IndigoBlu inspiration for Fathers Day Blog Hop!

Hello there and Welcome.  

I'm very excited to share this blog post with you today for two reasons. 

The first is that I'm taking part in a Blog Hop with some of the other fantastic IndigoBlu DT members and secondly Kay and Alfie from  IndigoBlu are offering a huge 20% discount on a range of Stamp Sets the DT have used for their Fathers Day Cards. 
Of course these stamp sets can be used for so much more than just once a year, think of all the different projects you can create with them.

Below are the stamp sets with that huge 20% discount. Just use the Code FD20 on the IndigoBlu website to claim your discount. Vaild up to 17th June 2018.

The Draughtsman

Drive Hard

Fly High

Travelling Home

Grand Tour 11 & 111

Steampunkesque

Circus Alphabet

For my Fathers Day or 'Special Man' card I decided used Drive Hard, (because my Father loved the vintage cars), Fly High and Design Alphabet as unfortunately I don't have the Circus Alphabet.

Step 1. Kraft Card Stock was cut to 12"x8" and scored at either end at 3" to make a Gate Fold Card base.

 I then used the Cogs and Gears stamp from the Fly high set to create a background on the card base

Versafine Sepia ink was then blended over the stamped images

Step 2. The Vintage car from Drive Hard was stamped out onto white card and clear embossed.

 The car was then cut out and and painted using Kingfisher Blue and Pheasant Bronze

Step 3. Chocolate card stock was cut to 4 1/2" x6 1/2" to make the first layer of the card. This was stamped with the Tyre Track stamp set Drive Hard using the Portrait Paint

 I then decided more colour was needed so used the same colours as in the car

  Step 4. I die cut a tag in Kraft card and stamped over it with the cogs and gear stamp then out came the Chocolate Box Meg Flakes to edge all of the card pieces

Step 5. Using the Sepia ink again I stamped out the word 'DAD' onto cream card from the Design Alphabet stamp set. The letters were cut out and mounted using foam pads onto Chocolate card stock which was edged with Kingfisher paint.

 Step 6. Now all the layers were put together. 
The tyre track layer had some copper wire wrapped around it towards the bottom, (you can see this better in a photo below) and then the left half only of this panel was glued onto the card base so that the card still opened. 
The letters were attached to the tag by first wrapping some wire around it then I glued the tag into place over the tyre panel.

Step 7. The car was then attached to the tag using foam pads amd I ran a grey marker around it to create a shadow. 
A piece of cream card was cut out and attached to the inside of the card base ready to write a special message.

This card was fairly easy to do so thought it would be a great way to help children make their own Fathers Day Cards. 
I know some of my crafting friends love to help their Grandchildren make cards and I think this would be a project both adults and children would enjoy doing together.

 These photo's show up some of those little details

  In this photo you can see how the wire was wrapped around the first layer

Many thanks for stopping by to take a look at my Fathers Day card, but before you go,  please hop over to my Teamies Blogs to see what they have been creating and of course, don't forget that Big 20% off deal from IndigoBlu. 

You have until 17th June to claim it using code FD20.

Now for the Hop!
Kay Molyneux- One for the boys!
Carolyn Larkin -Steampunk Fathers Day Card
Linda Simpson - Fathers Day Inspiration
Julie Atkinson - Fathers Day with IndigoBlu
Aitch - Fathers Day Blog Hop
Emma Blake - Fathers Day Card and a Special offer
Until next time
Happy Crafting x

IndigoBlu in Bloom

Hello to you and thanks for stopping by. You may have seen that Kay Halliwell-sutton from IndigoBlu was on Hochanda today show casing her beautiful floral stamps and the fluttering birds, bees and dragonflies. If you didnt get to see her live shows then check them out on Hochanda.com. First show was at 10am with Leonie Pujol and the 2pm show with  Matt Macnamara. (These links are only good for two weeks).

Being on the TV sample making team for IndigoBlu im lucky enough to have these stamps sent to me to experiment with and I have had so much fun creating different things from cards to mixed media pieces.

Here are the samples I create for these show's, lots of fussy cutting and I also put some of my paint pours to good use.

This card was made using the 'Spring Meadow' stamp at the top of the card with a few extra butterflies cut out from the 'Nature III', sitting on one of the word plates from the stamp set 'Happiness'. The colours used on the card were from the Luscious Powder range.

I wanted to keep this card simple to show off the beautiful Orchids so stamped in black ink and used clear embossing powder to create a resist when I coloured the blooms in with Pink Luscious. Once dry I fussy cut the image, cut out some slender leaves and set everything into a little wooden flowerpot painted with the porcelain Luscious powder.

For this sample I wanted to use the Orchids again to decorate the shoes I cut out using a Sizzix die as I thought it went well with a sentiment from the 'Meadow Flowers' stamp set. 'Stroll through a meadow, breathing in the sunshine & believe in miracles'

The wooden base was painted with Black Gee-Soo-good and a layer of the IndigoBlu Watercolour card was stamped on with the flowers and herbs from the same 'Meadow Flowers' stamp set.

