GD: Clare Lloyd #3 Mini Easel Card

Evening everyone, Clare Lloyd back with a little mini easel card which would cheer anyone up! 

I start by simply die cutting the Smoothy card pieces for my card using the Grunge Flower 1 die.

Now for some pattern and colour. I firstly stencilled using stencil brush/Orchid using ELB stencil 005; then stamped using black archival ink and an image from Eclectica Clare Lloyd 01 and after that stamped another image from the set this time using Bora Bora.

Eclectica Clare Lloyd 01

I felt I needed to cut down my easel card into a tab to fit nicely to my decorated flower die.

To complete my card I stamped sentiments/elements using Eclectica Clare Lloyd 01 and used foam pads to stick everything together.

My last project for 2014, hope to share more with you again in 2015! 

Seasons Greeting. Clare. x

A huge thanks to Clare from PaperArtsy for this fabulous little card, what a genius way to create a card with shape and form. These could easily be adapted with Christmas colours and even made into place settings for the table. 

We would love you to join in with the challenge. If you are inspired to action by any of this month's guests who have blogged in December 2014 then join in and link up your creativity HERE. You might win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. You need to add your link by 17:00 (London time) Dec 31st 2014, the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00, Dec 31st, 2014.

Winter Rose Wreath

Hi everyone, another little festive project today from Darcy. 

This was so relaxing to make, and I can't wait to hang it up. I chose to go with traditional colours, but you could do this in any colour scheme. 

I started with some satin fabric and some lacy fabric, both cut into strips that were about 1.5inche wide. . .I then painted the satin fabric with Old gold fresco paint. If you look carefully, you will see that I only painted down the middle of the fabric, leaving the edges white. 

Then I mixed Hey Pesto with a little water in a small spray bottle, and sprayed the lacy fabric. Once covered I then added Holly fresco to the spray bottle and sprayed it in random places, so the lacy fabric became two-tone. Once dry I painted the little raised bobbly bits using Claret.

Now I had my base fabrics, I took a polystyrene ring and started to wrap. I overlapped the fabric as I wrapped, and secured with a dab of hot glue. Now you can see why I only painted the centre of the fabric, I wanted to fray the white edges to add a little more interest and as highlights. 

I then added a layer of the green and red lacy fabric in the same way.

Now for a quick late night wander around my garden...no I couldn't wait for the next day...so snip,snip,snip and I had some twigs. I rubbed the little blobby end bits with Ruby Treasure Gold and then wrapped them around the ring. Because the twigs were still fresh they were quite bendy and easy to manipulate. Again I secured them with hot glue.

To finish off the base, and also to trap the twigs, I added a length of braid. Again just wrapping around and securing with hot glue.

Now to make the roses. I scrunched up some wax paper, sponged it with Nougat and then brushed on some Treasure gold. From this I cut out several flowers using the medium flower die. I also cut some from heavy smoothy card, I used several Christmas stamps to cover the card flowers. I stamped on both sides.

Now all I had to do was build up the rose, I used alternate layers of wax paper and stamped card.

I found this video from Leandra really helpful in how to cut the layers so that they fit together.

In total I made 5 paper roses. Depending on how big your polystyrene base is then you may need to make more. Though remember you went to all the trouble of painting and creating the layers underneath, it would be a shame to cover them completely.

My final embellishment is a bow. I knew I wanted red, and I wanted velvet.. but of course I didn't have red velvet. So I took the lilac velvet that I did have and I sprayed it with red pepper Adirondack spray ink. It took a while to dry, but turned out really nicely coloured.

I then stamped the bow from EDY03 using black Stazon ink.

I folded my piece of velvet in half, and added a little polyester wadding between the layers. I then used my sewing machine and some gold thread to outline the bow. I wanted to be able to cut the bow out without it fraying and falling apart, so I used a close zig-zag to make a satin stitch around the outside edge.

Now I could glue it all together. I started by deciding which bit of the ring I wanted at the top. I glued a loop of braid to the back, and the bow to the front.

Lastly I glued on the paper roses, spacing them evenly around the ring.

And so it is all done and ready to hang up, perhaps on a door or by the fireplace. 

 I hope this inspires you to have a go at making your own wreath.See you again soon. 

Darcy x

A {VERY special} Sunday Video ...

