Live, Laugh, Love

Yay! It's the 1st of December so that can only mean one thing - the start of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. The theme for this month is "Trees".................

.............and this is my project. I made it to go in my spare room.

It's hard to believe that next month we will have lived here for 6 years. We have previously moved about every two years, sometimes more often. Anyway, because we've been here for so long I've been having a clear-out.

One of the items to go were the bookcases from my spare room (there was one where the chest of drawers with the lamp on it now is and one where the ottoman is). The room looks lot less cluttered but it did leave the walls looking rather bare.

When I saw the Heart Butterfly Ladder Frame in The Range for £6.99 I thought it was perfect for one of them. I do love making cards but it's always nice to make something useful that you can keep.

I picked an ink pad to match the room (Adirondack Raisin) and it's all done with that. I used second generation ink to get the paler stamped colour. The backgrounds are created with my Claritystamp stencil brush and a make-up sponge. Very Clarity!

It was perfect timing that the "Live Laugh Love" stamp arrived when I was making it (it's October's New Design Club stamp). It was designed by the very talented Dee Paramour and I love it.

This was the most fiddly section as I masked off the lettering to keep it white.

The final heart features my favourite Meadow Dance stamp. I think it goes so well with Dee's words.

It was just a cheap frame but I'm really pleased with it and it's brightened up my magnolia wood chip walls (standard decor in any Army quarter!). Now I just need something to go on the wall above the ottoman................maybe that could be a future blog project......

I hope you like it and I look forward to seeing your projects. Trees are a staple item in the Claritystamp collection so there's lots to choose from and I'm sure everyone has at least one in their collection. Don't forget that there's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner. It's chosen at random so it's well worth having a go.

Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of the "Travel" challenge. There were so many clever cards and November's New Design Club stamp "Santa's Car", made several appearances. Naomi and Sam have used it their projects for this month too as there's a tree in the boot. It is a fab stamp. I wonder what this month's will be? It's always so exciting when it pops through the door.

The stamps I've used are all available at Claritystamp.

Lynne
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Here Comes Santa Claus

Hi all. It's time for another challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog.  You might not instantly guess it from my project but the theme is "Travel'.

I didn't have a clue what I was going to do for this challenge until I was at the MDF Man's stall at the GNPE Harrogate. I saw this tree and thought it would look fab with a Christmas scene on it. I pictured this and then thought "No one travels further than Father Christmas on Christmas Eve!"

Mum and I had a lot of fun decorating it. Thanks for your help Mum. x

I thought it would be easier to do the scene on card, rather than straight onto the tree, so I drew around it and cut a piece out.

I started off by stamping Frosty, as he is at the front, I then masked him off and stamped the Quirky Cottages at a quirky angle on a quirky hill. These were then masked off so I could stamp the trees.

A mask creates the moon and I brayered in the sky with Denim and Pitch Black Adirondack ink. Traveling Father Christmas is stamped in Jet Black Archival ink.

Unfortunately I hadn't checked out how it went together and eventually spotted that my tree came down too low for the bucket. Luckily Dad came to my rescue and sawed the top off. Thanks Dad. x

I sprinkled on some Frantage embossing powder for the snow and heated it to set it. Some Stickles was added on the snowy ground to give it some sparkle. The cottages and Frosty were coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils.

I assembled the tree and painted it with grey acrylic paint.

Some silver gilding flakes and a bit of inking around the edges adds the finishing touch. I used red liner tape on the bucket and a piece of doubled sided adhesive sheet for the star.

I hope you like it. I couldn't bear to put it away so it's currently sat in my craft room - I think it's a bit early to bring it downstairs! It is still autumn after all.

Talking of autumn, it was great to see all the beautiful seasonal cards for last month's challenge. All of the seasons were covered and there were some four seasons ones, which I always love. Congratulations to the winner and Top 5. It is always so hard to choose!

I wonder what you will all come up with this month? I look forward to seeing. The rest of the DT had some fab ideas.

