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This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others, including my favourite right now, parchment, both traditional skills and Groovi, very relaxing and calming to do.

I have decided to put some structure into my blog so that each day will have something of a theme.
Monday- for Mindfulness; Tuesday - Tidy Up Day; Wednesday - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday; Thursday - Technique and Tips; Friday - Finish Off Day; Saturday - Start Something New; Sunday - Anything Goes
These themes are not hard and fast and will be changed if I feel the need.

Thursday 30 August 2012

Clarity Challenge for July


This is the first of the Clarity Challenges I have taken part in, being a very new member of the Clarity club.  The brief was to use the Stampstamps, birds and some shrink plastic.

This pushed me to actually buy the Stampstamps, which I had been looking at for some time.  The picture were all bird pictures I had on the computer anyway,  I just measured them carefully so that they would fit inside the stamps when they arrived, and laid them on top of each other, using My Craft Studio to do the computer manipulation.  Then it was a case of positioning the stamps over the top of the pictures with the aid of masks to get the right overlay.   It did take six attempts to get it about right.   The Queen's head was taken from a real stamp and enhanced a little to make it more gold (to fit in with the gold medals achieved at the Olympics)

I used plain but smooth white card, then I brayered with Adirondacks to create the shadowing and shading around the edges.  I still need a lot more practice to get that right in the future.  Still, that is loads more time to play - goodie, goodie, lots more fun.


This was my very first attempt at shrink plastic and I was very wary of the technique and decided to follow Barbara Gray's advice and do it in the oven.  I used the Kingfisher stamp kit - the branch, the leafy twig and the bird itself.  I stamped the image with Stazon and left it to dry.  Then I coloured it with Derwent watercolours and Derwent Metallic watercolours.  The cutting out was a little challenging but worthwhile taking the time.  I put the resulting bits into a foil takeaway tray, quite a deep one, lined with baking parchment and then put it into my top oven (not the fan oven) for about 30 seconds until it had done its shrinking work.

After I had mounted the central topper on the square card, I used Pinflair Gel to attach the kingfisher and the branch at the top.  It may not be perfect, but I was quite pleased with this first attempt, and I hope it does justice to Barbara Gray and her wonderful stamps.

4 comments:

Jacqui's little piece of England said...

Love this card Maggie, love how the kingfisher and branch have turned out

jacqui x

Linda Simpson said...

WOW Maggie this is stunning! Well done on getting them just right. Good luck in the challenge.

Hugs
Linda xxx

Shaz in Oz.CalligraphyCards said...

ah this is one awesome card Maggie - and love the use of the shrink plastic yet to use it (not bought for starters!) - think you mastered all the masking and positioning etc fo Stampstamps very well- pat yourself on your back indeed! I have been wondering where the Queen is though?? hope you are well Shaz in oz.x

Vic McGuckin said...

Wow... what you have done with the stamps is amazing...Great card

Vic x