Spring Into Life Apple Blossom Frame

 Spring Into Life Apple Blossom Frame

This is a second inspiration project for the Country View Crafts challenge of 'Spring into Life'. I have used the same set of Alison's stamps as I used for my previous project, showing how versatile her stamps can be.

I used Alison Bomber tissue paper from PaperArtsy, cut the blossom part and adhere it to green card and dry. 

Paint the blossom using the the paints and again dry. Make a wash of snowflake and paint it around the blossom lightly and again dry.

Stamp large and small apple blossom stamps using archival ink onto watercolour paper and paint. Dry and slightly cut around the large blossom images so they separate from the leaves. Then spritz water on the back of them and carefully squeeze leaves and blossoms to give them some shape.

Add some textured card to the photo frame and blend some distress oxides over it, spritz and dry. Then brayer one coat of the snowflake paint over it.

Edge all the flowers with brown distress ink and adhere pieces to the frame.

I now have a winter and a summer frame for displaying in my conservatory at the appropriate times of year. I think I will be looking to make a Summer and Autumn one as well.

xxx

Supplies

PaperArtsy Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition EAB46

PaperArtsy Alison Bomber Tissue Paper

PaperArtsy - Fresco Finish paints - Bougainvillea, Blah Mange, Snowflake, Vintage Lace, Haystack, Magic Moss. French Roast.

Distress Oxide - Tattered Rose

Distress Archival ink - Ground Espresso

Ranger 12x12 paper in green (old stock)

Miscellaneous - Ikea Frame, Fabriano watercolour paper 280 gms cold pressed, flower stamens, white bought flowers.

Spring Into Life Apple Blossoms watercolour

Apple Blossom 

Stamps by Alison Bomber

I am using a technique I taught at Country View Crafts a few weekends ago, Everyone loved it and the effects they achieved.

Stamp and wider stamp the apple blossom to cover approximately half the page. This was a practice one I did.

Paint the images with masking fluid and leave to dry - this is an experiment in a Hobbycraft Shore and Marsh A5 sketchbook which says it is watercolour paper but it does not allow the distress inks to work and react with water like other card and watercolour papers do. So I shall be giving this sketchbook a miss in the future. After stamping over the images with the masking fluid still on and dipping into watery distress ink puddles, I made sure the ink was dry all over and rubbed the masking fluid from the page and then painted the images using  my chosen palette of colours.

From there I made sure I had recorded colours on a colour palette I created and use quite frequently at the moment.

I also made some swatches as I needed to include Rustic Wilderness which was an additional colour at the last minute.

 After adding the words and some thin cheesecloth I cut coloured papers echoing the coloured inks I had used and made the tiny bunting. The composition just needed something in the top right hand corner ......

.... and it finished with a splattering of white using a large white chalk marker.

xx

Supplies

PaperArtsy Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition EAB46

Ranger arhival ink - Watering Can

Tim Holtz distress inks - Scattered Straw, Bundled Sage, Mowed Lawn, Rustic Wilderness, Spun Sugar, Kitsch Flamingo, Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso.

Use a frame - CVC April #2

 Apple Blossom Frame

The cherry blossom in my garden, that I can see from my workroom window, is stunning and when I was out last month, in the sun, it was buzzing with bees, in fact I can see a few now flying around the flowers, in and out.               (Time of writing 23/03/25)

I have used the beautiful Apple Blossom edition of stamps by my lovely friend Alison Bomber to meet the challenge theme for Country View Crafts. I stamped all the images and then cut them out and watercoloured the blossoms with distress inks.

I adhered the large blossoms in the background and added some wood offcuts to support the frame.

I extended the layer frame to fit the size of the opening and sewed around it to match the rest of the piece.

The background was created using distress inks and clear embossing.

I added elements I had prepared to fill the bottom inside of the frame ...

.... and the top of the frame. The bottles have real dried seed heads, seeds and moss inside them. Some of the labels were bought from Etsy and others I have made myself. You can of course substitute them with TH snippets.

I also added the bird and 'Springtime'.

xx

Supplies

TH Distress Inks - Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Kitsch Flamingo, Evergreen Bough, Picked Raspberry,

Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition (PaperArtsy EAB46)

TH Idea-ology Layer Frames, Snippets,

TH Sizzix dies - Silhouette Birds

Ranger Archival ink - Peat Moss, 

My own bottles but Tim Holtz has great ones to use.

Spring Flowers Mini Album for Tando Creative

Here is another little album made for Di to take to Hochanda with her. This time I was inspired by seeing all the beautiful flowers at the garden centres we had visited in March.
I am sharing it on the Tando blog for the Anything Goes theme this week.

