Clarity Blog Challenge is now live!

Woohoo the anticipation and wait is finally over and the Blog has now been launched.
I am so thrilled to be a part of this new challenge along with other lovely talented ladies.
We are all hoping you'll join in the fun over there with us.
claritystampchallenge.blogspot.co.uk
The theme for this first challenge is "Anything Goes" and it will run until the end of the month with the lucky winner receiving a £50 Clarity gift voucher!
Inspiration for me for this theme came from the latest Clarity Design Club stamp, which was a Celtic square, and my Gelli Plate.
I thought I'd do a card suited to a male theme and chose a Greek mosaic style adding the urns.
The monthly Clarity Design Club newsletter comes with a new design stamp each month.
This was my first efforts using the Gelli Plate and I started off by mixing and brayering acrylic paints onto the plate and then using the stamp to make an impression onto the painted surface.
I did this several times varying the paint colour and once dry I chose the best results and cut the mosaic squares into sections to assemble onto my design.
I mounted the cut out painted paper images onto card to strengthen them.
The centre images were layered up to form the design.
Before gluing into place I took the Crackle stamp and used this over my background to which I'd already blended ink from the Old Paper distress ink pad to give a distressed look.
I then stamped the crackle in a darker colour over the background ink.
The urns were created from the Versatile Vase which I embossed with gold embossing powder.
The centre floral motive is part of the remaining tiles cut, decoupaged and layered with foam pads.
It's going to be a busy weekend with the new Clarity Stamp arrivals on C&C on Sunday and I need to blog all my DT makes to share.
I was very inspired by this months stamps and made a total of 9 samples for the TV shows this month.
Thanks so much for looking at my blog and I hope you feel inspired by the Clarity Designs
Lots more blog postings to follow.....xKx

Male birthday card using Clarity Deerscape and Tree

Good afternoon,
What another stunning day outside, I'm having a good start to the week and hope yours is going well too.
I had got a bit behind with my making since the arrival of Frasier but now things are settling down a bit I am pleased to say I'm catching up and enjoying my crafting time.
I used the Clarity Deerscape and tree stamps along with the quote and best wishes greeting.
The panel was coloured and blended with Pan Patels
I think this offers a simple but striking effect xKx

Time to play with the Gelli Plate...

"Under the sea"
I've already had a little play with my latest craft room edition but the first results are under wraps until 1st March when all will be revealed in my Challenge sample make for the Clarity Design Blog!
I had to practise a bit to get the hang of it and get to grips with what I was trying to achieve.
Really anything goes with this technique but you can be more specific if you think about a design and do a bit of forward planning.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist so this type of "freedom" is a challenge for me!
Anyhow this is an idea I created using the plate, I wanted to achieve an under the sea background.
I used a mix of paints I had to hand, some acrylics and some tester pots of emulsion, which is water based so a good alternative to acrylic.
Because I wanted a particular effect I applied the paint colours in an order, the green and rusty orange at the base then the darker blue working up to the lighter blue colour.
I was careful to blend the lighter colour first with my brayer, working down to the darker shades.
The smaller type bubble wrap gave the illusion of water bubbles and helped blend the colours together a bit more.
A non pointed plastic tool was used to create the coral at the bottom of the seabed.
Using a Rainbow ink pad I then stamped the Clarity Fish, also the ovals from the Numeral Set and the lower case letters from the Letter Set for "under the sea".
Glossy accents glaze over the letter bubbles and a few bubbles around the fish.
I'm looking forward to having much more fun with the Gelli Plate!...xKx

Rose Tag

Another evening post from me with a quick make I did yesterday as an RSVP to an invitation, I decided a tag would do the job nicely.
Tag cut from linen textured card, coloured with pink and red Pan Pastels.
The Clarity Rose was stamped and white dots and faux stitching added with a white pen.
Finished with gems, ribbons and bakers twine, hope you're enjoying your Mon eve, thanks for popping by xKx

Last post of the weekend

A very quick and simple design using turquoise Pan Pastel blended on a linen textured card base.
Then stamping the Clarity flowers from the Bunny set in Broken China distress ink over the Pan Pastel background.
I then over stamped the Bunnies from the set in black Versafine ink and added the butterflies punched from white shimmer paper and some glamour dust sparkle on the background and the bunnies tails.
Layered on to contrasting cards with some gems and ribbon bow.
That draws my blogging to a close for this weekend and I wish you a peaceful and good nights sleep in readiness to start a fresh week tomorrow xKx

It's the weekend again and...

***Less than 2 weeks until the 1st challenge starts on the new Clarity Challenge Design Blog***

I quite like to sit and blog while having my first cup of tea of the day, it gives me chance to reflect and I find it a pleasant way to ease into the weekend. It's all quiet and peaceful, no radio or TV or daily bustle going on yet and Frasier is napping, so here we go.

I wanted to use the lovely Clarity rose stamp and verse  again but keep it really simple to show off its beauty. It is another very versatile stamp as I have tried to show in my previous brooch design where it's been découpage and layered.
I wanted to try and create a sort of photo print background so firstly I stamped the rose in 2nd generation London Fog Momento ink all over the white background card.
The rose and quote were stamped in Worn Lipstick distress ink and the rose then coloured with Cocktail Pink Pro-marker. Mounted on to a salmon pink pearlescent card with some ribbon and gems and a scallop square card base.
This was another sample I made for the Feb TV shows, I have two more still to share which will complete my Feb samples.
Hope you're enjoying your weekend so far... xKx

Rose brooch on a gift tag

Now for something different, I wanted to decoupage this lovely rose so I decided to do this but made with film and fibre.
I made several roses in this way and used them to make the layers for decoupage and once complete I added some glamour dust on the edges to give a frosty effect and then mounted on a brooch back.
I thought a nice way to give this as a gift would be to attach it to a matching tag.
The tag was coloured using distress ink, Worn Lipstick, and the roses stamped with 2nd generation ink. I then sprinkled some irridescent embossing powder over the whole of the tag and heated to set, this gave a gorgeous shimmer. The quote was stamped and mounted using foam pads, mixed threads finish off the completed tag. Makes a rather nice gift I think....xKx