Creative Blog Hop

My friend Veronica asked me to take part in this blog hop, so here I am! I am supposed to answer four questions, so here they are!
1. What am I working on now?

Well that's easy, like most other crafters I'm busy with Christmas stuff. I have a couple of events coming up that I need stock for, so I am spending my time in an inky, glittery world of my own.

2. How does it differ from others in my genre?

Now that is a bit harder. My blog is called Craft Eclectia because I don't stick to one specific type of crafting. I am mainly involved with papercraft, but I also knit, crochet and paint (but I'm rubbish at painting!) However within papercrafting I like to mix up techniques, there is often an element of parchment craft on my cards. I also have no problems with crafting with kits, however I always put my own spin on them.

3. Why do I create what I do?

Well simply because I cannot imagine a life where I am not creating things.

4. How does my creative process work?

I don't really have a process. Sometimes I just get an idea out of the blue, sometimes I see a stamp and instantly know what I want to do with it, but mostly I just play!

So the photo I am talking about today is a card topper made from a Brusho  background.
I spritzed some water onto a tile, added a few Brusho colours (just a few, any more than four and it all gets a bit murky, and you only need a tiny amount of the crystals). Spritz it again, then go and make a coffee whilst it all mingles and does its inky thing.
After a couple of minutes mop up the tile with a piece of watercolour card.
Leave it to dry and then stamp on top, using a permanent ink (I used black Archival). At this point I have to confess that the moon being left white was a happy accident, but should you not be so lucky, a bit of bleach will sort you out.
You can then go in and add a bit of definition and shading with pro markers, and because I love glitter I put some one the birds.

So it was quite easy, but I was pleased with the result, I think that trick is to do your Brusho background and then decide which stamp will suit it, rather that the other way round.
Thank you for taking the time to look at this post, I do hope its OK, I'm not at home today, so I'm posting this from my phone, never done that before. Please feel free to leave a comment, and thank you to Veronica (vroncards) for nominating me.

Ribbons for a new baby.

Originally this card was intended to be done at our DivaRed workshop on Saturday, but I don't think we would have had time to finish it, so I thought I'd blog it instead. It is really all about the background, the topper is stamped and coloured in with Promarkers, I used HobbyArt baby stamp because I like it, but any square (ish) stamp will do.
You will need the Clarity Blending mat with the wavy edge, a ruler with a wavy edge, or a very steady hand!

• Cut a piece of white card 7x7 inches
• Using the wavy edge of the blending mat to guide you,  and a black pen (use a permanent ink pen not a biro as the biro ink smudges) draw a nice wavy line across the top of the card
• Turn your card 180 degrees (do NOT turn your mat) you should now be able to position the blending mat so that you can draw a second wavy line that crosses the first, thereby making the two lines look like a twisted ribbon
• Repeat this again so that you have two ribbons running along the top of the card.
• Now draw two ribbons at the bottom of the piece of card, and then two down each side
• At this point your card won't look very promising, but keep the faith.
• Colour in the various twists in the ribbon using two toning coloured pencils, to get the colour variation I did a very soft application of the lightest colour, then flicked the colour in from the edge of the twist, then blended by going over it again with the lightest colour....it took a while which is why I abandoned it for the workshop, originally I was going to do the ribbons all the same, but my love of colour got the better of me!
• As I said the topper was simply stamped with a Memento ink pad and coloured in with Promarkers, with just a tiny bit of shading round the edges.
• I mounted up both pieces of artwork, stamped a sentiment and stuck it all together onto  a 8x8 white card.

I really enjoyed making this card, I love colouring in with pencils, and the afternoon just flew by.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this blog, hope you like the card, please leave a comment if you wish, I read them all.

Torn wallpaper cards, a nice one for my return to blogland!!

Hello, after nearly nine months of silence, I'm back. I was really busy in the run up to Christmas, and then I a spell of health issues, then a dead computer, then Windows 8 issues! However everything now seems sorted, and so here I am.

I thought I'd start easy. This card was born when I peeled a bit of wall paper off the bedroom wall expecting it to be a tiny bit, and it grew and grew and grew into what to me looked like a portal into another world (at the time I'd hurt my back and was on pretty heavy duty painkillers, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it!). Anyway this is what I came up with.

The premise is pretty simple, you create a scene and then rip a piece of paper and stick it over the edges of your picture. I used a 7 x 7 inch square card.

• cut a 6 inch square of white card, and a piece of pearl paper also 6 inches square (it doesn't have to be pearl, I just like the look of it)
• run the paper through an embossing folder (I used Sheena Douglass's water ripples because I thought it looked like anaglypter) this is a 7x5 folder so you will have bits at the sides that aren't embossed, that is fine because you will trimming them off
• tear your piece of paper in half
• now ink your piece of card in whatever style you fancy, because I was using Clarity's moon fairy stamp I wanted it to look like the northern lights, but I have to admit that it looks more like a rainbow
• stamp your image and colour it in, I used Distress Inks, but Adirondac would do just as well, I used cut and dry foam to apply my ink, but if you wanted a softer colour use inking brushes 
• place your ripped paper over the top so that your image shows through and stick it in place
• trim off the excess paper from the around your card, at this point I stamped a spare pair of wings and layered them so that they protruded from the "wallpaper"
• layer it up with a toning colour
• add whatever embellishments you wish, and you are done.

Thank you for visiting the blog, its nice to be back. Hope you like the card, please feel free to comment if you wish.