the last of the cards and happy 2014

These are the last of the cards that i have made for 2013. They didn't make it in time to be blogged so i put them all together.

Massimo was asked to design a card for christmas as part of his homework and this is what he came up with.

This was another one using filligraphy stamps and this time gilding flakes.

So this will be the last post for 2013 and i wish all of you a healthy and prosperous 2014. Thank you for visiting my blog and taking time to leave comments, Theresa xx

wedding card

I wanted to make a card for a friend of mine who actually got married on saturday. Actually I didn't know much about the details of this wedding including the colour scheme. So I decided to play it quite safe and go for white and silver as I thought they would be quite neutral. So below is the card I made.

I started by folding an A4 sheet of centura card a hint of sliver in half creating an A5 card. Then using a heart die-lite i created cut-out heart on left. I stamped the sentiment from Claritystamp in versamark and embossed in silver. I cut out a heart from silver mirri board and attached next to other. See pic below.

I then cut out sprigs from another die-lite set in silver mirri. I attached some white lace on lower edge of card and attached some silver ribbon on upper edge of lace o cover attachment area. I then made a triple bow from same ribbon and attached it below sentiment. I tucked sprigs underneath bow and added 2 pearl stick pins. I covered knot with a pearl botton and finished card with some pearl flourishes.

The recipients loved their cards and I hope that you do as well and would be so kind as to let me know what you think, Theresa xx

stained glass windows

Well if you have seen this set of 5 stained glass stencils from Claritystamp you will immediately recognize these. 

I attached the stencil to a piece of black card with masking tape only from the top. I spread white acrylic paint over small gelli plate and layed down card with stencil attached an pulled a print thus creating base. Then i put some yellow paint on top third of plate and as there was image i could see where i wanted it and pulled another impression on top.Then i just lifted card off without unhinging it and put some ink through stencil where hills are. Before laying back card i cleaned the stencil so not to smudge card and pulled this print.

Finally i did same with brown paint and lower part of stencil. And that is print finished.

I stamped same stamp on white shrink plastic and cut it out and heated it with heat gun and obtained white embellishment in corner. I trimmed topper down and matted and layered and stuck to A5 card.

For the sentiment I used the Clarity banner which i stamped in black archival and embossed in clear detail powder. 

First card ready.

Here are some other versions;

 Here I decided to follow shape of window

 In this one I used gold acrylic

 And here I used blue and yellow

I hope you like these. I really enjoyed making them so feel free to leave comments which i truly appreciate, Theresa xx

male card

On Sunday my older boy had a birthday party to go to so he needed a card or his friend.

As i had been busy with Christmas preparation i needed to make a quick card. My husband bought me this interesting stamp from the German Christmas market which is made of metal and I wanted to try it. So i inked it with black archival, put card on top of it and brayered it. The image of HMS Victory was coloured in with distress markers and triple embossed with clear powder.

Then i made the background. I stamped compass from stampers anonymous and masked it off and stamped map from same set. Using stencil from lesson 22 from Claritystamp and brushes I created the sea.

Attached topper with foam pads and card finished.

Theresa xx

Sweet lilac challenge : lace and/or buttons

Well it's that time again and another challenge unfolds.This time it's about lace and/or buttons.

I decided to use both.

This is actually a very quick card to make.

I cut a strip of lace in 5 pieces reducing by 1 every time. I added thin orange tape at the back and stuck it on aubergine base card for contrast. I brushed tape with frosted glitter so it loses the sticky.

Then i attached pearls in different sizes for baubles and a star button at top of tree. 

And that is a quick Christmas card with uite a bit of presence....

