Father's Day Card

Had to share this card made by my 5 year old granddaughter.    Didn't she do well?

She loves using my little Card-io stamps, they are just right for her little fingers.   She chose which stamps she wanted and the colours.

I even taught her how to use my Tim Holtz stamping platform.  She soon got the hang of it, and it made it so much easier for her to stamp.

We then used my Clarity Stamp Alphabet.  Again these are nice and small for her fingers.  I calculated the middle of the sentiment for her abd wrote it out for her to copy, and showed her how to start stamping from the middle and work outwards.  (She originally wanted Happy Fathers Day - but we decided that the space available would make it look a bit cramped so we added the "For" at the top.)

She chose to mount the design on gray pearlescent card, so all she has to do now is put in a white insert and write inside.

Birthday Card

Made this for my brother in law, having been inspired by the Card-io demos on Hochanda earlier in the week, and thankful that my order arrived pdq, and was able to put in to practice what I had seen.

I know these stamps are going to be really useful for men's cards.  I shall get a bit more adventurous with them the more I play and do more "double" colouring of the stamps.   (In fact I did a bit with the grandchildren today, as they love these little stamps.  I have them on Tuesday so the plan is to make some Father's Day cards with them.)

We also played with some of the other stamps in the sets that I bought - a bbq, a chiminea, a washing line, which they loved particularly the little pegs! and I taught them how to make the washing look wet with the use of glossy accents, and to make rain drops.  (They had great fun showing their Dad how they did that - just glossy accents dropped onto card and a pin dragged through it - see the end of the hose pipe on the card and the paint dripping from the paint brushes).

I will add here that we had a great party last night for the two family birthdays - so nice to get both sides of the family together for a celebration rather than a funeral.  They couldn't get the hall originally wanted, and in hindsight we were so pleased, as the venue chosen was just perfect for a family gathering, with even room for a bit of disco dancing.  Perfick!      We even got to go outside and watch the ISS pass over - many of the family hadn't seen it before.   Last night was a beautiful long 20 minute pass, and as we were on the edge of a field in the middle of the village with no street lights, it really was a great sight!  In fact my daughter who is a keen follower of the space station, said she must make a note of such a good place to watch it in future - lol!

70th Birthday Cake

My brother-in-law not only lives in Brighton, but is a Brighton and Hove Albion supporter,  He also enjoys sea fishing.    Obviously the cake had to reflect these interests.   His daughter-in-law has also arranged a party for him and the theme is blue and white!  

My daughter had been to Brighton, and had taken some lovely photos of the pier, seagulls and some pebbles on the beach, so I "borrowed" them and they were amalgamated for the background.

I had a cartoon of a fisherman, which I recoloured and then found a picture of real fish that I adapted to fit on the line.

Obviously I had to incorporate the football team logo, albeit they are known as the seagulls, so I had already put them in the picture!

Originally I was going to just make an oblong cake with an oblong picture, but then decided to use my T-shirt pan - and try out some airbrushing to get the football team strip on it.    Not too bad an attempt.

Obviously I wasn't going to put 70 candles on the cake - so was quite pleased to find these in our little cake shop.

cake with candles

Hope he likes it!   (Well tough if he doesn't - it is the first time I have ever made him a cake - so if he doesn't like it - it will be the last - lol!)

Chocolate rose swirls

The birthday girl wanted chocolate sponge and buttercream roses!    So this is what she got!  Well swirly roses at least.

I will also confess I should take note of what I teach other people to do when planning the writing - start in the middle and work out .......... but I was tired last night and just wanted to finish the cake, thus I didn't follow my own teaching and nearly ran out of room for her name!  duh!

Hopefully she won't notice, as long as it tastes ok!

Black and White

Granddaughter No 2 is 11 today, and her favourite colours at the moment are black and white,.

The card we made using my new clarity flower stamps and leaves, with a Card-io butterfly and some infil leaf stamps.  The flower stamps are lovely as they come with masks, so was able to use these and my new Tim Holtz stamping platform for the background.   (Love my stamping platform and love the masks, although I could possible do with another set; as if you want to stamp the same size flower you have to fiddle with the other size masks)

All the stamping was done with black Stazon and then the background layer was painted using a grey memento ink, and the centres had white puffy paint added.

