Frosty & Bright plaque

Good Morning,
It seems rather appropriate to be posting this little plaque now the weather has turned so chilly, Brrrrrr...
The plaque itself is MDF and approx 15x8cm
I decorate many of these which I sell at market events.
The design is created on card and then stuck onto the plaque.
I used Pan Pastels to colour the background, white, turquoise,blue tint and phthalo blue, creating the hills and winter sun/moon effect.
Then I stamped the horse, foal and foliage from stamps in my stash, the naked tree is from Clarity stamps.
The frost is simply glossy accents and glamour dust
Finished off by adding sparkly fibres threaded through to hang and that's it!
Hope you like it and thank you for visiting.

Film strip sports card

Another week started, hope everyone had a lovely weekend and that the start to the week has been a good one.
How are all your Christmas preparations coming along, are you organised or not wanting to think about it too much just yet, such a busy time eh.
I've plenty to keep me occupied just now with Christmas craft events just around the corner, stock to make orders to fill...
Turning away from the Christmas theme I thought I'd share the latest card commission I did with you all.

I used stamps from the Clarity Sports and Letterbox kits and stuck to monochrome colouring.
I'm not always great with masculine themed cards, something to work on there I think.
I stamped the images onto Clarity card with an Archival inkpad, there in lies another challenge! and used a filmstrip or ribbon edge punch that I have in my stash to create the edges.
I then used a distress inkpad, Pumice Stone and sponged the edges of the "filmstrip"pieces
The main image was mounted flat onto a piece of black gloss card along with the George section.
The other pieces were mounted using foam pads to raise them slightly.
Then I mounted the whole thing on to a white card base.
I think I'll adapt this technique for some more designs...
Hope you like it and thank you for popping by.
Karen xXx

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