Mixed Up Saturday

 

🌷  Some of our beautiful Tulips 🌷 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

How true is that quote !  I think we all buy things after being inspired,  they then sit in your 'new basket' while you try and remember what it was that inspired you! 🤣😂

Nothing exciting planned today, apart from gardening,  Paul is getting through the huge pile that Bill dropped off last Sunday, then he has the other 2 tonnes to deal, bless him, i wish i could help!  I can do the sowing and planting but thats my limit.  It frustrates me more than you know!  

On to something I can do .......

Creative Stamping Magazine 

Issue 133

Now I no longer subscribe to this magazine but the stamps that came with it really appealed to me, that large vintage typewriter is gorgeous!  I like butterflies too and all of the little background stamps, the Love, Friend & Flower definitions are really sweet.  I find myself drawn to a lot of Lou Collins designs. 

Spray Inks:  Sarah Phelan guides you through the different effects and techniques you can acheive with Spray inks.

I love the idea of using the stencil to create the Emboss Resist technique,  you can see the effect it gives on that first card. I will add the step by step below...

Its surprising how different the sprays can look depending on how you use them.

I don't usually share that features that are just adverts for new stamps, however I do really like Julie Hickeys designs and a lot of these cards and techniques can be done with flowers that you have in your stash.  

That first card with squares could be done with old SW stamps, you are just creating mini inky backgrounds for the flowers to sit on, it's so effective.

OR:  you could just use 3 of those squares down a DL card for a Clean & Simple challenge card 😉 

The second card by Marion Emberson is alsona great C&S card, using embossing powders to colour the line art of the stamp! 

The third card background really shouts to me, they have used a brayer to add acrylic paint to a piece of card (you could use ink)  then allow to dry and add a layer of white Gesso brayer it evenly and allow to dry, it gives a grainy kind of texture thsy looks so effective.  I have now started to write these things on post it notes, otherwise by tomorrow I'd forgotten that I wanted to try it !!

Mel Jess has focused on the Butterfly elements in the stamp set to create some lovely cards for different occasions,  they are all so different in styles, on the second card you can see how fantastic that little dictionary page stamp is.  

I have zoomed in on the step by step for the 'Over the Edge' card technique for you.

That inky background with the vellum butterflies looks fantastic.  I'm not a so keen on the last one though.

Masterclass:  Double Exposure or Split Stamping...

Basically one image shown in to different ways,  it can be a mirror image or 1 stamped image split into two different looks.   You can use any stamp, the best ones to use are larger images such A floral sprays ir background stamps.

You can stamp the same stamp twice onto different coloured card and line them up, or stamp each half with different colour ink pads,  you could colour one half keep the other plain. 

There are a few examples above.

Lorraine Lowe has some lovely ideas for cards for men using the free stamp set.  

Oooh there are some lovely ideas in this feature,  Nicky Gilburt shares some great techniques pushing you out of your comfort zone with colouring.  She uses distress inks, Watercolour palette, markers & Oxides.  All of the cards are amazing,  you could also do this in a journal and really go wild with the colours.

Dig into your craft stash and collect bits and pieces to create collage style cards with your stamps, little bits of lace, ribbon, torn bits of paper, flowers,  buttons, to create layers of prettiness.  These cards are so lovely.

Mixed Media projects means anything goes,  you want to add lots of texture, anything tactile gives a lot of interest,  so you can have rough texture paste on the background and soft silky ribbons and lace on the same project.  I really do want to create one of these, I recently bought some crackle medium and some grit pace to have a play with, which would be perfect for these projects.

And finally we have Clean & Simple projects perfect for our challenge this week. 

I really think this feature is worth the price, the stamps are decent quality and the stencils are lovely.   There is lots of inspiration too. 

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I hope that you all have a lovely weekend,

Love and hugs,

Sandra

xxxxxxx