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

Lesson 21 - Trees and Their Mantles

XL Postage Stamp 

Remountable Seasons

Labrador from Remountable Home Set

Small Frosty

Daffodils

Lynne

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Happy Father's Day

My Dad is one of my regular blog readers, so "Happy Father's Day" Dad.  xxx

This is the card I made for him.

I was really pleased with the scene I made following April's In the Classroom with Barbara Gray and I thought it would be perfect for my Dad's card.

Turning the topper into a completed card took longer than it did to create it though! I tried out so many backgrounds and colours before I settled on some green card that matches the boat.

The Father's Day stamp is from Lili of the Valley. I bought 3 sets of these at the GNPE, Harrogate as they go so well with the Clarity XL Postage Stamp.

Which I used for my Father-in-law's card.

He likes horses, so I made a little western scene in the stamp and heat embossed the Queen's head in gold. The background is embossed with my Spellbinders Grand Dainty Dots folder.

I hope they both like their cards.

If Hubby is reading this in Cyprus, Maya says "Woofy woof woof" (apparently that's Happy Father's Day in dog) too.

She's looking forward to normal sofa service resuming soon.

Stamps Used

Lesson 15 - Making a Point Set

XL Postage Stamp

Remountable Postage Set

Forest Ridge

Lone Ranger

Lynne

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Meadow Dance Stampstamps Card

This is another of the Stampstamps cards that I made for German TV.

I used my ProMarkers and the techniques that Barbara showed us in the Blooming Corner lesson to colour in the flowers. I then carried on the pastel theme with the rest of the card.

The black embellishments in the corners are cut down from one of the Spellbinders Persian Accents dies.

Simples!

Stamps Used

Meadow Dance

Lesson 6 - Blooming Corner Kit

Large Paradise Stampstamp

Triangle Stampstamp

Rectangle Stampstamp

The clock is counting down to the start of a new term of In the Classroom with Barbara Gray - only 16 more sleeps until Lesson 15. I wonder of Barbara will have the Gelli plate on too? I saw some photos on FB this morning of her all ready to demonstrate it at the NEC. I'm looking forward to mine arriving so I can have a play.  It does look like fun!

Lynne

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Birds Postage Stamp Card

Well, there's only two more days until the launch of the Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog.  My next post will be showcasing my project for it; I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you. I think it's going to be a fun thing to be a part of.

In the meantime here is another of my cards made for Clarity's German shows. It uses a selection of Clarity bird and stamp stamps.

The pale blue background is the Small Matrix Feather stamped in Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I managed to find some blue gingham ribbon in the mess that is my ribbon box that matched it perfectly.

The green card is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder - Birds and Swirls.

I cut out an aperture in copier paper for each stamp, so that I could stamp and colour the images through it. The green I've used for the grass is Lettuce Adirondack.

Stamps Used

Large Paradise Stampstamp

Small Triangle Stampstamp

Rectangle Stampstamp

Geese from the Remountable Village Set

Remountable Birdsong Set

Medium Heron

Crow in Flight

Swallow

Cockerel from the Remountable Farm Set

Small Matrix Feather

I do love the Stampstamps. You can really personalise them for the recipient by what you put in them.

Lynne

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Postage Stamp Village Card

I can't believe it's less than a week until the launch of the Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog. I've seen the rest of the Design Team's cards and they are beauties. Now I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with.

This is another of my cards for Germany. I really enjoy using the Postage Stamps as you can do such a lot with them. 

This one uses them with the Remountable Village set.  When I first got the Postage Stamps I had to cut the masks by hand. This was rather fiddly and wasn't my favourite job. Then I got my Cameo and I now use that to cut them out. Just recently Clarity started selling their own masks for fiddly stamps. It's such a time saver; there is a lot of masking on a card like this.

I started off by cutting out the little apertures on some copier paper so that I could stamp through to create the scenes. As they are so small I tend to use sponges, rather than a brayer, to add the colour.

After the scenes were complete I masked off all of the stamps so that I could colour the background. 

The top left stamp is cut out and mounted on some 3D foam pads to add a bit of interest.

The postage stamp mat was bought from the Silhouette Store and cut on my Cameo.

Stamps Used

Remountable Village Set

Church

Small Birds in Flight

I'd best get back to work now; I'm busy making samples for next weekend's Clarity shows on Create and Craft. With that and the blog launch it should be a good few days for Clarity fans. 

Lynne

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XL Postage Stamp Cards

I do love the Clarity Postage Stamp stamps, so I was excited to see a new one in the collection. Being an XL version there's lots of room to play with.

I decided to do a simple one layer card and used a mask to create the white border of the stamp.

This could be done by hand with a pair of scissors and a craft knife, but it's a fiddly job so I used my trusty Cameo. I scanned an image of the stamp into the Design Studio and was then able to create my own mask.

With that in place I was able to create my scene using my brayer and Ink Dusters. 

This set has the postmark and Queen's head to go with it. I embossed Her Majesty's head with gold embossing powder to give it an authentic look (the embossing shows up better in the first photo).

Not long after I'd made this card I had a birthday card to make, so I decided to do a birthday version. I think the first card looks more washed out in the photo than it did in real life, but I do prefer the second version.  

I went more vibrant with the colours and I think it looks better, especially in the photo.  

I used my Cameo's Design Studio to create a birthday version of the postmark and set it to print, rather than cut. I was then able to build the scene around it. Hopefully Clarity will bring out some more postmarks themselves, a Christmas and a Birthday one would be fab.

I noticed the other day that when the cards are put on the Clarity website they list the stamps that are used to make them. I thought it might be useful to add the link to that page here. That way if you want details of any of the stamps you will know where to find them.

Lynne

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