Never Ending Calendar

Welcome to Monday crafters...

Are Mondays good or bad for you?  Monday means leaving my craft room and going to work, but then without work I wouldn't be able to buy more craft goodies so there's got to be some good in it too, hasn't there?

Are your new years resolutions still going strong? Did you promise to keep off the booze, keep fit, loose weight or give up smoking?  Or was it something more interesting?  Mine was to blog more regularly and I think I'm doing quite well with it so far!

My project today is for the Clarity Challenge blog.  We run monthly challenges with a different theme each month giving you the chance to win a £50 Clarity voucher or be picked in the design teams top 5. Now how do you fancy that?  All you have to do is follow the theme, use your Clarity stamps/products only, enter the challenge via your blog or email us and then sit back until the end of the month with your fingers crossed to see if you've won.  Simples...

The theme for January is 'new beginnings' so I chose to make a never ending calendar.  It doesn't matter what year we're in you can always use it.  I've given this to Mark, my partner, for the desk in his office so have kept it very masculine.

Materials used:

Stamp - letterbox sentiments

Stamp - letterbox set

Stamp - artist set

Stencil - circle dots (7"x7")

Archival ink - coffee

Distress ink - dried marigold, wild honey, walnut stain,

scattered straw & vintage photo

Distress marker - vintage photo

Promarker

It's great to make something you can give as a gift and that can be used daily.  If anyone would like the measurements for this project, please let me know and I can get a project sheet made up for you.

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

May all your dreams come true...

Hi de hi crafters

I've just finished my first full week back at work after the Christmas and New Year break and of course my fortnights holiday before that. So I've come back down to earth with a huge bump.  I'd forgotten that there were two 6 o'clocks in a day, but have been reminded of it this last week with the alarm going off at 6am.  Never mind it all goes towards the next holiday so it won't be long before the brochures come out and we start planning our next adventure.

My card today is using the outside mask from the Paris skyline which was shown on Create and Craft last weekend.  This enables you to create a silhouette of the skyline and then using a piece of copy paper and a make up sponge create the illusion of depth with shadows at the edges of each building.

I achieved the reflection by placing the mask onto my splodgemat and running over it with the brayer loaded with espresso ink, then pressing the card onto the splodgemat to pick up the ink.  Move it to your card matching this up with the reflection, re-ink your brayer and run over the mask again.  You should have the perfect mirror image with the reflection slightly faded.

For the clouds you can create these out of a piece of paper or easier still you can use the Clarity cloud mask and after strategically placing your sun in place and using a make up sponge, gently drag the colour onto your card.  Remember you can always add it but you can't take it away.  You can almost hear Barbara saying that can't you?

The water effect requires a brayer and a scrunched up piece of copy paper.  Load your brayer with stonewashed adirondack ink, run it over your scrunched up paper and it will pick up the pattern from the paper.  Place your sun mask in place in it's mirror image and run the brayer over your card once. Don't keep running over the card or you will lose the effect, and voila you have your rippled water.

Now all you have to do is add your sentiment...

Materials used:

Mask - Paris skyline

Mask - clouds

Stamp - may all your dreams

Brayer

Splodgemat

Adirondack ink - stonewashed, espresso & sunshine yellow

I hope you have fun with the techniques above and playing with your new masks, stencils and stamps if you ordered them at the weekend.



xx Happy crafting and Clarity hugs xx

Time To Reflect

Welcome to my first blog of the New Year, not too bad as it's only the 6th!!!

Who has made their New Year's resolutions?  If you have, what are they and have you broken them already or are they still going strong?  Mine was to blog more on my personal blog.  I know I run the Clarity blog, but that's not the same as showing you my artwork on here is it?

Well this year it's going to be different.  Can you tell I'm crossing my fingers behind my back?

How many of you watched the Clarity shows yesterday (Sunday)? There were loads of sellouts!  Were you one of the lucky ones who managed to buy one of the fab stamps from the show.  If you missed it, there's a reminder for you on the Clarity blog.

