All Rise for Ella Bella The Grunge Princess.

Happy New Year Blogg Land. I hope you all had a good Christmas New Year.I don't usually make resolutions, because I always break them in the first few day. But this year I have made three and I will keep to them, because they all revolve round my passion, Craft. They are to try a different style of craft, design my own range of Digi Stamps and blogg more. So tick, tick, tick. So far, so good. This card is the different style of crafting. I have always loved Hels Sheridan's style of crafting, and I wanted to give it a go, which I did, but with no success. Well that was before I got some expert advice and things started to fall into place. So I decided to make a background for a card using the new technique, Grunge!

I had an idea for a card using two of my favourite IndigoBlu stamps, Ella Bella and Floral Swirl. You can find these stamps and all of the amazing IndigoBlu range here. I wanted to incorporate my new love of Grunge, but it had to be pretty, because the stamp warranted it. I tried the wrinkle free technique, all full tutorial to come this week so watch this space, but all the results were too grungy. so I decided to do the direct ink technique, again tutorial to come. I laid four colours of Tim Holtz Distress Inks on white card a little at a time. the colours I used were Worn lipstick, Seedless Preserves, Mustard Seed and Barn Door. The good thing about this technique is that id I has done another background it would be completely different. I used cut and dry foam to lay the ink down, until I was happy with it. I then stamped the Floral Swirl stamp with Seedless Preserves, in the top left and bottom right corners to leave a very subtle faint impression. I them stamp Ella Bella as the focal image in Walnut Stain, directly onto the background. I then went round the edges with Walnut Stain to age it. I didn't have any brown card to mount lay it on so I used a piece of white card and inked the edges with Walnut Stain. I used the Walnut stain edged card to mat onto gold mirror card and laid the grunge topper onto both and them glued it onto a 5.5 by 5.5 inch card blank.

I looked at the card and wondered what I could embellish it with, after a lot of humming and arring I decided that all it need was some small Aurora Borealis gems. I placed three of the gems at the top left and bottom right of the card. There we have it my take on pretty grunge. I hope you like it.

Ian xx

I have entered my card into the IndigoBlu Challenge Blogg. You can find the challenge here

Oriental, but not Oriental!

Well hello my blogland friends. It has been a while since my last blog. I have had a couple months of crafters block, but I am back. I decided to make a different shape from the norm, so I went for a circle. so here goes.

I used the Xcut Circle cutter to cut out three 8 inch circles. I scored one of the circle at 4 inches and 1 inch. I folded the card in half at the 4 inch score and folded the 1 inch score and used the flap to attach the two circles of card together. I the glued the third circle of card to the folded card circle to form an easel card. I then matted the base and the top of the easel card with gold Mirri card and then layered that with red core-dination card stock. Now on to my favorite part of card making, the embellishment. I received a Tattered Lace butterfly die for my Birthday a week ago and I decided to use it on this card. The die cuts like a dream, there is no need for wax paper at all

I used the largest and second largest Spellbinders Gold Labels four to make the mat and layer for the butterfly. I cut the largest  die cut in gold and the second largest in red core-dination's card. I cut out the Tattered Lace Butterfly out twice, again one in gold and one in red. I clued the red butterfly onto the gold butterfly, just the body, so the wings were left free. I then attached the butterfly to the gold labels four die cuts. I then cut out 5 Sizzix star flowers again in gold and red and I also cut the Tattered Lace flourishes that came with the butterfly die several times. I placed the flourishes at either side of the top of the easel card. I placed two of the star flowers at the top of the card and two at the bottom of the card so it looked like the flourishes were coming from the flowers.

Now onto making the stopper. I didn't want to go down the normal route of using a narrow matted and layered strip of card, so I was thinking about what I could use. After a few cups of tea and a couple of biscuits, oh well nearly a packet, the light bulb turned on, why not try using one of the Sizzix Star Flowers. I didn't want to just plonk the flower on the base, so I decided to had a little bit of a flourish, so I cut two Joy Flourishes again in, guess what two colours, yep you got it, red and gold. I attached the red flourish on top of the cold flourish, so it looked liked the red flourish has a gold shadow. I cut two Tattered Lace flourishes again in gold. I attached the Joy flourish east to west and the two Tattered Lace flourishes north to south on the base of the easel card.

Then I was hit with a little bit a genius, but unfortunately it only lasted until the card was finished, I had the idea of, if I placed the flower that was going to be the stopper, in the right place, it would make a trio of star flowers. I tried it without sticking the flower stopper down to see if it would look OK and work. The flower did the trick and as a bonus it looked good as well, so I stuck the flower in place

So there we have it, my red and gold delight. I hope you enjoy my project.


Ian.

Deeper under the sea.

Happy Sunday blogland. I hope the sun is out and you are having a good day.

I've have been trying out different card shapes, from the usual side, tent fold and easel cards that I usually create. This is my first attempt and I don't think it turned out too bad. I also used my favourite stamp at the moment, the cute mermaid Stamp from La La Land. Let's get to the make......

