Showing posts with label In the Classroom with Barbara Gray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In the Classroom with Barbara Gray. Show all posts

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Happy Birthday Mum

It's my Mum's birthday today so "Happy Birthday Mum".


This is the card that I made for her. It uses one of my favourite sets (The Birdhouse) with the new girl with balloons stamp. I thought they would work really well together and I was really pleased with the result. The Birdhouse set makes such a good frame for the the girl.


I also used the Mother verse which gave me the idea of colouring the heart shaped balloons gold. I did this by going over the black stamped image with Versamark and heat embossing them with detail gold powder. I did this twice to make it nice and smooth/thick.

When I spoke to Mum this morning she said that she likes her card. I hope that you do too.

Stamps Used
Birdhouse Set - Lesson 18

Lynne
x

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Ruby Wedding Anniversary Card

It's a yucky day here today, so I've tidied up my craft room and started another card. Now I thought I'd have a break, sit down with a coffee and write a blog post.


This card uses just two ink pads - Archival black and Adirondack Cranberry.

I cut the heart shaped moon myself out of a Post-it with a pair of scissors (I folded it in a half to get a nice, symmetrical shape). I then placed it on the card and inked over it with a brush to colour the sky and create the moon. Once I was happy with the sky I removed the mask and added a little bit of colour to the moon, so that It wasn't bright white.

The heart embellishments on the sides are part of a Spellbinders Fancy Tags Two tag.

If you haven't yet got the Birdhouse set (which is one of my faves) or the Letter Box set or the Numbers set it's the perfect time to buy them. Claritystamp have a fantastic offer on at the moment (until midnight on the 31st March, 2014) of 40% off the Classroom kits.

This card has got me thinking, as it will be my Silver Wedding Anniversary later this year. Anyway, I've just worked out that it will be 2029 when it's time for my Ruby one. 2029 - that sounds so futuristic. I wonder if I'll still be writing this blog? I may be writing a post on Hubby's card........

Stamps Used

Lynne
x

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Garden Swing Card

This is one of the cards I made for the recent Trade Show at the NEC that Claritystamp exhibited at.


They had a whole stand dedicated to their stencils and it looked fab. If you want to read more about that Barbara Gray recently blogged about it and that post can be found here. 

The stencil is a fab image on its own but you can have great fun, like I did, creating a scene around it. There are so many Clarity stamps that would work for this. When my stencil arrived I'd just finished making some samples for German TV with the Birdhouse and Picket Fence set and the stamps were still on my desk. I soon realised that they would be perfect together. 

To make my card I started off with the stencil. I taped it to a piece of Theuva card and sponged ink through it. I used black Archival ink for the branch and girl and Lettuce and Meadow Adirondack for the greenery. I think I might have also used some Olive Archival.

Once I had the stencilling done I stamped the scene in around her. There are so many beautiful elements to the Birdhouse and Picket Fence set and I used nearly all of them on this card. I love the little squirrel on the branch!

I will certainly be looking through my Clarity stamps to see what other backgrounds I can create for her, although she does look like she's having fun in the garden.

Stamps and Stencils Used

Lynne
x

Friday, 27 December 2013

Family Christmas Cards

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, we did. After all that work, it's over so quickly though but before I move on to other things I have three final Christmas cards to share with you.

I love designing my own cards but I also love doing the In The Classroom with Barbara Gray lessons. It's nice just to have the fun of making something without having to think about the design.


When I saw Barbara make this card with the Lesson 20 Jigsaw Set I thought it would be perfect for our parents' cards. 

If you would like to have a go Barbara has a picture tutorial here on her blog. It's a fun one to make. I personalised mine by adding the text.


Mum also loves her crafting and this is the card she made for us. 


Maya wasn't forgotten. She got one too.

My Card - Stamps and Stencils Used 
Winter Wonderland Set - Lesson 14
Jigsaw Kit - Lesson 20

Lynne
x

Sunday, 1 December 2013

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
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

Lynne
x






Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Woodpecker Gelli Print Card

Yay, my Clarity samples are now in the post ready for this weekend's TV shows so I can relax a bit. It's been such a busy week!

I'm now doing my post-sample making craft room tidy-up. It's a bit more exciting than usual though - we're looking at buying a bigger TV for the living room so the old 32" one will be going in my craft room. Exciting!

The last card I blogged was my Woodpecker Card that was stencilled using just part of the Lone Tree Stencil.


This one uses the whole stencil and the Gelli plate.


The Gelli print was done in the same way as my Gelli Print Country Scene.............


