I Love IndigoBlu

                                                                     So, why the title,

Let me tell you......... 

I am absolutely over the moon to have been asked to be part of the IndigoBlu Family and i'm really excited to show you my very first Inspiration piece as part of the Challenge Design Team.

    I will also be on the Publication Team with my first project being submitted in July so I will keep you updated with news about that.

 It's going to be very exciting time ahead for me playing, umm, creating with more of the products from the quintessentially English rubber stamp company and i'm so looking forward to being part of a team of very talented ladies, learning from them and sharing with you.

So now onto the important part of this post, sharing my very first Inspiration piece as part of the Challenge Design Team.

June Challenge - Brown & Teal

Check out the challenge using the link here, and join us by entering one of your own creations. 

Did you know there are stamp sets to be won?

For this challenge I thought I would do a bit of up-cycling. I had an empty chocolate box waiting to be used so thought I would change it into a notelet holder, and make a few matching notelets.

From an empty chocolate box to a Notelet Gift Box. 
Here is how I created it!

Out came the stamp set Floral Fantasy,  Paints, Hot Coco, Townhouse Teal both matte paints and Kingfisher Blue which is a metallic paint and also the Mega Flakes Chocolate box,  now I had to use those didn't I!!!

I wanted to have a bit of fun with the paints so I watered them down slightly and used a tennis ball to make splats onto the card.

            

Once the paint was dry I cut down one piece of card (I decorated two for this project) to fit the chocolate box lid, bottom and sides of the box.

I then used the Mandala stamp from the Floral Fantasy stamp set on the cut out pieces, first of all embossing the stamped image, adding brown and teal paint to certain areas of the design then going back over image with Flitter Glu and Chocolate box Mega Flakes.

Before sticking down the panels with Glossy Slap it on, I painted the box with Hot Coco paint, and I had also found some small wooden blocks in my stash so painted those as well after giving them a coat of white GeeSoo Good along with some metal flowers I was going to use on the lid of the box.

               

I felt the 'Feet' were a bit flat looking so I used some double sided sticky tape to add some strips of Mega flakes to them.

 I then stamped and cut out some butterflies, adding wire antennae to the underside of them. 

On the 2nd piece of background card, I cut it up, to make fronts for the notelets adding a butterfly, copper cotton and a small sentiment.

                   

The inside panels for the box were painted with Kingfisher metallic paint and I glued a small butterfly to the base, as a small surprise when the notelets are removed.

I also covered the entire box with the Gloss Slap it On to protect it a little more.

The top of the box was finished off with a sentiment from the stamp set along with a butterfly I cut out and some metal flowers which I painted.

I hope what I have created here has given you some ideas for yourself and inspired you to enter the blog challenge yourself. 

If you have any questions please get in touch and I will do my best to answer them.

Here are a few more close up photo's of the Notelets.

Have Fun and Happy Crafting,

Sue xx

 Each of the notelets have a different look to then due to the ball splatter pattern I made using the paints.

Love beyond words

Hello there and Welcome.

Today I would like to share with you a card I made yesterday using a couple of new items I recently purchased from IndigoBlu

They have a lot of new masks and I have fallen in love with the Roses stencil and thats why I ended up making a romantic / wedding card.

I decided to use acetate as a card base and used Mega Flakes to add a boarder to the front using a boarded stamp from the 'Live, Laugh, Love' stamp set.
The Roses stencil was used with some Cinderella Paint then once this was dry I went back over the top with the stencil and went over some of the petals with a little brown paint mixed with the pink. The same technique was used on another 3 pieces of card which I then die cut.
The top picture was from the Lost family  mix media pad and I coloured some embossing paste with the Cinderella paint and added some roses with the stencil.

Once the paste was dry I painted over the picture with a wash of Snow White
 paint to give a lovely shimmer.
I made some roses using a  mold and paper clay and once they were dry used the same coloured paints as I did on the card.

I embossed a sentiment from the stamp set 'Live, Laugh, Love' in gold, added a piece of cream ribbon and a steampunk heart which I painted. I then added a few dots of liquid pearls to finish off the front. 

 The Inside of the Card

Back of the card

And just for fun I changed a photograph to Black and White to see what it would look like.

Thanks for popping by today, would love for you to come back soon.
Happy Crafting xx

Shabby Chic Double Z Fold Card

Hello to you and welcome. Today I would like to share a Double Z Fold card with you that was commissioned by my son, who's friend was moving to France and was also celebrating her birthday and loves cakes. 
(I found out afterwards that Macaroons are one of her favorites)!