I wanted to try a variation of a gate fold card. For my card blank I used 2 6x6 scalloped edged cards. I folded the front of both cards in half, so the card front met the central fold. I then glued the two cards together using Cosmic Shimmer glue. I then stamped the image onto bleedproof card. I decided to challenge myself to using different colours of ProMarkers, than I usually use. For her skin I used almond, pale pink and Soft peach ProMarkers. For her hair I used blue grey 1, glacier blue and soft aqua flex marker. The next set of colour, I will be really honest with you, I have never used, just because I didn't think the lightest colour would blend into the other ones. I was happily surprised. For her tail I used holly, forest green and lime green. For her top, I used amethyst and cerise. When all the image was coloured, I fussy cut the image out. To decorate the inside I matted and layered using black card and blue and white spotty paper from my stash. The next layer is yet again is another thing that I have never used before. In my stash I had an A4 sheet of white vellum, that was foiled with silver foiled swirls. The swirls reminded me of waves, so I layered in on top of the blue spotty paper, I used collall 3D glue gel to attached it to the paper. So the glue didn't show, I placed the glue gel in the center of the vellum, because I knew my topper would hide it. I cut out the largest and second largest shapes from Spellbinders decorative labels 22, in black card and green mirri card, I attached them to the vellum using cosmic shimmer. I used 3D glue gel to attach the mermaid to the matted and layered decorative labels 22. For the two front panels I matted and layered it with the green mirri board and the blue spotty paper. I then chose a die cut sentiment from my stash and coloured it with weathered wood distress ink from

Tim Holtz, so it would tie in with the rest of the design. I matted and layered the blue spotty paper onto black card. I attached the sentiment onto the matted card with 3D glue gel and attached it the the front of the card with double sides tape. I then used blue dew drop embellishments from DoCrafts, in different sizes to represent bubbles on both of the front panels and inside the card to represent air bubbles coming from the mermaid.

There we have it, my take on a gatefold card. I hope you enjoy it.

Ian xx

I would like to enter this project into {pin}spirational challenge Challenge #60

All Craft Challenge Blog Hop

 Welcome Blogland to the Craft my life blog hop for the re launch of Sparkling black roses blog challenge. The challenge theme was anything but a card. You've found my part of the hop, by visiting the lovely Tania, and enjoyed Tania's brilliant creation. Now it's my turn. This is my first ever time being involved in a blog hop and I am really excited, to be apart of Elaine's re launch and I love the theme, because I have just ventured into altered art and having another chance to create something using the fabulous product of Sarah Hurley, made my creative juices flow. So onto my project.

I have had a set of nesting boxes in my stash for awhile, so I decided to alter the largest box, but what could I turn it into. One of my favourite kits from Sarah is the the Expedition kit. As with all of Sarah's kit it is packed full with hand drawn papers and embellishments. In fact the kit gives you 12 12x12 resizable papers, 88 hand drawn embellishments, 2 x printable embellishment sheets and an alphabet. Some of the hand drawn  images are of vintage modes of transport. From vintage hot air balloons to tallships. So I decided to create a keepsake box for holiday memorabilia.

I used CraftArtist to print out a selection of the lovely papers and embellishment. I couldn't decide on which of the papers to use to cover the box, so I decided to use torn pieces of all the papers in a collage. I used A'color Allround Medium to glue the piece onto the box and seal them, with a gloss finish. Now the fun part embellishing the box, I printed out two more papers from the kit and used bitty blossom dies, from Spellbinders to cut the flowers and leaves. I also used a set of spellbinder flourish dies to cut the flourishes from the same papers. I fussy cut all the embellishments out, some of them words. I chose to use the binocular embellishments and the words See and Do to decorate the lid. I glazed the lenses of the binocular, with a 3D glaze. I then used the embellishments both images and words to embellish the sides of the box. I then used some self adhesive material to line it.

There we have it my Anything but a card project, My travel memory keeper.

Thanks you for visiting me on this part of the blog hop. I hope you like my interpretation of the challenge theme. The next stop on the blog hop is the lovely Lydia and you can hop over here . Again thank you for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of the hop.

Ian xx

All that Glitters is Gold

Hello Blogland it's that time of the month when the lovely Sarah Hurley launches her new blog challenge. Challenged 81's theme is All that glitters is gold. So you can go all out with your goldness or just hints, it's entirely up to you. So pop over and have a look at the rest of the design teams interpretation of the theme, that was chosen by the lovely Candice, here. So OK here my interpretation of the theme.

I was sent some book templates from my very good friend Wendy, and as soon as I saw them, I knew what kit would go well with them. Bookworm is the latest in a very large range of hand drawn digi kits, from the very talented Sarah Hurley. The kit is packed with 12 12x12 papers, 40 embellishments and just for good measure Sarah has included 5 hand drawn digi stamps, so packed to the rafters with crafting goodness. For more details of Sarah's Bookworm kit please click here. All of Sarah's kits can be easily added to any platform of Serif CraftArtist, please see my tutorial post for a step by step guide.

