Clarity Challenge - December 2016 - Christmas Carol or Joy

Once again Christmas has arrived without enough notice!  I'm late finishing off cards and only delivered the last ones last night!

Not a Carol, but a very Christmassy poem, so hope it counts! We have a teddy that narrates this poem, his mouth moves and head moves side to side as though he is reading it; he has brought joy to many who have seen him!

The following 3 cards were created using the same technique, central stamp embossed and coloured, then covered with a post-it, so that the background shading could frame it; then post-it removed and thr 2 different styles of outline added.

The odd shadow effects on the following card, was caused by the daylight lamp, but the card was sealed up and sent before I realised the photo was not so good!  However I included it as I liked the way the mice were peeping!  This technique, of cutting in to the card and tucking in the image behind it, was inspired by Barbara Grays technique with the letterbox stamps.

Blue Poppy - Clarity Challenge

This months Clarity challenge is "Blast from the past", so I dug out a couple of my oldest Clarity stamps. I tried a new colour with the poppy and went for a blue poppy.

I coloured the stamp with distress inks using blue and 2 shades of green and stamped on to watercolour paper.  A wet paintbrush was then used to push the ink around to get a greater coverage between the detail and created a hand painted watercolour look.  The poppy was then mounted on contrasting paper.  To get a subtle background I used another old favourite the butterfly, this was stamped randomly round the base card, then each softly coloured in colours that reflected the main image.  (The small butterfly has often been used on my projects when a smudge needed covering, and was used on a previous challenge to create a fabric pattern on a dress.)

Clarity Challenge - In the garden

When is a Clarity Blooming Corner not a corner? When it is stamped repeatedly, hand-drawn leaves added, coloured, then cut up into individual flowers and sprays and randomly arranged to create a beautiful foreground to the "In the garden" Clarity Challenge.

I started the process by stamping the the Clarity Stamp Blooming Corner 21 times on a piece of white card.  With the corner not featuring any leaves, I added these to each of the corner stamped images with a black micron pen.  I then coloured all the flowers and leaves using a selection of 10 shades of pinky-purple spectrum noir pencils for the petals and 3 shades of green for the leaves.  Once all the colouring was complete, I cut them all up to create a selection of flowers, mostly individual flowers but also a handful of multiple flower sprays.  The flowers were then shaped by lightly embossing the back to create a dome, these were then arranged around the outside of the prepared background.  The photo does not do justice to the depth of the flowers.  

The prepared background had been created using the Clarity Birdhouse stamp set, using Spectrum Noir pencils to enhance the texture of the birdhouse and fence.  The vine from the Birdhouse originally framed the whole background but this has been covered on all but the top of the design.

At first this was designed as a card, but the work it took and the fact the flowers and leaves hung over the edges it has become an artwork that shall be framed for display in a box frame.

An idea, that sprang to mind when I heard the challenge title, really turned out rather therapeutic with lots of colouring.  I'm sure I will be using this technique again, but maybe on a smaller arrangement!

Paper piecing

I was inspired to create this card as an entry for the Clarity Stamp challenge.  I selected 5 different papers that showed a range of hues of similar colours.  The elegant lady was stamped on each paper, then the hat and dress were cut out.  Here I have a couple of tips, 1. don't cut the gloves from the dress section until you are ready to glue 2. Don't sneeze after you have cut the gloves from the dress!  Guess how I know!

Then came the task of lining up the ladies on the base card, so that they could be dressed in the graduated papers.  As my elegant lady is from some years ago, she is fixed to a handle, so I decided to scratch a mark on the handle in the centre top and bottom, this enabled me to place a pencil mark to more accurately position them.  

The centre plaque was created by masking over the ladies with 2 large post-it's then applying 2 shades of distress green and over stamping with the crackle stamp in a contrasting raspberry, using the technique of holding the stamp in your hand, rather than securing to a handle, and using 2nd and 3rd generations of ink.

Then the ladies needed grounding so I shaded a puddle under each lady imagining the light source above.

Clarity Stamp Challenge June 2016 - Masculine

I have created this card with a Winter theme that I thought suited the masculine theme.  I believe some people start planning Christmas cards in June too!?

The birch trees were the first part, which were then masked with a paper mask extending the birch trees to make a square frame.  A small moon mask added, with a "ripped hill" mask to define the sky.  Forest ridge stamped trees used for the background trees.  I then stamped "Santa's car" NDC97 back issue, however I did not want it too Christmassy.  So, I stamped the car on to a post-it, then cut this so the Star which was on the top of the tree was remaining with space to top right, then using the beauty of clear stamps, I stamped the car and tree, so that the star was over the post-it, thus removing the star from the stamp (kind of a reverse mask!)  It was a little tricky and I did have to redraw the top of the tree as it looked slightly odd without the star!  The base of the birch trees were hand drawn grass tufts using a fine liner.  The car and shadow (in front of the trees and the middle of the trees) was coloured with Spectrum noir pencils, with extended car tracks!

Clarity Challenge May2016 - Anything goes

This is an experiment with embossing resist technique and Brushos.  First the Clarity Butterfly trees was stamped in Versamark, with a couple of Clarity words from the Birdcage set, these were all were clear embossed.  The Brushos were used on top of the embossed image; there is a little trial and error required for how much water to add, as you need enough activation to outline all the stamped image, but don't want too much that the colours blend!  There are several experimental pieces, in various colour combinations, that did not make it to publication!

The main design was mounted on contrast blue, and the card base background stamped with all 3 sizes of butterflies (from the same Butterfly Tree set), picking out the different colours of the Brushos.

 

Clarity challenge April 2016 - Masking

Last minute as usual!  I did a lovely card with a bunny but cannot find it!  This was the first card I did this month for the mask challenge,  before the bunny!

Very simple masking the hills in a rainbow of colours and the silhouette butterfly tree.  The happy Birthday was stamped onto a waste piece of card, but thought it added interest having the touch of bronze.