Lollipop Tree Pieces

These three were created using the IndigoBlu Lollipop Tree stamp which I'd never used before - it's always fun playing with a new stamp!

I stamped the tree with acrylic paint and misted the stamp with water to get this dreamy watercolour effect. I stamped the words from Sarah's Choice and stippled the edges with a make up sponge using the same acrylic colours I used for the trees (Raspberry and Grape). The button and purple twine are by IndigoBlu too and are available here.

Terrible photography... I inked the leaves with green Distress Ink then inked the branches and trunk with brown Distress Ink. I coloured the ribbon using the same brown (Frayed Burlap I think) and stamped the text from Sarah's Choice along with one of the definitions from the same plate. I stamped Twit Twoo onto shrink plastic and coloured him with chalks before shrinking and my side panel is stamped with the burlap panel from Sarah's Choice. The Stamp Pad have them in stock if you're interested!

Finally same stamps but I've stamped into molten UTEE and added MegaFlakes onto the black panel, stamped onto the ribbon and squished up the inked and stamped card then reinked over the creases - the IndigoBlu smooth card works well for this technique as it goes really leathery.

Enjoy! JulieD x

More IndigoBlu

I've been pretty busy doing Design Team work for IndigoBlu recently so I thought I'd post a few more samples! Kay will be on Create and Craft later today - the stamps they will be showing have changed so these samples are unlikely to be shown but I thought I'd post them - shame to waste them!! They are very different and needless to say the first is much more my usual style than the second!

I took the card out of the frames and painted all three frames with Gourd and Birch EcoGreen Acrylic paints. Once they were dry, I stamped the text stamp from Sarah's Choice in Green StazOn and inked the edges. The three frames have different textures - the first is inked and then stamped with the Twit Twoo stamp; the middle frame has verdigris Ferro in it which I stamped into with the text stamp and the third has Terra which I heated til it bubbled then painted with Birch paint and a touch of gold mica powder. Plenty of charms, beads and a few stamped words later I'd finished! I will be running a workshop to make a similar creation at The Stamp Pad next month - if you fancy coming along, you'll find the details here.

Second sample - a bit girly for me this one!

I embossed Poppy Heart onto vellum in white then stamped round the edges with Fuchsia StazOn and stamped the image onto acetate then layered them slightly to one side to create a shadow. Hope you like them! JulieD x

Thingamebob!

Thought I'd post a little altered mini tray which I created for an altered thingamebob swap on UKStampers and entered into this week's challenge on Simon Says Stamp and Show - anything goes was the theme! It started life on the counter at The Stamp Pad filled with charms. Once we'd sold all the charms, Gwen passed the little box on - she knows I collect all manner of junk! It's been in my stash ever since just waiting for an opportunity like this.

I painted the tray with gold Inka Gold then filled each compartment with something different - a feather; embossing powders and mica flakes; stamping (with black StazOn); Ferro with a charm embedded and mica flakes; scraps of patterned paper; crushed glass glitter; tiny beads and more charms! I smudged black StazOn on the edges too and decided that it needed a little stand so I painted and added a touch of gold embossing to a mini easel. Enjoy! JulieD

Sewing Mends The Soul (Apparently...)

I can't believe I've not blogged for so long - been poorly and very busy - lots going on including doing samples for IndigoBlu and prep for some workshops I'm running - starting with Art Journaling part 1 this Saturday! I thought I'd post some pictures of the samples I did for the last IndigoBlu Create and Craft show plus this picture of hilarity at the Stamp Pad last weekend...

Kay came up to the shop to do a Demo Day which was a big success and we had a great day - for those of you who don't recognise her from the telly, Kay's the one on the left with my great friend (and boss...) Gwen in the middle and me on the right! Kay was demoing lots of her stamps, FlitterGlu, MegaFlakes and the new buttons and ribbons pack - all available here.

These are the samples I did for the 'Sewing Mends The Soul' plate of stamps for Kay's April show - I absolutely love these images but in the real world, I'm useless with a needle and thread! As for previous posts, apologies for the photography...

This is my favourite IndigoBlu stamp yet - I have a thing about corsets (not sure if I'm supposed to admit to that...) and this is a beautiful image. It's stamped in black Staz-On on the silver card and stamped in FlitterGlu with silver flake on the black card. I've also stamped and silver embossed the tape measure image as a border with thimbles down the middle - add a black feather and ooh la la - Burlesque!

These two were a bit rushed - hence the uneven stamping (as a gay crafting friend of mine once said as we compared the wonkiness of our creations, - "straight's overrated..."!) Very simple inked background, clear embossed cotton reels on the black card and a lovely button. Done.

Another quickie this one - I used the thimble stamp as a frame and added faux stitching with a Micron Pen then added a gilded quote - I love this quote even though I wouldn't swap my hubby for the world (well most of the time ...)

Hope you like them - enjoy your week! JulieD

Family Canvas

I don't normally blog my scrapbook type projects but thought I'd like to share this canvas I made for my Mum's birthday last November:

The base canvas was from a workshop I did a few years ago and I was never happy with the results so when bits started falling off it I completely dismantled it and started again! Recycling at its best! I covered the canvas with pieces of serviettes using gel medium, chose some recent piccies of my girls (and Grandma and Granddad) which I matted onto black card, painted some chipboard letters and a smaller canvas board in green patina eco-green paint, added a couple of charms and ribbons and the canvas was done - the most time consuming bit was deciding how to arrange the bits - quite a quick, cheap and easy project but my mum was over the moon with it! Hope you like it.  JulieD x

ps if you look hard enough you'll see the whole family dressed as Tudors on a National Trust day out last year!! My hubby gives a good Lord Melchett impression ...

