DivaRed Workshop on Saturday 4th May 2013

It is shaping up to be a really good bank holiday weekend, we had a fantastic workshop on Saturday, despite me having a sore back which made me walk like a duck! Lots of laughs, quite a lot of biscuits and some lovely cards. Thanks to Rosie who allowed me to post a picture of her inky fingers on Facebook - have a look she is very blue!

So amid all the giggling, this is what we made!

This one was made using a combination of free stamps which came with Creative Stamping magazine. It was a huge sheet of stamps, and I think I might have to do an entire blog of stuff I've made from it. The sand was a moment of inspiration in Sainsbury's. Whilst wandering round despondently (I hate shopping with a passion) I spied a packed of that gritted paper you put in the bottom of your pet budgie's cage "ah ha" I thought, a beach!
The shells are from the free stamps, the birds are a Lavinia stamp, and the background is my favourite stamp in the world, sea bubbles from Ryn.
So this how it was done.

• Stamp, colour in and cut out the beach huts and the shells. 
• Cut a square of white card, 6x6 inches, and using cut and dry foam or a blending tool, ink lightly with blue, leaving some areas lighter to resemble clouds.
• Mask off the sky area with a piece of copy paper to give you a straight horizon, and ink in layers of green and various blues to resemble waves, (mine is quite green, I used lettuce Adirondac, but then I was aiming for a North Sea effect!)
• Rip your budgie cage paper into a shape that looks a bit like sand with sea coming in onto it, and stick it to the base of your picture, then trim off the excess at the base of the card. (At this point it doesn't look very promising, but stick with it!)
• Stamp the birds in the sky, and stick the beach huts and shells in place, you will need to use  Pinflair glue gel to get them to stick to the gritted paper.
• Stamp the back ground paper (7.5 inches square) in blue ink with Ryns sea bubbles, and glitter the bubbles.
• Then mat and layer everything onto an 8x8 card. All done!

This is the slightly brighter one I made at the workshop using more of the free stamps and different birds. The background was stamped with Stream Adirondac ink, and personally I prefer it to the blue.

This next one is a card  I made to send to someone special, but I liked it so much I used it in the workshop and it will be on it's way to its new owner tomorrow.

It uses  a Sheena Douglass sentiment stamp, and Lindsay Mason's meadow flower stamps, available from Personal Impressions. 

You will also need Flitter glue, Yorkshire Dales gilding flakes, gold detail embossing powder, Versamark ink pad, various coloured small ink pads (I used Versacolour), a 7x7 inch card and card for matting and layering.

• Stamp and emboss your sentiment, trim it to required size and mat onto a piece of contrasting card.
• Cut a piece of white or cream card to 6 inches square, and make a very light pencil mark to indicate where the sentiment is going to be placed.
• Stamp a selection of the meadow flowers along the bottom edge of the card, going up to, but not over where the sentiment is going to be. Use various different colours to stamp the flowers and a couple of different greens for the stems.  Don't worry if the green ink gets onto the flower heads, it actually looks more natural.
• Next select a pretty shaped flower stamp and ink it up with Flitter glue, stamp it along the bottom edge of the card, don't stamp too many flowers with the glue, unusually for me, it is a case of less being more. !
• As soon as you finish stamping with the glue, put the stamp still attached to the acrylic block into a bowl of water, do not wait until you finish the card to do this, do it straight away!
• Next stamp a couple of butterflies with the flitter glue, and then stamp two more onto a piece of scrap card. Then put the stamps straight in the water.
• Sprinkle the gilding flakes over your card, rub in with the flat of your hand and then rub over with the Scoochie sponge, and brush off any surplus bits of flake (these can be used again so put them back into the container.).
• Cut out the two spare butterflies and 3D them onto the ones you have stamped onto the card.
• Mat and layer onto a 7x7 card in quarter inch increments .
• Place your sentiment as desired with 3D foam pads.
• Remove stamps and acrylic blocks from the water and dry them off.
• Go and have a cup of coffee!

If you are unfamiliar with using gilding flakes, go to IndigoBlu web site, or search You Tube for Kay Halliwell-Sutton and watch the instructional videos.

Once again I made a brighter version at the workshop. I can only stay subtle for so long!

The sentiment stamp on this one is from Stampin Up Sassy Sentiments, which are a beautiful font and it is embossed with Halloween powder from Wow.

I also added a couple dragonfly brads to this one.

The next two cards were Janet's designs, and you can find the instructions on her blog Cards, cats and coffee. Janet and I work together a lot, and it is well worth a look at her blog.

This Rosie (not the one with the inky fingers, the Clarity Stamp). I did vary this a bit, by using my own embossing folder and cutting it out rather than tearing, I'm not a big fan of tearing, always  love it on other peoples cards, but somehow it never looks right on mine!!

Janet forced me to use a Gelli plate, and I am so glad she did! I really enjoyed this one. I used my own flower stamps (freebies again, well I do have Scottish ancestry!) and put a few gold peel off dragonflies on the background, other than that I did what I was told for once!

Well I'm off now to finish knitting for Teeny Gotham, who should make an appearance into the world in the next couple of weeks. Hope you have enjoyed seeing these cards, next weekend is a real crafting bonanza, Claritystamp East on Saturday, and our regular monthly craft club on Sunday.

Enjoy the rest of the bank holiday. Hope to see you again soon.