Rainbow Gelli Print Card

For this card I thought I'd have a go at trying to create a rainbow Gelli print.

It wasn't easy as there's a fine line between spreading the paint out evenly and muddying the colours. I was quite pleased with how it turned out though.  

The diamond came about as I was using the 7 x 7" Leafy Swirl stencil.  I wanted to get the maximum amount of colours that I could in so I used it diagonally.

I also wanted the Gelli print to be the main focal point of the card, so I just added some matching stamped black swirls, a couple of die cuts and gems. I wasn't happy with it though so I ended up adding the sentiment that you can see in the final version at the top. Although it covers up some of the print I think it looks a lot better.

Stamps Used

Large Leafy Swirl

A Thing of Beauty

The Gelli Plate, Leafy Swirl stamps and stencil are what Barbara Gray will be using on the next In the Classroom with Barbara Gray show on Create and Craft TV. It's on Saturday 3rd August at 11am. Can you believe it will be the 19th Lesson?  Hasn't time flown! If you want to stamp along everything can be bought on the Create and Craft website. I wonder what Barbara will do with them?

Lynne

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My English Christmas Card

Making Christmas cards at this time of year does strange things to you....

.....I was well into creating this one when I realised about the lack of snow, but then I thought in reality it hardly ever snows here at Christmas. We just always seem to associate snow with it. I like to be different though, hence my English (no snow) Christmas Card showing Douglas and Lily walking off their Christmas lunch on a bright Winter's day. 

The scene is stamped and brayered as usual, then I created a mask to colour in the trees. I inked through it with green Distress Inks on an Ink Duster to give them their base colour. I made one of the trees a lot brighter than the others - for this one I coloured the holly and berries in with Sakura Glaze pens, where as the paler ones were done with coloured pencils. I thought this gave a nice contrast. I also added red glazed berries to the holly round the edge.

Douglas and Lily are stamped in Black Archival. This gives them a really nice solid black colour.

Simples!

Stamps Used

Douglas and Lily from the Clarity Remountable Characters

Christmas Holly Tree

2 Repositionable Holly Sprigs

Words from Lesson 11 - Christmas Bauble Set

Lynne

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Deck the Halls Gelli Print Card

It seems so odd to be sharing a Christmas card with you when it's so hot outside but this is the first of my Gelli print cards from the weekend's shows.

I used the 7 x 7 inch Leafy Swirl stencil on my 8 x 10 inch plate. This gave me a slightly inked border when I removed the stencil, which I rather liked. I emphasised it with some Black Soot Distress Ink.

I stamped the music onto some copy paper and ripped roughly around it to make a mask for when I did the printing. This leaves a nice white area to stamp it onto later. Like the border, I inked around it afterwards with Black Soot.

The print itself is the second one, after the stencils have been removed. It gives the subtle effect I was after for this card. I also used the Dotty Wave stencil with some metallic gold paint in selected areas. It's one of those things that doesn't photograph very well but gives the card a lovely metallic shimmer.

Once all that was done I stamped the wreath and heat embossed it in gold. The holly berries are coloured in with a red Sakura Glaze pen.

Stamps Used

Set of 2 Repositionable Holly Sprigs

Deck the Halls

Lynne

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July's Clarity Samples

Here are my cards from this month's Stamping with Clarity shows.

There was a bit of a Christmas theme this month, although I did rebel slightly and made the Pear Tree into a cheesy anniversary card.

I've called the Holly Tree one my "English Christmas Card" as there is no snow on it!

My Gelli Plate was used on 4 of them.  I do love playing with it and I'm getting more adventurous with it. Hopefully a bit better too.

I love the Spellbinders Heirloom Ornament Dies and thought they were perfect for the 3 Ships and Verse.

That's a little taster of them. As always, I will be blogging them all individually throughout the month. I will also have some cards to share from Maria Simms' Clarity Take 2 show that is scheduled for the 16th July.

Lynne

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My 1st Blogiversary - Looking Back

It's funny, yet appropriate, that my 1st blogiversary has fallen at the start of a Clarity weekend. I can't believe it's been a year since I made my first post after joining the Claritystamp Design Team. It's made me feel a bit nostalgic and I've been looking back through my old photos to try and find the first Clarity card I made. Can you remember yours?

