Woodland Dreams from Chocolate Baroque

When we exhibited at Malvern last month one of the stamp plates I used in my demo was Woodland Dreams from Chocolate Baroque. After the show, when I created display board and workshop samples from my demo bits, it brought home to me what a versatile plate this is, and I didn't even use the large square feature stamp!

I was using home made masks cut from Bazzill Plastic Paper with Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Barn Door in these samples ....

....with a little added Cosmic Shimmer Drawing Ink in Marigold Burst. The other samples were all made using Distress Inks in Crushed Olive and Tumbled Glass....

a little touch of Glitter, courtesy of the lovely ladies from Glitter Perfect (we have their fabby glue in store now BTW!)....

....and a touch of Cosmic Shimmer Drawing ink in Silver Sheen to finish with.

Different shadings were achieved simply by varying the order in which I applied the Distress Inks. The punched edges were done with one of the new Tonic Studios Border Punches which will slip through 300gsm cardstock effortlessly thanks to their geared action.

These stamps featured in a recent Take One Stamp workshop at Snazzys, and if this has whetted your appetite for a similar workshop - I only ever teach projects once so there is always something new to try - you can pop over and inspect the next three months' workshop schedules here.

That's all for now, thanks for looking and have a very Happy Easter xx

A Choir of (Steampunk) Angels

Just a quick post to share the fabby artwork from the ladies who came along to yesterday's Steampunk Angels workshop. It was a very leisurely day with lots of time to customize the papier mache blanks with cogs and gears from black shrink plastic, watchparts, washers, nuts and bolts, scrim, aluminium, chain, grungepaper, paint and Inca Gold. Here are a couple of close ups .............

.... but my photos really don't do justice to the details.

A bit different and lots of fun!

More soon xx

A Peek at Malvern 2012

Well, this is the rather uninspiring sight that greets us at all these events. Bit of a let down after a lovely journey through beautiful countryside on a sunny Spring day. Ho hum, back to reality!

Let the work begin. Up with the gridwork,

first side of the 'H' frame done,

second side looking a bit shaken,

Eco Green Crafts next, and on to the stamps.

My home for the duration, surrounded by Wendy Vecchi's wonderful products,

Darkroom Door, Chapel Road and Creative Expressions in place whilst trying to ignore the number of boxes still to be unpacked!

Kaisecraft and 7gypsies done but quite a bit still to finish - Hero Arts can wait 'til the morning me thinks!!

Close run thing but all set,

and after a gentle start,

we're off....

and a very good time was had by all!

Back tomorrow with a look at the bits we made in each day's demo - and what happened to them!

Bye for now xx

Tina's Workshop - January

Here is a lovely start to her 2012 workshops from Tina with this stylish calendar in cream and black.

She has used Darkroom Door's beautifully detailed stamps of scenes from Paris...

...and London.

Fastened together using the Bind it All.

If you fancy making you own version of this, Tina's workshop is 11am to 4pm on Saturday 21 January in Snazzys workshop - full details here. Just ring the store on 01793 602470 to book your place.

Bye for now xx

Monthly Design Team Packs

Hello, sorry to have been awol for so long but what with the sale, the stocktake and Christmas it got a bit hectic at Snazzys HQ. Anyway Happy New Year and on with the post....

Lots of you have been asking us what the Design Team have to work with each month to create such wonderful projects. So, we have decided to give you a little peek at the DT packs just prior to the DT blogging their projects.

To get us started we thought you might like to see the packs from December .........

...the stunning Kraft Funday collection from My Mind's Eye with twelve double sided 300gsm patterned cardstocks, two sets of clear stamps, beautiful brads and buttons to die for which the DT blogged 18 different inspirational projects with during the month, and January....

which had the debut collection Dreamer from new manufacturer 7Dots Studio with six double sided papers, including stickers and die cuts plus Ticket stamps from Creative Expressions.

What's them there other stamps then I hear you ask!

Well, as January is a five week month and we currently have a DT of but four, Gillian and the Team will be setting a little challenge using these fab new Wordblock stamps from Darkroom Door.

Gillian will share the details over on the Design Team Blog here so do keep popping over there for masses of wonderful inspiration and for your chance to win some lovely stash.

Bye for now xx

Winter Pastels

This is probably the sample I have been asked about most this season, so to Barbara, Alison, Lucy and so many more, here is the how to as promised...

You need a stamp which gives the illusion of being more or less symmetrical. This one is an old favourite from Inkadinkado and I sometimes use the old PSX Christmas Village in the same way.

I used black cardstock, cut to the same width as your stamp and twice as high, as the base but any deep coloured cardstock will do, and the Ranger Perfect Pearl colours I used were Perfect Pearl, Interference Violet, Turquoise and Berry Twist. You can try other Mica Powders for this but the inbuilt resin in Perfect Pearls allows for a wonderfully clear and crisp image.

Use a piece of scrap paper to mask the top half of the card, I always use a torn edge as I like the ragged

look. Cover the botom half completely with Versamark ink or similar and then stamp the image also using Versamark in the top half. Add Perfect Pearls randomly to all the inked areas making sure no base cardstock shows through on the bottom part. Polish away the excess Perfect Pearls with a large soft brush then ink the stamp again and stamp in the solid area to lift the Perfect Pearls off and create a negative image, which your eye believes is a reflection of the top image. Very simple when you know how but very effective. 