 I drew round the templates onto card and cut them out. I did the same with the book shelf paper, embossed mirri board and the ledger paper. I adhered the book shelf paper onto the largest page and went round with some yellow and gold chain link peel offs from my stash. I did the same with the ledger paper. I used red liner tape down the spine of the underside of the small page to adhere it to the embossed mirri board page and then I used a gold sequined ribbon down the middle to look like a bookmark. I attached the larger page to the other two pages the same way. I cut some flourishes out of two different shades of gold using Spellbinders dies and used them to embellish the bottom left and top right corners. I chose the book stack embellishment from the kit, I used CraftArtist professional 2 to resize and flip the embellishment. I also used CraftArtist to resize the Sitting boy and girl and the bookworm embellishments. I then printed them out and fussy cut them out. I decided to have the boy and girl sitting on the book stacks, so I used pva glue to stick the book stack embellishments flat and 3D glue gel to adhere the boy and girl embellishments. I used 3D gel again to adhere the bookworm. I used CraftArtist again to create the sentiment, cut it out and used 3D foam pads to raise it up. There we have it, my take on the challenge theme "All that Glitters is Gold." I hope you enjoy it.

Ian xx

The Bookworm kit and all of Sarah's fabulous products can be found here.

Easel Does it

Good Afternoon Blogland. This post is about my first Altered Art project. I really enjoyed making it so here goes.

The easel started it's life as a plain wooden easel that I purchased from That Craft Place Facebook group. I got it to display my creations, but I thought I would try altering it.

I first painted it with a coat of white Gesso, again from That Craft Place and put aside to dry. When it was dry I painted an acrylic wash in green and while it was still wet went over it with an acrylic wash in balck and left to dry. I then used Cosmic Shimmer metallic Gilding wax, the colour was golden light, to add some bling to the edges of the easel. I then used a stamp from IndigoBlu's Itsy Bitsy Background set and black dye based ink to add a bit of texture, I really should've used a stazon or an archival, but it dried eventually. Now comes the decorating. My friend and fellow member of Sarah Hurleys DT, Claire Newcombe, sent me some card candy and a few die cut bits, for being her 100th follower of her blog. To check out Claire's crafty creations Click Here. I made up the die cut flowers and and arranged them on my easel so I could see how it would look, when I was happy I glued them down. There we have it my first Altered Art project. I hope you all enjoy it.

Ian xx

I have entered my easel into the Crafting musketeers challenge #1 anything goes.

Handmade and Fab-u-lous

Happy weekend blogland, from a grey and wet Rochdale. I hope the weather is better where you are. If not here's a bright and colourful project for you. So here goes.

I have created another 12x12 digital scrapbook page, using Serif CraftArtist 2 and the All Sewn Up digi kit from Sarah Hurley.

I started by Loading the digi kit into CraftArtist 2, (if you would like to find out how, please take a look at my tutorial.) When the kit was loaded, I took a couple minutes to look at all the hand drawn papers and embellishments, before I decided on what I wanted to use. That was a very difficult decision to make, because Sarah, as always has packed the kit full of beautiful papers and embellishments. I decided in the paper with the strips of stitches design on, as my base layer. I then chose the material with the tape measure design, resized it and cut it with the the digital scissors, the cut I used was pinking, to stay with the sewing theme and I placed it vertically on the left hand side of my page. I did the same with the pattern designed material and placed it horizontally at the bottom of my page. I decided to use the tailor's dummy/manikin embellishment, I resized it and placed it over the the tape measure designed material. One of the new features if CraftArtist 2, is digital decoupage. I decided to use it on the manikin embellishment. I dragged on the pin cushion embellishment and resized it. The colour of the embellishments, didn't match the colours of my design, so I used the colour picker, to pick out one of the colours on the background and re coloured it. I decoupaged it as well. I grouped three buttons together and place them at the side of the pin cushion. I did the same with two cotton bobbin embellishments and placed them at the bottom right of the page. I place the scissor embellishment behind the pin cushion. The kit doesn't come with any digi frames, but you can turn certain embellishments into them. I will be posting a step by step tutorial on how to make digital frames on Tuesday.

The picture that inspired this project is of my younger self in one of the many fancy dress costumes that my nan used to make me, as part of my christmas present. This particular one was a hand cut, machine sewn cowboy costume. My mum as still got all the original patterns that my nan used. Don't I look such a proud and happy cowboy. 

I popped the picture into the digital frame. I then chose one of the many hand drawn journaling cards onto the page, resized it and placed my journaling on it. I used a font that is installed onto my laptop. I then found a cross stitch brush that is preinstalled on CraftArtist 2 and went round the frame and the journaling card. There we have it, my completed digi scrap page using the fabulous hand drawn kit bt Sarah Hurley.

To find out more about Sarah and to see all of her marvelous products click here.

I hope you enjoy

Ian xx