Stamps Used

Small Quirky Cottage

Small Frosty

Pine Tree Silhouettes

Repositionable Trees

Happy Christmas

Santa from Remountable Christmas Set

Lynne

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Dreaming of Summer

Morning all, it's time for a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog.

The theme for this month is "The Seasons". As I'd recently made my Four Seasons Tree cards I thought I'd just have a bit of fun with it. My card was inspired by one of my favourite films at the moment, Frozen, in which the snowman dreams of summer (not knowing what would happen to him if he got warm).

I thought that Frosty might have the same dream.

I started off by stamping him and the flowers, then I masked them off and created the scene. The flowers and Frosty's scarf were later coloured in with Spectrum Noir pencils.

I drew the word summer in between the two birds like a banner.

I hope it's made you smile - I had a lot of fun making it.

Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of the "Nature" challenge. I look forward to seeing your seasonal cards.

Stamps Used

Large Frosty

Meadow Dance

Small Swing

Tree

Birds and foliage from the Remountable Birdhouse Set

Blooming Border

Dream from Word Chain 5

Lynne

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Butterfly Box Frame

Morning all. It's the first of the month again, so it's time for a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of last month's "Feminine" challenge. It was lovely to see so many different takes on the theme.

This month's challenge is "Nature".

This is my project.

Beautiful Clarity butterflies..........

..........stamped onto 200gsm paper/card with their wings cut out.............

.............and framed in an Ikea Ribba box frame.

I started off by stamping the butterflies and verse onto the paper. I then coloured the butterflies in with my Spectrum Noir pencils, choosing colours to match the paper.

Then came the fun part - the cutting out! I used my trusty Fiskars FingerTip knife on a glass cutting mat and took my time. Luckily I managed this without chopping off any vital parts (butterfly or human).

I then folded up the butterflies' wings and matted it up so that the patterned paper showed through the from below.

The patterned paper has a bit of a vintage look to it and the white card looked a bit stark against it so I  went over the white with Old Paper Distress Ink on a Clarity Stencil Brush to tone it down a bit.

Three sparkly brads finish it off. 

There are so many beautiful nature themed Clarity stamps and stencils to chose from that I think that this is going to be a popular challenge. I look forward to seeing all of the entries. Have fun!

Stamps Used

Butterfly

Small butterfly from the Remountable Best of the Classroom Set

Happiness is as a Butterfly

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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Anything Goes!

Yay! It's the 1st of July, a month I've been looking forward to all year. That also means it's time for a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. The theme this month is "Anything Goes". Normally all that choice would throw me into a state of confusion but there's something I've been meaning to do for ages and it gave me the incentive that I needed. Have my regular readers spotted it already?

It's a new header for my blog.

I wanted to keep it similar to the original but this time I've added in the Deerscape and Small Swing stamps. I think they're all such joyful images and they make me smile every time I look at them.

It's all done with Clarity stamps, apart from the title which I added on my computer. I thought the front was appropriate as it looks like dripping paint and I am a messy crafter!

The Swing stamp comes in two sizes - Large and Small. Both of them work with the Meadow Dance and Deerscape but for my blog header I ended up choosing the small one. I didn't want it to be too tall so the shorter tree seemed the better option.

I've stamped them both out above so you can see the difference.

It seems appropriate to be launching it today as it's looking pretty much like that here at the moment. Maybe Maya and I will go and dance around the garden! I hope there's sunshine where you are too.

Congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of the "Masculine Challenge". As always, there were so many fab entries. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for this one. As "Anything Goes" it should be a good one!

Stamps Used

Small Swing

Deerscape

Meadow Dance

Tree

Forest Ridge

Sending You Sunshine

Large Swing

Lynne

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It's All About The Words

It's the first of the month, so it's time for a new Challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. Last month's challenge was "Monochrome" and there were so many superb entries. Congratulations to the winner and Top 5. I look forward to seeing what you all make this month.

As the title of this post suggests, this month's theme is "It's All about The Words".

