Challenge Yourself With IndigoBlu- Master Board Technique

Hello everyone, have you missed me?

I have been busy with the family over the last couple of months with my daughters wedding and my other two moving away from home but now I'm back and to start off blogging again I have a tutorial to share with you on how to make up a batch of  cards creating a master board with paint as the background for cards. This blog post came about as an inspiration piece for the 'I Love IndigoBlu' unofficial fan page for the monthly challenges we run. This time the Theme is 'Christmas/ Winter and I'm going to make up a master board using shades of blue and the focus of the cards will one of the New Christmas Stamp A5 sets from IndigoBlu called Tree Dressing. 

Check out the 'I love IndigoBlu' Facebook page for details of the new 'Challenge yourself Event'. 

You of course don't have to make more than one card or project. My contribution was to give you some ideas xx

Kay and Alfie from IndigoBlu are very generous and give us fab prizes for the winner! Why not pop over and join in! 

IndigoBlu Items used

Stamp sets -Tree Dressing & Vintage Frame

Stencils -  Stars , Snow and Spirit of Christmas

English Cottage Artist Acrylic Paint - Sleeping Beauty, Purple Rain, Townhouse Teal and Snow White.

IB Watercolour card, Rice Paper and Super Thick Slap it On, Slap it on (matt), Unicorn Sparkles and Phat Foam (These items are all on the website)!

Water spray bottle, Spatula, White & coloured card, Card Blanks or make your own.

Whats next

Step 1. Using a spatula  put small dabs of paint onto your glass mat or a piece of plastic and spray with water. Carefully spread out the paint without mixing the colours together to much, spray again with water.

Lay the watercolour card down onto the paint and press. (There was enough paint left so I managed to use two pieces of card). Mop up any remaining paint with the rice paper. Leave the card and rice paper to dry or speed it up by using your heat tool.

 

2. Once the watercolour card is dry, use a piece of phat foam to add Sleeping Beauty paint through 'Star' stencil and then without cleaning the stencil use some of  the Snow White paint to create a pale blue colour through the stencil. Now fill in any gaps with the 'Snow' stencil and the Snow White paint. Spread some Purple Rain onto a piece of phat foam working it in to make a ink pad to use on the smaller circle frame from the Vintage Frame set and stamp across the master board. Use the side of a coffee stirrer or credit card to create lines of Town Teal across the MasterCard. Once dry cut up into different sizes and use to create a job lot of card fronts.

3. Onto the Rice Paper. I used the paint pad and circle frame stamp again and randomly stamped across the paper. Then using a dark blue ink I stamped 'Happy Holiday' from the Vintage Frame set in the centre of the round frames. Stars from the Tree Dressing set were stamped over the rice paper.

3.Now decide how you want to use the Master board. Here are some ideas from me. 

Stamping out images onto the master board panels or onto white card and cut out and colour.

Changing or highlighting some of the colours on the master board by using a weak solution of  bleach and water.

Using 'Super thick Slap it On' mixed with Paint and Unicorn Sparkles and using it through the word stencil.

Card 1.

Starting off with the Rice Paper, I cut off a piece that would cover a piece of 5 1/2" x  51/2" piece of card and used slap it on to stick it down and seal it. This was mounted onto a slightly bigger piece of black card then mounted onto a white card base. A square of the master board was matted onto black card and glued to the card front with a stamped sentiment from the Vintage frame set.

Card 2. 

Stamping straight onto a master board panel with the stockings and taking some of the colour out to highlight the stockings.Finish off the panel by sponging purple paint around the boarder. Using Thick Slap in on mixed with blue paint and Unicorn sparkles through the stencil. Mounted on green card then a card base.

Card 3. 

Stamping out the trees with green ink and using the same stencil and colour as above. The Reindeer and Stockings were stamped, cut out and coloured. These were then mounted on foam dots to give some dimension. The panel was finished off using some white puffy paint for snow dots and mounted as the card above.

Card 4.

Smaller panel of the master board was stamped with just the top of the tree. A Reindeer and string of lights were stamped, coloured and cut out. Mounted using the same technique as above.

Card 5.

Strings of lights were stamped and coloured at the top of a piece of white card then cut down to measure an 5"x8" card panel. A piece of the master board was cut into a panel of 4 1/2" by 2" and mounted onto green card and had "Christmas Wishes" stencilled across it with Super Thick Slap it on mixed with blue paint.This was then mounted onto black card and a white card base.

Card 6. 

Using my stamping platform I positioned the Reindeer to fit just to the right, bottom part of a 6"x6" piece of white card and inked up the stamp with black ink. Once the image was stamped  I glued in place a square of the master board into the centre of the white card. The Reindeer was still in place on the stamping platform and the image of the Reindeer lined up perfectly over the master board piece. I then stamped out stars and painted them in with a wash of purple and stamped a couple of the small stars out in green ink. Super thick slap it on was mixed with Unicorn sparkles and put through the stencil. The string of light bulbs were stamped out coloured and cut out. The card panel was then mounted onto green card and a card blank.

I still have more of the master board pieces left so I can make up some more cards in the same style as above.