The card below used one of the stamp sets shown on Create and Craft and highlights the flexibility of having an alphabet set within your stamp collection.  You can create any name, verse or quote you want as simple as anything...

Materials used:

Stamp - letter box set

Stamp - large kissing couple

Stamp - small birds in flight

Stamp - cherry blossom

Clarity card

Adirondack ink - stonewashed & sunshine yellow

Promarkers

Twine

Card Candi

To get the reflection of the letters in the water you can either stamp the letter onto the blank letter square (provided in the set) and then stamp onto your card or alternatively stamp directly onto your splodgemat and press your card onto the splodgemat.

If you were using the coated Clarity card with the second method you would have to be careful not to move the card or the letters would smudge.  I used the first option and hopefully the letters look as though they are floating with the ripples in the water.

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Rise and Shine

We're on a roll now, I'm in practice for the new year...

If you haven't read my previous blog posts, my new years resolution is to blog more.  I've got so much artwork in the archives that I'd love to share it with you and hopefully give you some inspiration for your projects.

I had great fun with this next project and it was definitely a case of needing to wash my hands afterwards, although even the Imperial Leather didn't move all of the ink!

The new cottage scene stencil is A4 in size and comes in two parts so that you can use either the 'inner' or 'outer' part.  You can see some more examples using this stencil in this post on the Clarity blog.  You don't have to use the whole of the stencil, you can use a small section of it to create your scene which makes it versatile indeed.

Materials used:

Stencil - cottage scene

Stencil - sunshine (7"x7")

Stamp - weather vane set

Stamp - lupin (new design club stamp)

Adirondack ink - lemonade, sunshine yellow,

caramel, lettuce & stonewashed

As always, hope you enjoy my inspiration.




xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Chrysanthemum

Welcome to Sunday crafters!

I hope you're all safe after the horrendous weather this week in the UK.  Watching the news reports it must be horrendous for some people facing Christmas with the aftermath of a flooded home, it doesn't even bear thinking about does it?  My heart goes out to them.

On a lighter note I've got a card for you today that was shown on C&C to promote one of the new stamp and stencil sets from Clarity.  I chose to try the technique that Barbara herself discovered, which has brought a new use for a stencil.  If you want a step-by-step on how this technique is done please pop over to Barbara's blog.

Materials used:

Stencil - chrysanthemum (7"x7")

Angelina film and fibre

Archival ink - black

Stamp - small chrysanthemum

Coloured with promarkers

Stamp - letterbox sentiments

The trick with using fibres is to ensure that you have a really hot iron, a travel iron is perfect.  Another tip is to remember to cover the film and fibres with a sheet of wax or greaseproof paper so that the iron doesn't stick to them as it's a fairly lengthy job trying to get it off the iron.  I know because I've done it!!!

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Oriental Scene

Welcome to December, where did the year go eh?

I think I already have my new years resolution which is to blog more frequently. Now this may involve learning how to do it in my sleep but I will find a way to show you more of my Clarity artwork as there is so much in the archive not yet shown.  So watch this space....

As you all know by now the first of the month is when we launch a new challenge over at the Clarity challenge blog and the theme for December is "SCENE BUILDING".

Here's my inspiration for the challenge:

Materials used:

Stamp - cherry blossom branch

Stamp - Asia set

Stamp - pagoda

Stamp - tree (from winter wonderland set)

Coloured with promarkers

Distress ink - bundled sage

Adirondack ink - stonewashed & sunshine yellow

Liquid pearls - lemon yellow

A top tip for those of you out there that have just gone "I can't do that".  Take a piece of copy paper, look at your Clarity stamps, stencils and masks and start playing.  Here are a few points that may help you:

• for sky either use the cloud mask or make your own out of a piece of copy paper
• for hills either use the landscape mask or tear a piece of copy paper
• bushes, grass, fence posts etc can all be made out of a tree stamp (very versatile)
• if you only want to use part of a stamp use clever masking

I hope these few tips help you and I look forward to seeing your artwork in the challenge this month.

xx Happy crafting and glittery seasonal hugs xx