of a water coloured look. I then created a background to turn the topper into a Christmas card.
I recently played around with alcohol inks on microscope slides (see HERE). Several people suggested using wire wrapping as a way of adding them to a piece of work. I decided to use an 8" x 8" canvas board from Claritystamp. I have never done any wire wrapping before, so I made things up and experimented as I went along.
As I was attending the annual WOYWW crop I decided to take the minimum of crafting to do. So much time is spent catching up, eating cake, catching up, cake, coffee ... you get the idea, that there is little actual time spent on crafting. I therefore only took some stamps, my Strathmore Visual Journal water brushes and colouring materials: Luminarte Twinkling H2Os and my Ecoline pens from Royal Talens. Even so, I didn't finish the page while I was there.
I don't think that I've ever enjoyed colouring in stamped images more than the two here. There is a third image in the set which I haven't worked on yet but I am looking forward to doing so. These are two of the stamps designed by Helen Hopkins 'aitch' for IndigoBlu: Guardian Angel and Luna & Owl. I am entering them into the Stamping Sensations September challenge based on the letter B. This is a stamping challenge so on the basis of Blonde with Bird and Blue angel with woodland Beasts, I am entering both images.
When I saw the current challenge over on Country View Challenges: Planes, Trains and Automobiles I knew exactly which stamp set I wanted to use. I have had it in my stash for ages and never used it; I felt it was about time to change that. My son has also recently bought himself a convertable, so I thought that he might like the tag to use as a bookmark.
It is rather apt that I should be sharing this tag today, as I will be heading up to Manchester (Stockport) later to meet up with some crafty friends; the bee is the symbol of Manchester. This tag is dedicated to all my crafty friends from all parts of Manchester.
I decided not to rush creating the ATC box and MDF ATCs that I shared with you last week and have been working on other projects in between. As you can see from my desk, I have finished painting all the MDF in the colours of the rainbow and edging each of the ATCs in gold embossing powder and heat embossing to tidy up the edges. Next I need to decorate them and decided to used my Crazy Dogs stamps by Tim Holtz. They have all been stamped out and are awaiting colouring in using my Ecoline pens from Royal Talens.
My laptop is always close by as it is the power source for my light box when taking non desk photos. Nothing to show on the other side of the desk today as Eva is away at the moment. To join in with desk watching or sharing, please visit Julia over on The Stamping Ground, where she keeps us all in order (or not, as the case may be lol).
I'm still catching up with my art journaling in between other projects which can't yet be shared. Yesterday, I finally finished off the December page for 2017 over on Mission Inspiration. Given how hot it's been, I felt the quote was particularly apt.
As it is the summer holidays and I have more time for crafting, I decided to catch up with a page from my Mission Inspiration journal. I missed two pages at the end of 2017, but left space for them in my journal. Between other projects I have worked on the prompts for November 2017 over the last few days. As usual there were 8 steps, 3 suggested colours and a choice of 5 prompt words.
The prompt for July's mini mission over on Mission Inspiration is 'Power'. I am a teacher, so the quote 'Education is power' was the perfect fit. As always, the mini mission was completed on a tag. As this owl is such a whimsical character, I am also entering it into the current Whimsical challenge over on JJAMMMA (Junk Journals and Mindful Mixed Media Art).
This tag was made ready for sharing on the last day of the school visit to Berlin. It seems apt as we are flying home today and I'm sure there will be lots of stories to share about the week's experiences. Today also marks a milestone for my blog which is nearly three years old. I have posted once a day since returning from Berlin last year, so today marks an uninterrupted year of sharing and crafting!
I
stamped the image - designed by the late Jayne Nestorenko for
Claritystamp - onto a piece of card (10.5cm x 13cm) in Antique Linen
Distress Oxide. It is a technique that I have seen which allows the
line art to fade into the background once the image is water coloured,
creating a more painterly effect.
I used my Ecoline pens from Royal Talens to add colour, scribbling them
onto an acrylic block and picking the colour up with a water brush. I
started with warm grey and warm grey light for the stone work.
For the girl's outfit I used scarlet and for the boy's deep green. The
foliage was coloured using fir green and the mittens in ultramarine
deep. Once I had finished the remaining water colouring and the topper
was dry, I drew some of the features back in using a Sakura micron pen.
For the background, I stamped and heat embossed six of the Clarity
Christmas carol music staves onto a piece of card measuring 13.8cm x
20cm. They were stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed in detail
white embossing powder.
They didn't stand out from the background until I blended a layer of
Festive Berries Distress Oxide over the top and buffed up the embossing
with a clean piece of paper towel. I used the German version of Silent Night, but the English version is also available.
This was matted onto a piece of green paper (20.5cm x 14.3cm) and added
to a piece of A4 hammered card stock, folded in half to create an A5
card blank.
The topper was matted onto another piece of the same green paper and added to the background with foam pads for extra dimension.
