Honesty Seeds

I remember the papery silver seed heads of Honesty from such a young age... My Mum used to cut them and bring them into the house along with the bright orange Chinese Lanterns of Physalis for autumnal displays in vases. Both plants I found equally fascinating because of their unique shape so I knew I wanted to try and recreate the Honesty seed heads when I received the Beautiful Branches stamp set from Concord & 9th....

The slight texture in the rounded leaf image lent itself perfectly for shading... I used the rock and roll technique to ink the edges of the stamp with Pumice Stone Distress ink which I could then reactivate with water and a paintbrush to soften the edges and pull some paler colour into the centre of each roundel... here's a three step diagram of the process

I added the darker edge, veins and pointed tip with the same ink and water mix, picking it up from a palette to the side. These are the stamps used from the set along with the branch of course....

I was so pleased how they turned out and, I'm going to have to recreate 

them on a card for my Mum now :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Summer Splash

It's an appropriate sentiment on my card today as I haven't updated the ol' blog for a while although it's not summer yet.... it hasn't been quite that long!!

I had to have this fun new set from Avery Elle.... what a great theme for a stamp set and you get a pool in the die set as well... SOLD!! The ring floatie just looked like an O to me which gave me a light bulb moment .... Avery Elle's letter balloons would make great floaties too if you chop the tied knots off of them.
The terrace is a heat embossed hexagon background from MFT which has been sponged over with peach coloured ink and the pool is Distress Oxide inks mixed with water and smooshed onto water colour cardstock.... they are quite effective as water :)

I wanted to make the pool larger than the original design so the letters would fit comfortably, by allowing it to be larger than the card base, I could cut the pool edge and make it any size and shape I wanted.

This lady is stretching out on a sun lounger made from the diving board and ladder die included in the set... the planters are my own design, the scene just needed that touch of greenery :) I think all that's missing is a glass of something bubbly in their hands... now that's chillin :)

Stash Used:
Splash Stamps and Dies - Avery Elle
Letter Balloons - Avery Elle

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Hippo Birthday

I love the variety of animal images in the new Safari sets from Hero Arts... perfect for family members who have travelled and worked in Africa quite a bit and even better for a guys card...

I played around with the solid images to make a pattern with an equal border around them and picked all the images up on my MISTI door which makes stamping them easier. I re-stamped the sentiment in darker ink and then stamped the hippo on a separate piece of card in shades of pink and grey before adding extra details with a coloured pencil.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and happy to find another way to use the silhouette images from these sets :)

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x


Stamps used:
Safari Huge Thanks, Safari Wild about You and Safari Huge Thanks dies - Hero Arts

More Coffee

More coffee anyone???... yes please :)

I saw this poster on Pinterest and it made me think of the MFT Coffee Date set and how well the solid colour blocks would work with the simple line drawn images. It gives a modern yet retro look....

I needed a card for a coffee loving guy and this seemed a good design. I played around with the images on the card panel until I was happy and then stamped them all at once with my Misti using Memento ink

The colour blocks are distress inks sponged between four strips of masking tape and then I went back to the Misti and re-stamped the images in Versafine Onyx black for a more defined image.

Love the new sentiment labels from Mama Elephant.... lots of options and a very useful size too :)

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

Stash used:
Coffee Date - MFT
Occasional Labels - Mama Elephant