Stamping on fabric for Bee Crafty

 

Good morning! I am here with a little Bee Crafty DT project and to bust a few myths, lol! Let's start with those. Firstly you don't need special ink to stamp on fabric unless you are going to wash it. If it is going on a card it isn't going to be washed, so most inks will work well. I have used versafine, versafine clair, memento luxe, stazon, brilliance and versamagic. All worked fine, but I was particularly impressed with the versafine clair, which is not waterbased and can be coloured and dampened after stamping without it changing.

Secondly, you can colour your fabric with most mediums. All those sprays like dylusions and distress oxides can be sprayed on fabric. It would wash out, but for a card they are wonderful. You can also colour with inktense pencils and blocks which I am told can be heat set, becoming permenant after ironing. You will need to iron your fabric a couple of times during the process. You can also use a range of fabric. The best thing to do is experiment and see!

Let's get on shall we?

I used dylusions spray inks, Beautanicals large branch and tree stamps, Wordage small words, Brown Versafine clair ink, sequins, seed beads and green embroidery threads

First I started with a piece of calico and sprayed with dylusions and water. Once it was almost dry I ironed it. I've also used poly cotton pillow cases and curtain lining which also worked well. I tend to rip the fabric to give a frayed edge along the weave so it is straight.

I placed the flat coloured fabric in my stamp platform and stamped the tree using versafine Clair. If you want to use an embroidery hoop make sure your fabric is big enough and you stamp centrally. You can always make it smaller afterwards.

Next you can use up some of the little stuff from your stash! I sewed on small seed beads in the middle of sequins. Check your needle is narrow enough to pass through your beads before you thread it, lol.

Next I added some smaller and larger seed beads on their own.

To ground my tree I added 'grass' which is just straight stitch in 2 different shades of green. It doesn't have to be neat and it can be all different lengths, just like grass. Just keep going until the gaps are filled. I used single strands of embroidery thread for my grass. You could add some embroidery to the tree too. Single Chain stitch makes good leaves and french knots also look good. There are plenty of you tube videos for these. Once you have finished, iron your fabric again taking care around the embellishments.

Mat and layer your fabric to your card. Double sided tape works well, or use a good glue stick to stick fabric to paper. You could even sew it together! 

Finally add a sentiment...

I am really enjoying getting back into needlework at the moment. I've realised there are lots of stamps I can use for this sort of project and it is good to experiment, mixing paper, card and fabric, as well as inks and sprays!

Before I go, just out of curiosity, would you be interested in doing something like this as an online workshop? A little kit to sit and stitch together? It would have to be via facebook I think, or possibly zoom. If so leave me a comment as it is something I am thinking about 😀

Thanks for looking!

Gelli Plate real estate

A week or two ago, I decided it was time to get my gelli plate out and have a play with it, using some dylusions paints and mandala stencils.  I'd watched a Seth Apter live on facebook (Crafting with All Brands group) and learned not to rush in to pull prints off, but to let the paint dry a little. The result was 22 sheets of gelli prints, my favourite 4 in the photo above 😂

I often have an evening making backgrounds and then leave them for ages before using them. 

This time I am pressing some in to use straight away as a nice bold background for one of the wonderful doodle art house stamps. Just like last week I have stamped the Villa Rose onto book pages and cut it out, but this time I've coloured some parts of the stamps with ecoline brush pens. I stamped the leafy border onto the base card using Versafine Clair Summertime. Thanks for looking!

A Bold Background over at Bee Crafty

Here is my card that is over on the Bee Crafty Blog today. There is a step by step tutorial so you can see how it is made with links to all the stamps and products I used. Why not pop over and take a look?

Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments x

Rudolf day for October

 Hi there! Sorry I haven't been around much! I'd intended to post a couple of cards after my visit to Doncaster, but it took a bit longer to get home than anticipated. To cut a long story short, I broke down quite dramatically (and expensively) outside the Dome and had to be towed home. We finally got our car back on Saturday. You don't realise how much you rely on the car until you are without it, and also how much longer it takes on public transport! Anyway here are my cards for this months Rudolf days. I used some of my goodies from Doncaster, a new stamp from Inkylicious called Evening walk. The snow on the first is fluffy puffy stuff, and the background is memento grey flannel ink.

The ink on the second card is Memento Paris Dusk and the snow is white gel pen and gellyroll star dust.My third card is something completely different. The sentiment is an inkylicious stamp, but the background is an Imagination Crafts stencil and sparkle medium over an inky dylusions background. It is very sparkly and the colour comes through the sparkle medium too!

 Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's Rudolf day challenge on her blog and join in the fun getting ready for Christmas in plenty of time! Theres some great inspiration from Mo and the DT too.
We had a lovely time at Stamp Magic, despite the car, and enjoyed meeting up with crafty friends. I don't normally have much luck with selfies, but for once I was quite pleased with this one which features 3 members of Stamping Sensations DT. I think you can tell how much we were enjoying ourselves from those smiles!

 

Thanks for looking!

September at Stamping Sensations

Good morning, It's time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations and this month we have some photo inspiration for you with some pretty colours that can range from bright to pastel, it's very much down to you which ones you choose to work with, or you may want to go floral inspired by the lovely Iris.

I used both for my inspiration and came up with this...

I coloured the iris stamp (Hobby Art) with distress markers in peacock feathers and picked raspberry and then used a water brush to spread the colour, adding a little glitter glue. I  created an inky panel for the base card using dylusion sprays, distress oxide ink in broken china, a stencil, a crafty individuals background stamp and another Hobby Art stamp. It sort of evolved as I went along, and I was reasonably pleased with how it worked out!

Please can I remind you we are a stamping challenge so must see a stamped image, sentiment or quote as the focal element of your artwork. You can enter up to three creations but please note: If we do not comment on your entry it will be because it does not follow the theme, qualify under our rules, or because we are asked to sign in or provide additional data to comment on third party hosts particularly Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Splitcoast. We do not want to be rude but we do want to be fair to those who do follow the rules.
We have a lovely prize of Hero Arts goodies this month and a second prize of ribbons too. 
     
Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the gorgeous creations from my multi talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your great entries!
Thanks for looking!  

February Mid month inspiration

In our mid month posts at Stamping Sensations, we are going to showcase for you a technique that we have tried out. I saw some wonderful samples from Visible Image, our sponsors this month, using shaving foam marbling technique and I knew I had to have a go. I have marbled with shaving foam before using a variety of inks and dyes, including re-inkers and food colouring, but not half as effectively as the samples I saw. They had used Dylusions sprayed onto the foam. The colours were amazing!

So, if you want to have a go yourself, you need shaving foam, a tray, a ruler and some inks, sprays or dies.

• First spray the foam into a tray and smooth over the surface so it is larger than your paper.

• Next spray the foam with your inks. Use a cocktail stick or paintbrush handle to mix up the colours a bit. 
• After that, lay your paper or card onto the shaving foam, pressing down so colour touches all of the paper surface
• Lift the paper off and use the ruler to scrape off the shaving foam
• Leave to dry

Here are a few samples using a mixture of Visible Image and Inkylicious stamps

I hope that has inspired you to have a go yourself! Thanks for looking!

February at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! It is the first Sunday of the month, so time for our February challenge at Stamping Sensations, where this month we have a nice and simple theme of........

********Anything Goes********

For my card I created a shaving foam marbled background using Dylusions, and stamped and embossed the Jazz it up saxophonist and the sentiment from the Play it loud set. These stamps are all available from Visible Image (see the link below). The adhesive Music border is from Be Creative.  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. Conventional rubber/acrylic stamps and digital images are acceptable, but pre-coloured digital images and toppers are not. It so upsets us to see names come out in the draw who are not eligible for the prize because they have not read the rules. 
Now onto the sponsor and prize this month

Visible Image Visible Image is a clear stamp designer and manufacturer based in South Wales, UK. Their stamps are hand poured and hand cut using the finest photopolymer available. Each stamp is deeply etched, 4mm thick, to ensure a crisp clear perfectly stamped image. They are offering one lucky winner a fabulous £35 store voucher. How great is that?
Do pop over to the Challenge blog and take a look at the inspiration from my multi-talented teamies, and I look forward to visiting your fabulous entries!

Playing with Tree stencils and colour sprays

Hi There! It has been over a week since my last post - I blame the person who stole the weekend! I have no idea where it went at all! I had a little play with some tree stencils (Thanks, Brenda!) and colour sprays a week or two ago and here are the results

 The one above was on navy card using clear embossing paste and  sprays with Mica, and the one below uses imagination crafts sparkle medium.

 Finally I used Grunge paste over card sprayed with Adirondack colour sprays and water. When it was dry I sanded it until smooth

The sentiments are all from Inkylicious. Thanks for looking!

