Hello

Wisdom - as the end of the year is rapidly approaching it got me to thinking about what, if anything, is learnt in the 12 months of a calendar year.  Does each year bring new wisdom that we build upon or is wisdom ephemeral, that feeling of gaining wisdom only for it to suddenly disappear from our grasp. This was in my thought as I set about working on this project.

Katzelkraft Unmounted Rubber Stamp Set Herbes Folles KTZ272
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set The Language of Trees Set 1
Dina Wakley Media Collage Tissue Elements 
That's Crafty! Surfaces Craftyboard Circles
That's Crafty! Surfaces MDF 
That's Crafty! Pearl Inks Black, Tree Bark
That's Crafty! Medium Walnut Ink Powder
That's Crafty! Multi-Purpose Craft Adhesive 
That's Crafty! Stencil A4 Circles TC40002
Archival Ink Pad Jet Black 
Watercolour Paper 

Although I used a MDF panel as the surface, this would work as a journal page which is an idea I might work on into the New Year.

After cutting/tearing watercolour paper to size of substrate, it was misted with water, just lightly at this stage before applying walnut ink followed by the Pearl Inks, leaving flat to air dry. Once dry, Black Pearl Ink was splattered. This was then adhered to the MDF surface.

For the focal, a piece of painted, scrap cardstock was layered to a Craftyboard circle and to this, adhering one of the Dina Wakley Elements circles.  

Selecting a stamp from the Katzelkraft set, it was first stamped onto the Craftyboard circle element and then again onto scrap piece of found paper.

Taking the found piece of paper with the stamped image, the top end layering scrap piece of fabric with a piece from the Tissue Paper.  At the other end, the word Wisdom this time stamped onto scrap of painted cardstock and layered to the found paper.  

Just before adhering the Craftyboard circle to the panel, the word Wisdom was repeatedly stamped a few times then to this, tearing some of the small marks from another sheet from the Elements Tissue Paper, adding a sprinkle of them.  

Finally, a small circle was cut using the That's Crafty! A4 Circles Stencil - it was a piece of deli paper used as underpaper, catching Pearl Inks. 

I just added a scrap of this and that with a primitive cross-stitch to bring detail to the upper corner and throughout, a black watersoluble pencil was used to create depth and definition.

For those who celebrate Christmas, I wish you the happiest of times and just to pause to thank you for your visits to the posts and for your support for my stamp designs. Also a shout-out to Laura and Graham, to all the D.T. at That's Crafty and Jo Channon.

Festive Wishes

Lynne

Merry Christmas everyone!

My last post of this year features a trio of fairly clean and simple cards which are really easy to make and can easily be made in bulk and involve a bit of therapeutic colouring too.

I've done 2 different card designs as I couldn't quite make up my mind between square cards and rectangular ones so I decided to make both!

The rectangular version is on a sheet of A4 smooth white card that was cut into 4 A6 size pieces and I chose to use 5 x 7 card blanks so that a good bit of the kraft card was showing for a lovely contrast.

I took a set of lovely seasonal greenery stamps designed by our Melina and as I wanted to add a seasonal text panel across the centre, it didn't actually matter if the stamping underneath looked a bit messy. 

 

I chose various stamps from the set and stamped them on the A6 panels with black ink so that I had sprigs pointing upwards and downwards. I then coloured the images with Zig brush pens as shown below.

To turn the panels into cards, I added a contrasting mat in red or purple to tone with the berries and created the text panel by stamping it on a strip of white card with embossing ink and heat embossing it with gold powder. I added red or purple then gold card mats to the text and glued everything to a kraft card blank measuring 5 x 7 inches.

The square card was created on a square of smooth white card cut to fit a kraft card blank and leave a narrow border. I stamped berry sprigs all around the edges, leaving rooom for the text I planned to add.

I coloured the images as before with Zig brush pens and stamped the Christmas text on at the bottom right of the panel. I added a little colour with red and green pens.

 

I glued the panel to my card blank to finish. Very easy to do and a great way to make a batch of cards.

Kraft Card Blanks

Scraps of Red and Purple Card

Have a really great Christmas and see you next year!

The tag itself is a #8 That's Crafty! white/greyboard tag which I covered with a piece cut from a paint printed background that I'd made quite a while ago now using a gel plate, paints and giant bubble wrap.

Once adhered to the tag I spritz the background lightly with a shimmer spray and caught the sides, top and bottom of the tag with white paint.

Some light text ink stamping then sat beneath some stenciled snowflakes which were created by applying Tim Holtz Distress Texture Paste through his 'Flurries' layering stencil.

 

The dimensional textured snowflake with a touch of sparkle was embellished with an Idea-ology fluted star topped with an eyelet.  

I hope you've enjoyed your time here with me today. Thanks for stopping by. 

It's my last post before the design team take a break over Christmas so I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas/ Happy Holidays. 

I thought this week I would show an alternative make using the Palace Triptych this time using one of my favourite go to background techniques - crackle. I did not bother to prime the MDF as I knew I was going to be adding layers so started by painting the MDF with Chestnut Brown Multi Surface Paint. Once that had dried I added a layer of That's Crafty! Crackle Glaze leaving it to dry naturally before using a sponge to add a layer of Old Ivory Allegro paint and letting the magic happen.

I then fussy cut out lots of elements from the Winter Tales Collectables pack, selecting those that went with the theme that I had in mind before working out how I wanted my composition to look which allowed me to take a wreath from the Christmas Garlands decorative chips set and then divide it into two pieces so that on the finished pieces it has the illusion of being wider than it actually is. For this make I have left the Decorative Chips in their natural state as I felt this worked well with the neutral colour palette I had chosen. 

  

I recently shared a journal spread featuring the Katzelkraft Mushpignons stamp set.  Well I thought I would share another spread from that very same That's Crafty! art journal I was working in.