My order from IndigoBlu had just arrived so it was a perfect opportunity to use the New  Roses Stencil. (As soon as I saw this mask I knew it was one I had to have)!

Anyone who knows me, know's I don't like to do precise measurements unless I really need to so to keep it easy the base card measurement is cut to 6"x 12" and scored at 3" & 6". 

(The layered paper pieces are just slightly smaller, enough to leave a boarder showing through).

The band is cut at 12" x 2 1/2" and scored 6"x 9" and again the layering piece's are cut slightly smaller.

Now that measurements are out of the way, onto the fun stuff.

         

I chose a piece of background card from the "Belle Epoque" mixed media card stack from Indigoblu as its a good weight of patterned card to use embossing paste on. 

A little Cinderella paint was mixed into the embossing paste then spread over the Roses stencil.

(I put this to one side to let it dry and went on to stamp out and colour some macaroons. The stamp came from the craft Stamper magazine and was designed by Giovanna Zara. So delicious)!. 

Once the embossing paste was dry I watered down a little Grandma's Teacup paint and used this as a wash all over the panels to soften up the colours slightly.

Back to the card base. 

I chose another couple of pieces out of the card stack to layer on top of the blue card base and used black ink to outline the edges.
TIP; before you attach the patterned panels, make sure that the blue card base and band are the correct way around!
The main card base should have the two 3"scored  panels on the left and 
the card band should have the 6" scored panel on the left when looking down on the card. Opposite way around from each other. See photo!

(Cream card will go on the middle blue panel for messages).

A doily was cut up and coloured with a blue Gelatos crayon to soften up the stark white.

Time to play with some embellishments

  Strips of really sticky double sided tape were attached to either end of the band. 

TIP: Measure up from the bottom of the card to make sure the band is level.

This then folds out to make the Z shape.

I decided the card needed a little extra something so I added ice stickles to the embossed roses for some extra sparkle.
And there you have it, finished.

I would love to hear from you, let me know what you think. 
Happy Crafting, Sue xx

                           

May.....All your Dreams come true - my challenge piece

Hello to you.

So I'm well and truly back from my travels around New England and have brought myself back some great crafty goodies, but I will tell you more about that in another post! 

 I needed a little nudge to get me back into crafting again and what better way to do that, than to enter the IndigoBlu Blog Challenge, so I have!

How about you?

 Why don't you have a go at this challenge, you might even win a fab prize. 

Check out all the information here.

Good Luck and have some crafty fun! xx

My idea for this challenge changed quite a lot and I needed to pin something down so I took a look again at my IndigoBlu stamps to get some ideas. I then went on to thinking about dreams, which then lead onto dream catchers, then I moved onto day dreams and how time slips by when lying in the sun day-dreaming (or thinking about challenges lol) and I ended up thinking about the 'Mr Darcy' stamp set I have.

And after all that thinking, this is what evolved.

What do you think??

So, first things first.
I painted a background with some of the Cottage Garden Acrylic paints from both the Metallic and Matt paints.Trying to get those colours you get when blowing bubbles.

I mixed up a runny paint with a few of the colours and let them drip down the card. Once this was dry I painted over the entire piece of card with the 'Snow White' paint.

Once the paint was dry I then stamped with the Bubbles stamp and sprinkled it with some Stampendous shabby blue embossing enamel.

I wanted to add some extra texture so I used the clock face mask and some 3D gloss gel mixed with a little Kingfisher paint.

I then stamped out several black images onto acetate circles to give the illusion of bubbles, used some different colour paints to make them come alive a little.

I felt the 'Bubbles' need a little shine so I went around each of them with some Mega Flake.

I haven't shown it here but I added some glitter glue and gems to the bubbles.

I felt that this project was beginning to look like a wall hanging so thought I would use one of the Tim Holtz wall hangers I brought home with me but felt the colour of it wasn't quite right so covered it with embossing enamel

I also added a Tim Holtz 'Word Band' to the hanger.

Before I glued down the 'Bubbles' I moved them around the hanger to see how I liked them the most.

I felt the hanger was a little plain so added a small seam binding bow.

Below are a few close ups.
I hope you have enjoyed following my journey into creating this wall hanger.

Hope to see you here again soon.
Happy Crafting,
Sue xx