Male Birthdays

 Lots of people struggle when it comes to ideas for male birthdays, especially teenagers. In times of need I will often opt for digi images, and Mo Manning has quite a few, especially if you are looking for a computer or gaming theme. With this one I began by stamping a panel of white stamping card with a twinchie stamp from Inkylicious in Kaleidacolor Creole Spice. I dusted over using the same ink pad and my ink dusters. I trimmed this and attached it to the base card, popping a turquoise stick on nail head at each corner.
I sprayed a snippet of card using blue and purple dylusions. When it was dry, I ran it through the cuttlebug inside a birthday themed embossing folder, before rubbing over some treasure brass to highlight the embossing. The sentiment is from Little Claire and was also stamped on a snippet. I made both of these cards a while ago. This first one was made for Meg's godmother's godson (Meg's godbrother?), who is also off to University in Sheffield.

 Here is another male card for you.This time I found some snippets of black card, and paper pieced the Woodware clear singles Sneakers stamp, using a white gelly roll pen on the laces and eyelets. I used ice grey 1 and pastel blue promarkers to shade around the stamp and a little ivory to add some shape to the sneakers. This stamp is great for paper piecing and for girls or boys from about 12 upwards - So versatile!
As I used snippets on both, I am off to Miss Di's snippet playground with them. I will be behind the bike sheds where the chocklit is, hoping the tag game is finished and no one else gets a tail pinned on them. Poor Mrs A! Hope Miss Di is feeling a bit better and her back is behaving itself.  Thanks for looking!

Inky playtime

A few weeks ago I had a play with dylusions and shaving foam to make some backgrounds. I had asked about some of the wonderful samples on the Visible Image stall at Doncaster Stamp Magic, and Helen and Mark told me that this was the technique used. I couldn't wait to try it! Thank you for the inspiration, Theresa Morgan! You can check out her blog here. Both of my pieces were done using the shaving foam and dylusions onto copier card. I stamped the wonderful Visible image stamps in memento luxe ink and embossed with clear  powder. This technique bleached very easily, and I added a little pastel blue promarker to shape the eye. I also added a little white gel pen to help the sentiment stand out from the background. I gave this card to Meg.
I was a little more pleased with the second attempt, as I managed to make the marbling streak free. I asked a few people what they thought I should do with it, and the majority said 'Frame it!', so I did. Whilst shopping for Meg at Ikea yesterday, two square frames 'fell' into the trolley!

Not sure where to put it now!
Thanks for looking, and I hope to be round to visit you all soon.

Rudolf day for June

Back in May I got this gorgeous birthday card from my lovely friend Lesley, using a stamp from Honey Doo Crafts, a company that I hadn't really looked at before...When I did I spent quite a bit!!!
One of the stamps I bought was this one, which I have used to create three cards for Scrappy Mo's Rudolf days this month.
First up I used wow brass embossing powder on burgundy card...

Next up I tried it with flutter glu and flake...

Finally I tried flitter glu and flake again, but managed to get a smudge of something on the card and it looked a mess. I decided to cover it in different colour sprays including sparkly ones to cover the mess and create this one...

A reasonable save I think ;) Note to self - flitter glu and flake gives good resist with colour sprays like dylusions!
Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's and take a look at the fab inspiration and prize. Not sure if I will manage to join in next month  - might be without computer (still on XP here), but I will try and do extra for August if I don't join in.
I will leave you with a few photos of the birds in my garden.

 Goldfinches...

 Love this one!!!

 A great tit...

 and a very noisy baby starling taken by Meg - he was so loud he woke her up!
Thanks for looking.

April at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning and Happy Easter! It is the first Sunday of April and time for a new Challenge at Stamping Sensations! I am pleased to say that it looks like our internet issues are sorted, touch wood, just in time to get my post finished for the new challenge! Our theme this month is Pretty in Pink and we are being sponsored by PDA Cards and Craft. I am a very lucky crafter as I live only a 25 minute drive away from PDA at Langley Mill, and visit (and spend lots!!!) often. Their paper and card selection are wonderful and they also stock a wide range of other crafting products. The items used on the card above all came from PDA. The stamp is a Woodware Clear Magic one, and I have paper pieced it to imitate some of the wide range of converse style footwear available. I added white gel pen to the laces and pink sparkle to the eyelets. I also added a bit of shading in ivory and pastel blue promarker.

My second card is a little fairy scene using fairy toadstool and grass stamps from Inkylicious. I used my ink dusters, a moon mask and adirondack inks to make the background. I stamped the fairy and grasses in versafine black and coloured the toadstool with distress markers and white gel pen. The background paper was created using dylusion sprays on copier paper. Once the bright colours were dry I placed a leaf stencil from 'that special touch' over and spayed with the white spray.