Process steps. Pages

1. Cut panels from patterned paper, ink the edges and adhere to the album.

2. When dry sand back the edges and ink again..

3. Use snippets of Tim Holtz  botanical collage paper with decou-page  mate sealer/glue on each panel,sealing the complete surface of each one

4. Sand off any over hangs.

5. Paint the flowers and leaves with watery media fluid acrylics.
6. Add some tiny flowers and words.

7. Repeat the same process steps for the front and back covers.

I used small buttons and thin black elastic to make the closures.

Finished front cover

Finished back cover.

 This is such a cute size 8 x 9.5 cms and feels lovely to hold in the hand and I adore the hand painted flowers and leaves



I am adding this to the mini album makers challenge and happily linking to where there is a wealth of album making inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by and ....

xxx

ATC - The joys of Spring

An ATC today, made just because I wanted to and also because I am still trying to use up scraps. 

The background was made when I did my demo day at The Art of Craft and I just finished it off with small vintage images from my box and then generated the sentiment on the PC.

Enjoy.

hugs {brenda} xox

The Stamp Man - Colours of Spring/Easter

Hi Everyone

This is a scheduled post as I am at the Five craft show at Farnborough today and tomorrow I will be demoing all day at The Art of Craft shop, just down the road from the Five show, so if you are in the area do pop in and see me, it would be lovely to see blogging friends. Jane (store owner) will be at the show, so if you are not sure where the shop is pop over to her stand and she will give you directions, but I can assure you it is less than a mile away.

This tag is my take on Tim's Tag 10 of the 12 Tags of Christmas 2011. Have you seen he's not going to do them anymore BUT HE IS doing 12 tags of 2012. So cool. I've got to get into these now.
Did you see him on QVC? I spent a bit of money on Tuesday - but never mind.
In fact some of the things have already arrived.

Supplies -

Stamps - Spiralling floral bkg by B Line, Natures Moments by Tim Holtz

Tim Holtz Seasonal paper stash

Distress inks - Bundled sage, Victorian Velvet, Aged Mahogany

Dies - Tattered Banners, Tattered Florals, Mini Florals, Typeset

Distress Stains - Victorian Velvet, Wild Honey

I hope you can join us at The Stamp Man for our new challenge and be in with a chance of winning a £10 voucher to spend at Jill's store. Please go take a look at the amazing inspiration from the design team, their wonderful art will surely get you kick started.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend.

hugs {brenda} xox

Easter boxes

Hi
Well this is what I achieved last night. I should have gone to bed early, but you know what it's like when you get into something and you don't want to stop. That was me, just wouldn't give in until I had finished what I was doing.

I had great fun cutting out a template and making three almost identical boxes for the girls' Easter Egg hunt on Sunday. The template was the free download from 'Just us Girls' that I mentioned yesterday and it so easy to use. Lauren Meader from 'My Time Made Easy LLC' is sponsoring this week's challenge and there are some beautiful DT creations to see.  I'd had a trial run making the box and of course made a mistake, but then I always told my kids you learn from your mistakes as well as your successes, and I did. I set about gathering the papers (many of them from my scrap box) for the three differnt colour schemes and decided they would all be the same design, but the colours would make them different. Becca is nearly 13 so I wanted hers to be rather funky. Ella is four in the summer and she goes to ballet, she is a pink girl. Maddison is 20 months and seems to be a bit less girly but still loves to dress up and to dance.

So colours chosen (mostly pink and green but some yellow as well) I got out the Nesties scalloped circle and cut out two for the front of each box. I cut out the letters of their name on the Cricut and then covered each one with Versamark and sticky stuff putting glitter on them whilst they were still hot to get the glittery effects. All the girls love a bit of bling!! I made the butterflies with my  MS butterfly punch and used glitter card. To make the flowers I cut out 31/2 inch circles on the Cricut and cut into them to make a spiral. I went round the outside edge making cuts about half way into the paper and then rolled them, using sticky dots at the end to keep them together. I then peeled the 'petals' back and used a Sakura glitter pen to give them some sparkle too. Next I cut lots of different sized tiny eggs to stick on the flap, using the Doodlecharms cartridge on the Cricut, and cut slightly larger ones to decorate the back. I also cut three rabbits for the back. The rabbits have been edged with brushed corduroy DI and the features added wth glitter pens. I think the girls will love them to put their small choccies in on Sunday - lets hope it's a fine day for them.

Well my cold seems to be drying out a little so I hope it won't be too long before it's gone. Keep well yourselves and thanks for stopping by.

LOL Bxxxx

Challenge List

Just us Girls - Template challenge

The Creative Cottage Challenge 3 - Sparkle

Fussy and Fancy Friday challenge 7 - Easter

Paperplay Challenges - Easter

Colour Create - Easter

CRAFT challenge 43 - Easter

Simon Says Stamp - Shimmer and Easter

Everybody-art-challenge 83 - Easter

Lexi's Creations challenge 10 - Easter theme

The Cuttlebug Spot - Pink and green

The Pink Elephant challenge 60 - Pastels

The Shabby Tea Room challenge 3 - Let's get scrappy