Crafty Treasures

Hi Crafty friends, I finished another bear just recently. Meet my latest knitted bear project… named Fudge. He is so soft and fluffy and oh so cuddly. If you missed my last bear project, you can view it here.

To knit up this project I used the same bear pattern designed by Jean Greenhowe from her pattern booklet Jemima Jane and Friends, it was also the same pattern booklet used for my previous bear projects. This time round I chose an All-Sorts (Polyester) yarn I spotted on sale at a Lincraft store a few months ago. It has knitted up quite well and incredibly super soft, but I also did intentionally stuff him lightly as well and just like soft chocolate fudge, he is a nice big softie!

The bow tie pictured above has sentimental value, it belonged to my brother in-law. I also made Fudge another bow pictured below, so he has the opportunity of a change of bow ties when needed!

The finished height measurement of Fudge is 16 inches (40.6 cm) and he is the biggest knitted bear I have knitted so far:

Rosey Bear – 15.7 inches (40 cm)
Rainbow Bear – 10 inches (25.4 cm)
Pippa measures approx 9 inches (22.8cm)
Violet Bear – 8 3/4 inches (22.2 cm)
Knitted Bears Rock! – 8 inches (20.3 cm)
Party Girl Bear – 7 3/4 inches (19.6 cm)
Tutti Frutti Bear – 7 inches (16cm)

I was recently asked, do I have a stash of made bears by now? The answer to this is no, they are either given as gifts, bought and given as gifts by friends and family. I have another bear nearly completed and one other in the pipeline, well it’s about a third done at this stage.

Hi everyone, I’m back with another quick card I made today for the Splitcoast Stampers Inspiration Challenge (IC462), Hosted by girlgeek101. Today’s challenge was to choose a piece of art that inspired you from Fine Art America and this was my inspiration Here.

I dry embossed a piece of mid blue cardstock with elegant lines embossing folder and wiped this with whisper white and coloured sections of the embossed design with marvy le plume’s. Using a Goanna craft stencil I’ve had for many years and some white cardstock, I placed the stencil on top and coloured it with distress inks and applied a clear holographic foil and also gave it some detail with a black copic marker. I cut around the finished Goanna design and adhered it with foam adhesive.

Next I placed the stencil in the top left hand corner and sponged another Goanna with distress inks and touch of black ink. I embossed a piece of lime green cardstock with the Mesh embossing folder and wiped over it with black ink and adhered this behind the main panels. I die cut the happy birthday with black CS and adhered this to the top right hand side.

Card/Paper: Black CS, Lime Green CS, White CS, Mid Blue CS
Ink/Colour: SU – Stampin Pad/Whisper White, Black Ink, Distress Inks, Copic Marker, Marvy Le Plume (water based markers), White Sharpie Marker
Accessories: Goanna Craft Stencil, Cottage Cutz – Cutting Dies/Happy (CCX-001) & Birthday (CCX-003), Stampin’ Up – Embossing Folder/Elegant Lines, Cuttlebug – Embossing Folder/Mesh, Clear Holographic Foil

Hi Crafty friends, hope you are all keeping well and I am so glad you could pop in. Here are several watercolour cards I made recently, as mentioned in a previous post that it has been fairly busy around here of late and I feel like I am dragging my tail to get these up and posted, so today I have grouped them together to share my latest watercolour projects with you all.

It has been a few years since I have played with my watercolour mediums, these projects I am using up some relatively cheap water colour pads I have collected over the years. I primarily used my watercolour pencils on my card making & parchment craft work in the early years of card making before many other mediums were introduced to card makers & crafter’s. Recently I was inspired to dig them out after seeing so many lovely watercolours lately and quietly have a play of an evening when I had time or not totally exhausted! It is really quite relaxing.

Floral Vase Watercolour

This first one, I lightly hand sketched a Free Dover Publications image. What caught my eye with this one was both the vase and the beautiful floral display. I mixed some primary colours on a pallet and painted my lightly sketched image. I found while working with this 280 gsm watercolour paper it did buckle & warp slightly, but fixed this by turning the image side facing down and ironing it (with a dry iron, set with steam off) after a light fine mist with water. I layered this finished watercolour onto mixed designer papers and also dry embossed the panel behind the DP with a Portacraft embossing folder.

Image: Free from Dover Publications
Card/Paper: Mont Marte  – Watercolour Pad/280 gsm/Premium English Cotton Paper, Mixed Designer Papers, Cream CS
Colour: Reeves – Watercolour paints/36 Tube Set
Accessories: Portacraft – Embossing Folder

Purple Passion Watercolour

This watercolour I also lightly hand sketched from a free image found online  and sketched straight from looking at it on the PC screen. This time I used a different watercolour pad and different weight 180 gsm. Applying the same methods as my first watercolour to paint it, I actually found this to buckle even more, and also found it did not flatten as nicely either. I layered this watercolour onto some solid cardstock and then onto a dry embossed panel with the Wire Fence embossing folder. The border panel and tag are trimmed from the Kaisercraft – English Rose Collection. I embellished the card with an eyelet, flower sticker and some twine.