So if you would like a nice goody box full of nice stash, join us over at Sweetlilac blog

Cheers, Theresa xx

through the window

  This is one of my personal favourite Christmas cards that I have made this year and it is going out to a friend who i know likes it.
To find out how I made the gelli brick wall you can look at my previous post here.
Then I started working on central scene. Using the rolling hills section of stencil in lesson 22 I created sand dunes with the clarity brushes and distress inks: mustard seed, tea dye and rusty hinge. By the way I masked off the sky.
Then I masked sand dunes and coloured in sky with tumbled glass, stormy sky and faded jeans. Next I stamped the 3 Kings , palm trees and nativity star from Claritystamp in black archival ink. I embossed star with stardust powder.
Finally it is simply put on brown base card with finished dimensions 8x8.
Well seeing that i have actually created a scene I would like to enter it into the Claritystamp Challenge.

 This is another version that sprouted from same idea of brick wall. This time I used hills as hills and stamped sheep and shepherd in the foreground and the small nativity in background. I masked off star on this little stamp so i stamped a bigger nativity on top.

 This is yet another version of window. This time i created a snowy background and planted some trees in different sizes to create perspective. I stamped and embossed small robin and flowers from lesson 22 in foreground. I colored them using promarkers and added glossy accents to flower centres and robin's eye and finished landscape with some glitter.

 This is my final version which is homework i sent in.

Well i hope you like what I created and don't forget to leave a comment, Theresa xx

create a scene -Massimo's design

Well i can almost here you say....oh not again the little boy. It came about last Saturday. I wanted to make some more Christmas cards and i thought i should try and make some quick ones and in monochrome. So i was playing with snow scene and lesson 14 set when he came along and said he wanted to make some.

So he chose the card and decided to do it in blue. He wanted to use stag, snowflake, tree and happy Christmas stamps, all from Claritystamp.

So he stamped the sentiment first using cobalt blue archival ink. Then using ink dusters and weathered wood distress ink and a torn piece of copy paper, he set about to create background. He then stamped the trees in cobalt blue and the snowflakes in weathered wood.

and that's his scene created. 

And as he created a little scene I thought i'd enter it into the Claritystamp Challenge

These were the cards i was making using same inks and make up sponges. I finished them off with some frosted ice glitter.

When my 11 yr old saw his brothers card he wanted to make some too and he produced 8. He did half of them in espresso archival and gathered twigs distress ink.

These were my effort. I liked Massi's design so i decided to copy it as well. I tried a different take on it. Can you see the top blue one with the star? I don't think it works as well so I kept to original.

What do you think? It's a very quick card to make so if you are running short of time you would be able to produce one in under 10mins.

Take care, Theresa xx

Madeline

I cut a piece of black card to 7x7 and attached the madeline stencil to it at the top with masking tape. i brayered buff titanium onto small gelli plate and pulled print offleaving stencil attached to card. Then i added yellow ochre and sienna to gelli plate and tried to get it over the hair area as much as possible and pulled another print. Then I added dark brown over flower areas and did the same and again for blank area.

When i was happy i added some more contrast with the distress markers. 

as you can see here i added some stickles glitter to the flowers thus creating more interest on print.

Next came the task of turning it into a card. Below are the two options. I chose to embellish it a bit more as i felt that the glittered flowers needed to be balanced out.

 

 I added a small dotty flourish using the same stickle glitters. With the gold edged ribbon i made the flower in the corner and two strips around edges to give idea of a gift. I finished it off with 3 brown pearls in top right corner and a brown pearl in centre of flower.

Let me know your thoughts. Which one do you prefer? Incidentally this is the card I made for my friend's 50th and i will only post it after I have given it to her. Theresa xx

Christmas carolling.......

I can almost see you wincing. Not another Christmas card you gasp! Sorry but this is my offering for today.

This card was born as i bought this pad of Tim Holtz resist Christmas kraft card. When I saw this sheet I really liked it and wanted to use it. Luckily for me there were smaller replicas of the sheets as the pad was 12x12.

