Kadoodle 'James and Zack'

Here is my first card with my own stamp design. I can't explain how exciting it is for me but it was special making this card. The stamps make lovely clean and clear impressions which is very pleasing.

Zack is modelled on our own family dog and I've coloured him more or less the same as he is IRL lol! He has more black and tan on his head however.

The image was water coloured with Tim Holtz distress inks and I added some stickles collar. The edges were distressed with a distressing tool and then edged with ink to the dog. I layered this panel on gold and burgundy bazzil card. The bottom layer is a piece of the gold card embossed with the cuttlebug in the forest branches folder and inked over with distress ink then placed on burgundy bazzil. The sentiment panel was cut with nestabilities scalloped/plain rectangles with rub on doodlebug letters and a burgundy button.

I have five more cards to make before Tuesday and I'd better get my skates on. Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Chris

Introducing Amelia and James

Exciting news came for me yesterday when I received an email from Sandy at The Craft Barn. The samples of my stamp designs for their Kadoodle range had arrived and I was asked over to pick up my set! It seems the launch date for this series of six has been brought forward to 1st August and I'm to demonstrate them a week or so after that.

So, over I went today to find that Carole Cann was demonstrating them with a 'make and take'. It was quite a moment for me to see my designs, in rubber and in packaging with my name on it. I'm off now to get them mounted up on foam and make my first impressions even though I'd quite like to leave them alone in their packets for all time LOL! I have samples to make for the Craft Barn/Kadoodle blogs and I'd better get busy. I should be posting a sample or two tomorrow. Hope you're all enjoying the weekend.

Chris x

A two card day

Evening everyone, I'm late posting, it's been busy and I've managed to make two cards and do a bit of drawing too. Making the most of my day off as I won't have any more time until the weekend for craft or blogging.

I found a new challenge site today Penny Black Saturday Challenge which will be great for those of us who love Penny Black. I think I'll enter the card I made yesterday.

A goodies parcel came today which is always very exciting for me LOL! I now have the complete set of Tim Holtz distress inks which I've been collecting little by little over the last three months. I love them, they're so versatile. A new set of stamps too which are from Inkadinkadoo. I think I'll be using these quite a bit as there is a lovely wisteria type vine with entwined flowers, a couple of butterflies, a bird, three sentiments, a scroll and another flower stamp, all in all, good value for money.

Both the cards I made today were done for an SU colour challenge of white, wasabi (green) and teal, none of which I possess! I got as close as I could with green bazzil card, Tim Holtz distress inks and a Teal Marvy marker!


The first card caused problems as it was the first time I'd used white embossing powder and it gets everywhere! I think my images are a bit smudgy because of this but I like the effect of the white embossing on a dark background. The green background layer was stamped with Inkadinkadoo Garden stamps and versamark ink to give a tone on tone effect. I angled the stamp over several areas top and bottom for a border. The sentiment panel was cut with nestabilities, stamped with the same floral stamp, a sentiment from the same set and embossed with the white ep. I tied ribbon around the background panel, added a diamante ribbon slide and mounted the sentiment panel over it on dimension tape.



I found a lovely Sugar Nellie Splashing Maggie stamp in my received gifts box and thought she'd look gorgeous in green for the second challenge card! I used a houndstooth CB folder on the card blank, cut out the image with a rectangle nestability and also a scalloped rectangle. The image was water coloured with a teal Marvy marker and Tim Holtz distress inks in Peeled Paint, Antique Linen, Scattered Straw and Tattered Rose. The image panel was lifted on dimension tape over more of the teal ribbon, the sentiment from the same Garden set was stamped using the teal marker. I added a bit of stickles to the puddle and a little gem flower to finish.

Thanks for having a look,

Chris

My first post

Hi everyone, and here I go with my first post. It seemed a good time to start a blog as since I started making cards last year such a lot has happened for me.
Very recently I was so happy to be asked to design some background stamps by Kitty at Spiral Whisper. Kitty is launching a brand new stamp company which will specialize in high quality clear stamps and her website will launch on 21st July. This is such a wonderful opportunity for me and I'm honoured to be listed on her blog as a guest designer along with all the other very talented designers who will, I'm sure, bring a great variety of stamps to choose from. There are already some sneak peeks and a character naming competition on her blog.

Just a couple of months ago I won a prize in a stamp designing competition at The Craft Barn and on from that I was delighted to be asked by Sandy the owner, to design two sets of stamps for their new Kadoodle own range which are due to be released in September. I can't thank Sandy enough for her enthusiasm and encouragement over the past couple of months, it's fantastic to be given this amazing opportunity to get into stamp design and also to rekindle my love for drawing.

The winner of the competition, Sandra Dry, designed some wonderful stamps which were released two weeks ago. The Craft Barn will be launching their website very soon.

I should have some sample stamps very soon so that I can start making up samples and as soon as I do I'll be posting them here.

I decided to start off my first post with a card using a Penny Black image as they're my favourite stamps, particularly the Margaret Sherry designs as her cute critters are just amazing and so funny, it's also great that this stamp was sent to me by a friend.

I don't know the name of the stamp but the three little mice look as though they can't wait to eat that cake! I water coloured the image with Tim Holtz distress inks in scattered straw, mustard, tea dye, faded denim, tattered rose and peeled paint, and added stickles to the icing and scarves for a bit of sparkle. The layers are pale yellow bazzil card and doodlebug polka dots paper cut into three panels behind the image. I added a blue organza ribbon to finish.

Have a great week,
Chris

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About Me

Hi my name is Chris and welcome to my blog. This is my space to share the cards I enjoy making and my artwork. I'm thoroughly enjoying designing stamps for the Kadoodle stamps range at The Craft Barn and for my Sketching Stamper digi-stamps range. Thank you for visiting today.