Stamps/Images: Free Image online (hand sketched), Hot Off The Press – Acrylic Stamps/Greetings & Labels (Sentiment)
Card/Paper: Mont Marte – Watercolour Pad/180 gsm/Premium English Cotton Paper, Kaisercraft – English Rose Collection/6″ Pad, Eggplant CS, Cream CS
Colour/Ink: Reeves – Watercolour paints/36 Tube Set
Accessories: Darice – Embossing Folder/Wire Fence
Embellishments: Flower Sticker, Eyelet & Twine

Magnolia Easel Watercolour

This one was some background watercolour play with some 180 gsm WC paper and Koh-I-Noor – Watercolour/Stackable Wheels, these are grainier in texture, but do still produce quite strong colour. After it was all dry, I cut a piece to fit the embossing folder, dry embossed it and lightly sanded it to expose the original core colour. I already had the image stamped and coloured in a folder from eons ago! I do remember it was coloured with watercolour pencils and just highlighted it with some glitter glue. The sentiment is from the Kaleidoscope Collection – 6.5″ x 6.5 Paper Pad with some added paper piercing and small punched hearts.

The panel behind the WC & main image was stamped with a couple of Kaisercraft clear stamps, Magnolia Grove and Rocks and coloured up.

The black metallic green panels were die cut with Grand Labels 4, dry embossed with the SU – Square Lattice embossing folder and heat embossed with Allison Ellis embossing powder (this was 2 greens I mixed together).

The base for the easel stop was first stamped with a Outlines WM rubber stamp (Discontinued) and coloured it with similar tones. The stop itself was die cut with Grand Labels 4 and cut again from about halfway within the shape and dry embossed with Wire Fence embossing folder. The lower portion of the stop was cut from the same coloured WC paper which I stamped with Kaisercraft clear stamps – Flourishes and added a punched heart and some white gel pen detail.

Stamps/Images:  All Night Media WM Rubber Stamp – Magnolia (376J), Outlines  – WM Rubber Stamp (Discontinued), Kaisercraft Clear Stamps – (Magnolia Grove – CS822/Flourishes – CS721/Rocks CS875), Sentiment – Kaisercraft
Paper/Card: Watercolour paper 180 gsm, Black CS, White CS, Soft Muted Green CS, Kaisercraft – Kaleidoscope Collection/ 6.5″ x 6.5 Paper Pad
Ink/Colour: Koh-I-Noor – Watercolour/Stackable Wheels/48 Set
Accessories: Spellbinders – Grand Nestabilities/Grand Labels 4, Stampin’ Up – Embossing Folder/Square Lattice, Portacraft – Embossing Folder/Oval Frame, Darice – Embossing Folder/Wire Fence, Allison Ellis – Embossing Powders
Embellishments: Small Punched Hearts, Ranger – Stickles Glitter Glue

Spring Planting Watercolour

For this final watercolour,  I saw the stamping part of this technique somewhere online and was inspired and keen to give it a try while I had my watercolours out. I lightly stamped the Penny Black – Spring Planting (discontinued) with a light coloured distress ink onto some 180 gsm watercolour paper. I painted this one with the Koh-I-Noor – Watercolour/Stackable wheels. Next I dry embossed it with Diamond Trellis embossing folder and heat embossed this with clear embossing powder and wiped over this with a dark brown water based ink and wiped it off with a clean cloth so some the residual colour stayed in the crevices.

To finish it off I layered the WC image onto Webster’s – Petite Papers and for the back panel I dry embossed it with the Jamara embossing folder and embellished it with a button.

Stamps/Image: Penny Black  – WM Rubber Stamp 1999/Spring Planting (1491L – discontinued)
Card/Paper: Webster’s – Petite papers, Mont Marte – 180 gsm /Water Colour Pad/A5 German Paper/Medium Tooth
Ink/Colour: Koh-I-Noor – Watercolour/Stackable wheels/48 Set, Ranger – Tim Holtz/Distress Ink
Accessories: Couture Creations – Embossing Folder/Diamond Trellis, Cuttlebug – Embossing Folder/Jamara
Embellishments: Button, Thread

Hi Crafty friends, today’s quick card project I made for a male birthday. I started by dry embossing some colour core cardstock with a Happy Birthday embossing folder, sanded it with a fine grit sanding tool and distressed the outer edges with a paper distresser tool. I die cut out some stars in a variety of colours from some scraps with a set of star  – nested dies.

Next I stamped a cupcake from a figures of speech stamp set onto a small piece of white cardstock, coloured it with copic markers and cut it out with the inner star shape and mounted these together with 3D foam adhesive. The sentiment I stamped with black ink onto some white cardstock and dry embossed it with square lattice embossing folder and embellished this with three silver brads at the left side of the sentiment and also adhered this onto the card 3D foam adhesive.

With some sunshine out today, I spent the entire afternoon in the garden… gardening and found one of the re-potted orchids was in flower and a few succulents in flower too.

Stamps/Image: Stampin’ Up – (WM) Rubber Stamps Set/Figures of Speech, Sullivan’s – Clear sentiment stamp (Set of 21 approx 10cm x 24cm
Paper/Card: Basic White, Colour Core Cardstock – Dark Grey, Pale Grey
Ink/Colour: Black, Copic Markers
Accessories: Xcut – Do Crafts/Nested Dies- Star, Papermania – Do Crafts/5″ x & 7″ Embossing Folder/Happy Birthday Sentiments, Stampin’ Up – Embossing Folder/Square Lattice, Tim Holtz/Paper Distresser Tool
Embellishments: Stickles Glitter Glue, Silver Brads, Twine