Gelli Plate ... Secret Garden

This was inspired by another post on Barbara Gray's new blog .. I'm loving all the tips re playing with the gelliplate because I haven't used mine much because I wasn't confident but now I just want to play and experiment.

I loved this as soon as I saw it because I saw the potential to make a card for a neighbour who is a cat owner ... can't believe I am already talking about cards for 2014. I still have all my Christmas cards and one very special birthday before 2013 is out.

This was really lovely to do in fact I made 2 backgrounds while I had all my stuff out and on the plus side nothing went in the bin apart from some spare copier paper I had used.

Well it's nearly teatime, Jasper & OH are out for a walk so I better get on they'll be starving as usual when they get back
Till next time
xxAnnie

Clarity Challenge #3.. 'It's all in the sentiment'

Well it's been dreadful day here today more like Autumn than Spring ... so what to do??? no problem...Craft of course!!

I have been thinking about this new Clarity challenge as always but I kept changing my mind over which sentiment to use, trouble is I have so many favourites. I love the Clarity daydreamer stamp and when I read the words of 'Lilt of the water' again I just knew I needed to put them together and here's the result:

 

 

I wanted to keep it simple... I made the reflection of the daydreamer first by stamping it onto my Splodgemat with denim Adirondack carefully transferred the image onto a sheet of Theuva card..(it came out a bit bubbly but as it was going to be covered with water so I let it pass). I then turned card round and lined up the Daydreamer and stamped with black versafine ink. Having made an oval mask I used the negative part to build the scene through, Clarity's new masks are great for creating clouds, and the water was created using my brayer and crumpled copier paper. Next I masked my scene with the oval cutout and continued the clouds over the rest of the card using the more muted cloudy blue adirondack. I stamped my sentiment, the way it was designed made it easy to sit it against the side of my oval.

 

I tried my finished topper on various mounts and cards and finally decided to make my own background & card using my Waterfall Big & Juicy pad and the crumpled copier paper again. 

 

Right I'm off to link up with the Clarity Challenge blog ... there's a £50 Clarity voucher for the winner so well worth giving it a go :)

 

Bye for now xx Annie

 

Clarity Challenge 2.. 'In the Garden'

So I have spent days thinking about... a couple more days planning it and now it's finished .... Come into my garden:

 

I have so enjoyed putting this card together, I was very inspired by all the DT samples and you will recognise elements from many of their cards.

I started with 2 8"x8" cards and overlapped them to form the back I scored the 2 outer flaps in half vertically to form a type of foldback gatefold card, this gave me plenty of room to play!

 

I cut an aperture in each of the end flaps, I love Clarity's poppies stamps so I stamped them twice onto heat resistant acetate and embossed them, coloured them in with promarkers and reversed one of them when I put it in the apeture to give me a mirror image. I also added my Mum's favourite quote taken from her schoolgirl autograph book : The Kiss of the Sun,( I was thrilled when Clarity brought it out). Then I planned and made a scene on seperate pieces of card to put behind each of my windows

 

 

 



Next I sketched and set about making my centre scene ... lots of puzzling over masking .. but that's what I love doing ...I spent 40 minutes just puzzling how to create a stack of flowerpots ( as seen in cards by Sazzle & Jane Telford). I find it quite nerve wracking when doing these scenes because right at the last moment you can make a mess of the whole thing by stamping a dodgy image ... I have got quite good at covering stray spots of ink with butterflies etc.  Artistic Licence was used to turn Barbara's lovely little Log Cabin into my garden shed at the top of my garden. The new pointillism stamps came in useful for the border flowers, luckily I had seen Barbara using them yesterday and overstamping  with 2 colours. Of course my Lab Jasper had to put in an appearance because since we have had him our garden is his playground rather than a garden, it's usually littered with his toys and balls. I didn't cut his legs off,honestly it was planned that way :) , as our lawns are not flat & beautifully manicured he is stood behind one of the many hummocks in the grass. :)

 

Lastly I continued the scene around the sides and added 2 Clarity sentiments and I was done.

 

 

This last picture shows how it closes down to fit flat into an 8x8 envelope.

 

Well that's it again for today, it's been a great Clarity weekend with all the programs and plenty of crafty Clarity playtime .... what will I do next ... only thing for certain is ... it'll be crafty

Night, night, xxx Annie

 

Ps just off to link it to Clarity Challenge blog nearly forgot after all that blogging & chatting !!

Clarity Classroom Lesson #15

Well today Clarity Classroom Lesson 15 .. the first one for 3 months. Barbara has designed some stamps which will enable us to add texture as well as colour to lineart stamped images.. a faux Pointillism.

 At first I hadn't been too sure about this set but after three attempts I have a result of sorts  I do like the shading and textures I was able to get... my biggest problem was producing the freehand drawn boat ..it still looks like a rusty bucket, many of the other ladies have mastered it much better than me in fact some of them are even able to craft-a-long with the program and have produced brilliant results.

Well that's it for Saturday it's well past my bedtime but I was determined to give it one last go..
nite nite Annie x