May waves of happiness wash over you

It is almost time for another clear stamp Mermay release from the amazing Sweet November Stamps. Next weekend there will be a whole load of new mermaid and seaside related clear stamps. Before that though I wanted to show off one of the stamps That you can already get. This is Lynn she comes with feet or this mermaid tail so you could have her either way on your creation. 

I loved creating this card. I started by die cutting the white card with the Heffy Doodle Whimsically wonky dies to create the layer to work with. I then masked off a line across the card using Heffy memo tape before inking my blue line with salty ocean and a touch of faded jeans distress inks. Then I flicked water over it before adding some white splatters from picket fence distress spray stain. For even more depth I added a few silver crystals nuvo drops. 

The sentiment is from the Mermee set #2 stamp set. Then I stuck my little Lynn on top of my inking breaking out of the blue inked line just a bit. I coloured her using copics.

Come back later if you want to see a sneak peek of one of the new Mermay clear stamp sets that will be available next weekend (20th May 2023)

Thank you for taking the time to look at our blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx

New Distress Colour Uncharted Mariner

Have you seen the gorgeous new Distress colour?? It is a rich dark blue colour and it is absolutely gorgeous. You can get it from the Crafty Purple Frog shop HERE in distress ink, oxide, spray, paint and embossing glaze forms.

Here is what it looks like compared to the other distress blues.

I have also come up with 9 different distress colour combinations with this new colour that you can use any way you like.

3 colour combos

Combo 1: Uncharted Mariner, Peacock Feathers, Salvages Patina

Combo 2: Uncharted Mariner, Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade

Combo 3: Uncharted Mariner, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron

Combo 4: Uncharted Mariner, Salvages Patina, Saltwater Taffy

4 colour combos

Combo 1: Ground Espresso, Uncharted Mariner, Twisted Citron, Mustard Seed

Combo 2: Uncharted Mariner, Seedless Preserves, Fossilised Amber, Hickory Smoke

Combo 3: Black Soot, Uncharted Mariner, Seedless Preserves, Picked Raspberry

Combo 4: Uncharted Mariner, Bundled Sage, Tattered Rose, Antique Linen

5 colour combo

Combo 1: Uncharted Mariner, Crackling Campfire, Shabby Shutters, Mustard Seed, Hickory Smoke

I hope you have fun with these colour combinations in your creations.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx

Transcending Tattoos

I have had a great time doing the amazing Transcending Tattoo Techniques class by Jaycee Gasper. I have loved tattoo art for a long time and finding out more about the various styles and looking at them with the view to transfer them to cards was very exciting for me :)

I was inspired by all of the lessons but the Trash Polka / mixed media one posed me a challenge as I am not really very good at just going with the flow so I wanted to give it a go. For this style I wanted to keep the colour pallet to just red black and white. I knew I needed a big bold image as the focal point so went for the Build-a-flower Camellia stamp set. 

I stamped out the outline layer in black and then I used just the second layer with Crimson crisp dye ink to add some red to it. I did not want to do the standard look and so changed it up by masking off half of the flower using Heffy Doodle memo tape before adding the crimson layer. I think this adds more interest and makes the red a real pop of colour.

Next I moved onto the back ground. I inked through the Broken Chevrons stencil with Jet black crisp dye ink keeping it kind of over to the left bottom two thirds of the card. 

To add more texture and interest I then used crackling campfire Distress spray stain to flick across the back ground and add in some more of the red. 

I stamped some of the leaves from the Camellia stamp set in black to mount behind the big flower to give it a bit more dimension. For the sentiment the one in the Camellia set looked perfect for me and I stamped it straight onto the card blank on top of the stencilling using my stamping platform so I could stamp it a few times and make sure it was really crisp and black to stand out from the stencilling.

I popped the flower up on some black foam pads before adding the final touch with some Black Board vintage nuvo drops.

I am really happy with how this turned out as it was quite a step outside of my comfort zone and I think it has worked well and it has inspired me to do more. This card has been made to go towards my Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) level 3 I have a few more classes to go before my final assessment which will be a class. So if you would like to find out when I am am going to run my class and maybe join in with it please follow me so that you can see my future posts :)

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx