Monday 29 September 2014

A Little Fairy Love

Hi and welcome to our inspiration blog. 

It's my (Clare) turn today to post and this time I thought I have a play with my very own stamps which are part of the Special Editions range in Sarah's shop.

There are 6 stamp sets in total but here I have only used 2, the Fairy Garden and Flower Fairy stamp sets.

First I stamp, coloured and cut out the fairies, finally adding some glitter to their wings. I then stamped directly onto the card blank remembering to leave space for the two fairies at either end. I drew a bunting line between the two poles before stamping, colouring and cutting out the bunting. Foam pads were then added the back of all my cut outs before fixing to the card.



Here's a close up of the two fairies......


Promarkers used....

hair/hedgehog - burnt orange,oatmeal and honeycomb 
dress - oasis
belt - tulip yellow
bunting/butterfly/poles - tulip yellow,oasis and honeycomb

Thanks for stopping by

Clare x



Saturday 27 September 2014

It's officially Autumn ...



Hello from me Claire N. it seems a long while since I have popped in to share anything with you, September has been a really busy month for us. 
With Autumn having officially arrived at the beginning of this week I thought I would share with you, a set of Documented 365 journalling cards I made, perfect for this time of year.

I had a great time making these because I mixed and matched lots of stamps from many different sets (there were stamps and inks everywhere) This is the way of crafting that got me hooked originally years ago.

Many of us look forward to this season, for a number of reasons, some because they find the heat and humidity of summer too much, and others (myself included) love the freshness of the sunny days and the stunning colours and fruits that nature has to offer.
The earthy and muted tones I've used here are my favourites to work with, and adding the accents of grey and stunning orange, I think has added a modern twist.

I created this set for Sarah's Autumn edition (edition 5) of the Lookbook, a free to read magazine, that we as a design team work on to showcase Sarah's latest product. Sarah herself shares her knowledge and experience in the business and teases us with little sneaky peeks of new projects. You can find the link to it HERE to have a read.

All the papers I have used have been accumulated from various paper packs and project kits from Sarah's website, as are the embellishments too
I've used a range of stamp sets (listed below), along with a couple of individual one off stamps, that have also featured in project kits.
Stamp sets used;
  1. Woodland Wonders Megan Stamp Set
  2. Today Stamps (Doc 365 range)
  3. Embellishments Stamps (Doc 365 range)
  4. Authentic Boy Stamp Set
  5. Woodgrain background / texture stamp
  6. Sentiments stamp set
  7. Special editions stamps - Cupcake, by Jaine Drake
  8. Block Alpha Stamps

Thank you for taking the time to visit and hope you can join us again.x




Thursday 25 September 2014

A bit of Sparkle & Glitter

Hello, Claire S here.

Sometimes we all need a little glitter & sparkle in our lives, and this scrapbook page was one of those times.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of the Blackpool Illuminations - just in case you haven't it's a huge display of lights and pictures made from lights that runs the length of the Promenade in Blackpool every year between September & the beginning of November. Well this year there's been an indoor display at the Winter Gardens, it's actually the worlds biggest indoor display, We went to have a look around and here is the resulting scrapbook layout....


The displays in there were fantastic, the illuminated do is fully 3d and about 25ft tall, he was in the section called it's a small world, where everything was huge & we were tiny, if you look closely in the sharks mouth, you may just be able to see mum & H.
I used the black background paper from one of Sarah's kits - her paper is so wonderfully thick you can use it as cardstock and I used the bright coloured papers for the bright lights. I added some glitter stickles to the border on the paper and used glittery Thickers for the title.

Well that's all from me, thanks for stopping by & hope to see you soon.


Tuesday 23 September 2014

As it happens, journal page from start to finish.

It's been a very long time since my art journal came out to play and this page is the second in as many days.

I've been promising to post a journal page for absolutely ages now and after a couple of requests recently I thought I'd take step photo's of my process and try to explain the thinking behind the art. It's a bit photo heavy so I apologise if you don't make it to the bottom of this post.


Now don't be fooled, I'll be totally honest with you and this is a second chance for a page gone bad. The original was doing ok until I tried adding an image transfer which didn't work and the whole page just started to go pear shaped. I'd even gone as far as to fold it in half (see the crease down the middle) and put it in the waste bin but something nagged at me as I did really like the silhouette cut from a book page.

I rescued it and spread gesso over with an old store card. I love gesso, it's brilliant stuff. You can add texture into it, paint it on an absorbent surface to give paint longer time to dry, use it to add tooth to a slick surface for painting on or as I did just covering up stuff. Gesso is my friend.