This is my project. I got the "Moment of Clarity' stencil when I was at the GNPE in Harrogate back in March. I thought it would be nice to make a picture for my craft room with it. At the time I had the intention of using it with the Journaling stamps to create something like my Mother's Day card. However my moment of clarity came when I was watching a demo on Create and Craft. The demonstrator (sorry but I can't remember her name) used patterned paper with stencils and acrylic paint. I thought it looked great fun and would be perfect for this project.

The base is an oval piece of wood that I bought in a local craft shop. I painted it with gesso then applied a couple of coats of Buff Titanium acrylic paint. When that was dry I stuck some patterned paper on with my Decopatch glue.

Then I put the stencil on top..........

.............and gave it another coat of Buff Titanium.

When you remove the stencil you're left with the design in the patterned paper. I removed any excess bits of paint with a blunt-ish pencil (I did use my pockey tool to start with but it scratched the paper).

I then decorated it in typical Clarity style. If you've read my blog before you'll know how much I love the Meadow Dance stamp - when I showed it to my Dad he joked "Haven't you worn those stamps out yet?" That's one of the great things about stamps though, you can use them again and again and again...........

Now I just have to hang it up in my craft room.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Small Moment of Clarity stencil

Meadow Dance

Tree

Set of 3 Repositionable Trees

Birdhouse Set

Small Hot Air Balloon

Lynne

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Monochrome

It's time for a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog but before I talk about that I must say congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of last month's "Flower Power" challenge. A lot of those cards were lovely and colourful but this month we're going "Monochrome".

This is my card. I've used the Clarity Honesty stencil with various shades of brown.

The seed cases of the Honesty plant have a lovely translucent sheen so I used Centura Pearl Snow White (Hint of Gold) card for my base.

I ran the card and the stencil through my Grand Calibur to emboss it. 

Then, leaving the stencil in place, I added the colour. I used a stencil brush and a couple of brown Distress Inks to apply the base colour, then I darkened it at the edges with some Cut-n-Dry foam. Then I just kept stamping the journaling stamps until I was happy with the design. This was done in Sepia Archival Ink.

To finish it off I hand cut a little tag and stamped Honesty onto it. 

That's my interpretation of "Monochrome". I look forward to seeing everyone else's. 

Stamps and Stencils Used

Journaling Set

Letter Box Set

Honesty

Lynne

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Flower Power

It's the first of the month, so that means the start of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. I always think that these blog challenges are a great excuse to have some fun. You're not making a card for a specific person or occasion, so you can do whatever you like, as long as you stick to the theme.

I certainly did that with this one! You've probably guessed already but the theme is "Flower Power". 

I have a huge stash of patterned papers from when I used to scrapbook and when I saw this month's theme I immediately thought of these papers. The range is called Berry Sweet and was by K & Co. Add to that the fact that I've recently been watching Splash (wasn't Perri Kiely fab!) and that this diving stamp was in the recent New Designs Club members' sale and you end up with a card like this. I am sure that her hat and costume are giving her real flower power!

Other than the lettering, this panel is the only bit of stamping on the card. I stamped the diver first onto an oval cut out with one of my Nestabilities and masked her off to create the background. I chose the colours of this to match the papers. They are Evergreen Bough Distress Ink for the water (I brayered over scrumpled up copy paper first to get the waves) and Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink for the sun. I cut my own stencil for this using a Design bought from the Silhouette Store and my Cameo. It was only when I was uploading my project and saw the beautiful tags by Linda Page that I remembered that I already had a fab Clarity sun stencil. Silly me!

I coloured the diver in with ProMarkers and cut her costume and hat out of the paper with the smallest print.

Then it was just a case of going wild with the rest of the papers, adding some of the matching felt embellishments and assembling it.

I hope she makes an elegant entry into the water, unlike some of the contestants on Splash! 

Congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of the Love and Romance Challenge. It was lovely to look at all of the entries and I hope you will enjoy this challenge as much. The Design Team certainly have; I love all of the beautiful creations that they've made. Don't forget that there's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner.

Stamps Used

Diver 1

Letter Box Set

Lynne

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You Light Up My Life Candle

It's the 1st of the month so that means a new project for the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. The theme this month is "Love and Romance".