......however this time I covered up the sky so that I had a clean area for inking the clouds. It gives a very different look to it.

I must confess that I did cheat a little with the woodpecker and he was stamped on a separate piece of card and stuck on.

I coloured a piece of card for the border with the same colour red ProMarker that I used on the bird. That way you don't have to worry about matching colours.

Now that my samples are made I really must start on my personal Christmas cards; I still haven't made a single one yet. Don't tell anyone but I was out shopping with my friend Connie yesterday and I was looking at them in the shops. I didn't actually buy any but it might yet come to that (I can't believe I just admitted that).

Lynne goes off to apologise to all of her beautiful Christmas stamps..................

Stamps and Stencils Used
Lesson 22 - Woodpecker Set

Lynne
x

Monday, 25 November 2013

Woodpecker Card

This is the first of two cards that I made with the Woodpecker Set from Lesson 22 of In The Classroom With Barbara Gray.


The scene is all one layer so there's lots of masking involved! I didn't have the Clarity Masks when I made it so I had to cut them all out of Post-its by hand - that was fun! I've since bought them though so if I want to do it again it will be a lot easier!!!

The first thing I stamped was the Woodpecker. I masked him off, then used just the trunk part of the Lone Tree stencil as a template to draw around so it looks like he's clinging to it. I coloured it in with ProMarkers and added some green and brown ink with a sea sponge to give it a bit of texture.

I thought the "flowers" were Clematis so I coloured them in accordingly but I think I'm wrong as I noticed that the stamp is called "Leafy Branch". That's the beauty with stamping though, you can colour things in how you like and give them lots of different looks.

Once I'd finished the stamping I masked it all off and stencilled in the brick wall. I used several colours of Distress Ink with the 7 x 7" version for the main image and the 9 x 11" for the background.

Stamps and Stencils Used
Woodpecker Set - Lesson 22

Next time I'll blog the Gelli version.

Lynne
x

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Rise and Shine!

Yaaaaay! My Crafty Little Blog has just passed 50,000 page views. Thank you all for reading it, I hope you're enjoying it.

I started this month's Claritystamp samples with my Christmas Countdown Calendar made with the Cottage Scene stencil and I'm finishing with my other design using it.


This one shows a Summer's day. The cows are in the fields and the sun is shining. I've also added the weather vane to this one; it is rather large in proportion to the house but it's great fun and makes a lovely focal point.

The black cottage part is done the same way as the Christmas scene - I used the Gelli Plate and some Daler Rowney System 3 Process Black paint with their Slow Drying Gel. I found the addition of the gel gave me a much blacker print than without it as the paint stayed wetter.

The scene is created with Adirondack ink pads, Ink Dusters and make-up sponges. It's a great one to play with, you can add as much or as little as you want to the scene. I've recently done a much busier version that I will be blogging soon.

Stamps and Stencils Used
Trees from Remountable Winter Trees Set - Lesson 21

Lynne
x

Thursday, 7 November 2013

Rise and Shine Seascape

I am all over-excited! Hubby is taking me to the NEC on Saturday and I've never been before. It looks a fab show and hopefully I'll get to meet lots of my crafty friends (that's the best bit). It's going to be a long day but I'm sure it will be worth it - only two more sleeps to wait!

The Rise and Shine Set for Lesson 23 of In The Classroom With Barbara Gray is great fun. You get 5 different toppers for the weather vane so it's versatile too; I think they will be really useful for men's cards.


I chose to use the galleon so I thought it would be appropriate to do a seascape behind it. I used a mixture of my brayer and Ink Dusters to do this.

The ripples on the sea are created by rolling my brayer over some scrunched up paper before applying it to the scene. Once I'd done this I masked off the sea before creating the rising sun and the sky using Mountain Rose and Eggplant Adirondack ink. Then, when I had the basics done, I removed the masks and applied some Mountain Rose over the sea with a brush to create the sun's reflection. 

The roof and land are created by masking off an area and sponging on black Archival ink. The stamping is also done with this.

To finish it off I cut a scrolly frame (bought from the Silhouette Store) with my Cameo. 

Stamps Used
Lesson 23 - Rise and Shine Set

Lynne
x




Thursday, 17 October 2013

From Little Acorns.....

What's everyone got planned for today? I hope it's something nice. I've had a few days off from crafting and plan to get back to it today. Next month's samples won't make themselves!


This one was Hubby's favourite from this month, as he kept telling me at every available opportunity! You may be thinking "Isn't that lovely" but this is why.................


