Father's Day

Several years ago a few crafty ladies gathered over a cuppa to share their new stamps. Each lady took their own card, ink and 2/3 of their favourite stamps and we took it in turn to swap images. One particular design caught my eye and as Dad is a keen gardener I knew it would come in handy one day. Stamping the design twice I could make a layered picture when the time came.

This month wondering what card to make for Father's Day I came across the two images and set about colouring the first piece in pencils. As I worked I decided to cut out the middle area behind the cat saving the shelf, garden tools and little radio.

I used a knife to cut part way round the butterfly wings and folded them forwards. From the second piece I coloured and cut out the watering can, potted plant, shed notice and cats head. Layering all the pieces onto a brown piece of card gave a decoupaged look (Dad's favourite.)

We often have a family joke about the number of snails on the allotment so decorating the plain card with snails seemed the only option and raised a few smiles on the day!

Pond Water

Nearly the end of June already - I have to tell you it's been a busy time including a visit to the Chelsea flower show, a trip to Harrogate, another to Rye, birthdays, Fathers Day, walks round a couple of beautiful gardens and a little crafting!

Do you remember the gorgeous pond water background papers I made from the distress oxide inks? I decided they were too busy for my frog photo's, I couldn't bare to cut into them so I have kept the cards for another day.

Plan B, I spotted some gorgeous frog card designs and stamps on http://www.amom.co.uk/ have a look on their blog archive for the month of April and you will see the full blog post, including lots of fab ideas.

I'm not very good at cropping my photo's and at the moment adding borders looks a bit 70's so until I master a more modern look I have decided to place plain photos on a double page, four full size photo's was too much so bravely I chopped into two so there is a focal point on each piece.

I set about stamping waterlilies and frogs around the photo's, there is a very cheeky looking chap top right, and I love the one who looks like he is dancing on a lily pad.

 On the bottom right corner this little chap looks like he is going to jump into the photo pond.

I did consider making a slider so a frog jumped across the page but this is going into a plastic sleeve so I decided against it. I also considered whether to cut out some lily pads and raise them over the edges around the bottom of the photo's but decided to use a few accent beads and a simple line of journaling at the top. I can always add to the pages as my scrapbooking experience increases.

To colour the images I used pencils and for the background I reached for a soft blue in my pan pastels but I don't have a blue! Out came an old chalk set.....I will tell you about them at the end of the blog. 

Can you see the accent beads? There is a little glitter added to the water and the bottom edges of the frogs so in day light they glistens as if they are wet. 

Carefully drizzling glue near but not on the photo's I have used Frantage flakes and fragments to resemble food given to the tadpoles and pond weed.

I'm so pleased with this set of stamps, it's one of those very "useable" sets perfect for male and childrens cards - lots of fun can be had adding a few balloons to one of the characters for example.

I journaled along the top edge and down the side of the page. It was one of those amazing evenings when the frogs were too content to dive under cover when I approached to take a photo.

This water lily stamp is a great design for a ladies card. I used it in the middle of my double scrap page.

Then filled in the background using the smaller set below.

I'm thrilled with my pages and hope to decorate a flowery page next time so I can add a few more embellishments.

I mentioned using an old chalk set to colour the background. Well after years of use many colours had crumbled under heavy use, I decided to clean the box. Carefully removing the colours from the box I then placed a piece of journal paper on top. Turned the tin upside down and emptied the small pieces of chalk and crumbs onto the journal page. Below, top left.

The box was wiped with a dry tissue and the larger pieces of chalk were placed back in the box. I carefully rubbed the crumbed chalk into two piece of journal paper to make two pretty backgrounds using what was basically waste for use at a later date.