Painting the Town with Pixie Dust!

A couple of months ago, Jennie at the Artistic Stamper, launched the first of the Mabel Lucie Attwell line of stamps, and I am pleased to see there are another three designs, one of which is a Christmas stamp. I was asked to make some samples and chose this cute Pixie, who is using her pot of paint to make a magic flower! All the samples were stamped on glossy cardstock and sponged with Kaleidacolor inks. The first item is a coaster and I have added a 3d glitter paint to the flower, and Rock Candy Crackle to her wings. I wanted to choose a coaster as I am planning on making some for the Christmas dinner table with my class next week and I want to experiment to see how best to put a protective coating on them. The second item is a frame, and no, it is not faux metal! It is actually friendly plastic, and I arranged four strips on my craft sheet in the shape of a frame, melted them to fuse them together, then stamped a little flower stamp into the warm plastic. I layered the flower, which I had smeared with glitter glue, added glossy accents for the drops of paint, coloured the pixie outfit and leaves with a gel pen, and filled in the wings with an embossing pen and embossed with silver pearl embossing powder. I then finished it off with a Stitchels felt flower, from the Artistic Stamper Stitchels range, which I felt suited the style of the stamps. The final item, a card, was highlighted with white opaque pen, and finished off with shrink plastic flowers.

Christmas Tree Ornaments and Gifts - Samples for my Class

Did I mention how much I am enjoying teaching my great students? Well, ok, but I will say it again! We have now come to the end of the 6 week Introduction to Card Making class and they have come on in leaps and bounds. I am being allowed an extra two weeks with them to do some pre-Christmas rubber stamping and papercrafting. I have made these samples for the first of the two classes. There is a selection of wooden children's domino tree decorations, and each one is backed with faux metal, which you can see on the one on the left. There is also a mini frame, the pieces for which have been cut in the Cuttlebug, and then the Mirri card has been embossed with the Christmas bauble folder. I want to show my group some little tricks such as dipping the edges of the domino in embossing powder, and colouring ribbon with permanent markers to match your colourscheme. I have also made a little mirrored handbag compact similar to the ones I made a couple of weeks back, which I hope the students will enjoy making as gifts. I have used some of the glossy images from Crafty Individuals.

I am sure, knowing my group, they will come up with plenty of ideas of their own!

My Class - Chris' Card - Artistic Stamper Sewing Plate

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I have a terrific bunch of students doing an Introduction to Card Making with me, and over the half term break, they got together and made some cards which they brought to show me this week. Wow! I was so impressed with the quality of their work, and it is definitely not all down to me! I didn't have my camera with me otherwise I would have photographed each one, but I asked Chris if I could show you all the card she has made. I picked this one out as I thought Chris had used this stamp set from the Artistic Stamper to such good effect. Jennie will be wondering why she suddenly has so many customers living near me!

Craft Stamper December 09

I have just received my copy of December Craft Stamper today. Haven't had a chance to read it yet but I was so pleased that there is a tiny thumbnail of the jewellery box I made, to the right of the free stamp image! It was made with some gorgeous Crafty Individuals stamps, and Bo Bunny papers. I always look forward to the mag coming out, and I am looking forward to some Christmas inspiration this month!