Water!

Last month on the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge, our theme was "Water". I managed a last minute entry, another piece of bunting for our shed!

I was making brusho backgrounds. I'd made a dilute solution with the turquoise brusho, and used it to wet watercolour card. I then added sea green brusho powder to a dry acrylic block, and pressed it into the card. 

I re-stamped over the whole area, drying the block and reapplying powder so the sea green stayed more concentrated.

Once dry, I stamped the seahorse stamp from Tim Holtz in potting soil archival ink.

I coloured it using distress oxides (fossilised amber, wild honey, fired brick, vintage photo, black soot) and a water pen.

I didn't cut the triangle before stamping, as I'd misplaced my template!

But it surfaced again so I could complete this one.

To fit the triangle, the seahorse ended up a bit off centre. So I dug out a Clarity stamp that looks like seaweed, and stamped freehand with peacock feathers and cracked pistachio distress oxide. I also edged with peacock feathers.

I hope to get around to weather proofing all the bunting I've made and getting it up on the shed soon!

The May theme for the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge is "Stash - something you've had for ages and never used".

The challenge for this one may be narrowing down the options! Do head over to visit us and join in.

Remember

This is another bunting piece that I made - unsurprisingly back in November for Remembrance day. I entered it for the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge "Wise Words" theme.

I started by cutting my triangle from Clarity stencil card. I then drew my poppies - this was just after the art journal class where we learnt to draw these flowers, in various forms, and I was super chuffed with them (still am now!) They look like poppies to me! It was also a chance to use my new drawing pens!

I then wetted the card and added the brilliant red brushos, aiming for the centre of each flower. I added the black brusho, using a paint brush to be more precise, to the centre of each flower.

Once dry, I added more colour, both as powder, and touches with the paint brush using the brusho made into an ink to fill the flowers where needed.

The final step, once it had dried again, was to add the word. This is from a Clarity word chain stamp, and I used archival permanent ink so it wouldn't be affected by the water.

I love the messiness and indiscriminateness of this - it seems appropriate somehow.

"A" bunting triangle

Happy New Year!

We have a new theme at the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge for January, "Starts with 'A'"

So to kick off the month, and take advantage of some down time with hubby home to help look after the little one, I thought I'd do a quick bunting triangle. I am collecting a little stash of these now, I must work out how best to weather proof them and get them up!

I started with a background from my stash.

This is ink from my hexagon petite gel press plate, I was obviously stamping through the circles stencil a lot one day, this is the waste.

I cut a triangle using the template I made last year, to ensure my triangles are all the same size!

I then decorated with letter A's. I started with alphabet stencils, both from Clarity, and sponged through with acrylic paint. I then got out lots of my alphabet stamps, and distress oxide inks (as they're nice strong, bright colours) and stamped over the rest of the triangle. One (top middle) was an outline, so I filled with another distress oxide and a water brush.

To finish, I blended fired brick distress oxide around the edge, then vintage photo.

To join in with the challenge, come and visit us on Facebook - anyone is welcome to join (regardless of location!) and we love to get feedback and encouragement for our entries.

Live, Love, Laugh

The July theme at the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge was "Live, Laugh, Love".

I didn't quite get anything made in the month, but did make these bunting pieces while on holiday in August. And it's taken until now to blog them!

The idea of making the bunting is to use up some of the huge pile of backgrounds I have built up in my stash. I pulled out these three to use.

Let's start with "Live". The background for this was really intense, so I wanted to tone it down a bit. I used a white gel pen to draw cross hatches across large areas to break up and lighten the colour. It worked better than I'd hoped.

I then used cracked pistachio, broken china and vintage photo distress oxides, blended round the edges and applied though a dotty stencil.

I stamped the word with cobalt blue archival ink.

To finish it off, I scribbled round the edge with the white gel pen, and edged the words and some of the stencil dots.

"Love" was the easiest piece as the background was so pretty it did most of the work. It was made with purple, ultramarine and emerald green brushos, on watercolour card.

I simply edged the triangle with broken china distress oxide, then stamped the word in black archival and highlighted it with the white gel pen.

Finally, "Laugh". I used the rainbow background, made by smooshing distress ink with water between plastic sheets, then adding the card and pressing.

I wanted to add more texture, so tried out an idea on scrap card. Stamping with distress oxides and stencils. They are thick and creamy enough that it works beautifully, with a light spritz of water, and a bit of pressure through copy paper. You don't need an embossing machine like normal inks (which is as well as I didn't have one with me!)

I used the petite leafy swirl stencil from Clarity, and added colour in each rainbow colour to match the background.

As a bonus, I got this piece from inking up the stencil, which is now decorating my phone case!

I also blended colour round the edged of the triangle to frame it a little, again matching the rainbow colours.

I stamped the word "Laugh" using the Clarity alphabet and black archival ink. It wasn't a perfect stamp, and the spacing, that I'd wanted to be loose and free, was a bit too chaotic. The "a" gets lost.

I tied it in by tidying up the letters with a permanent pen, then edging with a yellow distress marker, then red distress oxide painted around with a water pen.

I'm still not happy with that "a", I might try to cover it with something else one day.

For a final touch, and to frame it more, I used a music stamp around the edge, stamping freehand without a block.

So, another three pieces of bunting for my shed. I used up some of my stash as well, although in this crafting session I made 5 more (not including the one that went on my phone) so I'm not sure I can call that a success!

Our current Berkhamsted Creative Challenge is "Celestial Wonders", do come over to Facebook to see what's been shared.

Celestial Wonders

Our September theme at the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge is Celestial Wonders.

