Using up some leftovers

Hi
I hope you are all enjoying the Easter Bank holiday weekend. I have just got home from working (no Bank holiday weekend off for me) and for a little chill out time thought I would just have a sit down with a cup of tea and post a card I made last week. The leftovers are the background which I was originally going to use in a design piece but changed my mind. I couldn't let it go to waste so I turned it into this:-

I created an 8 x 8 card I have mat and layered 3 times with coordinating coloured cardstock.

 The character is "Rosie" which is a Barbara Gray Clarity Stamp, this has been coloured with Copics and stuck with silicone to give it dimension off the page.
Sentiment stamp "Destiny" is from my stash (pity I didn't stamp it a little straighter)

The background uses a couple of Indigoblu background stamps, the first is Bubbles background which I have stamped using distress paints. I have then stamped the circle dot background stamp using a big and juicy ink pad and then punched out the circles. I have again stuck with silicone to give dimension. I have added candi dots and adhesive  pearls coloured with copics to add more interest.






Hope you all have a lovely long weekend.
Thanks for popping by
Love
Amanda X

WOYWW 199

Hi
Wednesday, and time for another foray into the worlds of like minded crafters, the brain child blog of Julie all details to join along are HERE.
For me this week, wednesday finds me in the middle of several projects, and with a busy week ahead this Easter weekend, with also no idea of when I will get around to finishing them. It's going to be a case of stolen moments!. 

My first desk shows a few bits drying, crackle hearts and wings to add to a canvas I am completing, my paint tray shows the colours I have used on the canvas. There is also a tag randomly in there as I have gathered up left over bits of distress stain.

On another desk some other crackle hearts the larger one cut with Tims heart and wings die the more likely to male it onto my canvas, said canvas you can just popping into this picture (all will be revealed when finished). My crackle on everything is me still playing with the fabulous Kroma Crackle.

and finally....  the top of my printer!!

This is the one safe place that I have that stops me damaging things as they are drying. This work to be completed includes 2 large Indigoblu folk hearts both using Kroma crackle as you can see one has fully cracked whilst the other is in its drying stages (about 2 to 3 days). A birdhouse wall hanging which at this stage has only received a coat of gesso, and a 5 x 5 canvas again drying after being Kroma crackled and distress stained.

Thanks for visiting and hope that you enjoy seeing what I am currently upto, I will visit as many  of you as I can, but as this is a hugely popular wednesday outing for many of us apologies if I don't get to comment on all of you.

Love 

Amanda X

Easter is a coming

Hi
Well Easter is only a week away, and if the weather man is correct we could all be looking at snow!! Infact we could be getting it this weekend, fingers crossed that he is wrong......
Anyway to get us into the mood of Easter our challenge over at Crafts4eternity this week is "Egg-cellent Easter" so it's all about showing us your lovely Easter creations. The randomly selected winner will be able to choose 3 digital stamps from the Crafts4eternity collection.
My design team entry is a simple one this week due to time constraints. I have created a card based on a sample card I saw on a Barbara Gray show on Create & Craft.

Background was created using pan pastels, stamps used are Clarity Stamps "Bunnies" and includes the flowers (borrowed from my mum thanks mum), the flying birds are from inkylicious. Happy Easter stamp is from Lily of the valley.
I have heat embossed the bunnies with WOW black extra fine embossing powder onto black card and cut out. The whiskers on the bunnies I have made by stiffening sewing cotton and sticking underneath.
Anyway whatever the weather does I hope you all have a good one.
Love
Amanda X

WOYWW 198

Hi
Welcome to Wednesday, and this is my first visit this year to Julia's wonderful blog which gives us a window to the world of all those crafty desks, and without further ado here is what is going on in my world at the moment.

When I got home from work yesterday there was a parcel waiting for me and it was my order of Neil Walkers bird stamps from the Artistic Stamper. So after mounting them on foam (I hate that bit) I just had to have a play. I made a tag from a background that I had already made using Dylusion Sprays, you can see my box of backgrounds waiting to be played with at the back of my desk. I then stenciled and splodged with distress paints. Stamped the Funky Bird onto another piece I had, cut out, and doodled on with my white Posca Pen (latest can't live without item). The sentiment I made up using alphabet stamps then just cut the words out. The flowers that I added  I had lying around which were leftovers from a previous make.

