Layers of ink Bee Card

Hi there! I have been busy making samples for the relaunch of Bee Crafty's Bee Monarchy stamp set on Tuesday. I thought I would whet your appetite with a sneaky peek step by step. 
 

I began by putting masking tape around a 5x5" square ivory card. As you can see I overlapped the edge by about 3mm to give a slightly narrower border.

I blended distress ink in Wild Honey and Tea Dye over the centre, making it a shade darker at the edge

Next I used the Honeycombe full inkable to add a little stencilling top left and bottom right.

I inked up the crackle background stamp with vintage photo distress ink and stamped it lightly over the card

Using Versafine Clair black ink I stamped the largest bee in the middle of the card.

I used Ecolines to colour it in.

I stamped a few of the honeycomb stamps from the Bee monarchy set in wild honey ink before removing the tape and stamping the sentiment from the small words set. I also added a tiny bit of white pen to the eyes and tail of the bee. 

Here is the finished card again. 

I used:

5x5" ivory card blank

Masking tape or Stamp and Stencil tape

Distress inks in Wild Honey, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo

6x6 inkable Honeycombe full

Crackle Background stamp

Bee Monarchy stamp set (it will be there on Tuesday!)

Small words stamp set

Ecoline pens

White posca pen

Black Versafine Clair ink

The re-launch of this fantastic set of stamps will be over on the Bee Crafty Facebook page from 10am on Tuesday. There will be lives and lots more! See you there!

A journal page for Crafty Individuals

 Hi There! I was inspired by Jean's live on Wednesday afternoon to get my journal out, and here are the results. I took photos as I went along to show you how I made it.

I began by tearing some scraps of book pages, papers and tissue and sticking them down in my Seawhite 6" square journal. For this I used matte medium.

When this was dry I gave it a coat of gesso and left to dry again.

Using the funky flowers mask and a blending brush I added some walnut stain distress ink flowers.

Next I stamped some of the mismesh and man's best friend stamps around the edges using the same ink. This takes a little longer to dry on a gessoed surface, but will dry eventually.

I stamped the flowers in versafine clair ink onto Crafty Individuals stamping card. I coloured them and cut out the panels, then found a suitable sentiment from a pack of Dina Wakely collage papers.

I added these to the page with matte medium, adding a little shading around the flower panels with a pumice stone distress crayon.

Finally I added a few sequins to finish it off.

Thanks for looking and I hope I have inspired you to have a go! Journals are a great place to have a play and experiment with new techniques.

Guest Brand Ambassador for Uniko

 A few weeks ago I was asked to be a guest Brand Ambassador for Uniko Stamps by the lovely Bev. My challenge was to do a couple of mixed media projects for their Mixed Media Monday slot. Here is a sneaky peek and if you pop over to the Uniko Studio blog you will be able to see what I did. 

Hochanda Samples for Crafty Individuals shows

 Did you see Jean on Hochanda on Saturday with the latest stamps from Crafty Individuals? There are 4 brand new stamps designed by Sharron Bates that you can find here on the crafty Individuals website, along with some other goodies. I had such fun making my samples! First is 'of the Sea' stamped onto an alcohol ink background

Next is the same stamp, watercoloured and teamed up with the Craft Individuals 'wonderfully weathered' papers

 And again with Wonderfully weathered 2 papers and splattered and painted with distress oxides

The second stamp 'The Street' looks great coloured with Speckled Egg and Crackling Campfire Distress oxide inks.

I also tried stamping it on a background sprayed with dylusion inks and highlighted with posca pens

My last sample using The Street was embossed in white over an inky background

I had great fun with 'Pablo the Penguin'

Not only does he look wonderful on card, but he also works brilliantly on shrink plastic as earrings...

and as a bauble

The final new stamp is the beautiful Cone flower or Echinachea, firstly painted and decoupaged...

and secondly stamped onto an alcohol ink background

Whilst we are on the subject of Crafty Individuals, I would like to send a huge 'Congratulations' to my lovely friend Lynne, who was announced as a brand new member of the Crafty Individuals DT during Jean's live yesterday afternoon! I know she will make some stunnng creations and be a real asset to the team! Well Done, Lynne!

Samples for Bee Crafty Bee Monarchy

 

Good morning! Did you see Bev on Hochanda last Thursday? She had the wonderful Bee Monarchy collection with Stamps, matching dies, coordinating dinkables and the most wonderful MDF that I absolutely fell in love with! These are my samples from the show.

