While Shepherds Watched.......

Morning all. Just a quickie today as I have lots to do.

For a quickie post, a quickie card seems appropriate - The majority of the design of this one is from the music paper that I've stamped on. I just added the shepherds, sheep, hills, carol and star in Coffee Archival Ink.

The paper was bought from Clarity although it doesn't seem to be on the website anymore. Hopefully Barbara will get it back in stock as it is beautiful.

The middle section was cut out with a Grand Spellbinders Square die, matted onto brown card and stuck back on top to give it a framed effect.

I hope you have a lovely Sunday. I'll be back with my next project for the Claritystamp Challenge Blog tomorrow - Mustn't forget to write that post later!

Stamps Used

While Shepherds Watched

Repositionable Shepherds and Sheep

Star

Lynne

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Silent Night

Morning everyone. Today I'm going to share with you the one my Hubby calls my "Feet card".

Can you see why? He is cheeky!

It uses a much neglected item in my stash - PanPastels.

As I only have a few, I had to mix some Black in with Phthalo Blue to get a night sky colour. 

One of the great things about PanPastels is that you can rub them out, so I used my whizzy rubber to remove the colour from the book, candle and horns. I then added a little touch of yellow Sakura Stardust pen to the candle flame.

The stars are from this stamp. I just masked off the bottom part when I inked it up with Versamark ink. I went over that with Neutral Grey PanPastel to give them some colour.

I thought it would be different to add my personalised Clarity Christmas stamp to the front of this card. It shows that you don't have to just keep them for the inserts and it's nice that it can be seen when the card is on display.

Stamps Used

Silent Night

Repositionable Angels Set

Star from Large Nativity

Personalised Name and Christmas Greetings Set

Lynne

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The Holly and The Ivy

Morning all. I hope you're having a lovely Bank Holiday weekend. I'm having a fun one, as you've probably read Barbara Gray challenged her DT to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and I did it yesterday. Oooh, it was cold and I think Hubby enjoyed soaking me far too much. Maya kept well out of the way as she'd already had her drenching (a bath and she's not keen on them!) that day.

I've also just spent a few days in London, which I why I haven't blogged for a bit (I only got around to scheduling one post). It was fantastic but so tiring. As we weren't there for long we wanted to cram in as much as we could and we just didn't stop!

Anyway, back to crafting..............

This is another card from this month's One Day Wonder shows on Create and Craft TV featuring the personalised Christmas stamps (I understand that they will soon be available from Claritystamp too).

I thought that the smallest tree stamp would make a lovely background for the largest one.

I started off by inking the grid background. I worked out the size of box I needed for the stamp (4.5 x 5.5cm) and made little pencil marks along the edge to help me position the inked lines. I never have a lot of luck with making tape (I always manage to rip the paper) so I tend to use my blending mat to ink off of. It gives me a nice straight line, is easily moved and the mat itself helps with getting a nice soft edge.

Once I'd done the vertical lines I did the horizontal ones to complete the boxes.

After all that work I didn't want to mess up the stamping of the trees so I made myself a little gadget to help position them.

I cut a Post-it to the size of the rectangles (4.5 x 5.5 cm) and stuck it to my acrylic block. I then went around the edge with masking tape.

I removed the Post-it and replaced it with the stamp. Then I just had to line the masking tape up with the inked box and all my trees were nice and central and in the same place. I know if I'd done it by eye I'd have messed one up!

The main image is stamped on a Spellbinders Floral Ovals die cut. I stamped it once, then moved the stamp slightly down and to the left before stamping it again (without re-inking). This gives it a lovely shadow.

The ivy flourish in the corner is cut with a die from Joanna Sheen. I added some holly to it that I cut on my Cameo and some Cosmic Shimmer Berry Red PVA berries.

A matching insert finishes it off.

That was a long one, it's a good job it is a Bank Holiday. I'm off to do a spot of Bank Holiday DIY (painting the bathroom) but before I go I couldn't resist adding this. I've just about warmed up now...... 

.........and it is for a good cause.

Stamps Used

Large Calligraphy Tree

Small Calligraphy Tree

Personalised Name and Christmas Greetings Set

Lynne

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Peace On Earth

Hi, I thought I'd blog this one next as it's very similar to the previous card.....................