Yes you are being spoiled this bank Holiday weekend, not only have we got extra videos, but we have got an extra designer post for you too coming up later today from another special Guest!! Don't say we're not keeping you entertained this long weekend!!

So first up, I have another video for you. It's all about matching the gorgeous PaperArtsy Flower stamps to their dies. Once you know the system it is easy, but it does help to know the system, and we have been a bit slack and not got around to putting instructions on the packets, so now we can do QR codes to link to this video. 

It is also the same system for the Eclectica Lin Brown Bloom die.

So first up I'm talking about these stamps:

 HP1004EZ, HP1008EZ, HP1209EZ, HPXT02EZ

Which match these dies:

GrungeFlower 1 (with leaf - that doubles up as a bird)

 GrungeFlower 2 &3 (a set)

And this eclectica stamp set (flower top right):

 ELB01

Matches this bloom die:

Bloom 1

I also have used my metallic background paper I made after filming yesterday's post, which I made from mixing Old Gold and Pewter metallic paints tinted with our deep shades of translucent Fresco Finish Acrylics. See the method in yesterday's video here.

So here is today's video: how to match PaperArtsy Flower stamps with their dies. It's about 20 mins so grab a cuppa !

Inka techniques, a New video, and a {sneek} of a new product!

The Craft Barn Extravaganza events are always really good weekends, the staff and extended helpers, demonstrators are all so warm, friendly and work hard to ensure the event runs smoothly, it makes for a really enjoyable event, and as a crafter you get to learn so many ideas from so many people! Like Suze Weinburg with her stadium seating zone in one of the other halls to where I was!

And here we all were looking pretty snappy for the end of the weekend! Isa Norris, Sandy (Craft Barn owner), Lin (LB Crafts), Leandra (me), Courtney, my 15yr old DD, Beatrice (KatzelCraft), Mark (Mr PaperArtsy), and glamorous Suze from Ranger.

First of all Suze gets the prize for taking a great pic of me, it doesn't happen often, as usually when you are talking the faces that get caught on camera are not the best, so this one I can live with! Thanks Suze...

I was in the Victoria Community Hall again this time, in my usual spot...taking up loads of space, I surrounds myself with supplies on desks and chairs and I still have to get the 'viewers' to help me hunt down scissors and glossy accents! I am just so keen to show you as many ideas as I could with the supplies to hand. Love a challenge!

My focus was the PaperArtsy Hot Pick Stamps and matching dies. My aim with the whole die concept is to die cut the metal-humungo tape-card sandwich, flatten it between acrylic platforms thru the die machine, and then stamp the matching image on top. With your ten seconds studio tools, you can add loads more texture to the stamped image which kind of brings them all to life. 

Ohh look, there are the Hot Picks (and a sneek peek of HP1007 on the right - available July) and PaperArtsy dies, and a stamped spotty dragonfly - great bellie!

We packed up in such a rush, I forgot to take photos of the weekend's samples!! But I am sure they will show up on the Craft Barn Blog at some point.I do have a few I took today of a sample I held onto. I was also showing lots of ways to use the new Inka Gold product... yes rumours are true...I did nickname this product 'goop' because the name Inka Gold infers it only comes in Gold, and there are a whole array of gorgeous colours!


First you can use Inka Gold direct onto wooden frames with Cut and dry foam like this:

I started with Indian Yellow, Cobalt Blue and Lava Green, In the recess I used Graphite. They blend beautifully and dry instantly. This direct to wood idea is what the product is designed to be used for, but of course we (the royal we...Lin and I ...when creating classes for the May 2010 ArtsyCrafts events) have found so many more uses! Here is a project on the small canvas frame.

First I applied Inka onto a canvas base with Cut and dry foam, then used a baby wipe to wet and smooch it about a bit...when you do this the addition of 'damp' from the baby wipe gives a more even coverage as the Inka softens to fill all the texture of the canvas...pretty easy BG technique.

You can also use inka through a stencil. Viva Decor make these great stencils which are adhesive and give a nice pattern to smooch goop through with cut and dry foam, I find that worked better for me that any other brush...and we tried lots! You just want to make sure the colour is different to the dominant colour of the canvas and the stencilling will then pop more. I used (again) 2 colours in the stencil, old gold and Indian Yellow.

