Floral Tag.........

Hi there.....

She here with a Tag to share..........

I am really sorry the set I have used 'Insightful Meadows' is out of stock......but any of the gorgeous floral stamps and a quote would work.....

I started with a cream Tag and used my Twinkling H2Os to create the background. I then used a couple of the colours on the flower stamp and stamped it randomly on the background...

The Quote matt was painted with a really pale colour and then I have just 'splashed' one of the darker colours over it....

I coloured some more card and did some stamping and then punched my flowers out...

A bit of ribbon at the bottom and twine through the top and I was done.....




Thanks for looking, I will try harder next time and use something in stock!!!!



She xxx

Insightful Meadows....

Hi there....

I thought I'd have a little break from making my Christmas cards.....regular readers will know of my ongoing love affair with Donna Downey stamps and especially one of my most favourite and the first one that I bought....'Insightful Meadows'

I started with a couple of pieces of Ivory Pearlescent card, made a small square-ish card and cut a matt. I coloured the base card with some Big 'N' Juicy inkpads from my stash...sadly forgotten..but will be used more in future!! and then over-stamped the flowers and clear embossed. The sentiment was first stamped in black and then the flowers over-stamped and it was embossed and the background coloured. All that it needed then was a small matt. a couple of little butterflies and some pearls...

Thanks for looking, I'll see you again soon....

She xx

Smiles.....

Are Proof of Everyday Miracles.....

Hello again.

Today I have a little card to share that I made a while ago, using one of my very favourite stamp sets by Donna Downey.....'Insightful Meadows'  All of Donna's designs for Unity are fantastic and this is the first one I bought and still a favourite....

I coloured the base card with Distress Inks and used another favourite Donna set for the stamped background...'Imagine It'.....The main image is just stamped and clear embossed and then red spots dotted about with one of my glitter pens. I've coloured it with different Distress Inks and doodled round the edge. A bit of ribbon and a couple of gems finish it off.

Thanks for looking and I'll see you soon.....

She xx

Insightful Meadows

Good Morning ,

It's the Jubilee weekend here in the UK and as usual the weather is going to do it's best at being so typically British with a forecast of rain..... certainly for Sunday, which is when our village celebrations are taking place!!!

Now if I'd thought ahead and planned this properly I would have had a Jubilee themed project for you, even a red,white and blue colour scheme..... but organisation is not my strong point so instead I have a card to share that I made using the Unity 'Insightful Meadows' Stamp set....

..... well it is blue and white, so almost patriotic!!

This is a little step outside my normal comfort zone as getting inky is a style I admire but never really excel at so  I wanted to use this stamp set because the tall flower heads lend themselves to this technique.
I stamped a scene first on a separate piece of card and used a nestie to select and cut a circular area of the image and used the same size nestie to cut an aperture in my raised panel before part embossing it.
I love the aperture as it means I could attempt a small area of inking rather than a large scene.
The butterflies are punched from a failed first attempt at the emboss resist technique, I think the pattern gives more interest to them rather than a flat colour.
A touch of stickles to the seed-heads and butterfly bodies and it was finished :0)

Here is the Unity set I used and it's available here in the store along with some other gorgeous flower sets that I spied :0)

I'm going to have to play with this set some more and get more adventurous with my inks and embossing :0)

As you've probably already discovered the new look store is up and running with a easy to use interface to help you search or browse the stamp sets, please go over and have a look... there's even a SALE section!!

The 'May' release Paper Smooches are in and the latest Lawn Fawn stamps are on their way ....yippee :0)


Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a great celebration weekend whatever the weather :0)

Jenny x

Insightful Meadows!

Hello there....

Late again, I'm afraid.....I haven't got used to working Monday's yet!
This week I have used one of my all time favourite kits by Unity, Insightful Meadows. Available from the lovely Emily here

I have used my Distress Stains to stamp with. These give a beautiful water colour effect. Unusually for me I have also used a coloured card blank.....The hardest bit was choosing the background...In the end I have used a Red Velvet paper and tied  some ribbon round and added a bow.. I think this has made a simple card quite elegant....

Thanks for looking, I'll see you soon....maybe with something inky and painty.......

She xx

Enjoy This Day

For today's card I used alcohol inks to make a faux bleach stamped card using Unity's Insightful Meadows stamps available from the shop here.

I stamped with Versamark on to glossy card and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The next step was to add alcohol inks. After they had dried I used an iron to heat up and remove the embossing leaving the stamping.

The sentiment is from an old Unity monthly kit of the month.

