Creative expressions butterfly girl idea 3

Hi everyone, design elf Katrina here with the last idea, for now, for the Creative Expressions butterfly girl stamp set.

This time it is a tag. I created my own background using the Cosmic shimmer chalk paints and the Special touch if mica doodle corner stencil. I then used some small word stamps to stamp in the middle of the flowers and along the bottom.

  I then stamped the butterfly girl onto card and coloured her head and arms and legs. I stamped her again 3 times onto some scrap card to make my own stencils. The first one I cut out her dress, second her boots and the third her belt. I then used the wonderful Cosmic shimmer sparkle paste in Ocean spray for her dress and Midnight for her boots and belt through the stencils onto card and left them till they were thoroughly dry and cut them out. Cut out your stamped coloured image, without her wings this time and stick her glittery cloths to her body. Stick you girl to the tag.

 

For the ribbon I took a piece of sheer white ribbon and applied the Cosmic shimmer sparkle paste to make my own glittery ribbon.

If you would like more details and ideas of how to use the Cosmic shimmer sparkle paste then I will be posting a tutorial very soon, if you have any questions then let me know and I will try to answer them for you.

You can find the stamps here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/u-mount-butterfly-girl-a5-stamp-plate-16787-p.asp

The paints here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-matt-chalk-paints-643-c.asp

The stencil here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/that-special-touch-mica-mask---doodle-corner-22581-p.asp

The sparkle paste here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-texture-paste-621-c.asp

Happy crafting!

                           Love Katrina

Creative Expressions Butterfly girl card idea 2

Hi everyone Katrina, design Elf here again to share another stamp technique and card idea using the Creative expression butterfly girl stamp set.

    Last time I shared with you a card with images coloured with the distress markers. This time I have been paper piecing, another technique that works so well with this stamp set and gives you a completely different look.

    For those who have not come across paper piecing before it is so much fun and a great way to use up your scraps too. The way I do it is I stamp my main image, in this case the butterfly girl, onto plain card and coloured her face and arms. I then stamp all the parts of the image I want onto patterned paper, dress, hair,boots, flower and bird and then cut them all out. I then stick all the pattern paper pieces onto the main image and then  made up the cards. So that is how you achieve the paper piecing, here is what I did with mine -

For this square card I made up the background by stamping the spots and little flower onto the card base. I then paper pieced the butterfly girl, roses, leaves and bird using the Graphic 45 Bohemian Bazaar papers. The wings I stamped onto a scrap of vellum and added some glitter with a glitter pen. 

For this little square card I used the same Graphic 45 Bohemian Bazaar papers. The little nest is made from the leaves and the birds made a great little family. 

I hope you like my paper pieced cards and will try it for yourself. You can find the stamp stet here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/u-mount-butterfly-girl-a5-stamp-plate-16787-p.asp

and the paper I used here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/graphic-45-8x8-paper-pad-bohemian-bazaar-20419-p.asp

I will be back again very soon with another little project using this stamp set but until then 

                                        Happy Crafting!

                                                                   Love Katrina

Creative Expressions butterfly girl stamp set card idea

Hi everyone, Design Elf Katrina here to show you what I have been up to in my craft room. I can't believe it has been so long since my last post, I have been beavering away in my little craft room, promise!!   Here is one of the things I have been doing.

   Now I love my stamps but more often than not these days I tend to use them in a supporting role rather then the main feature but when I spied this set of stamps from U - mount by Creative Expressions I could see so many possibilities, I just had to have it. The set is called Butterfly Girl, there is also Artful ladies which I don't have yet but might just fall in to my basket next time I am shopping!


   OK, I have made several project just using this stamp set and also have some more ideas I want to try, so I will be showing you them over the next few blog posts.


   This first one is a card with a book paper background and washi tape edges that fits well with look of these stamps. I used the spotty stamps to add some interest in the background and the stitch style stamp as grass at the bottom.

For all the stamped images I stamped them in black onto some canvas paper and coloured them in using the Tim Holtz distress pens. For the wings I just traced over the stamped lines with a blue pen. I then cut them all out, stamped the hearts straight onto the card and stuck the cut out hearts over the top. Once I was happy with the placing of the other images I stuck them onto the card.