I didn't always photograph my cards back then but I think this is it. I guess this also means that the Large Sketched Lady and the Large Ornate Corner were the first Clarity stamps I bought. The photo is dated 6th August, 2009. It is my version of one of the cards in Barbara's book, Handmade Clear Stamped Cards. I recognise the ink pads that I used too, they were my first two Adirondack ink pads  - Lettuce and Denim. They were in a Dawn Bibby TSV kit and I am still using them!

14th August, 2009 - I guess I then bought a brayer and a Big and Juicy ink pad as these are some ATCs I made not long after using the Versamark reist technique on Clarity card.

13th September, 2009 - This was either my first or second trip to the GNPE in Harrogate where I met Barbara and her lovely daughter Grace.  As you can see, my stamping isn't the only thing that's changed!

28th September, 2009 - I guess I bought the shoe there as I made this card not long after. I'm not sure where the lace stamp is from but the papers are from an Artylicious CD.

16th November, 2009 - I guess I started getting a bit more adventurous as this seems to be my first brayered scene. Look at all those lines in the sky! 

16th November, 2009 - My first card using the balloon stamp. I've used that a few times since then!

There have been quite a few changes since I started. For me, the two biggest are the Splodge Away Mat, which makes brayering so much easier, and the thing that's made the most difference to so many of us - In the Classroom with Barbara Gray. I've joined in with the lessons since the beginning and have learnt so much. Thank you for that, Barbara, and for picking me to join your wonderful team. 

I wonder what the next year will bring...

Lynne

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Garden Grid Card

There's not long to wait now until Barbara is back on TV and I will be able to share my new samples. Until then I have one final card from the German shows.

It's a grid card that I made with the garden stamps and German words. Each section is masked off and inked to create the grid. As I hadn't used many stamps around the edge like your normally would, I added a wiggly black line as well.

The colours I used were Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. They look quite different but looking at it now I don't really think the contrast is great enough. Peeled Paint and Bundled Sage might have been better. 

I had to have a go at Sazzle's stacking pots. It had me swearing a bit as there's lots of masking involved and it's not that easy. I think next time my pots will be quite happy on their own!

In case you don't speak German, the phrases are "A flower greeting", "In the garden is always beauty and work", and "Weeds for sale - Pick your own". I paired each one with an appropriate image.

A piece of co-ordinating K & Co. paper adds a bit of pattern to the background and finishes it off.

Stamps Used

Remountable Garden Set

Lynne

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Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

It's time for Challenge Number 5 on the Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog. This month's theme is "Oh I do like to be beside the seaside". Can you say that without singing? I can't!

I decided to make a decorative box. It started off life as a box of M&S Marc de Champagne truffles (they were really good!). I thought the box was pretty nice too so I kept it for a suitable project. 

This seaside theme seemed ideal. I thought it would look great with a row of beach huts going around it.

Sandpaper makes a great beach (the clue's in the name), so I went to my local hardware shop to buy some. I must have looked confused as one of the assistants came up to ask if I needed any help. I told her I was trying to choose which colour I liked the best. I got a very strange look, so I had to explain what I wanted it for. She then said "I've not had anyone say that before". They obviously don't get many crafters in there!!!!

I started off by stamping all of the beach huts on some card, then I stuck the sandpaper on. As I was going to decoupage the huts this meant that I didn't have to worry about the gaps between them.

I coloured all of the images in with my ProMarkers, trying to be bright and random with the beach huts, then I cut them out and stuck them on. I also used a ProMarker to add a bit of shadow to ground everything.

My original idea for the top was to use the shell stamps and verse, but once I coloured the sides in it looked far too busy for my liking.

So I kept it really simple by just continuing the sky and adding some seagulls and an appropriate verse. The "rope" is piping cord. It was 10p for a metre in Dunelm Mill. I felt like a really big spender when I got to the checkout!

That's my project, I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with. It's a great theme to have fun with. The rest of the DT certainly have. Their projects are stunning this month.

Congratulations to the winner and the Top 5 from the Mr & Mrs challenge. As always the entries were fab. It's my 24th wedding anniversary this month and they've certainly given me some ideas.

Stamps Used

Row of Beach Huts

Beach Ball

Bucket and Spade

Deckchair

Remountable Harbour Set

Seagull

To See The World

Lynne

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