The shoes were kept simple, as well as the stamped images all finished off with little touches of Bisque Liquid Pearls.

I love the colours that came out on the Paint Pour I used for the background to these beautiful flowers from the stamp set 'Peony' and I used Coral and Orange Luscious Powders to give these flowers a lovely shine. 

The orange was also mixed into some super slap it on which I put through the 'Scrip' stencil over the flowers to add a little texture, then cut and dry embossed so leaves and added linen thread under the flowers.

Now I really love this New Humming Bird Stencil by IndigoBlu and hope that Kay follows it up with a Hummingbird stamp. (I'm sure you will know why I love this so much)! I used this stencil in a slightly different way as I drew around the hummingbird lines. I then used a Tombow Glue Pen to add patterns. Once the glue was dry I used Tombow Brush Pens and Blender pen to add colour to the differnt sections of the bird over the glue which acted as a resist so you get a interesting patterns emerging.

I then masked off the Humminbird and using a wet wipe put some blue Gelatos through the IndigoBlu Dottie stencil and finished the card off with some green pearl dots. The sentiment was stamped and black embossed onto vellum.

For this piece I used another of my paint pour mini canvases and picked out the blue in it by painting Rice Paper with Blue Luscious, stamping about 10 of the 'Peony' heads in Stazon blue ink onto the rice paper and cutting each flower out and layering them up to create a dimensional flower.

I added the sentiment 'You are Bloomin Marvelous' from the stamp set 'Meadow Flowers'

This next piece I created was using a base from a toy that rocks and I thought it might be fun to add the 'Butterfly#2' and the 'Giant Dragonfly' on wires to make them look as if they were fluttering and hovering above the flowers. Unfortunatly the camera didnt like the shine that was coming of the painted pieces as I used the Luscious Powders again so it hasn't captured all the detail that are in the stamped images.

I stamped, coloured and cut out the Peony and leaf images from the 'Marigold and Peony' stamp set and added them around the sides and the top of the rocking base, filling the top with some paper flowers from my stash.  

The Giant Dragonflies had some silver glitter added to their wings and different coloured gems were added to the bodies.

I wanted to use my Tombow Brush pens again so I stamped out the beautiful floral collage from the stamp set 'Nature III' and enjoyed colouring it in so much decided to stamp and colour in more images and turned them into a Stepper Box Card.

Each draw was decorated with parts of the images I coloured as well as single images inside each box base.

Hope you have enjoyed taking a look and some of these samples inspire you. 
If you would like to see some more of these fantastic stamps then please check out Julie Atkinson's blog. 
Be ready to be amazed!

Happy Crafting,

Sue xx

Spring is in the air- IndigoBlu Inspiration Piece

 Hello to you all,

I have been so lucky to have been picked again to create an inspirational piece for the new challenge over at IndigoBlu. Thank you soooo much Design Team xx
Here is a link to the IndigoBlu Blog so you can check out all those gorgeous inspiration pieces created by the Design Team, last months winner and the top 3 winners.
 Find the Link Here

I hope you will find projects to inspire you to make something similar or to use the ideas on cards, canvas or home decor.

And if you do, why not challenge yourself, enter this months Blog Challenge!

So without further ado here is my Inspiration for Spring is in the air.

The first thing was thinking about spring and I took my inspiration from the garden. I have a Forsythia bush in the garden which has burst into glorious yellow flowers. Also the tree blossoms have come out and everywhere is looking so fresh and green.

Of course I created something that has been quite hard to photograph so I have quite a few photos to share.

Here is my finished Inspiration piece. More photos showing what the lampshade looks like all the way around at the end of this post

I started off with a plain white paper lampshade. Because of the shape and the surface of the shade I stamped images with green Stazon Ink onto tissue paper and used Slap-it-on to stick them to the lampshade.

Once the images had dried out I used three colours of diluted paint in spray bottles to add spring colours. 

I sprayed the lampshade outside, hanging it on the line and as the paint dripped and collected along the wire outline I used a piece of kitchen paper to absorb the excess paint as I didn't want to leave dark lines. At this stage, you need to handle the lampshade very carefully as its made of tissue paper and could rip when wet with the paint.

Out of the Wild Meadow set I used the large wild grass set to stamp the images onto tissue paper for the base of the lampshade and used the butterfly stamp but stamped that image onto thick parchment paper

Out of the above 'Live, Laugh, Love' set I used two of the flower blossoms stamps on tissue paper

Once the blossom images were stamped out using a brown Stazon ink I used Lemon Meringue paint diluted, then once dry I cut the blossoms out. To pick out details on the blossoms I added green ink and mica powder

I wanted the butterflies to look a little translucent so I painted some thick parchment paper with diluted paints

Once the butterfly images were stamped and cut out I added more detail using different shades of colour to highlight the butterflies. I also stamped out some small dragonflies from the set 'Live, Laugh, Love' 

All cut out, glittered, painted and ready to be attached to the now painted lampshade

Tiny white flowers were added around the shade

Centers of the flowers were created using tiny beads

Thanks for stopping by today.
Happy Crafting, Sue xx