Cards

Focus your Craft & Soul Blog Hop, with Indigo Blu inspiration

Hello and a very warm welcome to my blog in a brand new location. I have migrated from blogger land to WordPress, my blog address however has stayed the same, so hopefully you can still follow me and keep up to date with all my news. If you are a new visitor, it’s so lovely to greet you and please feel free to follow me using your preferred social media button, just to the right there. I hope you enjoy what I share with you.

So onto the matter in hand, I am very pleased to be participating in this Blog Hop event organised by Jennifer Grace, the talented driving force behind the  ‘Jennifer Grace Creates‘ blog.

I met Jennifer in April, having previous followed her site as a Facebook fan.We both attended the CHA-Uk Creative Exchanges Educational Weekend, and were both there to learn how to turn our crafting from just being a hobby, into a business. We both had the same apprehensions about meeting new people, and share a similar home/family life so we both had common ground and found it quite a relief that we were not the only ones experiencing the same thoughts. So, on the same wavelength I too share Jennifer’s word of the year

FOCUS

 So of course I am more than happy to participate in this bi-annual event, happening all over this weekend. This is the first of Jennifer’s events that I have attended, but reading the comments from loyal followers about previous ones, I’m sure I am in for a treat. In addition to this Blog Hop, Jennifer has little competitions and fun giveaways running through the event, so pop on over to Jennifer Grace Creates to check out what is going on

Focus your craft & soul logo-01

 

You will be familiar by now, having arrived to me via everyone else’s fantastic inspirational blogs, that the theme of this blog hop is

‘Focus your Craft & Soul’.

This is a very appropriate word for me this year. I have a big birthday this year…..yes I’m 40….and instead of shying away, I am embracing it, determined to reach the end of 2015 in a much more positive, healthier and fulfilling place. I have already made great strides in sorting out my life behind the crafting, and

now have more energy and drive, health wise than I have done for many, many years and it has enabled me to ‘Focus’ (that word again), on making my passion for crafting a little more than just a hobby.

When it came to creating projects I had so many ideas run through my head, and to be honest I did get a little flummoxed as to where to begin. But of course the object of this exercise is to try to make things clear. The word ‘Focus’ initially made me think of camera’s, my Dad  is a huge fan of photography and is rarely seen without a camera in his hand. He too is celebrating a milestone birthday this year, and of course that warrants a special card. Thinking camera’s, photography, and a shared love of birds, I made this card for him. The trees and woodpecker images are from Clarity Stamps

clarity-trees-woodpecker
Trees and Woodpecker images are stamps from Clarity stamps. Both images stamped with memento ink and coloured with promarker (alcohol) pens. The design paper is Basic grey, and I used embellishments from my stash to create the sentiment.

 

My intention was to create the shape of a lens shutter around the tree images, symbolising the view through a view finder. I have never done iris folding, and that technique would also have given me the same effect, I however didn’t want to create any bulk to the card by adding all the layers associated, this I think is an effective alternative, using the black paper to emphasize the centre image.

I then went on to create three more cards, specifically for this blog hop (on a similar theme to Dads card), and decided to ‘Focus’ on using just one stamp  and show you how it can be used to create three very differently styled cards.

 

indigoblu-bird

These cards very much reflect, what I enjoy about cardmaking and crafting in general. I am very much a neutral and tonal person when it comes to colours. I really like the natural textures (with the burlap) and images from the natural word. I have always had a fascination with birds, and so am drawn to any stamps depicting them.

indigoblu-bird-burlap

I loved using the gilding flakes from Indigoblu, I am still amazed as to how much detail they pick up in all the stamps and I think these Stylised Flowers also by Indigoblu look so pretty.

indigoblu-bird-gilding-flak

 

Of course when we buy stamp sets we want to use them in many ways, so I also created another two cards, of very different styles, using this bird stamp from the IndigoBlu Live Laugh Love set, as the focal point.

 

Background created with distress ink psrays (weathered wood and tattered rose). I've added some gilding flakes over the top to accent. I stamped and coloured with promarkers the bird and flowers, all from the same Indigo Blu  Live Laugh Love stamp set.
Background created with distress ink psrays (weathered wood and tattered rose). I’ve added some gilding flakes over the top to accent. I stamped and coloured with promarkers the bird and flowers, all from the same Indigo Blu Live Laugh Love stamp set.

Here I have stamped and coloured the same bird, but this time onto a Harlequin stamped background, by IndigoBlu. Colouring the background gently with pearlescant chalks, and the bird with promarkers, really brings the focal image to the foreground. I didn’t want to add to much embellishment so sprinkled a little frantage embossing powder around the edges.

The image of the bird and leaves were stamped and coloured first, and then masked, before stamping the background. The background  was stamped with versamark ink and coloured with pearlescent chalks.  Frantage embossing powder was sprinkled around the edges to add just a little embellishment.
The image of the bird and leaves were stamped and coloured first, and then masked, before stamping the background. The background was stamped with versamark ink and coloured with pearlescent chalks. Frantage embossing powder was sprinkled around the edges to add just a little embellishment.

 

I hope you have enjoyed the cards I have made for you, and appreciated and understood how I interpreted the theme of this Blog Hop.

Remember that Jennifer Grace is giving away a WRMK Insta Album Kit – enter to win by commenting on all the blogs in the Focus Your Craft & Soul hop! The giveaway closes on Sunday the 24th of May at 10pm BST, and is open internationally.

shine album

 

Now to continue the hop head on to

Annie at http://www.artyfartyannie.com

if you get lost head back to

Jennifer Grace Creates’ at http://jennifergracecreates.com/the-focus-your-craft-soul-blog-hop/ .

Many thanks for joining me, and hope to see you again.

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