...............only this time I've used the larger deer stamps.

Like the previous card I have them staring up at the sky, only this time they're looking at the moon.

As they are larger I cut masks for the deer, including the antlers (that was fun!), and the moon before creating the scene around them. The moon mask was cut with a Spellbinders circle die (I picked the one that the verse fit in).

The deer are stamped in one of my brown Archival inks (sorry but I can't remember which one) and coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils.

The verse is stamped in Eggplant Adirondack. I also used that, along with Espresso, to create most of the scene.

I also used Eggplant to stamp the verse straight onto the inside of the card.

The decorative snowflake frame that the scene is mounted on was cut on my Silhouette Cameo. It was bought from the Silhouette Store.

Stamps Used

Deer Standing

Deer Sitting

Peace On Earth

Tree from the Remountable Trees Set

Personalised Name and Christmas Greetings Set

Lynne

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Joy To The World

Hi all. Did you have a good weekend? I had a nice relaxing one.

This is the first of two cards I made featuring the Clarity deer. As they are looking up you can be creative with what you have them staring at.

This one uses the small deer that come in the Remountable Forest Set. I thought it would be fun to have them looking up at Santa and his reindeer.

As the antlers are quite small and ornate I made sure that the area behind them was white snow so that I didn't have to worry about masking them off. 

The main stamping is done in black Archival. The deer are coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils and the snow is dots of white Sakura Souffle pen.

Once I'd finished the scene I matted it onto black and brown card using my Perfect Layers rulers.

I used the same card and matched the design inside, only this time I stamped my greeting on the main section. 

The lines on my glass cutting mat helped me line the stamps up and I then pressed a large thin block onto them to pick them up. I could then stamp them all out in one go as I thought there'd be less chance of messing up that way. You just need to make sure that you give the middle a good press.

I do think that the insert finishes the card off beautifully. 

Stamps Used

Joy To The World

Remountable Forest Set

Remountable Christmas Set

Personalised Name and Christmas Greetings Set

Lynne

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Christmas Place Cards

Hi all. Wasn't Thursday fab! Barbara and her team must have worked so hard to bring the One Day Wonder to our screens and now they will all be working hard to get the personalised stamps made. It's a great idea though and I'm really pleased with mine.

It made me laugh when Leonie said to Barbara that she would have herself and her dogs on hers and Barbara pointed out that I'd done the same. I couldn't leave Maya out though as I do always put her name on our Christmas cards.

I also included her in this set.

She may not sit down at the table but she does always get her own Christmas dinner.

The ornate black part is cut with a Spellbinders Fancy Tags Two die and I sized the base to fit it. I cut mine on my Cameo but you could do it without.

As we are three there was a little icon in the set for each of us. The stamping is all done in black Archival. I added a little bit of shading under the robin and holly and a little bit of red to the berries. So simple but I do like them.

At least at home we won't have to worry about hiding them when we sit down. That's always the first thing to do when in the Mess. If you don't they get grabbed and have rude messages put on them. They're then sent down to the boss who reads them out; it can be very embarrassing!

Stamps Used

Personalised Name and Christmas Greetings Set

Lynne

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Claritystamp's One Day Wonder

What a great start to the day! I will blog all of my samples from today's shows individually but for now I thought I'd do a quick post on the One Day Wonder - The Personalised Christmas Name Stamp and Mix and Match Greetings Set - and the different ways I used it.

It's such a fab idea and I knew it would be popular. I certainly enjoyed using mine.

I guess the main way to use it is for the insides of your cards and I've done my inserts in three different ways -

1. It has been just stamped on the inside of the card in an ink that matches the design on the front.
2. I've added a paper insert that has been decorated with the stamps and colour scheme that are on the front.
3. I've stamped onto white card and matted and layered it in the same way as I have the image on the front. This is my favourite way but it's probably just for special cards as it uses rather a lot of card and also makes them quite heavy.

I've also used it to make a gift bag. Again I followed the theme on the front of the bag to personalise the back.

For the last card, the angel one, I've used it on the front. I thought this was a bit of fun and would make your card stand out from the rest on the mantelpiece.

The last photo (the place cards) is my favourite. They are so simple but I was really pleased with them. You know what's going to be on my table and near Maya's bowl this Christmas!