I know it's really cheesy but I just couldn't resist making this!

The design is stamped onto tissue paper. You then heat it with a heat gun to stick it to the candle.

To help me line up the text I centred the tissue paper over the cross on my glass cutting mat and stuck it down with masking tape. I could then see where I needed to stamp.

I stamped the boxes and text in black Archival ink, then I masked them off with Post-its to stamp the pattern. I did this in Versamark and heat embossed it with gold detail powder. The hearts were coloured in with a red ProMarker.

Then comes the fun part - sticking it onto the candle. Fellow DT member Naomi did one of these for the Christmas challenge and Barbara has also made them, so I read their blogs for instructions. If you'd like to read them, Naomi's can be found here and Barbara's here.

Naomi has a great tip at the end where she suggests starting small and putting several small images on a test candle to get a feel for it. I should have listened to this as I went straight on with my large piece of tissue and I didn't find it as easy as it looks. I got there in the end though.

Congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of the "New Beginnings" challenge. One of the entries was a beautiful candle by Lin Henson. She made a tag to match it which I thought was a lovely idea, especially if you are giving it as a gift.

I look forward to seeing what everyone creates for this challenge. Don't forget there's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner.

Stamps Used

Letter Box Set

Heart Weave

Lynne

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Happy New Year!

Welcome to my first post of 2014 and the launch of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. The theme this month is very appropriate - "New Beginnings".

I bought a bottle of bubbly for Hubby's birthday last month and that gave me the inspiration for this project - a bottle tag.

I do have templates to cut these on my Cameo but I did this one by hand.

I planned the design on copy paper. I started off with a strip of A4 wide enough to cover the bottle, then drew a semicircle with a compass to shape the top and cut it out with scissors. The hole for the bottle to go through is cut with a Spellbinders die. I was then able to hang it on the bottle so that I could work out the length.

I also planned out the design for the stamping. The 0 in 2014 is the "O" from the Love Frame stamp but any of the frame stamps with a large "O" will work.

Once I was happy with all that I chose some pearlescent silver card to match the bottle and heat embossed the stamping with black detail powder. Some chunky holographic glitter gives it a bit of bling. It is New Year after all. 

It's a great way to personalise a gift and is a bit more interesting than a bottle bag. 

I hope 2014 is a great year for you and all your dreams really do come true.

Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of the "Scene Building" challenge. I look forward to seeing what you all create for this one. Don't forget that there's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner. It's chosen at random so everyone has an equal chance of winning regardless of experience. 

Stamps Used

Love Frame

Letterbox Set

Remountable Shapes Set

Numbers Set

Remountable Letterbox Set

Remountable Clarity Characters Set

May All Your Dreams Come True

Lynne

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Penguins and Lily-May's First Christmas Card

I do love penguins!

I had a toy one as a kid and he went everywhere with me.

Now, as an adult, I can't resist a cute penguin stamp. Last year it was the Hobby Art Christmas Penguins and this year I just had to have Archie & Pals (also by Hobby Art).

I used it with the Claritystamp Letter Box stamps to make this card for my great-niece. I hope she will like them too.

A while ago I shamefully admitted that I'd bought a couple of cards but they were so cute I couldn't resist them. I have a M&S calendar in my craft room that has the most adorable little felted creatures on and I spotted that they had Christmas cards in the same design. One of them was perfect for my hubby...........

......but it had this on it.

That's nothing a crafter can't fix though and I soon had it looking like this.

Before I go I thought I'd share this too. I had a go at recreating the first photo yesterday (getting on for 40 years later). We haven't aged a bit!  

Lynne

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Scene Building - An English Country Garden

It's the first of December! That means the start of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. The theme for this month is classic Clarity - "Scene Building".

Congratulations to the winner and top 5 of this month's "Christmas" Challenge. Quite a few of those featured beautiful scenes. I think it's something that most Clarity fans enjoy and I look forward to seeing what you all create.