Now to start adding layers and for me a page isn't a page without some texture somewhere so out came the paste and a stencil. I used a Sarah Hurley honeycomb stencil  and spread the paste with a knife just like buttering a piece of bread. I didn't cover the page with paste and I only randomly picked out parts of the stencil to use.


After a cup of tea it was dry enough for the next stage. I love circles and loosely drew a few around the page. They were more of a scribble than anything else.  


I added some colour using one of my favourite colouring mediums, Faber Castell Big Brush pens. I love these pens as once dry they're pretty permanent but while wet I can smudge them with my finger. I used two colours starting with a grey but while I liked the colour it wasn't strong enough so I turned to the blue.


The page  needed some more colour so I used a lime green acrylic paint. I did start by just rubbing the paint with my finger across the raised parts but ended up rubbing and wiping all over. I like to use my finger for painting a lot, it's sensitive to texture and loads of fun. The baby wipe is for taking off excess paint and spreading the paint around.


The next layer was some stamping and I used the Woodgrain background stamp without a block and some Stazon ink to add a few marks around the page. Not using a block results in a more random image and I was happy to find that the finished image was more like stripes than a woodgrain.


I also used the little circles from the Zendoodle borders and shapes set but this time I did use the block as they're quite small.


I needed to define the circles more so I drew around them with a black fine liner pen. I also sketched around the figure to make her stand out a bit more and added some touches of white with a sharpie pen.



I felt the page needed another colour to balance all that green and blue so I used the silhouette as a journaling spot and painted it in with red paint as a contrast to the much cooler greens.

 
A few more marks with the white pen, some ink spots and the phrase which I'd originally tried to stamp directly onto the page but ended up having to add it on a strip of paper after it didn't stamp evenly. I also added a few red dots of paint into the circles just because it was in front of me on the table.


Congratulations if you've made it this far without falling asleep. I hope I've inspired you just a bit.

Jaine x

Sunday 21 September 2014

Happy Cake Day!

Hello, it's Carol here today and Happy Sunday to all of you.

Today I am going to share a card that I made for my card box.  It's always handy to have a pile of cards for those birthdays that creep up on you when your mojo is on holiday.

I used a brand new set of stamps that Sarah will be releasing in her lovely Online Shop soon, and Block Alpha and Outline Alpha Stamps to create the card. The background paper is from a previous AFOMFT kit.

I stamped instagram frames onto white card, then stamped the images inside. I coloured with Promarkers and with the fab wee White Photo Corners that Sarah has in her shop I co-ordinated them to match the colours of my images with the same colours of Promarkers. 

I stamped out "Happy Cake Day" in black ink and used the Block Alpha Stamps in different colours to match.

I added some bakers twine and a cute cupcake charm to finish off the card.




Ingredients

Thanks for popping by, remember there is still time to join in our Buttons Challenge.


Friday 19 September 2014

Stamping fun

Hi all,

It is Nicole here today to share a fun project using the Sarah Hurley Sentiments stamp set! I really love all the sentiments in this set and decided I wanted to use as many of the stamps in the set as possible.

I die cut 3 tags and on two of them stamped as many of the sentiments related to birthday and celebration as would fit. On the third tag I made a cake by stamping the cake from the wedding stamp set and fussy cutting and paper piecing it.

I then created a card base and mounted my 3 tags onto it using foam adhesive.

I loved being able to use so many of the stamps for a super fun look!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today,

Happy Friday!!

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Make a Wish!

Happy Tuesday everyone! It's Ria here today sharing another card project :)

I have a number of embellishment from Sarah and decided to make use a combination of them for a card project.

I cut strips of patterned papers for my background, just enough to bring  colors in my white card base. I then added another patterned paper to put the main embellishments - the felt flower and butterfly as my focal point.

To add some color, I stamped the leaves and fussy cut them, then tucked it behind the felt.
The rest of the flowers were arranged randomly around the card.


Very easy to do which I think can be reproduced easily.

and here's the complete card



If you're interested in any of the products I used on this project, I listed the supplies below this post.

Supplies used:

A Few of my Favourite Things Happy kit
Add on kit 3 - 9th Precinct
Add on 2 kit - Lower East Side
Sentiments stamp set
Paper Butterfly
Be Amazing Girl stamp

Till then!

xx Ria

Monday 15 September 2014

Distress Ink and Die Cut background

Hi and welcome to the Sarah Hurley blog.

Today I (Clare) want to share a card I made in a style which is a little unusual for  me. I think it's good just to play or try out new ideas and see where they lead. The idea was to create a background using my TH inks then add a large die cut layer, which I received from my lovely design team member Carol. If I'm honest I was thrilled how well it turned out.

Below is  a picture of what I used to create my background.



