Grow your Wings

Hello!

Very quick post today sharing a birthday card I made for my gorgeous little cousin. I used the butterfly from Unity's set called Life Becoming. 

How gorgeous is that butterfly stamp?! Think I might be marginally obsessed with it...

Ok,so I stamped the butterfly onto heavy watercolour card,spritzed with various Distress Inks and sprayed that with water and heat set. Then I stamped the image again onto vellum and fussy cut it out. I coloured the underside of the butterfly with alcohol inks and brushed gold dust over the wings. I put some Frantage on the outer part of the card,heat set and glued the body of the vellum butterfly to the body of the other butterfly. 

I am putting this into Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge "Winged Things" 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge "Animal Antics"

And Unity's Card Sketch Challenge

Lou x

Just Breathe

Hello! 

 Today's card is made using the awesome, Phyllis Harris set 'Just Breathe'. If you are unfamiliar with Phyllis Harris,she is an artist and illustrator and designs for magazines and Unity Stamps. Her beautifully drawn stamps capture the all innocence and joy that a childhood should be full of,and are a delight to watercolour. Being made by Unity means the deep etched rubber stamps well even on bobbly watercolour paper without gaps and skipping-just remember to use an archival waterproof ink,or your outlines will run into the watercolour!

'Just Breathe' has several sentiments included,to make the set very usable for all types of card or layouts. I chose the 'how could i ask for more?' set,because my daughters delight in the fact that Spring seems to have finally arrived has filled the house and they spend every waking moment on the lawn in the sun-this picture and sentiment sum up their Spring 2013 perfectly  :-)

The twine I used is the gorgeous Lawn Fawn lemon twine.

Hope you are having a great start to Spring too!

A party with the Pixies?

Hello!

Today's card is an party invitation. Made using the super cute Unity's Pixie-licious,it is perfect for a child's card (or a grown-up ;-))

I used a wood grain and toadstool background to add to the fairy abience and created a pocket from mulberry paper and the Martha Stewart bunny punch. The images are stamped onto white cardstock and cut out, the toadstools are on pop-dots,I mounted the pixies onto mulberry scraps. Then I attached the crayons with a piece of jute twine,popped the pixie pair into their pocket and voila! A great interactive card that is sure to bag you top notch guests at your woodland party :-D

Hope you like it!

 

Embrace your inner funky

Hello!

It feels like it has been forever since I posted a blog! So in celebration,I have stepped way out of my comfort zone and drawn huge  inspiration from the other girls in the Design Team and have tried to keep this card really simple and clean...ish! ;-)

I used the gorgeously retro Unity Melody Ross set 'one of a kind'-I've had this in my collection for a while now and have been itching to use the plain-Jane girls :-) I left the girls very simple,with no depth(well,just a touch in their hair) I backed the image with some gorgeous Lawn Fawn petite pack paper and some of their teal twine with a vintage orange flower button from my stash. Very unusual for me-I actually cut up some paper! Shock horror! I am a massive paper hoarder-a real fire hazard. I collect it then stash it away,occasionally stroking it,but NEVER cutting into it,lol. Aaaaand I didn't distress or ink any edges! I'm feeling very proud of the 

plain white I managed not to stain ;-)

So,it is goodbye from me for this week,hope you like the card and the new look website ;-)

A shabby Prim swap catch up

Bonjour!

I am slightly rubbish at remembering to blog-I'm sure I will get better (I AM getting better-my new job is ensuring that :-))So,I found these pics on my computer from a swap I took part in over at Your Paper Pantry,waaaay back in March. I signed up for the Shabby Chic Grab Bag Embellie swap and also,as I am completely obsessed with all things Primitive and Folk Art-y,I joined the new Prim swap over there. 

I took the stamped tags and flowers spots,which require five of each. I had seen a flower technique a while ago (I cant remember where)using strips of scalloped fabric to make shabby flowers. I LOVE the way these look! For mine I used bits of vintage linen,tulle,vintage pillowcases,burlap,antique doilies,and some very old Cath Kidston PJ's I had in my fabric stash forever,paper...I got so into it I just grabbed anything that I thought would look good,lol. I made the centers from some pearl earrings I picked up at a broken jewellery sale  

 This is how my five came out...

And a couple closer up

I had good feed back from the girls that received them,so I think they went down well :-)

Next up was the Stamped Tag swap-I always struggle with this one,as I find it very hard to JUST do stamping,lol. I used a few stamps from my fresh-through-the-door Unity KOTM and the script from a stamp I have had for a long time. I embossed the script over the rose stamp with clear semi mat powder,which I like the effect of on here and finished the tags using some of the seam binding I dyed whilst on a seam binding dying frenzy(I get gripped by these occasionally, frequently) and put some vintage glass beads onto the ends to add some weight.

And finally,onto the Primitive Swap. This was a one-on-one for a candle mat and we had to use thick felt and Prim colours,leaving a 4x4" space in the center for the candle to go on. I love embroidering,so jumped on this to use some of the designs buzzing around my head that I had seen on a Google search. It is made from a very old woolen blanket that had got felted,and again,has been loitering in my rather ominous looking fabric stash cupboard. I backed it with coarse burlap,for a truly feed-sack rustic look ;-)

The lovely Alease got mine,and sent me such a lovely message of gratitude :-) 

And I got a gorgeous one from Linda :-)

Back for more catch-ups soon!