Jazz Man In the Spotlight

It's not something I know a lot about but I do like a bit of jazz. We were lucky enough to live in Brecon for a couple of years and they have a fab jazz festival there every year.  It was great fun.

About 3 years ago the New Design Club stamp (No. 44) was a ballerina and one of the projects that Barbara did for it was a brayered spotlight. I've been wanting to have a go at it since I got it, but as I've not had anyone to send a ballerina card to I never got around to it. As soon as I saw the Jazz Man I knew that he would be perfect for it and couldn't wait to have a go. 

When Barbara did hers she used a Big and Juicy ink pad in Mountain Meadow. I thought I'd have a go at doing it in black. It took quite a bit of brayering to build up the colour but I was really pleased with how it turned out. It only took one go too!

I used one of my Spellbinders Petite Ovals dies to cut out a mask for the white part of the spotlight and built up the black and grey around it using Adirondack Pitch Black on Claritycard. My Splodge Mat is a great help for things like this.

The sentiment is stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed with silver detail powder.

Once I'd finished that I made a matching background by covering a sheet of Clarity paper with the Jazz Montage stamp.

Stamps Used

Jazz Man

Jazz Montage

May All Your Dreams Come True

Lynne

x

Lily's Boudoir

I had a fab day at Doncaster yesterday. I don't get to meet up with fellow crafters very often so it was lovely to be able to do that. I also had a fab time watching Barbara demonstrating the Gelli plate. I picked up a lot of tips and bought several of the gorgeous new stencils. I then spent yesterday afternoon practising what I'd learnt.  It didn't get an "It's not one of your better efforts" from Mum and Dad so I think I must be improving!

Anyway, back to my June samples. In the past when I've made cards like this I've used patterned papers but this time I thought I'd make my own Clarity wallpaper. I used the Camelia stamp, Adirondack ink in Mountain Rose and I ink, blot, blot, plotted it. This required a lot of concentration, not one of my specialities!  I ink, blot **** the first time so I had to start again. It's a good job that no one could see me sat in my craft room saying to myself "Ink, blot, blot, plot" over and over again!

The carpet was done using the same ink applied with an Ink Duster.

The wrought iron furniture is stamped in Versamark, then heat embossed with gold fine detail powder.

The Clarity Characters are stamped in black Archival.

I found some lovely Bazzill card in my stash that matched really well and finished the card off with some matting and layering. It is embossed with the Spellbinders Garden Lattice M-Bossibilities folder as I thought this went well with the wrought iron.

I think Lily's boudoir looks a lot prettier than the magnolia woodchip in mine!

Stamps Used

Camelia

Remountable Wrought Iron Dolls House Set

Remountable Clarity Characters

Lynne

x

I Can See You!

This was the first card I made with the stamps for Lesson 18.

There's not really much to explain about this card. It's very simple but it was one of my favourites from this month. 

The stamping is all done with black Archival Ink, then I added a bright yellow sun and a blue sky with fluffy clouds. The rest of the card evolved from that. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I'm off to Doncaster tomorrow for the Stamp Magic Show at The Dome. It will be great to see Barbara and the rest of the Clarity team. I'm sure some Clarity goodies will fall into my basket and I'm also looking forward to meeting up with a couple of my online friends. It should be a good day.

Stamps Used

Lesson 18 - The Birdhouse and Picket Fence Set

Lynne

x

A Walk In The Countryside Card

I like making cards like this...

....where the scene tells a story.

Lily is having a fun time flying her kite and Laurel is out for a lovely country walk with her dog. This led me to a dilemma - I thought that Laurel was perfect to use with the dog as with her outstretched arms she looks like she's calling her. The problem with this is that the dog stamp is facing the wrong way. I first thought of colouring the dog chocolate and renaming Laurel, Lynne. I would be standing there frantically trying to get Maya's attention and she would be running off thinking "I've not quite finished yet, there's something interesting over here.  I'll be back in a minute". In the end I decided to use my Splodge mat and reverse the dog. As it was paler than the rest of the images I then went around the outline of it with a fine black pen. Problem solved.

