New Home Plaque

I thought I'd share a new home plaque that I have made.

The majority of what I have used for my project is by the Dreamees, although I was inspired by the mixed media style from Pretty Gets Gritty.

I covered one of the large mdf baubles with aquamarine design paper which has also been stamped here and there with a script stamp.

I then added and gessoed the mini frame to form the centre point of my plaque. For an extra layer, I included this great brick die by Pretty Gets Gritty which has been cut from grey board and also gessoed.

I wanted the flowers to look distressed and stay firm. I chose these festive fretwork frills because I like their shape and textured petals. I mixed these in with a few divine florals.

All the flowers were dry brushed with gesso and then I added a little of my new favourite colour, one of Andy Skinner's artist pigments in Prussian blue.

The Letter dies have also been die cut out of greyboard twice and gessoed before adding some Stickles in frosted lace. I love my Stickles glitter glue.

As for the bunnies and I had to add these in for this particular project, they have been made using my stamps and air dry clay. To get that shimmer, I gave them a coating of white pearl drops.

I have added a little key and some seed beads here and there and that's my mixed media plaque finished.

Have a great day, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

April Memory Book Page

Today I am sharing April's flip-flap memory book pages from the monthly group swap that I have been involved in.

I try to use as many Dreamees products where possible to comply with the swap but more importantly, it's about having fun creating. 

There's a bit of a bunny theme going on here and I kind of enjoy creating a scene when using my little critter stamps as its so easy to mix and match lots of your sets to work together.

For these book pages I was working with a black and another colour of choice, so I decided to go with the Dreamees sensational sepia paper pad throughout.

One of the design papers created the backdrop for the scene of  "the carrot hunt" for my Easter bunnies

On the adjacent page a portrait of the golden bunny nestled in some die cut fretwork frill flowers. I decided to use some of Debbi Moore's metal magic for the bunny and a couple of the sentiments. This is amazing stuff. It works very much like an embossing powder except you stamp into it when it has reached its melting point. It sets like an embellishment in about 20 minutes. Also, this stuff lasts ages.

On the reverse side of my book page I have gone for a creativity theme.

The mdf dream catcher has been painted with black gesso and then covered with sparkly black embossing powder. On the background, I used texture paste through a brick stencil and then spritzed it with a Pretty Gets Gritty pearl spray in toffee, also adding some to the paper roses.

On my last page, I chose one of the Dreamees recipe stamps and created some artist easels with inspirational quotes.

Finally, I added some ATC cards, which always complete my book pages, one made with Dreamees stamps and the other using the Just Fly digi stamp by Vera Lane Studios.

Have a great day, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

Tickled Pink Memory Book Page

A new ongoing group project to share today -  a book page for a Flip Flap memory book which I am making as a group craft swap every month.

All our books will be made out of the same 6 x 6 inch Kraft card base as a starting point and to use Dreamees products where possible.

The preference I had from my partner for the first page of our book page was pink and a rainbow for the cover if possible.  As I didn't have any stamps or toppers or anything that I could adapt, I remembered a wonderful little fabrics & trimmings shop that I often like to browse around when I'm in the area and picked up this rainbow applique in one of their many baskets of goodies. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw it.

The pink satin ribbon will be used to fasten her book at the end. I've also sent my partner another piece of ribbon to attach when she has all the pieces of her book from her swap partners over the coming months so that it matches.

On the mdf dreamcatcher embellishment, I first coloured with a Dreamees dinky inky reinker in treasure and then topped up with gold gilding wax. For the feathers, I used mica powders.

On the reverse of my book page, I picked another set of pink papers to coordinate and chose a family tree theme, adding the sentiment:-

Family:- Where life begins & love never ends

Inside the die cut lacy heart which I folded, I added some  stamped bunnies  and another

sentiment. 

"Behind you, all your memories, 

 Before you, all your dreams, 

 Around you, all who love you, 

 Within you all you need"

I had to add some ATC cards so chose one of my favourite digi stamps by Vera Lane Studios - Kokeshi dolls and for the other ATC I chose the Dreamees Cute Bun stamp as this was a Dreamees project.

For the hearts in my Family Tree, I used the centres from one of the Loops & Lace flower dies, which are really handy if you want little die-cut hearts.

Just in case extra hearts were needed to add to the family tree, I made a little envelope to tuck in the pot under the tree. The pot being a milk churn stamp that I cut in half.

I really enjoyed making this as I could pick it up and do a little bit at a time over the course of the month and this is the sort of thing I really enjoy anyway.

Everyone's pages will be different which is what is great about it too and I am already looking forward to the next one.

Have a great day, whatever you have planned.

Happy crafting

November Postcard swap

My postcard swap for November. I decided to use a mix of stamps for my 6 x 4 postcard on watercolour card.

The stamps I have used are The Dreamees Binky & Bo, Inkylicious Delicate vines and Reach for the Moon and a free spring garden stamp set from a craft magazine for the grass.

After stamping my bunnies I used my handmade circle stencil (made from acetate using various die cut circles) to ink a moon by using a white Docrafts Artiste pigment ink. As soon as I stippled the ink through the circle using dauber, I added some clear embossing powder so that it would stick to the ink. I know you can't see this on the white card at the moment.  I heat embossed it to create my glossy moon.

I made a mask for my bunny using a some of my Stix 2 masking sheets. I didn't bother for the moon as it was embossed and I wanted a slightly smudgy look around the moon for a bit of shadow.

