Sending you Sunshine...

Another sample made for the Clarity TV shows last weekend.

When I was sent this set of stamps I immediately turned to the Splodge-A-Mask "Sunburst" to create this card. A lovely look at the sun before winter truly sets in!

It was an easy card, using just two Distress ink pads, Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade.

I first blended the Mustard Seed in the centre of the mask and around the "sunburst" then gradually blended in some Spiced Marmalade. The outside flourish corners of the mask were just the Spiced Marmalade.

I stamped the children playing having masked off the outer section of the sun in order to contain the image within just the centre, then stamped the tree and the Sending you Sunshine phrase. The card candy was added and the whole thing mounted on a black card base.

Hope you've had a good weekend...

Just done a bit of a blog hop to catch up on what everyone has been up to and all the lovely creations that have been made.
Thank you to everyone who has stopped by my new blog and left comments and taken a look around also on my Facebook page, it's very much appreciated!
I really enjoyed the Clarity TV shows this weekend, very inspirational as always.
The tasks for the following week are to finish blogging the samples I made for Clarity, to catch up on some orders, make stock for forthcoming markets, enter some of the wonderful challenges out there and make some more samples for the next Clarity shows. That should keep me busy enough!
Thanks again everyone and I hope you have a good week ahead.
Back soon, night night for now
Karen xXx

Christmas Bauble samples using Clarity, Twas the Night & Splodge mat

Three bauble designs using the Twas The Night Clarity Stamps 8, 9 and 10 (Toys, Rooftop and Fireplace)
I stamped and embossed each design on to card circles, the images were coloured using pro-markers. I added some white stickles to the blue version on the chimney top for snow and glitter on the moon. Then using the Splodge mat and Distress inks I blended ink in from the edge of each circle. The rosettes were made by edging the length of a sheet of A4 white paper with a border die put through the Grand Calibur. I then cut the width to 6cm. These were then coloured blended again using the splodge mat and distress inks and stamped randomly with Clarity Christmas miniature stamps to create a background. Each strip was then folded length ways at 1cm intervals and two 6cm lengths were joined together with glue to form each rosette. Bakers twine was threaded through the top of each to finish off.
More samples from today's show soon, thanks for reading
Karen xXx                                                 
                                                      

ATC's using Clarity Stamps

No 1 - Theme of Summer

In May I was fortunate enough to attend Barbara Gray's 2 day workshop retreat at Cowden. This was one of the most amazing craft experiences ever! Barbara is such a warm hearted and generous lady with a wealth of talent and skills to offer. I was truly blown away and the whole thing left me quite emotional and reflective.
I was also lucky enough to meet the most incredible bunch of crafters whom I now consider to be great and loyal friends. We have all since kept in touch in our "special" little group ;-) and one of the ladies had the great idea of starting a Clarity ATC swap between us. Now I have never made Artist Trading Cards before so this was a challenge, artwork fitted on to 2.5" x 3.5" pieces of card to give inspiration to others as well as being little keepsake to treasure. There are 14 of us in the group so 13 different "themes" were chosen, one for each month, and each month we make and send our little work of art to a member on the list in rotation so that everyone gets their own little keepsake. By the end we will have all collected 13 mini masterpieces!
I thought I'd share my makes with you one here so that they may hopefully be of some inspiration and give you some ideas.

The first month was "Summer" and I wanted to create a beautiful summer's day!...

I worked out the proportions on the card and lightly sketched the gingham cloth. The sun was masked using a circle cut from a 1" pinch and the clouds added along with the greenery and hills. The other section of the sun mask was used to enable me to colour the sun. I then stamped the pear tree and the flight of birdsand the kite. I coloured the leaves on the tree with a green pro-marker and nib. I then stamped and coloured the tea set and cake, coloured again with pro-markers. Once this was done I could fill in my gingham cloth using a pro-marker and ruler as a guide. The kite was stamped again to enable me to decoupage it and add the ribbon. Also the cake and top of the cake stand were stamped and decoupaged. As a finishing touch I added the mini ric-rac to the cloth edge and glossy accents to the china to make it more realistic.

All Clarity stamps used - Kite, Pear tree, Flight of birds and stamps from the the remountable baking set.

I hope you like this little offering, another coming soon...
Karen xXx

Nature ATC (No 2)

Ok the second month's subject was "Nature" and it sounds easy but I was lacking inspiration for this one!

I then came up with the idea of creating some sort of nature trail or map - 

I used distress inks to create the brown and green background adding hills and texture. The hardest part about this was the positioning of all the little elements. I stamped the letters to form the words Nature Trail, positioning the wayfarer sign in between the two words. I then added the pheasent and the robin. The deer a part of a larger stamp so I had to mask of the sections of my card I didn't want the rest of the stamp to touch in order to get the elemnts in that I wanted. It was finished by adding a variety of trees, masking some areas to create the hedging. 

All satmps are found on the Clarity website.
More to follow, thanks for looking
Karen xXx

Autumn ATC (No3)

I was rapidly running out of time for this one!
Luckily I had a preview of some of the new stamps for this weekend's TV shows on C&C to prepare some samples from. So I decided to go with these and good old faithful "Puck" such a lovely and versatile stamp!

I wanted to create "Autumn Tints" and the feel of the falling leaves all crisp and crunching.

I wanted to use orange tints with a rich plummy colour so I chose distress inks Aged Mahogony and Spiced Marmalade to blend on the base using the oh so clever and amazing Splodgemat!

The leaf border at the bottom will be new on the show tomorrow, you can't see it all here but it's fab! I stamped this in Walnut Stain distress ink. Puck was simply stamped in Aged Mahogony, coloured with pro-markers and decoupaged. For the leaves I lightly blended Spiced Marmalade again onto paper and stamped the leaves in Aged Mahogony before cutting out and screwing up to give great texture. I attached them with foam pads. My favourite product of the moment is Beadazzles, pots of tiny metalic glass beads and glitz which I stuck on randomly on the base using glossy accents to add detail and texture!

Hope you like this, next one will be in Nov, the theme of happiness, Ummmm

Thanks for looking 

Karen xXx

A Host of Golden Daffodils

I was asked about designing a clock with daffodils and here it is...

I used some stamps that have been in my stash for many years. They are silhouette stamps are are usually coloured before stamping with water based pens like Marvy La Plume. I used some Chalk Eye ink pads for the colouring on this occasion as they are a good shape to enable the detail on the stamps to be coloured. The background daffodils were 2nd/3rd generation ink to get a muted effect. I decoupaged some of the daffodil heads for dimension and blended ink at the base of the stems.

Thanks for looking
More to follow soon
Karen xXx