'Valerie'

Hello to you.

So I have now got back into my craft studio and had a little play with a few new items I have purchased from IndigoBlu.

I couldn't quite believe how many items I used to make this card. 

I first of all made a patterned background card panel using some watered down Kingfisher blue paint then once dried stamped in gold the sound wave from the light and sound border stamp. I then went on to use the stencil and paste in three of the corners.When dry I pulled a Stazon blue ink pad across the raised pattern and coloured in a few squares with a gold pan. I then finished off the panel with a thin boarder of Pheasant bronze paint. 

Next I stamped out the image of 'Valerie' and again painted it being careful to miss the face and hand with a wash of Kingfisher blue paint. I then ripped around the image and went around the edge again with the Kingfisher paint and when dry went around the edge with Pheasant Bronze paint. With the gold pen I went over the darker sketch lines on the bodice and hat. The face and had was coloured in. Red gems were added to the cuff and as an earring. Beauty was stamped out onto black card with the Pheasant paint. 

Once dry I cut out a tag and covered it in Diamond Resin. It was left overnight to dry then a red ribbon was added. I then used foam tape to attach 'Valerie' to the patterned panel and layered this onto black card and a red card base

I'm off to play again. Hope to share with you again soon.

Happy Crafting, Sue xx

Yellow, Pink & Green. This months Theme for the IndigoBlu Blog Challenge

Hello there crafters.

So i'm back home and what better way to get back into crafting than to join in with this months blog challenge from IndigoBlu.

But just before I go onto that, have you heard, or seen the latest releases from IndigoBlu?

If not, head over to their web page. Lots of new goodies on offer from stamps, papers, paints and the new Diamond Resin. (Mine came yesterday so watch this space)!

Now that I have told you about the new goodies lets move onto this months challenge.

I'm calling this piece

Spring-New Beginnings 
(I made Top 3 in this months Challenge)

My thoughts behind this piece was to keep it fairly simple with the Stamp 'Colour Me - Daisy' being the focal point. 

Here's a list of crafting items I used in this project (Mostly IndigoBlu supplies)
*White & Black Card Stock
*Colour me Daisy Stamp
*Stylised Flowers Stamp
*Mega Flake-Sheffield Steel & Flitter Glu
*Yellow & Pink water based (Stampin Up) Ink's (+baby wipes)
*Butterfly Stamp & Punch (Stamping up)
*Distress Inks
*Cinderella & Lemon Meringue English Cottage Paints
*Crystal effects, Stickles, Enamel Accents
Wooden laser cuts, small pearls

Let me show you through these photo's how I achieved this look.

Using the Flitter Glu I stamped out four images of the Daisy onto white card

 I then covered them with Sheffield Steel Mega Flakes

Using a water based Ink I coloured two of the squares with yellow ink using a sponge, then went on to use Pink ink on the other square.

When the ink had dried a little I went over the images with a wet wipe to take some of the colour off the mega flake image.
I also stamped some butterflies in the same colour inks and punched them out to sit on the squares.

In this photo I have sponged the white card with four shades of green Distress inks then used two of the darker shades to stamp images from the Stylised Flowers. I did cut the flowers apart as I only wanted to use two of the flowers.

Once I had finished the stamping I splashed a little cold water over the panel then used a piece of  kitchen paper to pick up the water droplets which took away some of the colour on the panel.

In this shot you can see I have added colour to the center of the Daisy. 

Once each center of the Daisy had been coloured, I added Glossy accents over the pink center Yellow Square) and stickles over the yellow Daisy center (Pink square).

I then glued the two yellow squares to the green panel, one at the top the other at the bottom and mounted this on a piece of black card edged with Mega flakes.

 I wasn't happy with the look of it at this stage so decided to get out another piece of white card and paint the edges with Cinderella Metallic paint to bring out the pink in the squares and butterflies more.
The green panel was glued onto this piece.

 I then found some wooded laser cutouts from my stash and painted these, first in white Gee-Soo Good then one of the New colours from the English Cottage paints 'Lemon Meringue'.

 Once the paint was dry out came the Flitter Glu and Mega Flakes again.

 The wooden, cutouts were the glued to the top and bottom of the pink panel.
Can you see the 'lemon Meringue' paint showing through the insides of the wooden pieces? 

 To finish off this piece I added dots of Enamel accents & Ice Stickles to the stamped flowers and tiny pearls to the butterflies.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my latest project, please drop in again to see what I come up with next time with my new IndigoBlu goodies.
Take care & Happy Crafting xx

Just a couple more close up photos below 

Traveling

Hello to you all,
Well we are now back home after 6 weeks away traveling around three different countries.
As I mentioned in my last post, it was to celebrate my husbands 60th birthday which I had planned with help from my eldest daughter Laura as a surprise trip to New Zealand. It was a country both Martin and I had wanted to visit for many years, even being something we looked into 10/12 years ago with thoughts of emigrating out there. That wasn't to be, due to family matters.

Our son and daughter happened to be living back with us so it was the perfect time for us to take an extended holiday as we had house and pet sitters at hand.
I only told Martin a week before we were due to fly out so he was pretty stunned!
So new suitcases purchased and packed we went on our way.
I was great that Matt and April were able to drive us to London Heathrow and give us a send off.

So for the first leg of the trip we flew into Singapore as a stop over for 3 nights and my goodness stepping off the place with thought we had stepped into an oven. Talk about hot & humid. It was such a relief to get inside the airport, then the taxi and this was only 8 am in the morning.

Here are some of the highlights of Singapore.