Cards for Mays beginners card class

I've been playing with the Paper Artsy Infusions and preparing the cards for the attendees to make in this months beginners card class at Scrapbook  Magic on Monday 14th May.

They will be using the infusions to create backgrounds, colour texture paste and to paint with so lots of fun things to challenge them with.  Plenty of opportunity to get very inky fingers but also to see how many ways this medium can be used.

For all three cards I started covering a piece of cardstock slightly smaller than my base card with a page from an old book I'd picked up from a charity shop while on holiday last year.  I then added a layer of white gesso over the top as I knew I would be adding water or gel medium to the infusions so this would give it a sound base for adding the mixed media products.

For the lion card I used a Tim Holtz stencil from the mini stencil collection Set 4 and texture paste to give some dimension to the background. Olive Tree Infusions was then sprinkled onto this area and spritzed with water and I allowed it to run down the card.  I removed some of the colour using a baby wipe in areas I felt were too dark.  Using Golden Sands infusions onto some spare cardstock I created the pieces of card to go at the top and the bottom of the card which were cut out using a die from the First Editions Build A Scenes die set.  Using a stamp from the Graphic 45 Safari Adventure 3 stamp set I stamped out the lion twice and then fussy cut him out, inked him with Antique Linen distress ink and decoupaged him onto the card.  I also used a couple of the other stamps in this set across the top and a sentiment from Stampers Anonymous Simple Sayings CMS155.  All the edges were inked with black archival ink.

For the second card I sprinkled some infusions onto my craft mat, added some water and then made some splatters with a paint brush.  I put some texture paste onto my craft mat and sprinkled with Raspberry infusions and lightly mixed this into the paste and then used Paper Artsy stencil PS059 to create the blooms and Olive Tree for the stems.  Along the bottom of the card I stamped the grass from Paper Artsy JOFY11 set and some of the words also from this set using Peat Moss archival ink.  To add some sparkle I coloured over the blooms using a clear Wink of Stella pen and after I had taken this photo I added white dots with a Jane Davenport paint over pen.  Before the class I think I will repeat this card and add some Glamour Dust to the paste and see if this will give it even more sparkle.

For my final card I have used Paper Artsy JOFY30 stamp set.  I used the honeycomb stamp to create a frame around the card and then stamped the two bee stamps.  I mixed Golden Sands infusions with gel medium to create a few splatters on the background and then coloured in the bee's and honeycomb.  This gave a lovely pearlised effect.  I matted this one onto some black cardstock and then finished off with one of the sentiments from the set.  Again after taking the photo I went back and added some gel medium to the wings and sprinkled with Glamour Dust.

Art journal workshop

Yesterday I went to an Art Journal workshop at Scrapbook Magic with my friend Lynne.  This is the page I created.

I had great fun putting this together using old map pages as a base although by the time I'd finishing adding paint there wasn't much of the map visible lol.  That's because I started off with one colour combination and then decided to tone it down.  We added tissue paper to the cardstock to create a faux leather look for the suitcases and then lots of stamps and cut outs to decorate the page.  We used alcohol inks to colour the clear gems to add decoration to the suitcases and generally had lots of fun.  I even managed to get the aeroplanes stamped the right way up.

60th birthday card

It was one of my friends 60th birthday last week and this is the card I made to mark the occasion. 

I used some AnnaMarie papers, added a little texture with paste, netting and strings of pearl, ribbon and lace.   Lots of sparkle added and a couple of dragonfly brads.  The flowers were stamped and then cut out by hand using a retired SU stamp set called Everything Eleanor, one of my all time favourites from SU.

April beginners card class

Monday was the beginners card class at Scrapbook Magic that I teach once a month.

We were working with reinkers and baby wipes this month.  

The idea was to show them how to create multi coloured images and backgrounds.  Now to do this you just get a baby wipe and drop some ink onto the wipes in a couple of colours and then ink up your stamp image to either use as a focal point or make your background.  Use a clean baby wipe for each colour combination to avoid getting muddy colours.  Here are a couple of the cards I made on the day to add to my collection.

Now what do you do with all those inky baby wipes?  Now I know there are some people that would say just bin them.  I couldn't do that so I let them dry out first and then glued them to some printer paper with gel medium.  I left them to dry overnight and then stamped images onto them, cut them out and made more cards but this time the images had some added texture.

All kinds of everything

Firstly I received this book in the post from Marlene of Poppy Patchwork.  It came with a beautiful little card too.

The book is being passed around in blog land so once I have read it I will offer to post it on.  At the moment I need to finish P is for Peril.

While looking for the threads for The Extinction SAL I realised I didn't have enough of some of the other colours required so placed an order for them with SewandSo who are presently selling DMC threads 10 for £6.50.  Along with the threads a few charts slipped into the basket as well.  One is spring themed the other two are Christmas themed.

I am going to continue the Extinction SAL with my thread error but I also bought the correct thread as I think the fabric I am working on may be big enough to do it twice.  This is how far I got on Thursday.

While looking for threads I came across the Joyful World SAL and also My Garden Journal by Cottage Garden Samplings which I still start working on again.

The end of last week I was suffering with a nasty cold but thankfully it now seems to be clearing and I feel a little more human today.  I have managed to take Max for a nice walk while DH was doing driver experience at Buckfastleigh, baked a couple of lemons cakes and worked on It's Only Forever which was very much neglected last month.

Starting early

This week I met up with friends with the intention of making a start on our Christmas cards.  I knew I wanted to use up some Anna Griffin paper pads I've had in my stash for a few years now.  I managed to make seven cards, one design using five sheets from the paper pad.

I cut out the baubles and used foam pads to give them some depth and then added glossy accents to give them some shine.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up!

I had enough of the ornaments to make one slightly different design but ran out of glossy accents so will finish that off once I have bought some more (although I'm sure I had a spare somewhere!)  There were also some of the snowflakes left over which I will use a circle punch to cut out and then make some more baubles out of them and use some of the other papers in the pad to make more cards from them next week.

Today I made a start on the Extinction SAL and put in all of the first colour only to release I had used DMC 834 instead of 934, I'm going to live with it for the moment and fingers crossed it won't matter in the long run.  Not sure how that happened but I didn't have 934 in my thread boxes anyway.  I was good and used the fabric from my stash but have ordered the correct thread (along with some not needed charts) just in case my inner demon can't live with the error.

100 Days of All About Me

I signed up to the e-mail prompts being set by The Awesome Ladies Project entitled 100 Days of All About Me.  I'm going to keep it simple in the hope that I will actually keep up to date with this fun sounding project.  I'm just going to keep a notebook and write the answers to the prompts each day in that.  If I have more time and feel the inclination I might also do some art journalling or scrapbooking to document the prompts.  I thought with this new chapter of my life it would be a great project to take part in.

On the stitching front I realised I hadn't posted a photo of how far I had got to on the waiting time project after MIL had her eye operation.  Here is where I left it.

I have also succumbed to joining in with a stitching SAL that Gecko Rouge are publishing over five months called Extinction and details can be found here.  I thought it would be a good one to do for one of the grandsons and as there are only four colours involved I'm hoping will be easy enough to keep up with.  I've been very good and found some fabric from my stash even though I was extremely tempted to buy some hand dyed fabric in a bold colour but I am settling for the pale mushroom fabric I already have.  I will print off Part 1 this evening with a view to making a start on it tomorrow.