Feeling Fruity

Something a bit fruity for you today.

This is a great stamp set from Sunny Studio called 'Fresh & Fruity' and it screamed out to be coloured in bright, zingy colours.

I started with a 6" × 6" piece of card and stamped a selection of fruits all over it and coloured them with Zig Clean Colour Brush markers. I used a scalloped border die from MFT to cut the card in half and stuck that piece on my first card base (see card above)

I was originally going to make 2 identical cards using the other half but then I decided to cut out the fruits from the other bit and create a fruity scene instead. 

I painted Glossy Accents on all of the fruits and added some sequins (gotta have sequins). The sentiments are from Altenew's 'Painted Greetings'.

See yer next time.

Acrylic Pouring No 1

 Something a bit different from me today ... Acrylic Pouring.

I recently discovered an amazing lady from Holland called Annemarie Ridderhof and her brilliant Acrylic Pouring tutorials on YouTube. Annemarie is one of those artists who 'gives' constantly. A lot of artists won't share their techniques or answer questions. Annemarie gives everything, she goes over and over her technique, answers everyones questions and even tries out experiments on behalf of us crafters to save us the expense of things going wrong. She is one of those people that makes this world a better place and I can't thank her enough for sharing her knowledge.

I really do encourage you to check out her YouTube videos if you're interested in giving this a go.

Now before I go any further I must tell you that I haven't mastered this technique yet, I'm getting there but I have a way to go before I perfect it. Eventually I hope to make some canvas wall art and cards with my finished pieces ... at least that's the plan.

Prepare yourself for an initial outlay for tools, paints, mixatives and accessories and prepare BIG TIME to get messy. There are lots of variations on materials used, lots of experimenting with alternative products, so if you are going to give this a go, check out all of the available videos first before you dash out and spend your hard earned cash. 

In my experiment I used a decent brand of white acrylic and 3 cheap coloured brands. (Check out the videos regarding using opaque & transparent colours). I put a squirt of each colour paint into a plastic cup and then added Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and hair serum to each cup and stirred until I had a fluid stream of liquid. I then poured a bit of each colour, white first, into a fresh cup..a bit of white, then each colour, then repeated until I'd used up all of my paint.

I then put my piece of Yupo (you can use a canvas, wood, MDF, etc...) over the top of my cup, CAREFULLY flipped it over and placed it onto my make-shift drip tray (which is a cheap, foil, meat tray with 5 upside down plastic cups on which to balance my paper...the idea being that the paint can drip off the sides).

Leave the cup in place for a short while, wait for the paint to drop inside, then lift...et voila! (The photo above).

Wait and watch those cells (bubble-looking effect) appear. You then blow torch the paint and encourage more cells to be produced (photo above). This is what the hair serum is supposed to create. Hair serum is a cheap / nicer smelling alternative to sillicone / dimethicone.

Now it's at this stage that I am still learning, as now you are supposed to tilt the Yupo, or whatever you are using, and allow the paint to spread around. For some reason I am losing those beautiful cells as the paint stretches....Grrrr. I am getting a beautiful pattern but what I'm aiming for is a pattern AND cells (a stetched version of the 'spotty' photo above). 

I decided to mix up some more yellow, brown and white, with a tad more serum, and streaked it across the Yupo, blow torched it again and managed to get a 'lacing' effect in the yellow patch at the bottom.

I then totally lost my mind and sprinkled some silver glitter.

Here's a close up of one portion.

So it's early days in my experimenting with Acrylic Pouring, it's frustrating, but when I finally 'get it' the reward will be huge as the results can be breathtaking.

If you fancy giving this a go, check out Annemarie Ridderhof on YouTube and join the Acrylic Pouring Basics page on Facebook where we all encourage each other.

Bundles of Blossom

Ahoy! Me again.

With Mother's Day on the horizon, this is the card I've made for my MIL.

The background stamp is 'Bundles of Blossom' from MFT and it's flamin' gorgeous.

I die cut the word MUM using Altenew's Bold Alphabet dies but kept the letters in place while I coloured the pattern with Promarkers. 

Then I popped them out and stuck them back in again with foam pads for a bit of dimension.

To finish, a scattering of tiny 'Pink Peony' sequins from Pretty Pink Posh (Wow! That's a tongue twister).

See you again soon.

Altenew - Simple Flowers

Cooooeeeey!

My card today features Altenew's 'Simple Flowers' stamp set and a chocolate Mint Aero colour scheme.

Got you thinking about chocolate now, haven't I? ...lol

I recently bought myself all of the Brilliance Dewdrop inks from Tsukineko. They're older inks, been around for yonks, but they are beautiful, rich, pearlescent or metallic colours. You can buy them individually or in sets of 4 (cheaper) and they're really juicy inks.

These 4 colours came from the Tree House collection, beautiful greens and a rich chocolate colour. 

This was really easy to make... I cut a strip of card, stamped my images and added Nuvo Crystal Drops in Dark Walnut and Apple Green and then stuck the panel to my card base.

Ta-Da!

Now go and treat yourself to a chocolate bar.

Shaking Floral Frenzy

Hello and thank you for stopping by.

Today has been a beautiful day...the sun's been shining, birds singing, I've rescued a trapped butterfly and been feeding a poorly bee with sugar water. Not sure if he's going to survive though as I could see what looked like a mite on him... 🙁

My card today is for my lovely cousin's daughter Kira and I've gone shaker-crazy with a floral frenzy of bright colours. I love making cards like this with stamped images all over them, bit like theraputic colouring books.

I used MFT's 'Bold Blooms' stamps and Momento Dye inks (Lilac Posies, Dandelion, Tangelo, Grape Jelly and Rose Bud).

The sequins and beads were from my stash (sorry can't remember where I got them from) and the lettering made using Altenew's 'Bold Alphabet' die set.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend.

Colouring with Polychromos

I thought I would step out of my comfort zone and have a go at colouring with pencils. I've had the Faber-Castell Polychromos for ages but I just keep looking at them and stroking them occasionally.

So it was time to put these bad boys into action, well...3 of them, Grass Green, Light Purple Pink and Dark Chrome Yellow. 

I used the stunning Beautiful Day stamp set by Altenew which is a layering stamp set but I just used the flower and leaf outline bits. This card is for a fellow crafter who needs some encouragement.

As always, the hardest part of this card was getting those darned sequins in just the right place but I got there eventually.

Time to colour card = 1hr

Time to position sequins = 3 days

Better Late Than Never

A quickie from me today.

I made the background for this card quite a while back and then completely forgot about it in the mayhem that is my teeny, tiny, crafty corner of the living room.

Hopefully you can make out the alcohol ink colours that I used, along with my Tim Holtz air spritzing thingy-m-bob, to move the alcohol about. I love the 'ocean wave' effect you can get with blue inks and Snow Cap mixative.

When the warmer weather comes and I can open a window to ventilate the room, I plan to do some more inky creations. The fumes are the downside, so you need good ventilation when playing with alcohol inks.

In the end I simply added a die-cut sentiment and some turquoise sequins et voila!