They are such useful stamps and look so professional.

Don't forget, Barbara is on again at 11am, 2pm, 4pm and 7pm. I don't think I'm going to get much done today!

Lynne

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Follow Your Dreams

Good morning. I thought I'd better blog my final card from the last Claritystamp show before the One Day Wonder/Christmas shows are on tomorrow (exciting!).

It uses the House of Stars stencil which I think has a dreamy look to it.

I started off by running the stencil and card through my Ebosser. I then added colour to the raised areas.............

...... and outlined them with a black pen.

It looked a bit too harsh, so I went over the whole thing with Butterscotch Adirondack on a Clarity stencil brush. I darkened the edges by using it on Cut N dry foam. This softened it up and added a bit of warmth.

The Follow Your Dreams and cat stamps finish it off.

See you all again tomorrow. It's going to be a fun day for Claritystamp fans.

Stamps and Stencils Used

A5 House of Stars Stencil

Follow Your Dreams

Cat from the Remountable Birdhouse Set

Lynne

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Lacy Swallows

Morning all. It's a busy time for Barbara and Claritystamp at the moment. Barbara has already been on HSE 24 for an hour this morning and she has another one later. Then on Thursday she has 5 hours on Create and Craft with a really useful One Day Wonder (love it) and lots of fab Christmas sets. I am so looking forward to watching. That's my Thursday sorted!

As Barbara has so many shows, that also means that the DT have been busy. I have so many cards to choose from I don't know what to blog first!  I have two left from the beginning of the month's show though so I guess I'd better do those first.

The Lacy Swallows are such pretty, girly stamps that I thought I'd go pink (not quite as pink as Jane's hair though!). It's quite a simple one - I stamped everything in black Archival, coloured it in with my Spectrum Noir pencils, masked the birds and hearts off and inked in the sun and sky.

The card mats are cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities - Grand Labels Eleven.

Don't forget to tune in to Create and Craft on Thursday. The One Day Wonder launches at 8am.

Stamps Used

Large Lacy Swallow

Small Lacy Swallow

Remountable Line Sentiments Set 3

Lynne

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Groovy Birthday Party Invitation

Morning all. I hope you're having a relaxing weekend. I think a lot of us will probably be spending it crafting as the weather is so awful. I have lots to do but no oomph at the moment. It was the Officers' Mess Summer Ball last night and it was a good one! Maya doesn't really understand though and still had me up at 7.30 this morning. Bless her!

I've chosen this card to blog today as it was partly inspired by last night's do.

It was Western themed, so fancy dress was on my mind when I made it. The Funky Foliage stamp looked very 1960's to me and I had a "You're invited" stamp so it had to be done.

I had some fab brightly coloured paper in my stash so that gave me the colour scheme. I just stamped the foliage out in black Archival and coloured it in with Spectrum Noir pencils that matched the colours in the paper.

The insert was printed out on my computer and I repeated the stamped design at the bottom. 

Groovy baby!

I really hope I'm making sense today..................I need more coffee!!!!!!!!!!!

Stamps Used

Funky Foliage

Remountable Line Sentiments

Lynne

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Sympathy Card

Morning all, it's nearly the weekend! I've got a busy one with a couple of functions to go to. I hope it stays dry as this afternoon's is outdoors. It's not looking very hopeful though. I also have my Clarity samples to finish as there are extra shows this month - Germany on the 12th and Create and Craft on the 14th. What a treat!

When I saw the new Ornate Church and Lamp Post stamps I thought they'd make a beautiful sympathy card.

I started off by stamping the lamp posts in black Archival and heat embossing them with clear powder to give them the look of wrought iron. The church is just stamped in black Archival.

I then masked off everything I didn't want ink on (the church has a white mask on it) and started to add the colour.

I used Frayed Burlap Distress Ink for the scene for a couple of reasons. 1) I thought it would give a tranquil look to it and 2) There was no danger of ending up with a green glow as I probably would have done if I'd put yellow chalk on a blue sky.

The main thing I wanted was a beautiful warm glow from the lamp posts. Mum has a few Christmas stamps with lamps on and hers always look stunning, so I phoned her up to ask her how she does it. I can now reveal her secret weapon is...................... chalks. So I dug mine out and had a go. I was really pleased with the results I got. You can build up the colour gradually and you can't really mess it up. Thanks Mum.