This stamp set is great for colouring in and adding your own doodles too. Stay tuned for more ideas with this lovely stamp set, until then

                                      Happy Crafting!!

                                                                            Love Katrina

Washi tape pencls

Hi there, design elf Katrina here to show you a great idea for Washi tape.

    Now if you are anything like me, you love Washi tape and have lots of these wonderful rolls of colour but are not quite sure how to use it except just sticking onto paper. Well I came across this great idea the other day on Pinterest  and just couldn't wait to try it......Washi tape covered pencils!!   yes they do sharpen too :)

They are very easy to do, you need new unsharpened pencils ( little tip, don't do what I did and buy cheap Asda pencils, they were all split inside so you can't sharpen them as the whole pencil tries to split apart, that's why they are sharpened with a knife)

Rub down you pencils and paint then with white paint or gesso and dry.

Attach your Washi tape lengthways along the pencil. I used Berries and flowers

                                                                              Plum check 

                                                                                                               Blue polka-dot ( not shown)                                                                                         and pink roses

You will need to do 2 lengths, then burnish down with something solid.

You do need to seal them with something, I used a watered down PVA but any sealer will do.

Then the hard part, let them dry thoroughly and then you can sharpen them and use them!! 

I also made a note book to go with my pencils. I made mine but you could just cover one you have. I put the tape onto a scrap of white card so the colours of the tape would pop. You could do the same and then just stick it too the front of your notepad.

Here they are together, wouldn't this make a great summer holiday project for the children to do to get their pencils ready for the new school year. A roll of tape goes a very long way and it would keep them quiet for hours. Also I thought it would make great little party gifts or to sell at all those school fates and craft fairs.

What ever you do with your Washi tape have fun and lets get rid of all those boring pencils!!

                               Happy crafting

                                                                  Love Katrina

Lavinia Stamps storage idea

Hello there, design Elf Katrina here.

    Some customers, including me, have been having problems with the way the new Lavina stamps are packaged.On some of the stamps the image on the carrier sheet cracks and falls off when you take the stamp off of it. Thats not good as it is then all over your hands and I have got flakes of it on the actual stamp which won't then come off, luckily for me it was on the back of the stamp so won't effect the stamp but it is still a problem. the company has been told about this problem but please though don't let that put you off buying these stamps as they stamp beautifully and I have an idea for a way you can store your stamps cheaply and I think is rather cute too.

     My idea is to carefully peel the stamps off of the carrier sheet and store them in this cute little binder I have made from plastic CD pockets and cereal box card !

For each stamp I stamped it in black on card then laminated it. If you haven't got a laminating machine they are very inexpensive now and I find them invaluable for stamp storage but you could just cover the stamped card in sticky tape or good old clear sticky back plastic! This then makes a storage card for the stamp to stick too

Each card then has its own plastic CD pocket which I have punched holes in to bind then into my book. This also helps with another problem with this type of stamp, they can be rather sticky when new. For the smaller stamps I have stamped a few onto the card.

I then stamped a nice cover using the stamps and put the name of the stamps on too. I used some cereal box card, or any stiff card, to make the front and back covers, adding some ribbon to close the book with and covered the inside with coloured card. I then punched them using one of the CD pockets as a template.

I used some seam binding but you could use ribbon, to thread all the pockets and covers together making sure you leave plenty of extra binding so you can add pockets for new stamps at a later date if you wish.

I added a division, just a spare piece of the card, between the fantasy stamps and the Zen ones.

As you can see I have quite a good collection and it all holds together well. You can of course make this for any unmounted stamps as I have done over the years using all sorts of binding methods, ribbon, book rings, the bind -it-all or just using a ring binder. I have also store all my thin dies this way too but replace the laminated card for magnetic sheets instead. Oh the fun you can have with CD pockets!!!!

 Hope this helps with your storage problems with these stamps, if you have any questions just ask.

Happy crafting

                             Love Katrina