I then stamped and cut out some more flowers, this time keeping them white with black puff paint for the centres.   All the petals and leaves, both on the background and the cut out ones, had transparen paper effects applied to them.

Finally I stamped her name with the Clarity Alphabet, and mounted the card on black card, and then onto the white card blank.

I didn't both with writing Happy Birthday or her age on the front of the card, as I thought if she wanted she could put it in a frame for a piece of wall art for her bedroom.

Oopa!

Yes it was an oops moment - I forgot a pal's birthday !    So it was out with some stamps to make something pdq.

I used my Card-io stamps and my Clarity Fairy stamps.as well as my Clarity Alphabet.   The table, umbrella, balloon ad grass were Cardio, and the flowers, fairies and toadstools were Clarity.

I masked off the bottom of the card and added some green and some blue memento inks to create he background first, using a dry wet wipe.

When I had finished the stamping I ran a blue memento pad around he edge of the card.

Experimenting!

Having watched a demo where they painted with Tonic Nuvo Mousse which had water added to it, I wondered if you could paint with watered down Imagination Crafts Starlight Wax ...........

YOU CAN!

Firstly I painted the whole of the outside of this little wooden "basket" (for want of a better word) with the watered down Black Wax - no previous preparation  - just straight on on to the bare wood. (If it hadn't worked I was going to apply black gesso first, but it wasn't needed).  (It probably would have been a good idea to paint the whole thing first with black gesso, but that wasn't he point of the experiment).

Today I have over painted the panels with watered down Dark Orchid Wax, Antique Pink Wax, and then got brave and tried Pentart Chameleon Wax Paste in Blue - this didn't like being watered down, so it was applied with a brush and my finger.  The final panel had watered-down Deco Art Metallic Lustre applied (colour Lavish Green).

As you are supposed to be able to stamp with the Starlight Wax, I then experimented with this using white gold for the butterflies and dragon flies, pearl for the leaves, but on the green background I used the Black wax to make it show up more.  (Stamps used were Clarity Stamps).   Stamped images are not perfect, but then I was stamping straight on to wood and not a smooth surface.

The top edge and the edges of the hearts outlines had more neat pearl wax applied and the corner edges had m.sky wax applied, both using my finger.

The inside had a coat of black gesso applied to it.  Finally a coat of spray and shine was applied - ok the outside didn't need it, but I just kept going after spraying the inside!

Yes it is a mishmash of effects, but it was an experimental piece and will be used in my Den for storage!  (Let's face it if I get fed up with I can always apply black gesso and start again!)

Panel using Starlight Wax - Dark Orchid
Stamped with White Gold Pearl

Panel using Starlight Wax - Antique Piunk

Panel "painted" with neat Blue Pentart Chameleon Wax Paste 

Panel painted with watered-down Lavish Green DecoArt Metallic Lustre
stamped with Black Starlight Wax (I actually stamped leaves in blue first,
but hey didn't show up well - so over-stamped in Black)

Trying a rustic look

Managed to have a little play this week and trying an experiment.   I wanted a sort of rustic/shabby chic look on this little crate.  Photo isn't brilliant as it has been chucking it down with rain, and I had to take the photo indoors.

I used Pebeo Deco Creme paints, which have a chalky finish effect.   I didn't prime the wood with gesso as the paints have a similar effect.

I started by painting the lower part with a dark grey, progressing through light grey and then adding white or some white gesso to the mix.

I double loaded the brush with the graduating shades and did some dry brushing in places to get the irregular rustic look.  I highlighted the grooves with the darker grey to make it resemble planks of wood more.

I then did some little folk art roses and leaves around the heart shapes.    The inside was just painted randomly with the various shades of grey.

Finally it was given a coat of Decoart Matt Varnish.

I have a little square version of this crate, and am trying a completely different experiment on that, which hopefully I will blog in the next couple of days

Birthday Cake

My son appears to like Simnel Cake (having eaten half of the one I made at Easter, and said to me "You can make that again!") So it was obvious what he would chose for his birthday cake!   The cake is the Mary Berry recipe with an almond paste layer cooked in the middle

I felt I couldn't just do a "marzipanned" cake  - so I designed this cake topper and got it printed on sugarpaste  Obviously apostles were not required on this cake, so I just made a load of little balls to decorate the edge.