This is what I've made. It uses the Cottage Scene Stencil that Barbara used on the lesson show yesterday.

I think that the secret to a good scene lies in the planning and I probably spend as long doing this as I do making it.

The first thing I do is flick though my Claritystamp Catalogue, which contains stamped images of all of the Clarity stamps that I own, and choose which ones I am going to use. The main one I picked here was the Small Swing stamp. I then chose stamps that I thought were the correct scale and would complement it.

I then start stamping them to work out where they're all going to go. This is some of my rough work from this scene (ignore the strange church on its side on the top middle one, I think I was just looking at the difference between first and second generation ink). It also shows the paper I ripped to create the hills.

I initially used the black part of the cottage but then I realised that I didn't I didn't need that for planning, I could just put the stencil on top of the paper (you can see that in the bottom middle image). As you can see I don't worry too much about technique when I'm doing this, it's just about trying to get the composition (especially the perspective) right. Just moving a stamp slightly can make a big difference. 

I made the scene, especially the sky, a lot more vibrant than I normally would as the black is quite stark. The silhouettes are all stamped in black Archival except for the weather vane which is embossed. 

On the previous versions of this, that I blogged last month, I used black acrylic paint and the Gelli plate for the black area. On yesterday's show Barbara used Black Soot Distress Ink and a make-up sponge. For this version though I cut it out of black card with my Silhouette Cameo.

Just for fun I converted the photo into black & white. I quite like that version too.

This is such a versatile stencil as you can theme the scene to suit the recipient. Jackie asked on Facebook yesterday about a golfing scene and I think it would work really well. Where we lived before here was next to a really hilly course and this scene reminds me of it. You could put the horizon a bit lower and add in some more detail in the sky - a sun, some birds, text or even a hot air balloon. The rolling hills could then be transformed into a golf course - you could add a bunker, draw in some flags and the golfer silhouette from the Remountable Sport Set. I hope that helps Jackie. 

Stamps and Stencils Used

Small Swing

Cows and Small Cockerel from the remountable Farm Set

Weather Vane - Lesson 21

Well and Lamp Post from the Remountable Village Set

Labrador from the Remountable Home Set

Church

Forest Ridge

Cottage Scene

Lynne

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Christmas Ornaments

It's time for the launch of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. This month's theme is "Christmas".

I thought it would be fun to make some tree ornaments. The plain baubles are 99p each from The Range and are perfect for jazzing up. I've seen a lot of them decorated with vinyl by Silhouette Cameo owners but I thought they'd also be ideal for stamping.

Making them is really quick and simple - the design is actually inside them on acetate.

I cut a 78mm circle (after some trial and error this was the size that worked best) with a tab on it out of some heat resistant acetate. As I said before, I used my Cameo for this but you could use a compass to make a template out of card and draw round it.

To get a lovely solid black design I heat embossed the stamped image with Versamark ink and black detail embossing powder. Make sure you dust it with an anti-static bag first so you don't get too many stray flecks of powder. Then brush away as many as you can before heating it.

To get it into the bauble you take off the top and roll up the acetate as tight as you can before posting it through the hole. You may need to use some tweezers to curl the edges back the other way slightly once it opens up. It was the first time I'd embossed on acetate and I was worried that the melted powder would crack off when I did this but it didn't.

Then you can decorate them as simply or as elaborately as you want.

For this simple text one I've just added a black bow (sticking it on with my hot glue gun).

For the nativity scene I added some cut up raffia for straw and some rustic looking gingham ribbon.

For the reindeer I've added some Polar White Flower Soft for snow and some sparkly silver threads.

That's just three ideas but there are so many Clarity stamps that would fit in perfectly. 

I must say "thank you" to all of my FB friends who helped me nag my reluctant husband into getting the Christmas tree down from the loft for the photos last month. See Hubby, it was necessary!

Congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of last month's challenge. I really look forward to seeing all of the entries for this month's. There's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner and it's chosen at random so everyone has a fair chance of winning, regardless of experience.

Stamps Used

Peace on Earth

Large Nativity

Christmas Stag

Lynne

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