......I'd been sat in my craft room all afternoon planning some cards and was particularly pleased with this one, especially the idea of using one of the framer stamps with a large "O" to make the word "Oak". Hubby comes in from work and I proudly show it to him. He looked at it and said "Or you could say from little acorns".

After a bit of thought I grudgingly had to admit his idea was better than mine (Ooh it's so hard to type that!) and went with his version. However, as I keep reminding him, he wouldn't have thought of that if he hadn't seen mine first!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those of you who are FB friends with me will probably have an idea of what we're like and know that this could go on for some time......................

Anyway, back to the card which is what you're really interested in.

As you can see from my plan I used a couple of Spellbinders dies - Labels Five and Grand Labels Eleven to cut out the shapes, then I used my Cameo to cut out the mats and base card.

You may have noticed that the tree looks slightly different in the finished card. Well Hubby also pointed out that the trunk didn't look very oak-like, so I used the top and mantle of the smaller tree in the set with the trunk of the largest one.

The solid stamp in the set is used to colour in the oak leaves. I first inked it up with Adirondack Lettuce, then added some Meadow around the edge. This gave them a lovely vibrant green colour which I thought was a nice change form the autumnal colours I usually use.

Before I go, if you fancy a bit more Clarity, Barbara Gray now has her own blog. You can find it here.

Happy stamping.

Stamps Used
Noel Frame (although you can use any of the "O" framers)

Lynne
x

Sunday, 13 October 2013

October's Clarity Samples

What a fab weekend it's been! So many hours of Barbara on TV with the launch of her fab new DVD. I've made a few purchases and I know I'm not alone! It's also been great fun chatting away to other Claritystamp fans on Facebook whilst watching the shows. It's been like one big party.


Here's all of the cards that I made (click on photo for a larger version). As always I will be blogging them all throughout the month (I've already done the blue Lovebirds one). There was also some of my older cards shown again, they are all on here somewhere.

The Gelli plate has made quite a few appearances in my samples this month - it is such a fun item. After watching Barbara earlier I'm going to have to get my inks out and try them on it. That's the great thing about stamping - there's always new things to try.

As she was so busy this month Barbara asked the Design Team to make some of the TV demo cards. I  was so nervous when mine was shown but thankfully it all went well. Barbara is such a professional - it would have been a whole other story if I'd had to do the demo too!!!!!!

Anyway I'll explain more when I blog them all individually. I'd better get some jobs done before Barbara is back on at 2pm.

Happy stamping, 

Lynne
x

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

My Original Four Seasons Card

What a busy week it's been. Mum and Dad have gone home after a lovely week here. We all had a fab time, especially at the GNPE. It's always great to catch up with the Clarity team and Mum and I came home with lots of new ideas and a few new crafty goodies.

With so long between the Clarity TV shows this month I'm running out of things to post, so it's a real blast from the past today.

July 2013
This card is based on my first ever Four Seasons topper.  It was inspired by Lesson 2 of In The Classroom With Barbara Gray - The Split Tree. Can you believe it was about two years ago? Hasn't time flown! I made it for a topper swap that I took part in. The idea was that we all made a topper, posted it to someone else who made it into a card and they posted it to the next person.

October 2011
This is the original topper that I made. It's a mini version of the trees from the lesson all put together as a sheet of postage stamps. I can't tell you how many times it took me to get the stamps all joined up, even then it wasn't perfect. That part of the 2013 version is a lot better!

Anyway, for some reason my topper never got made into a card. Back in July it came up again in conversation and I had the idea of doing it myself. 

I wanted to keep the new version pretty much the same as the original but as you can see I made a couple of small changes. I don't know why but I got Spring and Summer the wrong way round on the first one, so I changed that. I also changed the colour of the ground in Autumn as I couldn't remember what ink pad I'd used.

I kept the making up of the card really simple as I always do. How someone else would have made it up was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing when we did the original swap. 

Anyway, it may have taken nearly two years for the recipient to get her card but better late than never!


Whilst I'm feeling nostalgic here are my trees from Lesson two that I made along with Barbara. If someone had told me then that I'd end up on the Design Team I wouldn't have believed them!  You never know what the future holds.......

Stamps Used
Lesson 2 - Split Tree Set

Lynne
x

Thursday, 3 October 2013

Winter Wonderland Aperture Card

I'm starting to get excited - only 3 more sleeps until I'm off to the GNPE in Harrogate.  It always a fun show and it's lovely to catch up with crafty friends.