But don't stop there, Inka can also be used like a watercolour. Take the tiniest bit out of your pot and loosen with water onto your craft sheet. Then just start colouring in. This is an image from HP1007 (coming soon end of July, but also available NOW from The Craft Barn, LB Crafts, Paddy's Stamping Place and Imagine That PaperCrafts - please support your Local Stamp Store!) Stamp the image onto Pearl metal, make a tape sandwich, colour away, and then add texture with your Ten Seconds Studio Texture wheels. Lightly sand the edge to give a silver sheen to the metal. 

Here's the best bit. You know how metallics can reduce the blackness of the black areas? Well just take a damp, clean brush, and you can remove the Inka from black areas that you might like to have more impact!

I then used the dies cut from copper metal, and over-stamped to embellish the final piece.

This is the open dragonfly die which has an outline matching stamp Squiggly Ink- Tops and Tails Plate 3, and I lightly stamped with the adorable fine script from Mini 61. LOVE that stamp!

Lin was also using Inka on her stunning creations. Here she used it on the Bronze God Metal from Ten Seconds Studio. She has run the metal thru the Big Shot on  Kabuka mould (do you think anyone can actually understand this language we use???), painted lightly and used Inka on top, it can totally change the appearance when used on dark metals. Look at the lovely little trinket box she did the same way except that is black metal. And the flowers as bellies are also given the goop treatment. 

How lucky was I to get one of her gorgeous brooches to wear this weekend from Lin! She has used copper and gold metal (the gold is underneath), cut down the petals, moulded them and set a UTEE charm in the centre. Go on, you know you need to make yourself one of these!!

And I also played about with tissue. First I colour it with distress ink (direct to tissue) and spray with a light gold or pearl mica spray. Dry, then spray the back of the tissue with the mica too. Dry thoroughly, don't worry if it crumples- crumpling is GOOD!


Fold the tissue sheet into thirds, then fold the long strip into thirds again - this gives you a square of nine layers. Place the die on top, and run thru you die machine. Over-stamp with either the grunge flowers stamp from HP1004, or you could use any script, texture or other background style stamp on top. You could use a metal flower as the base, and then build up layers of tissue by crumpling and securing each layer with glossy accents. You can put a button in the middle, later I added a copper metal accent on top of the button.



I hadn't planned on demoing the whole metal rose thing, as I kind of feel it has been done to death by so many people, but there were heaps of people stopping by who had never seen or heard of the idea, and many more who had never seen it done with metal, so we went ahead and did a YouTube video. It's so much easier doing this with card-backed metal, the metal is so soft ,and does what it is told! You can watch it here.

I first saw this idea when Wendy Vecchi made some stunning samples for Tim H for his first advantus booth at CHA (the American Craft Trade show for retailers) This was way back before she had her own stamp collection. 

I thought how cool it would be to have a stamp of the flower pattern to save making a template, and we made a stamp for Xmas 2008 that utilised a 6 petal flower.

In the January that followed 2009, Tim released grunge paper, which was a much easier and softer surface to manipulate into a rose than grungeboard, and people really grabbed hold of the idea to make the 'rose'. One of the girls in our design Team, Jacqui Chimes made a lovely box, and linked to this tutorial  which was the first set of instructions I had seen on the idea.

Working with metal, as we tend to do in these parts, Linda Elbourne used the flower to make her famous bean tin decorated in metal into grunge roses and a version of which was later front-page-cover-featured in craft stamper magazine (woop woop), and so it has come to pass that metal roses, have become part of the scenery in LB/ PaperArtsy circles for some time. It that whole magpie thing, the fact that the metal just catches your eye and makes you have to go and make one. 

So don't credit me for the idea! I just make the stamps, and now dies that make the job a whole heap faster, no more cutting out for you guys, and we have not just 1 but 2 dies to choose from, don't forget the scallop die, it has gorgeous decorative edges that look like this (above) just made from cardstock and spritzed with glimmer spray.


Oh yes, there is a lot of fun to be had still with these guys.

Much more of a marathon post than I expected, so please let us know what you have been up to, and don't forget to follow our blog, we only just figured out last week how to add that thingie on the side bar, so give us some lurve! 

Oh and I have some more exciting new this week!! Those of you who are eagle eyed may have already noticed something new in our shopping cart...Oh go on, twist my arm what can you see that is new on this page ??? 


Have a great week


Leandra