I also added a bit of subtle sparkle to the fairy and the night sky using a sakura gellyroll clear sparkle pen. You can see the effect in this photo. If you are going to Ally Pally on 11th and 12th April You can get a closer look at it on the Inkylicious stand.
The prize this month is a very generous £40 voucher to spend in the PDA store.

 I'd be very happy to help you with that if you want, lol!  Be sure to pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the stunning pink creations that my talented team mates have created.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments too.

Special snippets

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky to win a prize in the snippet playground. It was a gorgeous set of rose themed stamps by Lindsay Mason. One of my first thoughts once half term arrived was to press them into use to make a thank you card for Miss Di, and here it is.

The panel of paper on which I stamped the rose background was left over from some dylusion spraying (After midnight, cherry pie, funky fuchsia and white linen). I stamped everything in memento elderberry. The black strip that the rose background is mounted on is also a snippet. The sentiment is from Inkylicious.
As I used up a couple of snippets I am taking it to the snippet playground, where there is a fantastic prize on offer - only some of Sarn's zentangle stamps!
Me and Sarn have been talking about a bit of karate in the playground. I just need to persuade Sensei Alex to come along, whilst Mrs A is enlisting some muscular fire fighters for us to grapple with!!!
Thanks for looking!

Some snippet makes

Here are a couple of cards that I made from snippets. The first is a small card, using a snippet of cotton braid and leaves (Inky Doodles) stamped on snippets of white card and coloured with promarkers. I picked up the embossing folder in the Range sale for £3.00 I think - a bargain!

My second card used all snippets apart from the base card. The dylusions sprayed paper was left over from a crafty individuals card I made last year, and the snippets of black may well have been there for decades, lol! I added stickles to the top of the chloe stem die cut (Memory box). Unusually for me there is no stamping on this one, although a sentiment could be added as needed.
I am off to see Miss Di in the snippets playground for a huddle round the stove with the girls. It is way too cold and slippy to skip, and I am not chancing the slide in case of frostbite in the derrière!
Hope you are all keeping warm and dry. Thanks for looking!

Warm Autumn Colours at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning! How are you feeling this Sunday morning? Here it is time for a new challenge at Stamping Sensations where our theme is Warm Autumn Colours. It was a great chance to use tree or leaf stamps so I am very happy!!!

Here is my card. I started off by running the Imagination Crafts leaf swirl stencil through the cuttlebug with a 5" square card and my no more shims mat. I then used my ink dusters and kaleidacolor autumn leaves ink to make the embossing pop.

For the main panel I sprayed the reverse side of some centura pearl card with Dylusions and glimmer mist, before stamping and embossing the Imaginations crafts Leaves decoupage stamp set. I added a bit of red glaze to the ladybird and a bit of ribbon from my stash across the top.

When you tilt it you can see a little bit of the sparkle from the glimmer mist.

This month we are sponsored by the very lovely people at Imagination Crafts, who are offering a whopping £35 voucher to spend in their store...wish I could take part!

 

Do pop over to the Challenge blog and take a look at the wonderful inspiration that my team mates have created, and I will look forward to visiting to see your fabulous autumnal creations!

Thanks for looking!

Summer Blooms at Stamping Sensations

Good Morning my friends! It is the first Sunday of the month and time for another challenge at Stamping Sensations. This month our theme is Summer Blooms and our sponsor is Heartfelt Creations
For my card this month I have chosen to use a stamp of a flower I love, and have grown very successfully this year too!

Bet you wish you had smellyvision! Here is a closer picture of the card...

The background is a Sheena style Gesso and H2O wash on water colour paper I stamped and embossed the sweet peas (Inkylicious) and put onto a base card that had been stamped with the Inkylicious worn paint stamp in shaded lilac. The sentiment is from Inkylicious too. The wide boarder strip was created with scrunched paper, a combination of dylusions and creative colour sprays and a spellbinders die.

Above is a close up of the H2O shimmer and below you can see the shimmer from the creative colour sprays

Now, onto the prize...

 

Please note that PP&S will apply outside the US

What a wonderful prize, eh? Do pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at the amazing creations that my teamies have produced, and also pop back there with your entry for this wonderful prize! 

Before I go I'd like to say thank you and a little wave to my latest followers - great to have you on board and  lovely to know that you like what I make!

Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.