This is the card that inspired the one in my previous post. It's one of my German samples.


The stamped image is on the inside of the card and can been seen through the aperture on the front.


I started off by stamping the deer scene on the front of the card with Cobalt Blue Archival Ink. I then cut it out with my fab little Fiskars Fingertip craft knife.


I matted that onto some blue card and followed the outline with my knife to give an even-ish border.  It's not stuck on to the background then, I just forgot to photograph that stage.


The base of the card is covered in snowflakes. I used Cobalt Blue Archival Ink and Weathered Wood Distress Ink for this. I also went around the edges with the Weathered Wood.

Once I'd finished the base card I stuck the main image on so that it lines up perfectly with the aperture.

A spotty bow finishes it off. 

Stamps Used

Lynne
x

Sunday, 15 September 2013

Four Seasons Tree

As soon as I saw the fab new 'Trees and Their Mantles' stamps for Lesson 21 I knew they would be perfect for a four seasons card. I've done a few variations on this in the past and I always enjoy making them.


As the name says, it shows the same tree in four different seasons.


I started off by drawing pencil lines to quarter the card. This helped me get the stamps accurately lined up in a square.

Then I drew a square in the centre of each stamp and masked each section off with Post-its as I worked on it.


For spring I inked the mantle up in Victorian Velvet Distress ink for the blossom and added a few dots of Mowed Lawn Distress Marker for the leaves. The daffodils were stamped with Mowed Lawn and Mustard Seed Distress Markers.

The grass is Lettuce Adirondack.


For summer I used vibrant greens and a lovely warm sun.  

For a change I stamped the labrador in black. I think it could be Maya's online friend Jasper looking for her.


For autumn I could have stamped the full Mantle in autumnal colours but instead I stamped part of it on the floor, for the fallen leaves, and added a couple of dots of ProMarker for the ones still on the tree.


For winter the tree is now bare and has been joined by Frosty looking very snuggly in his hat and scarf.

When I finished all of the stamping I edged the whole thing with a Pastel Blue ProMarker.

If you want to see what Barbara Gray does with them, Lesson 21 will be on Create and Craft TV at 11am on Saturday 12th October.

Stamps Used
Labrador from Remountable Home Set
Lynne
x


Saturday, 7 September 2013

Shades of Autumn Card

I always think of autumn when I see leaf stamps and I wanted to capture the fabulous autumnal colours in this card.

It's certainly starting to feel like it's here now. Brrrrrr!


I actually made the background for another topper but when I'd finished it I didn't like them together. Plus there was so much work in making it that I wanted it to be the focal point.


I stamped the solid leaves all over in various autumnal colours (for this part I didn't worry if the stamps overlapped). Then I went over them all with the outline stamp. I stamped the darkest leaves first and then masked them off to stamp the ones that would appear underneath them. I used second generation ink for that.

I then brushed Old Paper Distress Ink all over to take away the whiteness.


I made a simple little scene on a Spellbinders Floral Oval to complement the background. The mat for it is cut on my Cameo.

A tag, cut in half (Spellbinders Fancy Tags 2), some bakers twine, and a verse finish it off.

Stamps Used
Lesson 2 Set - Split Tree

Lynne
x

Sunday, 1 September 2013

September's Clarity Samples

Two blog posts in one day! I hope you're not getting bored of me but there's a lot going on today.

It was another fab weekend of shows from Barbara. Lots of fab demos and inspiration. So many gorgeous cards from the DT too - I loved Jane Telford's homage to Hilda Ogden's flying ducks!


These are my samples (click on the photo to enlarge it).

As always, I will be blogging them all individually throughout the month but this shows you what's to come. I do love Wales and I had such a lot of fun with those stamps. The trees and leaves are fab too. I'm sure the next lesson set is going to be another big hit.

Following on from my craft room post, did you watch Through the Keyhole last night? It was so funny. I won't be letting him anywhere near my tidy craft room that's for sure!

Happy crafting,

Lynne
x

Saturday, 31 August 2013

My Craft Room

I've just noticed that there's a new series of Through The Keyhole on ITV tonight. I used to love that programme, I wonder what the new version will be like?

Why is she talking about TV? I hear you ask. Well, I've just updated my Craft Room page after my recent tidy-up. If you fancy a look through my crafty keyhole you can either click here or on the tab at the top of the page.


Here's a sneaky peek.

Wasn't this morning's show with Barbara and Leonie good? They both looked liked they were really enjoying themselves. 