Fran-tage It!!!

I've not blogged for a few weeks so that's my justification for such a long post...

On a 'works trip' to Stitches trade show in Feb with Gwen, I was mesmerised watching Fran Seiford of Stampendous demoing her fabulous Fran-tage range - apparently it's Fran for, well, Fran and tage as in vinTAGE, and it's a range of gorgeous powders and flakes - textured embossing powder, crushed glass glitter, mica flakes, shaved ice, matt fragments - an array of loveliness! I managed to talk Gwen into buying a load of their products to stock in the shop (The Stamp Pad) including some lovely stamps as well as the messy stuff! Anyway, Fran did me a sample to bring away and this is it:

She calls this sprinkling of lots of the products in a random way Encrusted Jewel Technique - basically you sprinkle on your embossing powders first then add other texture and colour in the form of the glitters, flakes etc and when you heat it (from below otherwise you get it up your nose!!!) the powder melts and the other bits are secured in the molten embossing powder - you don't use any ink or glue, just sprinkle it straight onto the card - this seemed wrong at first! I'm addicted and as we had a shelf full of the stuff at the shop, I thought it only polite to do something with it so I offered to run a workshop!

We did three sessions and these are the samples of the pieces we did:

A nice simple tag using the Stampendous Daffodil stamp embossed in the Shabby White embossing powder and Encrusted Jewel using Aged Taupe powder plus the bronze and green Crushed Glass Glitter. I coloured parts of the image with chalk.

This second one uses my favourite of their stamps - I think it's called Three Gifts:

I piled some other products onto this tag to create 'treasure' - including the mica flakes, shaved ice and fragments as well as the powders and glitters used on the Daffodil tag.

We then got a bit more advanced and used one of Fran's other techniques - coffee spritzing! This piece is based on a sample Fran does on a video she has on YouTube - we had the stamp in stock so I thought I'd have a go:

Same products but I did the background by spritzing the card with black coffee in a spray, then sprinkling instant coffee granules onto the wet patches and spritzing again - I dabbed off a little of the coffee then heated until the coffee bubbled and dried! The Encrusted Jewel part was done in exactly the same way as before. Once they'd tried out the technique a few times, I thought the workshop participants could do a finished piece so we did this canvas:

I was glad I'd prepped a sample a couple of days before I had the first session as I hadn't considered the thickness of this canvas board and the fact that I had to heat from below - it worked eventually but it took the best part of an hour and my wrist was aching a lot! The second attempt was done in the oven and it worked perfectly - remember to consider where the fan is if you do this in a fan oven as otherwise your oven will be wearing it!! I sprayed the ready gessoed canvas panel with three colours of Ranger Colour Wash and dried it with my heat tool (which all reacted with the gesso and went much paler - serendipity as the colours were much more vintage looking). I then stamped and roughly cut out the frame and placed it as a mask on the canvas to give an idea of where to sprinkle - I then did the sprinkling and put it in the oven at 140! Once the powders had melted and the canvas had cooled down, I finished off with the stamped and embossed frame, cameo, the stamped and embossed corners (using the flourish from the frame) and embossed the edges by versamarking and dipping each edge into a line of powder in the fold of a piece of paper.  I hope you like my samples - all products including the stamps are available here!

Enjoy the rest of the Easter Weekend. JulieD x

Blogging IndigoBlu

I've not blogged for ages - been far too busy making samples for IndigoBlu and prepping workshops for The Stamp Pad (new workshop list available!) I can't remember the last time I did any crafting that wasn't for one of those causes but I'm having a day out crafting tomorrow and doing whatever I fancy!! I'm going to a Craft Day at the Stamp Pad - "Complete A UFO" - I was expecting a rude answer when I asked Gwen what it stood for but apparently it's 'Unfinished Object' - so a bit like a crop but take a project you've been meaning to complete and GET ON WITH IT!!! I've got dozens of things I could take ...

Anyway, I blogged two of my samples on the IndigoBlu blog which I created for the Create and Craft show on Wednesday - they didn't get much of an airing - they were on a stand next to the presenter but you can see them here!

I thought I'd show you the two samples I did using the T'wit T'woo stamp as well - it's a beautiful big owl stamp - my next idea is to shrink it, I think it would look great in shrink plastic!

This is the first one:

I stamped him onto white card and embossed him in black then painted him with a variety of brown distress inks and a touch of gold mica powder. The black panel behind him is a die cut Vintage Cabinet Card (using an Alteration's die I bought a couple of weeks ago and now I don't know how I lived without it!!) which I've stamped with the Script stamp in Versamark and clear embossed. For the rust coloured panel I've used the Crackleglaze stamp and the word panel is stamped with the burlap and the word Inspire - both from the Sarah's choice plate. I used two more Alterations dies for the branches - the one he's perched on is the Branch Tree die on its side and the side of the tree is an on the edge die - Twigs!

This is my second T'wit T'woo piece which was shown on Wednesday:

I stamped and coloured the owl in the same way as the first piece but masked him and overstamped with the Jack stamp in FlitterGlu then gilded with Morris Dance flake. I used a piece of corrugated card from an old box (one of my favourite crafting items at the moment!) a chunk of Core-dinations card which I stamped and embossed the words from the Pomp and Pageantry plate onto, then added the butterfly from the Wild Meadow plate.

Hope you like them and enjoy your weekend!

JulieD x