Saturday Workshop 6th April 2013

Really enjoyable day on Saturday at the workshop.  Many thanks to the ladies who attended, we hope you enjoyed it as much as Janet and I did. This is what we made:

This was my first design. The stamps are from Hobby Art poppy range (I am a big fan of Hobby Art), I used the bordered poppy as the main feature and then the large poppy from the poppy scene-its at the bottom of the card.
The card is 7 x 5 inches, and I used a pink card stock from Anna Marie Designs, the colour is a bit brighter in reality.
Then you need a mat 6.75 x 4.75 inches in a contrasting cardstock and a layer of the same cardstock as the base card 6.5 x 4.5 inches.
The bordered poppy is stamped with black Versafine and coloured in with pencils, and then I wanted to use fusible film and fibres just on the poppy heads, unsure as to whether the stamp was safe to heat or not, I rang Hobby Art and got to speak to Jenny Mayes, who suggested that I try it, and if the heat did damage the stamp she would send my another one out (well you can't say fairer than that can you?) In the event I wimped out of trying it, because I needed the stamp for the workshop the next day, but I will give it a go this week and post the results! The way round this was to fuse the film and fibre sandwich between two bits of baking parchment and then stamp the image onto it once it had cooled down, unfortunately this means using Stazon, which is not good for acrylic stamps, but if you clean them immediately with a baby wipe it seems to be OK. (Do not use Stazon cleaner on acrylic stamps it is far too aggressive for them.).
I matted the poppy image onto a piece of the pink cardstock cut about 1/2 inch larger than the image, and stamped with tiny butterflies around the edge, but any small  stamp will do, this I  stamped with Versamark and heat embossed  with Cosmic Shimmer Silver Lustre. Then I matted this onto the contrast card which I cut about 1/4 inch larger.
Cut out the poppy heads and stick them in position with a glue gel (I used Pinflair). Now your topper is made.
Take your piece of pink cardstock (6.5 x 4.5 inches) and place your image in the position you want it, but don't stick it down yet.  With the topper still in place you can decide where you want to stamp the large poppies, I stamped these with Versafine and coloured them in with coloured pencils.
Once you have done that you can stick your topper down.
The butterfly is a very old Dawn Bibby stamp, which I stamped and coloured with the same pencils I used for the poppies, cut it out (I have to admit that I chopped off its feelers - life really is too short!!! ) Fold back the butterfly wings and stick down the body, you can then draw in the amputated feelers if you wish.  To get the little butterfly trail I used a black Micron pen and drew dots and dashes in a twirly shape. I then used Diamond Sparkle Stickles to highlight the butterfly wings and the trail.
Still looked like it needed a bit more, so I dotted a few gems round just to make it look a bit more spring-like.
You are very welcome to use this design if you wish, but if you publish it please give me a credit.
If anyone needs help with using film and fibre, please leave me a comment either here, or on Facebook (Moira Walters) , and I will happily do what I can to help.

This was the second of my designs, well I say my designs, it is a slightly altered idea from Eileen Godwin.   I actually posted the instructions for this card in a previous blog which I think was called  Sunday Workshop, and it was published in March,  you will also find the link to Eileen's blog there.

This card was Janet's design, the background is done with pan pastels, and then the cherry blossom is stamped and embossed, and the flowers coloured with white gel pen.  The butterflies are from Spellbinders, and are beautiful if a bit fiddly to remove from the die, even with the help of waxed paper. If you want to see the original, go to Janet's facebook page, Janet Pring, and have a look at her designs, they are stunning.

This was the second of Janet's cards, and the image was done with a Dream Weaver stencil and pan pastels.  Janets original version was much more subtle than this and she had torn the edges of the mats, which looked amazing. When she tears paper it looks all arty, when I do it, it looks like .........well like torn paper! Do go and check out her facebook page.

Well I think thats all for today, off now to make a good strong cuppa!