Once I was happy with the glow I covered them with Glossy Accents to give the look of glass. I also used it on the church's stained glass window. The church has been coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Ornate Church

Ornate Lamp Post

Forest Ridge

Small Birds In Flight

Remountable Line Sentiments

Sun Arch Stencil

Lynne

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Lupins and Convulvulus

Warning - Sunglasses might be needed for this card!

I think I got a bit carried away with the bright blue but I did enjoy colouring all those flowers in.

When I got the stamp there were loads of Convolvulus out in flower where I walk Maya. 

They were mainly large white ones but there were also some dinky ones with a pale pink edge. However, after a quick Google, I found some gorgeous tricolour ones with a lovely blue edge and yellow centre. They looked much more fun to colour in, so that's what mine are based on. I'm not sure if that's what they're meant to be, as there were lots of variations from the DT, but that's what mine are. :)

I used my new Spectrum Noir pencils (love them!) for the colouring. I did the centres yellow, then went around the edge with blue and softened it with a blender pencil. This and the cutting out took a while!

The Stone Wall stencil was run through my Ebosser (another new toy that I'm loving) and then coloured with Distress Ink and Clarity stencil brushes. The flowers were then stuck on with Pinflair gel to give them some dimension.

It needed something at the top so I stamped the "I'm Sorry" sentiment in Archival black. I added a little swirl to the ends and a couple of birds to finish it off.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Stone Wall

Lupins

Remountable Line Sentiments

Remountable Birdhouse Set

Lynne

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Chase Your Dreams

Well it was another fab show with Barbara today. As always I learnt something useful and was totally enthralled by her demos.

Firstly, I'd like to say thank you for the lovely comments about my samples on Facebook.

I thought I'd blog this one first as it comes with a funny "Stupid Lynne Moment" (or two).

My initial idea was based upon the outline being black............

....but this is the mess I ended up with. After seeing Barbara's demo today I now know that the stencil needs to be clean for the ink to stick and I need to put much more on. Thanks Barbara.

Anyway, I gave up on that and decided to do the inside black instead.

I used Cut and Dry foam and Stazon ink to make sure it was really black. I put the re-inker on the foam and squished it on the ink pad to distribute the ink before inking through the stencil.

I printed out some beautiful patterned paper to use as the base (a download bought from the Silhouette Store). It looks textured even though it's printed on perfectly smooth paper.

Do you want to see something funny?

After inking I ended up with this masterpiece...................Oops! I am so used to reversing text when Gelli printing that I did it for this too.

Want to see something even funnier?

I did it the second time too! Thankfully I realised my mistake a lot earlier that time.

Luckily I got there in the end.

I did discover something useful that I thought I'd share - If you put the line sentiments on one of these style rulers it really helps with getting them straight. 

It also works with this star (I've messed up several cards by putting that on wonky!). That's probably just me though.......................

Stamps and Stencils Used

Dreamy Stencil Set

Remountable Line Sentiments

Lynne

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Fairy Sparkle Snow Globe

It's that time again - The first of the month means a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of last month's "Anything Goes" challenge. It was great to see such variety. This month's theme is "Feminine".

Over a year and half ago I made a snow globe for one of my Claritystamp samples. Hubby thought it was tacky and I joked that I would make him one for Christmas. Well I did. It has a photo of me and Maya in the snow inside it and has been sat on the bookcase in the guest room ever since. When I had a problem with my original project for this month I saw it sat there and thought that I could make something feminine to go inside it.

This is what I made. I do love that little fairy stamp. I think they're probably meant to be stood on the ground but I always put them in the air (it's fairy magic).

The water has evaporated a bit over time but it still works.

I created the little scene using brightly coloured Adirondack inks, then just popped it in the globe (it was bought in Hobbycraft). 

It looks so magical when you shake it.

An added bonus is that I now have what I was missing for my original project and it's finished and ready to go for next month (luckily it fits both themes). I do feel organised!

The stamps used in my fairy scene are all available at Claritystamp. 

I hope you like my take on "Feminine". I look forward to seeing what you all come up with. 

Lynne

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