Materials used:

Kraft cardstock, Papermania paper

Unity stamp (as above), Versamark ink, clear embossing powder, Ranger alcohol inks

Spellbinders die-cut, CraftWork brad, ribbon, lace.

Thanks for visiting!

Jo xx

Embossed foil

I decided to have a change today and use a different technique to make today's card. My mother-in-law very kindly gave me some gorgeous Art Emboss foil so I had a play with it today.

I cut the foil to size and added alcohol inks to it. I then stamped one of the images from Unity's Insightful Meadows set on to the reverse of the foil using Stazon ink. The next step was to use a couple of fine embossing tools and a mouse mat to emboss the stamped image.

I stamped one of the sentiment stamps from the set striaght on to the card using Versamark ink and then heat embossed it with WOW! glitter embossing powder.

Materials used:
DCWV cardstock, HOTP paper, Magic Scraps splatter mesh
Art Emboss foil, Ranger alcohol inks, Unity Insightful Meadows stamps
Stazon ink, Versamark ink, WOW embossing powder
white Signo pen, ric-rac.

Thanks for visiting!
Jo xx

Watercolour butterflies

I have 2 cards to share with you today using butterflies by Layers of Color. I stamped the butterflies using Stazon on to watercolour paper before colouring them using Derwent Inktense pencils (for the pink butterfly) and Reeves watercolour wax crayons (for the pastel butterfly).

I then cut the butterflies out and added them to the cards (made using watercolour paper) before stamping sentiments using Unity stamps.

This one uses a stamp from Insightful Meadows and I've used watercolour pencils around the edge.

The second one uses the sentiment stamp from the Unity/ Webster's Pages Itty Bitty stamp - Dream Big ( which is unfortunately out of stock at the moment). I added a few rhinestones at the bottom of this card.

Thanks for visiting

Jo xx

Insightful Meadows!

Hi there, from a very wet, rainy, cold Northwest!
Today I have a Tag to show you, really quick and easy!

I started with a White tag base and used, what I think was my first purchase from the lovely Emily.....'Insightful Meadows' available here still love this set!
The Flowers are stamped with Distress Stains to get a sort of water coloured effect.....For the extra stalks I just dipped a small piece of card into the Distress Stain and 'stamped' it onto the Tag! The message is clear embossed and the little flower is just a few punched circles which I sprayed with Distress Ink Re-Inkers mixed with Perfect Pearls....the twirly bits are just thin pieces of wire wrapped round my pokey tool..I coloured the fibres with Distress Stain too....

Short and sweet from me today.....I hope you have a good Monday...

I'll see you very soon.

She xx

Stamps are so versatile!!!

No card, layout or canvas for me to share with you today as I seem to have spent all week "helping" my 9 year old son with his homework....making a poster of a habitat - in this case a woodland habitat.

I am going to share this project with you though as "we" used so many stamps on it LOL!! We made it by joining 4 sheets of plain white 12" x 12" cardstock together and then used chalks to make a coloured background before drawing on the trees and colouring them.

 The leaves were all stamped using the leafy stamp from  Unity's Naturally You kit available here and another leaf stamp.

We stamped the fungi from Unity's Naturally You kit  straight on to the poster and coloured them with Marvy markers. The snail from the same kit was stamped on to shrink plastic and coloured with chalks before heating.

We also used the bracken stamp from Unity's Moments in Bloom kit available here to stamp in clumps at the base of the trees and Unity's Insightful Meadows set to stamp in the left foreground.

Well, hopefully the teacher will approve and I'll be back next week with something that's not homework! As always, thanks for visiting!!

Jo (and Matthew!!) x

Another canvas.....

I seem to have a "thing" for canvasses at the moment and have another one to share with you today. I've used the Unity set Insightful Meadows and 2 {ippity} sets...Now and Always... and Dots For Sure both available from the Ippity Inspiration blog.

I placed a few pieces of paper over the canvas and then covered it with a green organza using Mod Podge and left it to dry. I then randomly stamped the Dots For Sure and the flourish stamp from the Now and Always set.

The next step was to use the stamp from Insightful Meadows and add distress embossing powder then emboss. I then added the die-cut and embellishments:

Materials used:
Canvas, old book page, Prima papers, Mod Podge
Unity and {ippity} stamps, sepia Versafine ink, distress ink and embossing powder
organza, pompom trim, K&Co die-cut, Pink Paislee Artisan flourish, Viva Precious Metal paint.

Before I go.......have you checked out the Make The Day Special shop recently?
Emily has been busy adding some new stuff:

Layers of Color sets and single stamps
Flourishes
Lawn Fawn
My Cute Stamp

As always, thanks for visiting!!

