A little bird told me...

My offer for this month's Claritystamp Challenge is a little MDF birdhouse, decorated for the theme "in the garden". I honestly can't recall where I got the shape from, but it's really happy to be liberated from the rest of the stash in my cupboard!

I started by giving the MDF shape a base coat of Snowflake Fresco Finish  Acrylic Paint by PaperArtsy, then when that was dry, I went over the shape again in Beach Hut Fresco Finish Paint and dried it thoroughly using a heatgun.

Using the Flower Stencil (NDSC #24) from Claritystamp, with some areas masked off with tape, I applied Blood Orange Fresco Finish Paint to the flowers using a piece of cut and dry foam, a little Cadmium Yellow Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint to the flower centres, and a mixture of Sage Fresco finish paint and Emerald Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint to the leaves, then left it all to dry. The design looked a little soft around the edges, so I went around the flowers and leaves with a black fine-liner pen, and added some details to the flower petals. I also added some yellow dots with Pebeo Gloss Touch in Bright Yellow to give a bit more dimension to the flower heads.

I decided to add some stamped detail to the roof of the birdhouse, and randomly stamped with Claritystamp small ocean swirl stamp from the Galleon set using Ranger Stormy Skies Distress Ink, and again drew freehand around the stamping to add a bit more definition to the design.

Finally, I found a bit of inky, blotchy scrap card, and drew one of the birds from Claritystamp Bird Frame stencil (NDSC #1) using a fine liner pen, extending the branch it was standing on, so that it would wrap around the edges of the bird house. I felt it needed to stand out a bit more against the bright background, so I added a few black boxes, zentagle style, and made my little bird into a zebra finch! Admittedly, you don't see many of those in my garden in Inverness, but I call it artistic license!!!

Hope you enjoy my little birdhouse, and I'm going to hang it from the shelf in my craftroom to keep me company when I'm crafting on my own.

Thanks for visiting, Susan x

Floats like a butterfly...

Hello there

Well, August has flown by and we've been really busy in the guest house this month. We did have a few days away at the Edinburgh Fringe, which was lovely, but not exactly a restful and relaxing break!

The Clarity challenge this month was fussy cutting so I thought I would create a card using some of the "failed" inky splodge prints left over from my calendar challenge attempt from last month, and the NDC butterfly stamp that has been sitting on my desk for many weeks just waiting for it's chance to shine. I also remembered to take my camera into the craft room, so there are a few more photos with the blog this month - not exactly a step by step because I kept forgetting to take a snap, but we all have to start somewhere!!!

First I stamped the Clarity NDC butterfly stamp, and Clarity butterfly verse onto one of the scraps of splodgy background scraps using black archival ink and left it to dry.

Next I stamped the butterfly stamp again onto another, brighter piece of scrap, and fussy cut 3 of the butterflies to use on my main project.

I trimmed down the background piece using a paper trimmer and framed it using a ruler and black sharpie pen.

 Before I stuck down the butterflies, I tried different positions on the background to see which composition worked best, and then I decided to have one hovering over the card, to illustrate the sentiment in the verse.

I cut a small strip of acetate, and made a small hinge at one end, and a larger hinge at the other end. I fixed the small hinge with double sided tape behind my backgroun piece, and attached one of the butterflies to the long strip. The second hinge part helps keep the butterfly "floating", but will flatten down to allow for postage.

It was a bit tricky to get a photo showing how the butterfly floats, and please don't look too closely at the mess on the top of my craft desk!!!

Finally I mounted the background piece onto an 8X8 white card blank, added a sentiment inside the card, and my signature personlised stamp on the back of the card.

Hope you like my interpretation of the fussy cutting theme, and I'd love to read any comments that you have - thanks, Susan x

Clarity Calendar Challenge - July 2016

Well I never, two blog posts in two days! Nothing like a deadline to make you get your skates on is there?

Here is my attempt at the Clarity Calendar challenge for July 2016 - couldn't let this one pass by, as the Boy with the Birds is one of my all time favourite stamps.

Hope you like my attempt, and please forgive the little additions - I can't even follow a recipe without tweaking it, and I thought my splodges were more like a map of the world, so that's what I went with! It reminded me of that game Risk that my brothers used to play when we were small - Happy memories.

Susan x

Enchanting Eilean Donan Castle

Hello Again,

I created this card to try to capture a beautiful sunset at Eilean Donan Castle that John took back in April when we were out visiting the West Coast and Skye for his birthday. He took a fabulous photograph which we now have framed in our dining room, and that inspired my image. (You can see his photo, titled the blue hour on a recent blog on our guesthouse website using the following link: http://www.inverglenguesthouse.co.uk/favourite-locations-eilean-donan-castle)

It took me a couple of attempts to get the background the way that I wanted it. My first attempt using paints on the gelliplate was just too heavy, then I tried with inks and Gelli/stencil card, but again it was a little too bright and blotchy. Finally I settled on trying watercolour paper, which did the trick!

To create this background, I applied a mixture of adirondack and distress inks to the Gelliplate (Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick, Peacock Feathers and Eggplant), spread it out with a brayer, then spritzed it with some water. I then used a piece of watercolour paper to take up the ink, and dried it with a heatgun before moving on to the next step.

I used Versafine black ink to stamp the castle and bridge image onto the Gelliplate, then using the Clarity Gelliplate mount, I stamped the "reflection" image onto the background, and restamped both images directly onto the card. To balance out the image, I stamped a few scots pine images on the right hand side, using second generation ink to stamp the reflection images. Finally I stamped the word and flourish into the bottom right hand corner, and cut down the paper to size and edged it with a black sharpie pen.


All the stamps I used were from Clarity Stamp : Eilean Donan Castle and Bridge stamps are available to Clarity Club members as back issue NDC stamps. The Forever word and scots pine stamps are part of the Scotland unmounted clear stamp collection, and the flourish is from the Letterbox kit.

Hope you like my card, and I'd be delighted if you left a comment for me below, Susan x

Masculine - Clarity Challenge June 2015

This month's Clarity Challenge entry is Masculine and I am making an early entry as I've had several family visitors last month, and the B&B is currently full of guests enjoying the Inverness sunshine so I'm a bit behind with my card making for all my June birthdays and occasions and I just missed the deadline yesterday to enter last month's challenge!

I've made this card for my dad who was in the Navy for his national service, and loves to be reminded of his youth, especially now that he is approaching his 86th birthday! I have used the following Clarity stamps and stencils to make this card:
Sunshine and Trellis (basic backgrounds) Stencils
Gallion Stamp
Mermaid Stamp
Life is Never Long Enough Stamp from New Designs Stamp Club
Swallow stamp from Journalling set

I started by using the Clarity Stencil brushes through the stencils to create an airbrushed background in two shades of blue Distress Inks. Then I stamped the verse and anchor using Black Adirondack Ink, and drew a chain to link the words and image using a black fine line pen. I then stamped the Gallion 3 times, once in Black Adirondack, then in first and second generation Distress Ink . Finally I stamped the two swallows in Black Adirondack in the top left hand corner, and the tail of the mermaid in the bottom right hand corner in the same blue Distress Ink. I framed the piece using a ruler and Black Sharpie pen.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and I'd love to read any comments that you have about my card, Susan x