Lavinia stamps

.  This is one I made at the Craft Barn - this is similar to the Penny Black one I made before on the blog -  this time the background is distress inks (spun sugar and festive berries) with a little bit of black soot round the edge.  Then we used Lavinia stamps to stamp - once with fresh ink and once with 2nd generation ink - and added die cuts (Memory Box I think) on top.

Penny Black Stamps

I was so pleased with this one - I'd bought the Penny Black "tweet tweet" set specifically for the leaves and foliage.  The card underneath was coloured using inkpads left over on my splodgeaway mat - just spray water over and run it through.  I let it dry naturally but you could do it with a heat gun.  Then I stamped leaves/ plants over it and the bird from the same set.  The wording is from a Dyan Reaveley set of stamps - I hadn't planned it, so I had to find something that fitted the space left!

JOFY stamps again....

I bought Jo's stamps a while ago, and she told me that someone had made a tortoise from a leaf stamp. . . I really wanted to try that out, and made this as soon as I got home!  All you need to do is draw the head and legs on - I am not a great drawer, but I could manage that.

Kanban stamp

I bought some Kanban stamps half price from Create and Craft TV - this is the one I stamped out first as I wanted to practice colouring with Copics.  I quite like this one now - not sure when I first did it.

 

Saturated Canary Stamp

I stamped this on watercolour paper and coloured it with Copics.   I made a really simple card from a sheet of paper which was free from a Craft magazine, and added some flowers which I had around.

 

 

Penny Black Stamps (Mo Manning)

I bought these stamps a little while ago - I bought these stamps a while ago (stamp set called "Ahoy" - shown -  and another one with mermaids on); I thought they were such lovely pictures.  I haven't even made this into a card yet, I just desperately wanted to stamp it and colour it.

Jo Firth-Young Stamps

This is the other one (see below!) - the pages all have stamps from one set of JOFY stamps, and I coloured the topper with copics.

Crafty individuals stamps

I cannot believe it has been so long since I blogged.....  this is a note pad stamped with the crafty individuals seashell stamps.  I made the cover by using the paper from their seaside collection and a scrap of paper.  I also have another one made from Jo Firth Young's stamps, stamped in Memento grey rather than black.

Clarity stamps

A quick update - this is the one I made at the Clarity Workshop, actually made up as a card - did very little to it, just backed with mauve paper and added some purple ribbon to it. 

Stamping bella stamps

I bought these at the Oyster stamps event at Biggin Hill a few weeks ago; there were quite a few nice ones, but I restricted myself to buying one (which is unusual for me!).  This was the first time I used it, and decided it would be nice for stamping their dresses on bits of paper instead of colouring them.  There is also a stamp saying "girls just wanna have fun - cyndi lauper" which I stamped in the main part of the card.  The stamp itself is called Victoria and Juliette's Night Out (LL134). 

JOFY Stamps

This is what Jo Firth Young calls "using up all the stuff on your craft mat"..... the papers are printed on the back of cardboard from a pack of something (can't remember quite what, but I keep all my left overs....), then coloured using inks already on my craft mat.  (Sprayed with water then swooshed the card through.)  Some corrugated card for the background, then the grass is the bits left over from cutting out a memory box blade of grass (generally looks quite good as seaweed).  Coloured the stamp in with Copic markers and used distress inks to colour the wording.

Paper Artsy stamps

Did these ones for a friend's birthday present.... still need to make the box to go with them.  I really enjoyed making these; the stamps are large and you only need print them out in black ink.  Then I sponged distress ink round the edges and wetted them with water.  I used Sizzix dies for the needle, thread, pen etc, and I died some ribbon orange (ripe persimmon distress ink) which I used on some of them.  Have tried to show you some close up too.  I suspect I need to get my distressing better - these look a lot better in real life than they do on these photos!

Clarity Stamps

This is another one we did at the workshop - actually the first one our group did on the day.  Really nice, but took quite a bit of time - used the pointillism stamp kit to add texture.  Not quite finished yet - we were meant to put a black edging on but I decided to leave it for later to avoid smudging it.  Now I see the photo, not sure I like the edging - but it looks better in real life!