So if you want to show the world your desk or just have a look what's going on out there you can join along HERE
Have a great day
love
Amanda X

Finished Sample

Hi Everyone

Well yesterday didn't go as planned, nothing new there then!! It ended up as having to buy a new TV day, an expense that I could have well done without (crafting budget seriously depleted!!). All is now happily back to normal in the TV department.  Inbetween all of that I managed to pop up to see Sue, the owner of the Stampers Gallery in Tarlton, to drop off a sample that she had asked me to do for the shop. This favour had been paid for with some free stash that I had been given on my last visit. The shop is a stockist of IndigoBlu products, and Sue had just recieved a big order from them and as I was in the shop at the time had to help her open it and subsequently purchase some of. She had had delivered Kroma Crackle which I had seen demonstrated on TV so thought I would give it a try, this is where the favour began as Sue asked me if I wouldn't mind doing her a sample to display in the shop and in exchange she gave me some of IndigoBlu MDF folk hearts, deal done.

 

I first painted the heart with Gesso, then yellow acrylic paint. I then squeezed out some of the Kroma Crackle and mixed some blue acrylic paint with it, then spread it all over the heart, the drying process is quite lengthy I had to leave it over 24hrs but I think the effect is worth it. I then sealed it all with matt multi medium.

 

I then stamped Indigoblu "Blazing Poppies" onto tissue paper and on the reverse coloured with prismacolor pencils, cut out and stuck to the heart again using matt multi medium. The sentiment is from my stash. Other than adding the butterfly charm I left it quite simple. If I had done my usual thing and kept adding you wouldn't have seen the crackle. I do tend to spend hours completing a background to then cover most of it up............

Anyway it now hangs proudly in Sue's shop "Stampers Gallery"

 3 Church Rd, Tarleton, Preston, Lancashire PR4 6UP

01772 811833

 Please visit if you are in the area

other than that you can purchase from IndigoBlu HERE

 Thanks as always for visiting and have a super sunday

Love

Amanda X

Sorbet Colours

Hi
Sorbet colours? Well it's our new weekly challenge over at Crafts4eternity this week. You will find the colour recipe at the end of this post. For my design piece I have used my newly purchased Jo Firth Young stamps by Paperartsy, the set I purchased is JOFY 09 but I need to buy them all lol.

My background has been made by swooshing my card through the following distress paint colours sploshed onto my craft mat, wild honey,peeled paint and scattered straw plus a little water. Using the same distress paint colours I have stamped over the background with Indigoblu bubbles background. Once dried I have stamped in black archival ink a selection of the stamps from this collection. I then raided my bits box and found papers with matching colours and paper pierced them.I used peeled paint distress pen to highlight some of the stems and then finished off by going crazy with a white Posca penand adding a few buttons. This was all then mounted onto an 8"x8"kraftcard blank.

The sorbet colour recipe for your inspiration to come and  join us at Crafts4eternity this week is this:-

So why not come and join in with this weeks challenge,

This weeks prize is kindly donated by Floppy Latte.

One randomly selected winner will receive a $6 gift cetificate. 

thanks for popping by and see you soon

Love

Amanda X  

Life is'nt ................

Hi
Well what a great crafty play day I have had today, it definitely hasn't been a going out day, far too Brrrrrrrr. We have only had a sprinkling of snow which has gone now, unlike many other parts of the UK, so if you have been snowed in I hope that you have all made the most of it, crafty wise, lol.
The majority of my day, inbetween selected housework chores, I  have spent in my craft room. The only thing I have managed to complete so far is a tag that I had started a few days ago, (but I now have many things that are at the "Work in progress" stage!!).
I picked up, several months ago, some Paperartsy stamps on Ebay for a steal, so decided to have a play.

Life isn't a straight line....... I have used a mixture of stamps from Paperartsy. Background is dictionary paper which I stenciled over with black then smeared distress paint over. The edges of the tag were sanded off and inked with distress ink. Houses were stamped onto printed paper and coloured with water colour pencils. The curve has been highlighted using a white Posca pen and further highlighted underneath with gesso which was smeared using the best tool I have, my finger.
I 'm off to cook dinner now,  I use the term loosely though as dinner involves popping Waitrose butter chicken curry in the oven, why make your own when this is so delicious lol.
See you soon and thanks for visiting
love
Amanda X

Marvellous Mums!

