Five Christmas cards for October and we are nearly there with the New Years Resolution!!!!

Good morning to you!

Another scheduled post as I am now half way through my week down in Cornwall.

This time I'm sharing my five Christmas cards for October - woohooo - I'm nearly there with my New Years Resolution of five cards a month!!!!!!!!

This card has been primarily made using stamps from Visible Image - another of my favourite stamp brands.  Stamping in Distress Oxide and just touching the side of the inked stamp with the Distress Oxide Black Soot it has emphasised the angel beautifully.

Some Visible Image snowflakes and some mirror card and I was done - have to keep them relatively simple with batch making but I liked the femininity of these and they will be perfect for girls and ladies where traditional cards would seem a little old fashioned - don't you think?

Join me towards the end of November when I shall post my final set of five cards completing my New Years Resolution for 2017 (I hope!!!).

Hope you like these,

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xxx

Five Christmas Cards For June!

Good morning!!!!

Well, we are half way through the year and yes, the "C" word is getting closer!!!!

As promised, here is my offering of five Christmas cards for June as part of my New Years Resolution.

Here they all are so that you can take a closer look.

Again, all similar but all slightly different.  I enjoyed messing around with this adorable stamp by Impression Obsession.

The horses have been stamped using distress oxide inks - I must admit to completely experimenting here.  Some of them I left them at that, others I have spritzed and let the oxides move a bit - loved all the results so kept the lot!!!

The backgrounds are distress ink mixed with a little bit of glycerine to make a nice blend of the ink.

Peace on Earth is a stamp from Clarity Stamp - it's one of their word chains.

Mat and layered on mirri and white card.

I must admit, I particularly like the two that have been sprayed with water, I think they look beautiful and ghostly.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your visit today, soon be Christmas!!!!!!

Month 6 - mission complete.

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne x

You only live Once, make it Count............

Good morning!

Well this one is certainly looking at you isn't it!!!!!

This card started life as a square of black card (unusual for me).  Of course, I only have one eye on the Vision Inkognito stamp set so I went about reversing it with the use of my brayer so that I got two eyes!  The eye was reversed using perfect medium and the usual stamp stamped with the perfect medium too and then clear embossed.  I then stamped all the little cogs all over the black card in perfect medium as well and clear embossed those too.

I then used some Distress Oxides to put that lovely smokey background on.

If you look closely I have also stamped very finely with the cracked stamp that is also in that Visible Image stamp set (Time After Time set).  

Some gold gilding wax was gently rubbed over those embossed cogs to make them shine.

I stamped the sentiment on to a further piece of black card and embossed that in white and edged with the gold gilding wax and attached to the card at this stage.

The small clock face was stamped and gold embossed on top of this sentiment panel and then some of the small cogs that had been stamped out and embossed in gold and cut out were applied to the card too.

The eyes were highlighted with a white pen and then the large clock was stamped with the two wings (in the same stamp set), cut out and attached using a double layer of black foam tape to give it good dimension.

Mat and layered using white, gold and black card stock.

Happy with that! - You should see the state of my hands, - black, gold gilding wax and covered in glue - nothing strange there then!!!!!

Hope you've enjoyed your visit today,

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne x

I would like to enter this in to the following challenge:-

Try It On Tuesday - Steampunk/Mechanical:-

https://tuesdaytaggers.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/steampunkmechanical-6th-june.html

With Love............

Good morning!

It is with sadness that I have made this card for the last challenge that Chocolate Baroque will be offering.  I have loved this challenge but sadly, all good things come to an end at some time or another don't they?

So, I had to work with a colour swatch which was:

A lovely choice of colours that lend themselves to each other beautifully.

Here is how I got to it.  I started by just playing really with some Spectrum Aqua markers, glycerine and a sponge!  I also added some white drawing ink in to the mix and loved the effect that I got.

I then went on with my hills and then the flowers which have been coloured in with diluted aqua markers.  The butterflies have been coloured in with the new distress oxide inks.  The butterflies went on next and finally the sentiment.

I appreciate that the sentiment of "With Love" looks completely on the wonk - I can assure you that it is completely straight here at home!!! - I am working with a new phone and depending on how I angle it, sometimes the sentiments can look a little wonky or even blurry - I'm doing my best - the phone is more sensitive than I ever am!!!!