Clarity Stamps

 

Another one from the Clarity workshop... we played with a Gelli plate for this one (lovely to have a bash without having to buy a Gelli plate first).  I did buy a Gelli plate at the end so will have to have a play with it later.

Clarity Stamps

I went on the Clarity Stamps 2 day workshop in May - second time I have been.  Last year I didn't take photos or even think of publishing them.... this year I'm more confident!  This was a fairly easy one - the stamps were lovely, and we used the cloud background (very useful - I bought that, it's far easier than using cut up bits of paper).  We used embossing powder to highlight the flowers - actually double embossed.  Even though we all knew how to emboss, you tend not to think of doing it - looks really nice though.

New stamps....

Well, probably not that new now....  One free with Craft Stamper and the other one I got on sale at the Craft Barn for about a pound.  I was also practising using Copics, and I have had this paper for ages too.  Lovely paper, but I tend not to use peach or yellow colours - but they went well with the vase of flowers.

Oak leaf stamp

 

Another Imagination Crafts stamp.  Decoupaged and coloured with Copics, then just put on a brown card. 

 

Anniversary Card

Used a Crafty Individuals stamp in the middle, and then blocked it off to do the background.  I had seen Christine Dark do a similar background, and was desperate to try it myself - use all the pale coloured Copic pens to colour the background, then use the blender pen on top to merge it.  Then I used the same colours to colour the main stamp....... the bit where it didn't work out well (a bit of the stamp didn't come out well - I went over it with a black pen but that looked worse...) I covered with a ribbon; pleated it which looked better than just putting it on.  (Dyed some a while ago and I always keep the leftovers!)

Sugar Nellie Stamps

This was a special offer from Sugar Nellie - this was a quick card I made just so that I could practise colouring them in.  Used a small card (4 by 4 inches) and some backing from Kanban (cannot remember what it's called right now.....).  I have just seen Pat Frank's card using the same stamp on the Sugar Nellie website and now want to have another go at it, using more colours and lot of embellishments!

Paper Artsy Stamps

Cannot believe how long it has been since I posted..... I seem to have got out of the habit of taking photos of things!

I bought these stamps at the new opening of the Craft Barn (moved to Nutfield - lovely new shop, and a really good food shop and a place to eat on the site, too).  I was following a design in Craft Stamper magazine - I thought it looked fine, but now I have taken the photo I think I should have sprayed the distress inks with water first.  I was planning to make a few, so that's my plan for the future.

Imagination Crafts stamps

Using quite an unusual stamp for me - one made with decoupage in mind (really not my kind of thing!).  Fortunately it's quite easy to do - only 3 layers in the whole thing.  The one with primroses at the top I did in a class in the Craft Barn - the one with crocuses I did myself when I got home.  We were practising using Copics to colour with - the top one used the colours the teacher had (all of them!) and the bottom one uses my limited colour palette.  Kept the bottom one opened out to show you the stamping on the spine.  I think they make really nice cards for Mother's Day or Easter.

Sugar Nellie Stamps

I was testing out my Copic Pens with this card - only used grey to shade the bear and a pale lilac (I think) for the girl's outfit.  Then I used glitter glue (Stickles - Star Dust) over her hat and around the card.

Calendar

I did this with a tag book from the Everything's a Pound shop (at the NEC) - split it up to get 4 calendar backgrounds.  I used Distress Stain on the tag, a torn up book page with Distress Stain on too, used the stamp from Craft Stamper magazine and used a dyed ribbon to finish.

Notepads

Now that I can get pictures again, I have quite a bit to catch up on!  These are the other 2 notepads I did for stocking fillers at Christmas - the one on the right is done with Clarity Stamps.  For that one I used coloured inks to stamp with on each page (for all the others I stamped in black).

Tim Holtz stamps

This is the other stamp in the set...  For some reason I couldn't get pictures on to my website for the last few weeks, but it seems to have sorted itself out now.