Good Times with Wildflowers - Brenda

I have soooo fallen in love the new wildflowers from Tim Holtz I decided to make another card with them. This one is rather bold and striking, definitely not my usual colour palette.

Process steps

Spritz the back of the doily stencil and sprinkle over sunset beach infusions. Lay over the card panel and rub over with a dry piece of kitchen paper. Remove, heat dry and edge with age mahogany distress ink.

 Gather together some ephemera pieces to make a little collage .......

 ..... and adhere the flowers and sentiment over the top.

If I were to make another of these now it would take less than half an hour but the thinking time and die-cutting time (I cut 6 different colours of flower!!!) took me several hours to get it right. BUT .... I actually really like it now I've got it done. I hope you do to.

Have a lovely April.

hugs Brenda xxx

Bumblebees and Butterflies

Leaf and bugs birthday card - CAS Brenda style

If you've seen my work you'll know I don't do CAS style - I'm much more a vintage, shabby, grungy, industrial type artist but this came together with some salvage bits from leftover boxes plus a leaf die cut from the newly released Large Stems die from Sizzix and Tim Holtz. I also used the stitched circles, an old garden greens bigz die and the Entomology stamps and dies also all by Tim Holtz.

You'll probably recognise the latticework stencil design that I used on a piece of canvas paper and used to cut the stitched circle, this helped to create the focal point.

The large leaf stem was covered with embossing ink and sprinkled with the new lime mixed media powder from Ranger.

To create a little more interest I added the garden greens leaves and some stamped and die-cut bugs ......

.... and finished off with a happy birthday sentiment.

Can you tell I love Tim Holtz products?????

I know this is not true CAS style but it pleases me to get somewhere near it..

Thanks for looking.

hugs Brenda
xx
Bumblebees and Butterflies

The wonderful Visible Image world of Wonderland

Good morning, it's Jane from Jane's Journal here today and I am delighted to be showcasing the brand new Alice in Wonderland Visible Image release. It is being released today and is available on the Country View Crafts website here. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the stamp sets a few weeks ago, being on their design team. 

There are 7 stamp sets and 2 brand new stencils

If you have followed Visible Image for some years you may recognise 6 of the characters, as these were available a few years back. However every character now has brand new extra stamps with them and the words have been re designed ..making them perfect for mixed media work too. The characters are a really good size, easy to colour in and also to cut out. The stamp quality is second to none, they are really thick clear stamps which stamp perfectly on every inking.

Today I am showcasing a few of the new sets with samples I have made. You may have seen some of them already on Facebook and on my own blog, promoting the new release. I have put the shop links to the products within this post, just click on them to be taken to the Country View Crafts website. If anything is out of stock just add your email address and Susan will email you as soon as she has new stock in. Remember too that postage in the UK, for anything on the website is absolutely free.

Have you spotted the newbie set...

Meet The Caterpillar

Isn't he amazing...he is so laid back that he is nearly sliding off his toadstool. The toadstool and caterpillar are separate stamps too. I can see myself also using the toadstool alone in my autumn crafting.

Here is my version which I coloured with Promarkers, but any inks, pencils or paints work perfectly.

This is the sample I made with him...with a distress spray background

I added glossy accents to his glasses and spots for more effect.

Next up is my sample for the lovely Alice set.

I even shrank her using shrink plastic..she must have drunk that potion! 

I also used the distorted chess stencil (which I know is out of stock at the mo but if you add you email Susan will let you know when she has restocked) as the background. I used black soot distress oxide

Next up is the brilliantly Bonkers Mad Hatter

My sample uses the  distorted chess stencil again but in the reverse colourway using white ink

I love the little teapot with skull...full of magical potion obviously!

Next up is the White Rabbit..always in a hurry

This set has all the larger number as separate stamps..perfect for ages etc.
I used the time tunnel stencil too.

This is my sample with an Infusions and Brushos background.

All the number have been individually stamped and embossed. I also added glossy accents to his fob watch.

Finally here is the sassy Queen of hearts 

I made a mixed media wall hanging for this sample.

The playing card stamp is such fun to create with. I added a ribbon to her dress and glossy accents to the hearts.

Today I am sharing a step by step here for my very first play with the awesome Dark Hearts stencil. 

I masked the stencil into sections and added candied apple and  black soot distress oxide

I worked on the centre first in red and then moved the tapes over to add the black. 

To make this cool background

I then added red Christmas red stickles to the eyes for a very dramatic effect...

 such fun!

I decided to use this background for a Queen of hearts card but I can see this being used at Halloween...I have so many ideas for this fab stencil.

This is what I got up to with my card. I coloured the Queen and 2 cards with Promarkers, adding some shadows and highlights with pencils. I then fussy cut everything out.

I stamped and embossed some slices of cake and keys from the Alice set, the teapot from the Mad Hatter set and some fish from the Cheshire cat set. I used red and white embossing powders

and gold ink for the keys.

I also stamped out the just the words "treat me or else" from the Queen of hearts set.

It was then time to put my design together....here is my card.

You can see that she means business...you had better offer her a treat or she might feed you a slice of that cake laced with the magical potion..or is it poison?

She has those keys jangling too...ready to lock you up perhaps..if the treat you offer is not up to her royal standards!

If you think this is just an idle threat take a look at what happened to the poor fish 😂

And if you look closely those skulls are keeping an eye out too....from under her arm!

Here is one more photo

Thanks so much for reading to the end.  I hope you might be inspired by some of my ideas to make your own Wonderland projects. This new release is such fun. 

 I will be back to share some more Visible Image samples soon. 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Misted Ink Background

There's something really satisfying about making different backgrounds for your projects. There's a quick and easy background that you can make as easy, or funky as you'd like!

Simply draw squares in your journal (I used the small Dylusions journal block as  I like the wavy lines). It should look like this - don't worry if, like me, you need to go over a few lines!

Add some stencilled shapes. I used circles with a stencil like this one.

Then the fun starts! Fill a water brush with Black Marble Dylusions Ink. Colour in the background on one square and the shapes on the next, making a chequerboard effect. It's very therapeutic!

This is the finished effect.

You could leave it just like this. But knowing the ink reacts beautifully with water then I just couldn't help misting the page until the ink started to run.

You can, of course, use any combination of colours you like to make the background. Also, don't just do squares, you can use stripes or any other shape you like!
To finish this off I used the new Darcy stamps for PaperArtsy. I added a few gold lines and white painty circles for added interest.

Thank you, as always, for popping by

Attitude Tag - Spring is Sprung

I know these aren't Spring colours but it's just how it evolved as I was making it.

Cover a tag with old book paper.

Scrape some black and white gesso randomly over the surface using the flat side of a palette knife creating some lovely flat textures.

Stitch on some vintage book/music paper or some of your favourite patterned papers. Leave the threads hanging (it's all the rage).

Take a stencil with a small pattern and with a black pen trace the shapes and colour them in. I used one of the Artistic Flair tab stencils and a black sharpie pen.

Cut some of Tim's Wildflowers from white/cream card and blend the edges with ground espresso distress ink and black archival ink. 

Adhere them to the background and finish with a word from the big chat stickers and blended ground espresso round the edges.

I managed to keep some of the book words showing that are perfect for this time of the year.

I think we have all got a bit of this ......

Thanks for coming over to see what I am sharing today if you click on the products in the text they will transport you over to the shop so you can see them and the amazing prices Susan has.

hugs Brenda

www.bumblebees and butterflies.com