These are my ideas and I hope it has given you some of your own and inspired you to start on your own cards and of course join in with the challenge. I look forwards to seeing what you create. 

Need some more inspiration then you really have to check out what Julie has created for this challenge.

Thank you for stopping by. Happy Crafting xx

IndigoBlu style Fabric Painting

Hello to you. Today I would like to share a couple of new projects I have been working on for Kay Halliwell-sutton's Hochanda show which where on today at 11am and 3pm (These links will only work for a couple of weeks from the date of this blog post)

And it's these beautiful canvas panels.

You have Elizabeth and Jane panels which measure 20cm x 20cm and the Becca panel which is 16cm x 20cm. Check here for more details

I was asked to come up with a design for two of the IndigoBlu Fabric Panels, Elizabeth and Jane and here is what I did.

 Elizabeth

Jane

Now I normally have to sit and ponder a while to have a think about what to create and was thinking about the Beautiful Elizabeth and my head took me to Pride and Prejudice. I knew I had a Embroidery Hoop somewhere in my stash so thought I could display the panel within that. Unfortunately I don't really sew let along do embroidery so out came the paints.

I started with the background first and used a sponge to dab on two colours of paint onto the dry canvas. Luscious Powders were then mixed with Fabric Slap-it-on to paint the printed images along with the skin coloured paints. More of the grasses from the 'Victorian Garden' stamp set were stamped around the outside of the panel to coordinate with the pre-printed ones. I did this to fill up the 'white' space as the printed picture was a little smaller than the hoop.

Once I had finished stamping I then mounted the fabric into the hoop and trimmed the away the excess material. I could still see lines that framed Elizabeth so I decided to add some ribbon, which I attached to the hoop frame with sticky double sided tape.

You can still see the lines a little but I felt it would be alright once I finished off with a little more paint and added more details to the border.

The details were done using Luscious Powder mixed with Fabric Stap-it-on.

With Jane I decided to mount her onto a zipped purse and instead of leaving the panel square I used my die cutting machine to cut her out into a circle.

For this sample I wanted to decorate her in a different way so used the paint and mixed up Luscious with the FSIO and used my different size scoring tools and the end of a paintbrush to create dots around the cut edge.

 I then picked out a couple of the images from the panel and extended them onto the purse with stamps from the Collectors Edition Stamps using the Porelain Paint.

 Most of this panel was painted with the Luscious Powders

I really enjoyed painting these panels. I found them less daunting than the larger ones which I must confess I have been worried about painting as I didnt want to spoil such a gorgeous Panel. 

Here are some of the images from Kay's shows today which have really helped me feel more confident about having a go with the large panel.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post as much as I had decorating the panels.

If you would like to purchase any of the above, Canvas Panels, Paints, Luscious Powders or Slap-it-on then please check out this link to the IndigoBlu web shop.

Happy Crafting xx

Christmas is coming..........................................

Hello there and welcome to my latest blog post.

This one is all about christmas card making.

Yes I know its hard to think about Christmas with the summer just here in the UK, but if you are a card maker, you will know that July is that time of year we make a start on our christmas crafts.

As a huge fan of IndigoBlu I have been lucky enought to receive some of their NEW Stamps and Stencils hot off the press to create samples for Kay Halliwell-sutton's One Day Christmas Special on Hochanda this weekend. (Sat 8th July at 6pm and Sun 9th July).

To start with let me share with you the cards I have made for Kay's show's then I will add links to the New Stamp sets at the end of the post. 

I think the Christmas Stag is going to be my all time favorite Christmas stamp, its such fun image.

Christmas Stag - For this card I stamped the image onto Acetate, coloured in the image on the back of it then added Glossy Accents to the front onto the baubles. To decorate the card front I used the New Snowflake Stencil with inks.

Deer Forest - This card background was created using the Paint Pouring Technique with the IndigoBlu paints. (I have done a previous blog post about Paint Pouring). The stamp was inked in black then I fussy cut around the image. The text was done with embossing paste through a stencil then Unicorn Sparkles were sprinkeled on top. 

For this card I used the New Snowflake Stencil with Ultra Thick Slap-it-On coloured with Teal Luscious Powder on Acetate, sprinkled with Unicorn Sparkles. The image was stamped in blue ink then die cut out. Ribbon and pale blue half pearls were used for simple decoration. 

Christmas Wreath - To make this card I used a woodgrain card highlighted with Copper Lusious Pigment power mixed with water. I then stamped onto it using the Laurel Leaves Stamp set. The wreath was coloured in using pens and Luscious powders.White ribbon was coloured with Post Box Red English Garden paint which is brilliant on fabric. The sentiment comes from the same stamp set.

For this card I used a Stamp Set from last years christmas collection and one of this years New Stamp Sets called Shine Bright  for the lightbulbs which I stamped on Shrink Plastic.

This is another Christmas Stamp from Last Years Christmas which I used to make a shaker card.

I hope you like this New Christmas Collection as much as I do. You can catch up with Kay on Hochanda this weekend and check out her hints and Tips for using these sets. Also check out the IndigoBlu Blog for more inspirational cards from the Design Team.
Happy Card Making xx

Christmas Stag 

Deer Forest

Christmas Wreath