Welcome to my blog

I hope you enjoy reading my posts, and please leave me a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and will try to visit you in return.

For security reasons for me and for you, I would appreciate it if you would leave your name on your comments.

You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.


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.

Sunday 12 January 2014

Craft A Scene - January Week 2 - Fishing at sunset

This is my second offering of the month for the Craft A Scene challenge which is to make your own theme.

Ingredients:
Large Landscape stamp from Clarity stamps
Boat and bird from the remountable love set from Clarity stamps
Big and Juicy ink pad (or any other pad that give the right colours)
Speedball 4 inch brayer
White pen
White coated card from Clarity stamps (any other coated stock will do)
Black card, or a black pen
Adirondack black ink pad

1. Stamp the landscape stamp onto the coated stock with the Adirondack black
2. Allow to dry, then stamp the bird and the boat into position.  As these are all silhouette stamps, there is no need for masking on this project.
3. Load up the brayer with the pinky colour and ensuring that the leading edge of the brayer is clean, start applying the colour by coming in gradually from the top corner..  You may need to reload the brayer, depending on how strong you want the colour to be.
4.  Do the same with the blue ink, coming in from the opposite corner, until you have the desired density of colour.
5.  When the ink is dry, take a piece of kitchen paper and polish the whole picture.  The coated stock should then look as shiny as glass.
6.  Then take a white pen and add suitable highlights to the trees and the boat etc, watching that you reflect the position of the moon that you cannot see.  Think about where you want the light to come from and highlight on that side on all pieces.
7.  You can either mount your work on black card, or take a black Promarker (or similar) and, using the chisel edge, run a line down the edge of your topper, all round.
8.  Then you are ready to mount it on the base card of your choice.

Brayering may seem to be difficult if you have never tried it, but you cannot do better than to find a video of Barbara Gray demonstrating and there are plenty of those out there on YouTube and the like.  It is such an effective way of laying colour down on a piece of card to give that soft look.  The type of brayer is important too, which is why I have specified the Speedball.

Whatever theme and technique you choose for your scene this month, make sure you go to Craft A Scene and show us what you have done.  Mr Linky is there waiting for you.  Come on and join in. Have some fun.

Remember that you must have a theme this month, but your scene must have a foreground and a background to fit in with the brief.


5 comments:

Di said...

Oh Maggie - this really is fabulous! Gorgeous colours and such a beautiful scene.

Wish you could come and give me a few lessons - I fought with the Gelli Plate yesterday - and it won, I lost :( Sigh.

Hugs

Di
x

Claire said...

Beautiful card, gorgeous brayer work and I love those stamps
Claire xx

Claire said...

Beautiful card, gorgeous brayer work and I love those stamps
Claire xx

Di said...

Oh wahoo Maggie - I do hope to get to the crop! I only ever made it to the first one 'cos of hols but the date is firmly in my diary due to plenty of notice this time. I'm not the best scholar so bring your ruler for a quick rap on the knuckles :)

Hugs, Di xx

Linda Simpson said...

WOW Maggie, this is amazing! Love the fabulous colours and the scene is gorgeous.

Hugs
Linda xxxx