The antenna were just too fiddly to cut out so I decided to stamp the main image of the butterfly first in black versafine and then stick the cut out butterfly on to the top to give it perfect "feelers"!!!!!

Thank you to Lesley and all at Chocolate Baroque for a great challenge blog and I really hope that you will be able to bring it back to us some day - it will be missed....

I would like to enter this in to the final Chocolate Baroque colour swatch challenge:-

http://chocolatebaroquechallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/challenge-thirty-five-end-of-era.html

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne x

Creative People Colour Outside The Lines...............

Good morning!

This is the first opportunity I've had on the blog to properly show you the new distress oxide ink pads AND THEY ARE AMAZING!!!!!  Must admit, pushed the boat out and bought the whole 12 pad set and have had loads of inky fun!

The key to working with the oxide pads is to use water, the oxide effect only comes out with the use of water.  The other major factor with these ink pads is that they layer on top of each other WITHOUT BLENDING so you can layer with one colour, you must dry that layer before adding the next but when you do, it just sits on top of the previous colour so unlike the usual distress inks, they do not form "mud" when layered on top of each other.  So remember, stamp on to your craft mat, spray with water, swoosh your card in to the ink, begin to dry with your heat tool and spray again with water as you do.  When dry, repeat the process with a different colour! See it all transform in front of your eyes, it's brilliant for us inky messy crafters!!!! You can also use them to stamp with brilliantly.

Here I have had a play with the distress oxide ink pads.  The background has had several colours used and then I even stamped a lace pattern with the oxide ink too.

The main focal image is from the Beautiful You stamp set from Stampin Up and the sentiment has been stamped from a Visible Image set and cut up and placed around the artwork.

I think you can see that I had such fun making a mess / I mean getting nice and inky with this one!!!!

Hope you have enjoyed your visit today,

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xx

The World Is Full Of Beauty When The Heart Is Full Of Love............

Good morning!

Well, here is a scene and a half for you this morning!  I fancied having a go for a couple of current challenges both themed around fantasy but fantasy and fairies aren't really my thing!!!  I hope that you like watching how I interpret the different themes for the challenges, I do hope that I inspire you to have your take on them too and have a go!!????

Right, took plenty of photo's along the way with this one, lots of different stages to deal with and I must confess, I did have to plan this one out a bit before I got going.  I knew what I wanted to achieve but had to do some thinking before I put stamp to card stock!  Right, hop on board, let's take our journey this morning:-

OK, I did this quick sketch of what I wanted to achieve in the late of an evening - I even made a note at the top look - as I didn't have a butterfly made by Lavinia Stamps (but I had a fairy that had a good set of wings on her to make one out of!!!!!!).  

So, you can imagine now, it's the next morning, I went in to my craft room, sat at the craft desk, saw this drawing and thought "oh my, where was my mind when I did this!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - I soon came back to where I had left off the evening before and the creative juices were flowing once more! Note the numbers on the sketchy drawings - this is of course, the rough order in which I need to stamp in - a good tip!

OK, I made a start, stamped the poppy on the right first in red and green archival.  Stamped the toadstools next and immediately masked them off, then the bridge (I went off piste here a bit in the order of doing things - but that's ok).  Masked everything over with Pebeo drawing gum.

I wanted this piece of artwork to look like it was two doors opening on what was my vision of a fantasy land so I had to angle the doors of course so I just masked off the top and bottom of the stamp before adding the ink pad. With me so far?

Those side doors are now down in red archival ink.

Doors masked with drawing gum.  I then set on to the sky.  This I have done with the new distress oxides.  I then used a moon mask and gently sponged some white gesso through it to form that moon.

Woohooo! That's put my mark on it!!!  Got out those delicious Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens and went for it!  I wanted some wonderful, fantasy colours to be seen. I also stamped the trees in behind the bridge. The sentiment was added at this stage too.

Right, where am I, oh yes! The masking fluid has been rubbed away from everywhere here (see the lovely little trees are now BEHIND the bridge.