I used the blue dinky ink from The Dreamees Autumn winter set and inked my card. When dry |I took my bunny mask off and coloured them in using The Dreamees grey inky from their Spring/Summer set. As the watercolour card is slightly textured it also shows a little texture on the bunnies once coloured.

Then I heat embossed the sentiment stamp Reach for the Moon by Inkylicious using black versafine ink and then very quickly covered it with clear embossing powder and embossed it. This is a good technique to avoid stray speckles of embossing powder that you can get from embossing sentiments.

I used the Inkylicious Delicate Vines around the moon and the grass stamp from my free stamp set. Finishing it off with a few stars made with a sparkle gel pen.

As this postcard was going in the post, I was given a very good tip to coat it with a matt varnish to protect it from the weather and getting damaged from handling.

I used some waterproof Mod Podge varnish/glue that I had.

https://www.inkylicious.co.uk/inkylicious-stamps/cat_31.html

http://www.dreamees.org.uk/

I hope you've enjoyed my postcard walk though.

Happy Crafting

Dreamees Binky & Bo stamps set

The Dreamees Binky & Bo stamp set is an adorable stamp set that I have found many uses for.

Here I have used a Dreamees mdf door hanger and covered it with papers from the Fantastic Fairies cd.  I have stamped and heat embossed the bunnies using silver metallic superfine Wow powder and coloured the bunnies with a spectrum noir sparkle clear overlay pen for a little shimmer the balloon has been coloured with a blue dinky inky and when dry I have added some glossy accent to it.

I printed the verse onto some coordinating backing paper from the same cd and glued it to the star.  Then I coloured it with a spectrum noir sparkle clear overlay pen.

The die cut letter were from the Crafters Companion alphabet set, finished off with some Dreamees pearls.

With these new baby plaques, I painted them with blue chalk paint which gives the mdf a lovely texture. I stamped and heat embossed the bunnies again and made some bunting out of leftover backing paper from the same cd. I also used the Dreamees Stitched Alphabet stamp set on the bunting. The balloons have had some glossy accent added to them and I have finished them off with a little faux stitching.

I specifically needed a footy themed plaque for this next project, so drew around white card to make a template, leaving a few centimetres around the edges to ensure it fit the mdf.

I heat embossed the bunny in silver in the middle of the baby grow and stamped buttons using one of the stamps from the Dreamees Something Stitchy set. I  used the smallest stamps from my Crafters Companion alphabet set to make the name and sourced an arsenal badge which I had to shrink down to make it fit and the logo too!  I used a stand for this plaque.

I made an aperture card using the bunnies for this card which have been coloured using the Dreamees blending brush as well as an inky background too. The flowers have been stamped onto their patterned paper using the Something Stitchy flower stamps. I stamped the button from the same set onto blue backing paper and used glossy accent on the buttons and balloons.

This card was made as a result of a bizzare dream of bunnies being carried away by their tails on hellium balloons !!  I used the button stamps from the Something Stitchy stamp set again.
I used the crealies stitched square nesting dies to make the patchwork layer on this card and the buttons stamps to make the first backing papers layer. The heart dies were from x-cut and all the papers were from a Dreamees cd.

I used a lot of Dreamees mdf, which are available from MDF IT.

http://www.mdfit.uk/
http://www.dreamees.org.uk/

 Happy Crafting

Dreamees Workshop February 2017

I attended my first Dreamees Workshop in February. It had started to snow with the promise of  more snow to come but the weather didn't stop our day of crafty fun. Welcomed with a hot cup of coffee and biscuits whilst I browsed a table packed with Dreamees goodies that I could buy.

We had three delightful projects planned for us:-

• A giant mdf Teacup Calendar
• A floral card
• A bunny card

First we gave the giant teacup a coat of white emulsion paint and then added dabs of pink paint around the edges with a finger, rubbing it into the white paint for a faded, distressed look.

A thick strip of lace was added across the centre of the teacup. Using the papers provided we created a pocket to hold the excess words.  The thinner strip of lace was layered up with the pink gingham to form a centre piece to glue the mini wooden pegs onto for the calendar. This was stuck onto the centre pocket.

We cut out the words, flowers and butterflies, layering them up and giving them a hue of colour with the Dreamees new Dinky Inkies ink pads.

The flowers were placed around the pocket and we added feathers to decorate along with the dimensional butterflies and Dreamees Pearls.

The second project after lunch was a floral card made using the pretty papers provided and stamping the Creative Chrysanthemums flowers stamps with one of the pink Dinky Inkies and the leaves with their green inkies.  We used the Great Friend recipe stamp from the Recipe Bundle 2 stamps set.

 Two smaller inked flower were trimmed out to create two butterflies.  Embellished with a piece of lace and a bow, with some Dreamees Pearls.

The last project of the day was the bunny card.  Made using the Binky & Bo stamp set, which was stamped onto a piece of kraft card. The hearts were layered up onto the pretty lavender papers with the dragonflies and balloon stamped onto the cream card. I added some glossy accent to the balloon after I had coloured the balloon with one of the Dinky Inkies.

It was such a lovely day and  Carol and Hayley were on hand to provide help and more inspiration. A room filled with like minded crafty people all working with products we thoroughly enjoy using.



Binky & Bo

Dinky Inkies

 

 http://www.dreamees.org.uk/

http://www.dreamees.org.uk/workshops-159-c.asp

Above are the stamp sets used on these projects.

Happy Crafting.