So I stamped the carol singers from Clarity stamp in black archival and embossed with clear powder. I added mustard yellow distress ink around the lantern and coloured it in with wild honey and spiced marmalade. I coloured in holly leaves and berries with promarkers. I inked the sheet with antique linen, tea dye and frayed burlap to make resist pop and to distress background. Finally i distressed all the edges using the distressing tool by Tim Holtz. I added some clear wink of stella to berries and some highlights on leaves. It's quite subtle so I don't know that it will show on pics.

Then i prepared base card. I used kraft card in keeping with main image. I started by stamping the Christmas carols from Clarity stamp in versamark thus obtaining a watermark effect. Then using espresso archival ink I stamped the Gaudate snowflake again from Claritystamp and the little snowflake in sepia.

I matted topper on black and stuck it on base card.

Finished card is 8x8. Hope you like it, Theresa xx

Another male card

This is a commissioned card. All I was told was that she wanted happy birthday and husband on it. So what better excuse than to get the letterbox set out! I knew i wanted to use the postage stamps for this card so out they came as well.

I stamped the big ATC stamp and masked it off. I stamped another stamp to make it look like it was behind and masked it off as well. I then used the smaller stamp stamps and added 4 more.

Next i built the scenes in each stamp. The cars are from Tim Holtz. The birds and watches are from Clarity stamp, the train is from stampendous and the other 2 I can't remember. i went around stamps with a pale blue promarker to add some depth and shadow.

i matted the topper on navy blue card which i distressed with silver gilding wax. i used same wax on the metal embellishments.

I finished the card with some blue card candy.

finished dimensions 8x8. I really hope she likes it as this was a lot of hard work involving cutting out several masks with innies and outies. Enjoy your day Theresa xx

purple birthday

This was the card I made for my friend's 40th Birthday. This time i used: Spellbinders gold embossing 1

blossom 3

die-lites sprig

letterbox numbers from Claritystamp

happy birthday from Claritystamp

This is the finished card. i started with a piece of white card and using the triangle i cut it out and embossed it 4 times thus creating a square. I cut a piece of purple card slightly smaller than white and sprayed it with iridescent multicolour glitter spray from Crafter's Companion, and stuck it to the white square. I matted this on a larger piece of lilac card and then white again. 

Then I stamped sentiment (with help of some masking) in black archival and clear embossed it. I cut it out with the squarish die from same set. I drew around same die on lilac card and cut it out with scissors as a mat. Stuck 2 pearls each side of 40. The little ones are all liquid pearls. Here is a close up of topper and flower.

Next i die cut flower in purple and stuck a pearl in centre. Then i cut 3 sprigs from purple card and sprayed them with glitter spray. I then tied purple organza ribbon around the bakground piece and tied a knot at side. This is where i added a twine bow and sprigs and flower. I then added sentiment with foam tape for some dimension.

The finished card is 8x8. Whatever you do enjoy yourselves, Theresa xx

lesson 23 homework

This was another card shown yesterday on classroom show. I used house stencil, sun mask, and stamps from rise and shine set and birdcage.

I started by cutting a piece of theuva card to 15x15 cm. I laid innie of stencil down choosing are that I  was happy with ( I sprayed it with stick and spray as my gate bit is wonky and otherwise moves).

I used a dream weaver stencil brush to put down black. Unlike Barbara I used black archival ink as I didn't want it to bleed when i used the distress inks later. I then stamped branch from bird cage set to frame artwork.

Then I positioned sun mask to side and using clarity brushes I inked with squeezed lemonade, mustard seed and spiced marmalade distress inks. I lifted mask and swirled inside the sun with what was left on brush. I turned mask slightly thus covering the rays so I could ink sky. I used tumbled glass, broken china, spun sugar, tattered rose and spiced marmalade.

Next came hills which were simply done using a piece of copy paper and peeled paint ink.

I finished it off by stamping sentiment in sun, cat on fence and  3 birds from bird cage. Matted and layered on complementing colours of card.

Finished size 7x7.

So i hope you haven't gone to sleep and kept with me till end. Have a good day, Theresa xx