 I also decided to use the Doodle Doll Princes Girl stamp set and for once I wasn't going to colour the hair brown, I was going to be brave and use orange!

 After stamping and colouring in the princess and crown using Promarkers, I cut them out and added foam pads to create depth. Finally the sentiment was stamped and cut out,again using foam pads to create depth.

Here's the finished card


Stamps - Doodle Doll-Princes Girl

Thanks for stopping by

Clare x

Friday 12 September 2014

An Altered Tin

Hello there!
Claire S here, how are you today?

I thought I'd share my Buttons Challenge piece in a bit more detail today.

I love little tins and boxes, they're so useful for little bits and bobs, but sometimes they look a little boring so I have a habit of altering them a bit...


This little tin was just a plain silver tin, nothing special, but I wanted something to hold Christmas buttons and journaling cards, I also like the contents of  my altered tins and boxes to be clearly identified by the outside of the tin so I don't have to look inside each one when looking for something.
I covered the top of the tin in red paper from one of Sarah's kits and also grabbed a couple of journaling cards. I used stamps from Sarah's Special Edition Stamps by Jaine Drake. I also used some gold glittery cardstock and a scalloped edge punch to create a border across the top of the tin. Finally I added a selection of white and red buttons and one of Sarah's Wreath Button Badges to finish it off.

Well that's all from me for today, you still have plenty of time to enter our buttons challenge - the deadline is 25th September and winners will be announced on the 28th.

Take care & hope to see you soon.


Wednesday 10 September 2014

Buttons galore.

Hello, it's Carol here today and I am going to share my recent make for this months Buttons themed challenge. 

I am loving all the great new Silhouette Files over at Sarah's Silhouette Online Store. And used one of them for this card.

I fancied making a card that could be used for a male (for a change!) and used a piece of paper from one of the A Few of My Favourite Things Kit as the backing layer as it was lovely and neutral(and chevrons, did I mention chevrons?) 

I used the Circle Steampunk Cog Page Mat, which is sized 12x12" but due to the wonders of technology(scale in Silhouette Studio) it can be resized to any size, I picked 5x5" so it would fit onto my 6x6" card blank.

Once the cut was finished, I popped lots of tiny 3d foam squares under it to add dimension, and then added some tiny buttons to it.

I stamped "Curio" from the Curio Stamp set, which will be on Sarah's Shop really soon ;-)


Hope you like my card, and can join in with our Challenge this month. Thanks for stopping by.
Carol x





Tuesday 9 September 2014

You’re Really Tweet

Morning all. Lisa here and I have a birthday card to share with you today.

Supplies:

Thanks for stopping by

Lisa

Friday 5 September 2014

Challenge 96 Buttons

Hello and welcome to Septembers challenge.

This month we have yet again chosen a fabulous theme which is........

BUTTONS

As always Sarah has provided some amazing prizes up for grabs. To enter our challenge and to find out more about our prizes just scroll down to the bottom of this post!

But first please check out the inspiring projects from the design team.


Jaine
My buttons have been die cut from a piece of sticky backed cork.


I used the button to replace the letter O in my XOXO sentiment. The stamp used was Block Alpha stamps. The buttons and banners are from A Few of my Favourite Things- Tropical Favourites kit while the cut elements and shapes are from the June Documented365 kit and  February Documented365 kit. Apparently love combining papers and other shapes together in  a card.


Clare

I created this scrapbook page using various papers from Sarah's A Few Of My Favourite Things kit. The buttons were die cut and the background was stamped using Sarah's large Fancy Deco Lattice stamp.




I altered this tin for Christmas bits, I used papers from Sarah's AFOMFT kits, Jaine Drake's Special Editions Christmas Stamps, a badge and some buttons....



I took the theme of this challenge very literally - buttons! Over 50 of them all on one poor card. I adhered them all down with gel medium and then painted over with a coat of gesso. I then painted these all teal and then went over with a layer of gold. Sarah's digital words then went perfectly on this!




I loved this challenge and got a bit carried away, and made two cards with various papers from Sarah's 'A Few of Mt Favourite Things' kits from over the months. I embellished Jaine's Drakes special edition 'Cupcake' stamps with the buttons, stickles, wire & promarkers.




I used Sarah's Circle Steampunk Cogs Page Mat from  Sarah's Silhouette Store to create this card and embellished it with lots of different buttons. I used the "Curio" stamp from the Curio set for Personal Impressions.






Prizes

 First place - £10 voucher for Sarah's shop
 Second place - a blog badge ( email Sarah)
 Third place - a blog badge ( email Sarah)

This months special prize for one lucky winner drawn from entries using any of Sarah's products is.....
Goodluck everyone!