The next two cards use the same products and techniques but with very different stamps. The background is white vellum, I used the weight normally used for Parchmentcraft, inked with Ranger Adirondack Brights Alcohol Inks in Sailboat Blue, Purple Twilight, and Pool. Once the inks were dry  I stamped the Darkroom Door Seasons Greetings Wordblock with Versamark and embossed with WOW Bright White Ultra Fine EP. I cut an aperture and the surrounding frames with my Fiskars Trimmer, it is fiddly the first time but with a bit of practice you will soon be cutting all your own apertures.

This card was made in exactly the same way but stamped with Hero Arts Stunning Sowflakes which gives quite a different look but the light through the vellum on both looks very effective.

This is a very poor photograph, I always have trouble photographing Plastic Paper/acetate so any tips/tricks to improve this would be gratefully received!!

Anyway, the window is Bazzill Plastic Paper or heavyweight acetate which I covered with the same Ranger Alcohol Inks as used in the previous two samples. Once dry I stamped the Hero Arts Stunning Snowflakes in Versamark and embossed with our own brand clear embossing powder. Let the embossing cool then using a clean felt pad and Ranger Alcohol Ink Blending Solution wipe away the background inks leaving the pretty multicoloured snowflakes. I used Spellbinders for the aperture and frame on this one but I think I actually prefer the ones cut with my trimmer. The ribbon embellishment is just a button tied with embroidery cotton and a length of Grosgrain Ribbon from Beresfords.

The final card today is made with Ranger Distress inks in Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Stormy Sky applied with a stippling brush or Ink Applicator to a masked area of the card with snowflakes stamped in Versamark and embossed with clear EP to act as a resist. The stamp set I used was Hero Arts CL551 and you will need to stamp and emboss the baubles from this in the same way onto spare white cardstock, cut out and coloured with the distress inks. I spritzed the background and the baubles with water and Pearfect Pearls to add some lustre and then assembled the card as shown above.

Hope you find the techniques useful.

Back soon with more.

Thanks for looking xx

Joyful Greetings

As promised, this week I will blog a little round up of the workshop projects that have either proved most popular, or I have had most questions about in store, with very brief instructions. These three projects were a Take One stamp workshop using Hero Arts Joyful Greetings (CL541).

This photo is not very good but I have included it as you can get a better idea of the construction.

. You will need a white cardstock strip 4" x 10" scored at 1", 3", 4" & 6" plus a Bazzill Plastic Paper or heavy weight acetate strip measuring 4" x 7" scored at 1" & 3". I stamped and embossed a snowflake background and base for the snowmen using Versamark and WOW's Neutral Sparkle EP, and the snowflakes on the plastic paper were stamped with Opaque White StazOn - I stamped on the inside of the plastic as you are less likely to smudge the ink when you assemble it. The trees, snowmen and greeting were stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and I added some colour with Tombow pens - the snowmen need to be stamped 11/2" from the edge of a piece of card to allow you to cut a tab for them scored 1/2" from the end. You then simply cut slits in your snowy base where you want to position the snowmen and slide the tabs through sticking the bottom 1/2" to the inside of the box base. Assemble and stick with Ultra Tape or other strong adhesive, then add scraps of patterned card to the back and under the greeting to conceal the sticky tape. The finished card will fold flat into a standard C6 envelope and delight any child - even those of the grown up variety!

The outside of the third card is also very simple, the clever bit is inside and provides a pocket into which you can add a gift card, money or photographs.

All you do is score two extra lines on the card either side of the original fold, fold the original score the opposite way to normal and then fold the new score lines back on this. Cut a piece of plastic (or solid card if you prefer) of the correct width to accomodate your card etc and twice the height of the card, scored and folded in half. Punch holes through the inner spine you created and the clear plastic, tie the pocket in place with co-ordinating narrow ribbon and add a decorative shape folded in half to secure the open side - a couple of ladies in the workshop stamped the Christmas Tree from this set and used that for this which looked lovely.

Again I kept the decoration of this card to a minimum as I wanted the mechanics to be clearly seen. This is a basic slider card which if you think of it as two pieces of card with a tag sliding between it keeps it really simple.

Another not very good photo (must try harder!) but hopefully it lets you see the construction.

To fit a standard C6 envelope you need two pieces of card 11cm by 15cm and a third piece 10cm by 15cm for the sliding tag. On one of the larger pieces create a flap by cutting three sides of a rectangle 1.5cm in from the two long sides and one short side of the piece of card. Complete the rectangle by scoring 1.5cm in from the other short side, and then scoring 1.5cm in from the loose end of the flap you have created and also half way between these two score lines. You will be pleased to hear that you do absolutely nothing to the other large piece as this is the base.

Attach the front top of the sliding tag centrally to the underside of the short end of the flap - the tag should be slightly wider than the flap. Punch a half circle from the opposite short end of the top piece and add 3mm Ultra Tape to the underside of the other three sides of this piece then line this up with the base with the tag between and stick down firmly. You can then decorate as you wish with your greeting revealed as you slide the tag along.

If you have any problems following my rather garbled instructions do feel free to get in touch or drop by the store and I will try to help.

More coming later this week, thanks for looking! xx