I didn't apply almond paste to the sides, but discovered this ribbon in Sainsbury's so put two layers around the outside to disguise the cake sides.  (Note to self - probably should have bought a gold board too!) 

I didn't think his girls would like the fruit cake, so I made a few "fairy" cakes.   I did cheat slightly ad when I collected the cake topper, I bought some ready made printed wafer toppers with fairies on! Not quite his scene, but the girls will love them!

chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing and wafer toppers

I will know by the time this post is scheduled whether the cakes met with approval.

Birthday Card

You all know I hate men's cards, and I just didn't know what to do for my son's card.  I know he isn't really into steam punk, but I love it, so I am hoping he likes it.   At least it is masculine!

I used the Time Traveller dies from Sheena Douglass, and his name was from Leonie Pujol's alphabet dies.  Not sure whose dies the hash tag and numbers were from, as I seem to have file them without the packaging - oops!

Apart from the hourglass, he elements were all cut from black card.   I used sparkle pens on the balloon, but didn't like the effect so went over it again with Glitter Kiss, and then highlighted the embossing with Pebeo Gilding Wax.   The clock, propeller, fob and numbers just had gold and silver gilding wax applied.  The hour glass was cut from white card, and painted, and the compass insert was stamped on white card, and had distress inks applied.   The hourglass and the compass had glossy accents applied to give the appearance of glass.  The card was cream pearlescent card.

It was difficult to work out how to place the name, so I just stuck them down in a random fashion.

Feathers

I treated myself to a new die last week.  Not planned, was buying some interfacing at the time, and whilst meandering through the shop I saw this die and it was 20% off everything in the shop - well it was rude not to buy it!  It is a Sizzix die.

I finally got around to having a craft day today, as I have been so busy catching up with boring stuff like sorting out the garage, painting the Den and all the garden furniture whilst the weather was conducive to getting it done.  Anyway today was play day.  I used black card and then Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Kiss over the feathers.   The photo doesn't show up the colours that well, but from left to right they are pale green, silver and sky blue.   I am going to love this die!

Dream Catcher

Work in Progress

I had incredible fun today.  I have been meaning to paint another dream catcher for a few months. The last one I did was in gold and creams with added pearls.  (The dream catcher came from Craftwood Creations - well worth looking at their lovely mdf bits!)

I decided to paint this one as if it had a wooden ring and black cord.   The outer ring was painted with shades of brown and cream and sponged with more brown and had a smidgen of gold gilding paste applied around the edge and in carious places, in an attempt to make it appear "weathered".

The "cord" was painted with black Pebeo acrylic, and the wording had Siolver and Gold Pebeo Gilding wax applied to it.

The feathers were treated to a very thin coat of white Pebeo gesso, and thenpainted with a variety of pale Pebeo creme colours, taupe, cream, white, grey and finally pearl.   The front of the feathers were fairly easy as the MDF had guide line markings on them.  Getting the backs to look the same was more of a challenge, but can report the result was good, as I had to check when hanging them that they were the correct way round!

Almost finished

A coat of weather resistant acrylic lacquer was then applied to all the elements,   When dry I strung the feathers on cotton, adding some hematite beads, and some beading cord used for the hanger at the top.  (You can see the detail of the painting on the ring in this quite clearly).

Having taken the above photo outdoors on the back gate - I realised I hadn't stuck the wording on! - so here is the completed project hanging in my hall.

Finished

I probably should add here that the back and front of the project were painted identically (including the wording - so that should it be hung where it can be seen from both sides - they would both be the same.

A Giraffe and some experimenting

I had a play day yesterday.   I have had this little MDF giraffe for a while (one of the family is into giraffes).  I have some new mini stencils, and a couple of them were perfect for the giraffe.

I treated the MDF with a thin coat of white gesso and then got out my pebeo paints. the "background" was painted with Pebeo créme and then I sponged various shades of browns from my Pebeo acrylics though the stencils, and sponged a little more onto the legs.   The eye detail was created with a black micron pen.  I am pleased with the result.

My second play was an experiment with some Pebeo sand texture through some of the stencils onto card which had been treated with black gesso. I then applied various shade of Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Kiss.

The effects look better in real life, but I think the Glitter Kiss would be more effective applied to an embossed detail, as it didn't seem to want to adhere that well to the sand texture.   However, you have to experiment to know what works and what doesn't!