I always email photos of my cards to Mum and Dad when I've made them. I call them my Design Team as they often have ideas for me and give me lots of feedback. Their verdict on this one was "It's not one of your better efforts". When it was on TV Barbara and Dean were talking and the camera was focussed on it for quite a while. This made me laugh as I knew Mum and Dad would be watching!

Stamps Used

Remountable Wrought Iron Dolls House Set

Remountable Clarity Characters Set

Small Birds In Flight

Grasses 5

Lynne

x

Beaded Felt Toadstools Card

Thank you so much for the kind comments on here and FB about my samples from the weekend. They are really appreciated.

People often ask me where I get my ideas from; this one came from an ATC theme - Texture. I'd been racking my brains for ages trying to think of something arty to do for it, (in desperation I even had the idea of brayering a picture on Clarity card and saying my texture was "Smooth").............

.......... when I realised that the little dots on the toadstools would be perfect for beading. I've watched (and bought) shopping telly craft for many years and I used to love the Bucilla felt kits that were on QVC.

Luckily I still had lots of left over bits and very soon I'd made this cute little ATC. As I liked it so much I thought I'd make a card version as one of my Clarity samples.

It's quite simple to do. I stamped the toadstools twice on white (cream for the ATC) felt and once on red with Stazon. Like decoupage, I sewed a second layer of the largest toadstool on top of the medium one as it is in the front. The pearl seed beads were sewn onto the red before I cut it out, as I thought it would be less fiddly. Once I done that I sewed it all together.

After a long discussion on FB about the merits of various glues, I stuck the completed toadstools onto the card with UHU. It did the job brilliantly.

The dies used on the card are from Spellbinders Decorative Labels Eight.

Stamps Used

Lesson 17 - Toadstool and Hares Kit

Autumn Verse from Remountable Maple Leaves Set

Grass from Remountable Garden Set

Lynne

x

June's Clarity Samples

Yet another fab weekend of Claritystamp shows on Create and Craft TV. I always get so inspired when I watch Barbara and see the samples from the rest of the Design Team.

These are mine. As usual I will be blogging each one individually over the coming days.  I had such fun making them and even picked up a needle and thread for the toadstool one!

I'm not surprised that the next lesson stamps have been a big hit.  I particularly enjoyed creating with those. I've since made a birthday card with them that I will also be blogging soon.

My civil partnership card (from my previous blog post) that I made for the Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog made an appearance too.

Which bit was your favourite? I really enjoyed the demos with the Gelli plate. The new stencils look fab and are on my shopping list for the Doncaster Dome show next weekend. Before then I need to get my Father's Day cards made. Busy, busy, busy!

Happy stamping,

Lynne

x

Civil Partnership Card

It's the first of the month, so that means the start of a new challenge on the Clarity Stamp Challenge Blog.  The theme for June is "Mr & Mrs" which can include weddings and anniversaries.

I've gone for "Mr & Mr" and made a civil partnership card.

I wanted to it to be masculine, so I've chosen a black and white colour scheme and kept the design really simple with minimal embellishments. The white card is all Centura Pearl Snow White. It has a lovely sheen to it that doesn't really show up in my photo. I think it works especially well with embossing folders. The one I've used here is a Spellbinders Grand M-Bossibilities - Garden Lattice.

Mr & Mr is cut out on my Silhouette Cameo from "Cha Cha swirl" letters by Samantha Walker. These were purchased from the Silhouette Store.

"On Your Special Day" is heat embossed in black onto card cut with a Spellbinders Floral Ovals die. A thin black mat was cut with my Cameo and it was stuck on with Pinflair glue gel to raise it from the surface.

Douglas was stamped twice to make the grooms. They are coloured in with ProMarkers and stuck on with foam pads.

I'd originally ordered some wide black ribbon for this card but when I was putting Hubby's washing away I spotted his bow ties! Unfortunately he wasn't quite as excited by my crafty idea as I was, so I had to buy one. You can get them really cheaply though, this one was £3.20 from Amazon but I also got one for £1.59 on eBay and that included P&P! When you think about how much some embellishments can be I didn't think that was too bad. The band is stuck on with Red Liner Tape and I added some Pinflair to secure the bow as it is quite weighty.

Well that's my take on the theme, I look forward to seeing what everybody else comes up with. Don't forget there's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner (chosen at random).

Stamps Used

Douglas

On Your Special Day

Lynne

x