So I thought I'd knock up another couple of pieces of bunting - at this rate it'll take a while to have enough for even one side of the shed, but I guess there's no rush! I have fun making them, it's nice to have the pressure off a bit, if they're not perfect I'm not giving them to anyone, like a card or present. It's a bit like art journalling in that I just get to play.

The first started with Clarity stencil card, that I flicked pebeo masking fluid onto.

For the base colour, I applied dusty concord and chipped sapphire distress ink to my blending mat, added water then dipped the card in. While it was wet, I added purple and ultramarine brushos.

When it dried, this was the result.

 I rubbed away the masking fluid to reveal white "stars".

I cut my triangle out...

.... and blended dusty concord and black soot distress ink around the edge.

I then used a groovi tool to add white acrylic paint for more stars, and a white pen for joining lines, to spell out "ASPIRE" in the style of constellations.

I wish I'd planned this a bit more, it looks very scrawled. I think if I'd spread it out more and gone from top left downwards, it would have been better. But this is just play!

With some of the waste card, I cut out moons and stars using a punch. (I found the punch in the BAC sale last weekend and had to have it for this challenge!)

I cut a triangle from black card, and blended distress oxide over it - wilted violet, a bit of faded jeans and black soot. I then stamped a pattern of tiny stars all over in the wilted violet - the opacity of the oxides mean they show up on black.

With the same oxide ink, I stamped a "wish upon a star" sentiment. This came from a Christmas set I got with a magazine this weekend.

I cut more stars from the scrap card, and stuck all my punched pieces to the base.

I highlighted the words with a white pen so they stand out more.

So I have two more pieces to add to my bunting chain now.

To join in with the challenge, come over to Facebook and visit us. It's a fun group, the idea is to encourage and inspire everyone to have a go at creating.

Music and Dance

Our August challenge at the Berkhamsted Creative Challenge is "Music and Dance".

I made these bunting pieces while away. This meant I had to pack up some of my crafting stash to take with me, and this is what I took.

Pretty restrained, I think!

This is everything packed into it...

.... and unpacked.

The only other thing I brought was a heat tool, although I could have managed without. And I have had plenty of fun playing with this selection, I quite pleased with my capsule craft stash.

I brought:

• Distress oxides
• Permanent inks in a range of colours
• Brushos
• Distress markers
• Stamps - Clarity alphabet, music notation and a Christmas set
• Stencils - music, brick, a few Clarity petite stencils
• A4 cutting mat with copier paper
• A4 blending mat
• Ruler
• Spritzer bottle
• My bag of tools - knife, pencil, scissors etc
• Acrylic block
• Sponges
• Watercolour card, stencil card, some previously made backgrounds

I have to confess that I also bought quite a lot of craft things whilst away, but all I used for this was a white pen and water pen, both of which fitted in the tool bag. I also have to confess that I struggled to get everything back into the box when I'd finished - I couldn't remember how it had all gone in so it wasn't quite so neat!

So, getting started with the bunting. At the Clarity Open Day in June, Sam Crowe mentioned that she makes bunting with her spare gel plate pieces, and I thought that would be a great idea. This is the first I've done about it though. We have a new shed in the garden, so if I can get a few more pieces done they'll look good on there (with exterior mod podge to protect them).

I used watercolour card, the music stamp and distress oxides - vintage photo and broken china.

I then spritzed with water to "activate" the inks.

This is it wet - the vintage photo in particular reacts and spreads.

Once dry (I made good use of the sunny windowsills in our cottage) the chalkiness has come out - I think this looks great for a background.

I cut the bunting shape. (I have made myself a template so all my pieces will be the same size. It is 14cm wide by 17cm high, chosen to ensure I can use both A5 and 7x7 backgrounds.)

I blended round the edge with vintage photo, and dragged the pad round the edge as well.

To fill in the gaps at the top and bottom, I used the petite leafy swirl stencil from Clarity, and the broken china distress oxide on a sponge. I did a little in the centre as well.

Finally, I stamped the word "Music" in stazon spiced chai, using the Clarity alphabet stamps.


For the dance piece, I started with a scrap piece I'd made from the left over ink from another project I was working on simultaneously (I was having a real full-on crafternoon, it was great!)

This uses fired brick and fossilised amber distress oxides.

I cut the triangle, then stamped my ballerinas. These come from a "Twelve days of Christmas" stamp set.

I stamped them in vintage photo distress oxide, then use the water pen to blend out the hair. I then added some coloured ink to the blending mat and picked it up with the water pen to paint in the dress. This one is broken china, the others are wilted violet and fossilised amber. The colours mixed with the vintage photo to give gorgeous shades.

I stamped the word "DANCE" with Claret stazon.

To fill the top right corner, which looked a little neglected, I sponged through a music stencil with fossilised amber and fired brick. I blended vintage photo round the edge, and dragged the ink pad along the edges.

It needed a little something else, so I looked at my stamps to find something suitable. At home, that would probably have taken half an hour to choose what to use, but the very limited range I had available streamlined the process. I chose a bow from the Twelve Days of Christmas set, and stamped around the edge in fired brick - mostly off the edge so it looks like loops. I also did some second generation stamping in the centre, for more interest.

So, the first two pieces of bunting finished. I'll punch holes in the corners and varnish, then when I have enough I'll string them up on the shed.

I don't think they'll all be this detailed - the idea is to use up my stash, so I hope a lot will just be a matter of cutting the triangles, with the odd finishing touch.

But I'm really pleased with how these have come out - I had a lot of fun trying different things with my distress oxides, I'm already looking at which ones to get next, probably from the new colour range. And a suitable celebration of music and dance for our Berkhamsted Creative Challenge.