If you read my post when I blogged this card you'll know why it made me laugh when Leonie forgot to remove her Post-it. 


If you didn't, here's a quote from it "I wanted it to look like the puzzle isn't completed so I had to mask off one of the sides. You can just wipe away the ink, but I always seem to miss a bit so I use a mask. I cover up the bit I don't want inked with a Post-it and remove it before I stamp - that last bit is very important !  Guess who's forgotten to do that on more than one occasion?  lol".

If you missed it before, the full post can be found here.

I'd better get my posts for tomorrow finished. It's the start of a new challenge on the Clarity Stamp Challenge blog and I will also be sharing my samples from this weekend's Clarity shows.

Lynne
x


Friday, 16 August 2013

The Dreams of a Kitten Gelli Print Card

I'm definitely a dog person but my blog is going catty for a while - the next three cards I have to show you feature Clarity cat stamps.


This is the first - it's a birthday card I made based on one of the lessons from the last In The Classroom With Barbara Gray show. 

I'm going through a bit of a black phase with my Gelli prints at the moment (I love it as a base print that you can then add colour to, plus it works really well with silhouettes stamped in black), so I thought I'd see how it worked with this design. Well, I rather like it. It's surprising how different the same thing can look in different colours. It's also a great way to make a card if you mojo is lacking - just find an old card that you've made and make it again in a different colour.

I did the Gelli print a couple of times to see what effect I wanted.  In the end I picked the palest one, where I'd taken more paint off on the first print, as I thought the ink would show up better on it. I don't yet have the Juniper Adirondack ink pad that Barbara used so I used Bundled Sage Distress Ink with Stonewashed Adirondack to sponge on the extra colour.


I also used the Bundled Sage to stamp the verse as I wanted it to be quite subtle.

A few co-ordinating mats cut with my Perfect Layers rulers complete the card. Hopefully the recipient is a cat person.

Stamps Used
Lesson 18 - Birdhouse Set

Stencil Used

Lynne
x

Saturday, 10 August 2013

Leafy Swirl Jigsaw Card

I used a couple of the In The Classroom With Barbara Gray stamp sets on this card - The Jigsaw, which is the stamp for Lesson 20, and the Leafy Swirl set from Lesson 19.


The colour scheme is based around the Tim Holtz Summer set of Distress Inks - Picked Raspberry, Mowed Lawn and Salty Ocean.

I began by creating the Gelli print, leaving a clear area in the centre for the jigsaw stamp. I used the masks to section off each piece of it, like I did for my Deerscape Jigsaw Card, then added the colour with an Ink Duster and a make-up sponge.


I also went over each piece with a crackle stamp to add a bit more interest. Once that was complete I masked the outside of the jigsaw off and stamped the Leafy Swirl over it in Black Archival.


To add some colour to the frame I randomly brushed the Distress Inks through the Dotty Wave stencil. It was still missing something though.


I don't normally use a lot of flowers and embellishments on my cards but I think they really finish this one off. I used my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals with some Spellbinders leaves to make them. Luckily I had one blue brad that was the perfect colour for the centre!

It took a while to get there but I was really pleased with how this one turned out and I love the colours - Thanks for putting that set of ink pads together Tim.

If you want to watch what Barbara does with this clever Jigsaw stamp the lesson will be on Create and Craft TV at 11am on the 31st August. I'll certainly be watching.

Stamps Used

Stencils Used

Lynne
x

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Deerscape Jigsaw Card

I thought I'd start with this card as it was one of my favourites.


It uses the new Jigsaw stamp that is for Lesson 20 of In The Classroom With Barbara Gray. It's a fab stamp and the masks that come with it enable you to do lots of fun things with it. 


I've not cut anything out here, it's all done with masking.


I wanted it to look like the puzzle isn't completed so I had to mask off one of the sides. You can just wipe away the ink, but I always seem to miss a bit so I use a mask. I cover up the bit I don't want inked with a Post-it and remove it before I stamp - that last bit is very important !  Guess who's forgotten to do that on more than one occasion?  lol


I used a combination of Post-its and the masks that come with the set to mask off the area around where I want to work..... 


.....I then created the image. I kept the design really simple as there were already enough things that could go wrong with this card!


I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the background card into a jigsaw. At first glance it just looks like a sheet of green card but when you look closer you can see the jigsaw pieces. I did think about inking the edges but decided against it as I wanted it to be subtle, keeping the focus on the stamping. 

A few brads, some bakers twine and a Gandhi quote finish it off.

Stamps Used

Lynne
x
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