Sunglasses on please!

Well, with Autumn in full swing and a fabulous frosty start to the day today, I thought I'd share a couple of cards I made with new goodies I got at Exeter in September.

These cards were made using some fabulous Brusho's, which I only discovered recently.  I used a mask from Visible Image and on the first card, I put the mask down, spritzed water through it then sprinkled with the brush's.  For the second, I took the mask (still wet and colourful from the first card) and put card on top, rubbing all over so that the ink transferred.  Once dry I added sentiments again from Visible Image, mounted onto dark card and then onto a card base.

Well, hopefully these will help wake you up on this chilly morning, although thinking about it, the colours are actually slightly autumnal!

TTFN

Rach

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Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Well, as promised before, here is a card I made, which is really simple and can be reproduced easily so you can batch make for Christmas.

I started by taking one of Sheena's gorgeous stamps from the Holly Jolly Christmas stamp set and stamping it onto sheen stamping card using watermark ink, then heat embossed in white, then I used Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens from the spring/summer collection (Moonstone and Cosmos) to create the colour washes over the top and blending a bit in the middle, unfortunately the sparkle does not show up in the photo but it is definitely a bit bling in real life!

To finish off I mounted the topper onto some pink card and then onto a top folding A6 card base - I then decided it needed a little bit more interest so I added some iridescent sequins randomly.

I love how this turned out and will definitely be making more - all you need to do is change up the colours of the wash - green & red, gold & silver, well, just pick two colours and I'm sure it'll look stunning!

Anyway, hope you have a crafty Sunday whatever you're doing! - I'll be humming this tune all day as it's now stuck in my head!

TTFN

Rach

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Noel

Well, I'm still playing with Christmas stuff, but then I love Christmas so why wouldn't I?

This card was made for the weekly theme over at Make One Christmas Card Every Week Throughout 2018 (great idea & I started well, but now I'm playing catch up!).  The theme was "Your card should contain a green bow, some holly or Ivy, a sentiment which says 'Noel' and three snowflakes" - I think I managed to get it on theme!

I used mainly Sara's Signature collection Winter Wonderland, with some really old Ivy dies - the mats for the sentiment were made with some Sue Wilson layering dies - I really love these with the stitched detail.  It's a really simple card, which should be fairly easy to replicate, which at Christmas is really important, though I have some more ideas for cards that can be mass produced coming up, so keep checking back!

Well, anyway, as it's a work day (hump day!), I should go & get ready for the day.  Catch up with you all soon.

TTFN

Rach

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A Little bit of Christmas

Well, whether we like it or not, Christmas is on it's way (and I still haven't bought a single present!) and so it's definitely time to start making sure the card making is under way.

This is a card that started in my head & insisted on being made, however, it hasn't turned out quite as I wanted it to - does that happen to any one else, or is it just me.

All of the items used are from Sara's Signature Range Scandinavian Christmas, the ink was Versa Magic, Red Magic - I love the simplicity, but I'm not sure whether it's too simple?

Well, it was just a quick post today, I must get on & get ready for the day, though I would much rather be sat at my craft desk playing with inks - if anyone knows of a job that would let me do that, please let me know!

TTFN

Rach

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Butterflies

Well, this time last year I had just finished working on some launches for Crafters Companion birthday week, sadly this year I’m not working on any of the launches and am no longer on the team. However, they really do have some fabulous launches and I’m looking forward to watching the shows and trying desperately hard to control my spending!

Anyway, the card I’m showing today is made using stamps from the Flutterby Sara Signature Range that launched during birthday week last year.  I stamped the large butterfly several times using watermark ink and then embossed with clear powder.  I used some Distress Oxides (Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry, Crushed Pistachio and Peacock Feathers) to colour the background by squidging some ink onto my glass mat, spritzing with water and then dunking the card with the butterflies on it into the ink, drying off and then doing the same with the other colours.  By doing this I built up the colours as they overlay each other beautifully.

I then created a velum overlay with some of the other stamps from the range, again stamping in watermark ink and using white embossing powder.  For the turquoise mat, I didn’t have any card the right colour so I used white card and coloured the edges with a Spectrum Noir pen (BT4) - got to love those pens!

Anyway, hope you all enjoy Crafters birthday week, I know I will!