Out came the Polychromo's and I shaded in the bridge, the water, the toadstools, the vines on the doors and a bit more on the poppy head.  I masked the sentiment just with a piece of paper and stamped the falling vines straight across there.  The fairies have been stamped on to tissue paper (gift tissue) and backed with double sided adhesive paper so that they effectively became stickers for me. I have some lovely little silver scissor embellishments here at home so I used some wire cutters to cut off the finger holes - I have used those as door handles for the fairies here.  Glossy Accents has been added to the toadstools, the river and the fairy wings. Further poppies were stamped down at the front. some dark distress ink was applied around the edges to draw you further in to the picture.

Now, had to make a butterfly!  For the Lavinia Stamp challenge I need to use just Lavinia Stamps so this fairy was needed for her wings!!!  Out came the brayer to reverse one set of wings and bingo! - the job was done!

The butterfly was coloured in using the Polychromos  and the rest of that little pair of scissors (having chopped the finger holes off!) was added as the butterfly body! Well, it's a fantasy land, nothing is real is it?.....................or is it???????????????

I hope you've enjoyed your journey today, there was lots to do on this one, it's very busy, very full of things to look at - those fairies are welcoming you in to their world.............I'd like to go, if only for a day....... wouldn't you?

I would like to enter this in to the following challenges:-

Lavinia Stamps "Make Your Own Vision" - my vision of a land of fantasy:-

http://laviniastamps.com/lavinia-stamps-monthly-creative-challenge/

Stamping Sensations "Butterflies, Fairies and Fantasy":-

http://sirstampalotchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/may-butterflies-fairies-and-fantasy.html

Love Makes The Wildest Spirit Tame.............

Good morning!

Well here we are with a card that I've made for the current Cards in Envy challenge of "Motherly Love".

Having had Mother's Day here in the UK back in March I chose to put a twist on this theme and use a wonderful Imagination Crafts art stamp of a Mummy elephant with her two babies - well, it's Motherly Love isn't it?!!!!

I started with a blank piece of watercolour card and swept some of the new distress oxides (diluted) across and down the page.  This gave me a nice, calm colour on which to build my elephants colours on to.

I then stamped the main image with perfect medium and heat embossed with black detail embossing powder.

I then used distress oxide ink (again, diluted) to paint in what I needed on the elephants to give them some depth and shadow.

The hills were produced from torn copy paper and a couple of Momento inks and the sun was lifted out with water, as too, were the clouds.

The foliage was stamped in one of the Momento inks at the front (Bee Crafty) and the bird was added at the top and shaded in and the sentiment stamped ( both Pollyanna Pickering).

Mat and layered. 

I would like to enter this in to the current Cards in Envy challenge "Motherly Love":-

http://cardsinenvy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/motherly-love-card-challenge.html

Thanks for stopping by today,

Leanne x

Capture The Moment and Make It Last Forever.............

Good morning!

Here is a card that I've made using the Visible Image Stamps Face It set - they are brilliant!

I started with stamping the eye and the nose and mouth and masking them off with drawing gum.

I then concentrated on the background, on this piece of artwork I've used the new Distress Oxides.

I went across her face with a Visible Image tree (this is from the set that has the seasons on it).  I have used the oxide ink to stamp this several times and I also clear embossed a few of the branches to give me a watermark effect on there. Some white highlights were added to some of the branches.

I gave the face some depth by applying black soot distress ink with a smoothie down the nose and brow area.

Visible Image birds were embossed in white and feathers were stamped in the oxide ink.

After rubbing away the drawing gum, I highlighted the eye with a white pen and coloured the eye green. The lips were touched in using oxide inks diluted.

I gave depth around the face using the Visible Image face stencil allowing a small gap for lightness to bounce that face off of the background.

The sentiment was stamped along side her face early on in this project and the same sentiment at the top was stamped on as the last thing done.

I mat and layered and added some black smudges all around the white mat to make it all blend together.

I felt this had an African feel to it, just shows you that anything is possible when your mind explores the possibilities!

Hope you've enjoyed your visit today, thanks for stopping by

Leanne x

I'd like to enter this in to the Visible Image Facebook challenge of "Express Yourself":

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.1029362313860874&type=1

Craft Stamper Take it Make it May Challenge :

http://craftstamper.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/take-it-make-it-challenge-may.html