Quite a lot of the products sold out quickly, but Bev was still able to do some excellent demos. You can still catch them on the HOCHANDA website and look for the show on the schedule for Thursday 17th September at 11am. Alternatively click this link...

https://www.hochanda.com/cinema/45420

For a closer look at Bee Crafty products visit the Bee Crafty website

Before I go thank you so much for all the really lovely comments on my last blog post. I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate you all.  Thanks for looking!

Stag Sunset

Here is a lollystick plaque made using the larger lolly sticks, stuck together with hot glue. I then painted it with Acrylic paints (nothing fancy, just some from Wilkos) and stamped with inkylicious stamps and versafine ink. I am going to try another like this with versafine clair to see if I get a crisper outline. I have a couple of projects on the go at the moment which I will share with you soon. The craft fest is in full swing, lol 😁
Thanks for looking!

July at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the Month and time for a new Challenge over at Stamping Sensations! This month our theme is

********Anything goes with a stamp and ribbons********

 I used my ink dusters to create the scene above.  All stamps are from Inkylicious and the inks were Memento Dandelion, Cantaloupe and Rosebud, oh yes, and Tuxedo black of course! The finishing touch is a luxurious black satin ribbon The usual rules apply, you can enter up to three times, combine with other challenges, use any make of stamp......but can I please remind you we are a stamping challenge and stamping must be the focal/predominant element of your work. 
Our sponsors this month are Crafty Ribbons who have supplied this wonderful prize for us to offer to you.
 

 Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the fantastic creations by my lovely teamies. Also please say a big welcome to our new Teamie, Marlies. There are some stunning DT cards again this month! Hope you get the chance to join in and I'll look forward to seeing all your lovely creations!
Oh, yes, and if you aren't too busy today do try and catch one of the Be Creative shows on Hochanda - they have some great gadgets to help with all your crafting! 

5 years in blog land! who'd have thought it!

This candy is now closed
Would you believe it?! I have just realised it is my fifth anniversary of being a blogger! 745 posts and 245 followers later, I don't regret a second of it. First I think I need to say a huge thank you to all my followers and especially to those of you who comment and give me encouragement. Without you I would have given up long ago! Second I need to say thank you to Guzzie Sue and Lynne, without whom I wouldn't have dipped my toes in the water in the first place! Sue explained the process of setting up and Lynne and I took the plunge together, bouncing ideas off each other all the way.
To mark this occasion I decided to have some blog candy for my lovely followers. I am going to give away some stamps along with a card featuring said stamps, and there will be more than one lot. So, here is the first:

And here is the card:

For anyone who is stuck for ideas for Christmas cards, this could be right up your street. The possibilities for this set are endless! There are more cards made with the winter spruce set on this post. The only stamp I haven't included is the sentiment, and hopefully you will have some of those of your own.
I will draw a winner next Saturday 2nd November, by which time I should have sorted a new lot of candy. Just leave a comment below if you are interested and a follower. 
Thanks for looking!

Tree-mendous!

Is it my lucky week or what?! Tree challenges galore! There is Tree-mendous at Allsorts and Wood, trees or Leaves at Sweet Stampin'. These come straight after a trip to Doncaster where I bought a whole load of new tree stamps! I know, I am a bit of a tree stamp addict. Won't be giving up anytime soon though!

 First up is a Christmas card made with an Inkylicious new stamp called black forest. I stamped it in Stormy sky Distress ink and ink dusted the background in the same colours using one of their reusable mountain/valley stencils, a quickie glue pen and some glitter.
Next I made an easel calendar using some more new Inkylicious trees, this time called twiggy trees. Look out for these beauties at the NEC, along with the sentiment too.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be a great gift. I used impress inks in lemon yellow and cherry pink for the sky, along with Adirondack slate grey for the hills. Here is a close up of the scene. I am also entering this into the challenge at the male room where the theme is Nature

Finally, I spotted there is a one layer challenge at Addicted to CAS, and I have been making a few more Christmas cards this week that fit the bill perfectly, and guess what? They have trees, lol!

 These were made using memento teal zeal and grape jelly. All stamps are by Inkylicious.

 I hope you like them! Well, thanks for popping by and don't forget to leave a comment for my follower blog candy here. Thanks for looking!

Get the TV on!

Hi There!
Hope you have got the TV on ready for the Inkylicious show on create and Craft at 11 am this morning.  Just to tempt you I am posting just a few of the samples I made with some of the gorgeous stamps I have been playing with.
Firstly there is Meadowlands...

Next we have Daisy Fields...

I've also had a good play with Windswept...

Aren't they gorgeous? So versatile too, as they can be used as silhouettes or coloured like I did with the last one. There are lots more too, which I will share with you in due course. Anyway, I won't keep you from the Telly. If you want any details about these please leave a comment and I will expand on what I used to make them.
Thanks for looking!