TTFN Rach
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Falling leaves

Well, the weather has taken a decided turn for the worse, but then we are well into Autumn now, sadly the high winds have taken quite a lot of the gorgeous coloured leaves off the trees.  I love seeing the beautiful colours of Autumn on the trees and feel very sad when they are on the ground, but hey ho, it all happens for a reason.

To capture the magic of these colours, I created this card, it's a single layer and I created the frame by using one of the Spectrum Artliner pens to quickly draw round the card three times, I say quickly because if you take your time over it, the lines look wrong, they need to be quick scribbles.

I used the Sara Signature Collection Autumn morning stamp set and a light coloured ink from the Harmony range to stamp some leaves (second generation stamps so they just ghost the card).

I took a sheet of white card and used some of my Brusho's (I am so in love with these) to create a lovely autumnal background and then cut out leaf shapes with Sara's Autumn morning 'Leaves are Falling' and 'Scattered Leaves'.  The larger leaf dies have veining detail so I inked through with a light grey ink (again Harmony, love those inks!) to give the detail, then I arranged the leaves over the bottom left of the card to look like leaves being blown about in the wind and adhered them when I was happy with the arrangement, all that was left then was to add the sentiment using another Harmony ink, think this was a mid range brown.

Beautiful, simple and really captures the best of the season!

Well, I'm off to have some more Autumnal fun - hope you have a lovely Sunday.

TTFN

Rach
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Brusho's

I recently went on my annual trip to the Exeter craft show, as it falls around my birthday, it would be rude not to!  

I bought loads of brilliant new bits and pieces and with that was some Brusho's, I just went for a box of 12 colours as I had no idea what to do with them.  Having had a bit of a play, I'm now starting to get there and so today, I'm showing you a card I made on my second weekend of playing with them.

I started this card by masking off a strip on a piece of white Sheena Stamping card, then I spritzed with water and then sprinkled three colours of brush's, concentrating each colour on an area (I used purple, lemon and leaf green), I then spritzed a bit more until I was happy and then dried with my heat gun before removing the masks.

Then I stamped the image over the top (this is Sheena's A Little Bit Sketchy - Beautiful Day), the ink I used was Spectrum Finesse Rustic Brown as I didn't want a harsh black, I also used this ink for the sentiment (from a set by Crafters Companion called "Fun & Friendship").

After this I used some Nuvo Glitter Drops (White Blizzard) to give a look of dew on the sprigs.

All that remained to do after this was to mount onto a piece of yellow card and then onto the front of a card blank.  I'm really happy with this card and it makes me smile just to look at it, it's much more artsy than I have done for some time!

Well, happy hump day all - I'd best go get ready for work (got to earn the money for more crafting funds!).

TTFN & I'll be back on Saturday with another Brusho's card for you.

Rach

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Getting ready for Christmas

Hi all, well I had to start getting ready for Christmas some time and I have been so behind in previous years (and this one too!).

Anyway, I was reading my copy of the Crafters Inspiration magazine (issue 20), and was inspired by the cards made using the stencil.  Now, I don't have any of the imagination crafts products but I looked round my craft/dining room and quickly spotted my fabby new Spectrum Noir Finesse ink pads and the Midas ink pads too.

I had no idea whether this idea would work, so I just grabbed a spare piece of card, just to test it out, I used Frozen Lake from the Christmas Finesse set (Seasons Greetings) and Silver from the Midas Metallics.  Firstly I stencilled with the Frozen Lake, then went round the edge of the card with this as well and then moved the stencil slightly to create the drop shadow with the Silver Midas, I also edged the card with the Silver by swiping it directly through the ink pad (buff off any excess so that you don't end up with very inky fingers, these pads are juicy!).

I then mounted the piece of card onto a slightly larger piece of matt silver from Crafters Companion's Luxury Cardstock range, and then placed the panel onto the front of a white card, adding a sentiment from the free stamp set that came with the magazine (I used Versafine Onyx Black for this).

I'm really pleased that my little experiment went so well, I will definitely be making more of these with some other of the Christmas colours.

Hope I still have some followers to read this, sorry for the over long hiatus, hopefully I can get back into this a bit more - I've been having some fun with Brusho's recently, which I will try and share over the coming week.

TTFN

Rach
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