Hi
I hope today finds you all well. Friday has come around again, and the Challenge over at Crafts4eternity this week is "Marvellous Mums" as we, here in the UK, celebrate Mothers Day this Sunday. So I am sure many of us have awayed to our craft rooms to make our mums a special card. If you have, why not show us what you have made by joining in our challenge this week. One randomly chosen winner can choose 3 digital images from Crafts4eternity online store.
Here is mine:-

 

I have another flower theme going on this week. The Stamps used are another set of Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Sketchy series, this one is "Always Floral" 

I stamped the leafy branches onto white card in black versafine and covered with WOW super fine clear embossing powder. They were then painted with Dylusion sprays used as watercolour. I randomly sprayed a piece of card again with a selection of dylusion sprays, once dried, stamped and embossed as previously, then cut them out and added them to the branches with silicone glue for dimension.

The Main image has been stamped using one of the stamps from "Soul Creations" set from Creative Expressions, again this has been heat embossed and painted with Dylusions. I then stamped the flowers twice, cut out, and added to give dimension.
Sentiment has been created using Clarity Stamps Tiled Alphabet Stamps. Final touches are bit of bling to the shoe, black bling in the centre of flowers, bright pink ribbon and a black dazzler (creative expressions)

I would also like to enter this into the following challenges:-
Allsorts Challenge Blog - For a lady and that lady is my Mum.
Make My Monday - Inspired by Nature, mine being the beautiful colours of flowers.

Thanks for visiting my blog and hopefully we will see you over at Crafts4eternity this week.
Love
Amanda X

 

 

Gone a bit mad with Pink!

Hi
Happy Sunday to everyone, hope you have all got a lovely day ahead of you. I have used one of my gelli plate backgrounds I made recently, this was meant to have been a blog challenge entry but I never made it in time, the challenge included using black and pink and I think I have just gone a bit too mad with the pink! lol. I am not really that happy with it and have tried to make my Stampotique mermaid characters stand out more from the background by first outlining with posca white pen and a little charcoal pencil to add a bit of depth, not sure it has worked though?

I have also used some Dylusions stamps,stamped onto dictionary paper and coloured, yes you've guessed it, pink! The sentiment is from Tim Holtz and have replaced a couple of the stamped words with dymo tape.

Today is a big day for me, huge gulp!!!, it's the day I try to give up smoking!!!!! For those of you that have achieved this you have my full admiration! I am hoping that I become one of you. I have at last come to the conclusion that it is just a waste of money especially when there is much better things to spend your money on.............

Hope you all have a lovely day
thanks for stopping by and an even bigger thanks for leaving your comments.
love
Amanda X

What A Week!!

Hi
Well what a week this one has been........ I still haven't got over Tuesdays early start of getting up at 3.30am for a meeting at 8.30am in Warwickshire, thanks goodness I am off this weekend. Anyway in my state of total exhaustion I have managed to get myself going and make my design piece for this weeks challenge over at Crafts4eternity and here it is:-

fortunately I made all the flowers at the weekend I stamped 3 designs of stamps from Sheena Douglass wonderful "A little bit sketchy flower power" stamp set and coloured them with Dylusions Pure sunshine and Lemon Zest, then painstakingly cut them all out and edged them with a black fine liner (I just don't like a white edge). All I had to do with them tonight was to highlight parts of them with a white Posca Pen.

 

the background is a combination of mustard seed distress ink through sequin waste, chicken wire stamp from Creative Expressions and some paint splodges of mustard seed distress paint.

 

The sentiment also comes from Sheena Douglass and is from the set "Only Words - Through the Rain" I have also stamped a bee onto the sentiment (it was just in my stash)

Our challenge at Crafts4eternity this week is a Tic,Tac,Toe one And I have chosen Layers,Spots and Yellow, for a full look at the grid visit HERE and choose your line to join in with us this week. The challenge is being sponsored by Stamping all Day and one randomly chosen winner will be able to choose 3 downloads. 

Anyway hopefully see you over the weekend and lets hope that this lovely weather, that we are currently enjoying, lasts through the weekend.

Thanks for visiting

Love 

Amanda X