Jo x

Beautiful Meadows!

Hello and a very happy, sunny Monday morning to you! :-)

Today I'd like to show you my latest make with another favourite Unity stamp kit....'Insightful Meadows' available in the UK from the lovely Emily here
I know the technique on my card isn't a new one........but it's one I've not done before and I really enjoyed making it, and it's super easy :-)  so I thought I'd share it with you....

I started with a piece of Watercolour card.... (it did start off as a square, but I can never cut straight!!) after trying various inks on some scraps, I stamped the sentiment in Brown Staz-On. I wanted to do this first so I knew more or less where the flowers would go. I used Distress Inks to stamp with and sprayed the stamp after inking to get a nice 'water colour' effect after stamping... I love how it goes all 'splodgy'!! You never know what it's going to look like because every stamped impression will be different... I just matted it onto 2 co-ordinating matts and added some ribbon....I have reverted back to 'my' colour as you can see!!!!

Thanks for looking, I hope you have a lovely Bank Holiday Monday and I'll see you very soon.

She xx

Insightful Meadows!

Morning!
I have a card to share today :-)
I thought I would use one of my favourite stamp sets and also one of the first I bought by Unity......♥♥♥ love this set...........'Insightful Meadows' The lovely Emily is out of stock I think at the moment, but there are more on the way!  I wanted to make another card with a 'vintagey' feel and these stamps do lend themselves to almost any style!

My base card is textured 12x12" cardstock cut in half to make a 6x6" card, I've just smudged Distress Ink round the edge! I've created the background paper by stamping and clear embossing the flowers in the set onto Ivory pearlescent paper and then colouring with Distress inks and water splattering. I used Kraft card to stamp and clear emboss the main image and added colour with my water brush and Distress Inks. I stamped the sentiment with StazOn and highlighted it with Glossy Accents. The matt is a piece of corrugated packaging, I've just 'roughed up' the edges and inked them. All that was needed to finish was a length of Twine! Thanks for looking, I hope you all have a great start to the week...........the sun is coming out now, but it's still frosty and cold!
I'll catch up with you very soon.

S xx

Insightful Meadows!

Morning everyone.
I decided to take a break from the Christmas cards...................hope I'm not the only one not finished! and I've made a card with one of my very favourite sets............
Insightful Meadows available from Emily here

I've stamped and clear embossed the image and sentiment and then coloured the card with my Distress Inks and water splattered. After running my Black inkpad round the edges I've clear embossed. I've just punched the edges, added some Primas and Grosgrain Ribbon...........which I've also coloured with my DIs.

I hope you like it, thanks for looking.

S x

Quote canvas

Today I've been playing with Unity stamps and distress inks and a canvas board that I bought a while ago.

I used various inks in pink and purple hues to colour the background of the canvas applied with the Ranger tool. I then stamped using the Insightful Meadows set using green distress inks. The quote from the Quote Bundle Pack was stamped using brown Memento ink. I used tiny dots of Stickles in the flower centres.

The last addition was a few rhinestones.

Materials used:

canvas board

Ranger distress inks, brown Memento ink

unity stamps (as above)

rhinestones.

Don't forget to check out the shop as there are some great sales on........ Your Next Stamp here, QKR Stampede here and Unity here!!!

Insightful Meadows

I've been playing with the gorgeous Unity set Insightful Meadows by Donna Downey and made a couple of cards. As I couldn't decide which to show I'll just post both LOL!

For both cards I used white card which I covered with distress ink before randomly stamping again with the distress inks.

For this card I layered the stamped card on jade paper and then mounted it on Kraft card before adding organza ribbon and a vintage glass button as embellishments.

For this card I added one of the sentiments from the same stamp set and then layered the stamped card on yellow paper before mounting it on a card with inked edges. I then added a button and bow as an embellishment and pierced a pattern down the side.

Materials used:

Unity Insightful Meadows, Ranger Distress inks

Papermania papers

vintage buttons, ribbons and twine.

Insightful Meadows On Fabric

Just a quick blog post from me today to show you the outcome of a little experiment. I've been playing with fabric again and I thought I would try stamping on fabric with bleach.

I've used one of my favourite Unity sets (I think I can probably say that about all of them!) Insightful Meadows for this one.

Think I shall play about with this some more - I quite like the effect LOL!

Thanks for looking and catch you later!

Kim

Materials:

Stamps - Unity sets Insightful Meadows

Usual Suspects - Double-sided tape

Other - Fabric; sewing machine; bonda-web; bleach; buttons