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!

Caught in Crystal - Artistic Stamper Treasure Chest and Mini Frame

....... otherwise known as Stepford Wives Mark 2 - more floor polish! I am finding with this technique that it is one of those things where you can make a batch in one go, and then use the pieces as and when required. These pieces were made in the same way as before, although I used a bit of glitter as well. The wooden treasure chest was painted in silver acrylic paint and then dabbed with alcohol inks. The papier mache frame was painted with Viva Precious Metal Gold, and then splodged with Viva Croco in Gold, and then shredded pieces of gold leaf dropped onto it whilst it was wet. I had trouble photographing these items because of the glossyness so I must say they look better ITF. They weren't intended to be a pair, I just put them together so I could rest the treasure chest against the easel to get the right angle to avoid the glare. I used the glorious Garden Plate from the Artistic Stamper. I love this set! You can see from the side view I have used another element from the plate. I was tempted to carry on and decorate the box with ribbon, fancy clasps, etc, but I do tend to overdo things, so I tried to be restrained this time. Both the heart and the fleur de lys brads were coloured with alcohol inks. Those of you who are eagle-eyed will realize that it is four ladies in the garden plate tableau, not three. Only three fitted onto the lid of the little box, so I did some fiddly jigsaw work with an extra piece of caught in crystal acetate and a black pen to make it look as if it was meant to be three in the image, and one image with a border around it in the frame. I probably would do things differently next time, but I was pleased that that aspect worked.

My Class

I would just like to make a little mention of my wonderful new students! A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be able to start teaching an introduction to card making class for my local technical college. I am really enjoying it as I have such a great group of enthusiastic and supportive students. In our first lesson together we learnt how to make a 3d flower, which is a fun skill to have up your sleeve. In our last lesson we discovered the delights of shrink plastic and heat embossing. Apparently I am in a lot of trouble with all the husbands as my students build up their craft stash but it is so great to watch their growing addiction. So if any of them are reading this, thanks for being a great group to teach!

Caught in Crystal Card

The other week, Alison and her friend Hazel H (my friend now as well, I hope!) came for a playday. They had both wanted to do the Caught in Crystal technique and I was a bit dubious as I thought it would be messy and take a long time to dry. Well, Alison is a dab-hand at new techniques and had the brilliant idea of putting the Klear floor polish into a spray bottle. Result! I have now made one of the pieces into this card, using a gorgeous Crafty Individuals stamp, some alcohol inks, and little pieces of gold leaf. I layered it onto a white background to bring out the colours, and then onto Crafty Individuals background paper. I then added a little strip of the coloured acetate bottom left, and a 3d flower made with co-ordinating paper, using the same method as the grungepaper flowers. Watch out for some more pieces coming up, using this technique, as my friend Jack and I went on a search for another bottle of Klear each - Tesco - No, Sainsburys - New formula, no good, Asda - success! Not since the 1950s have two women got so excited about buying floor polish!