The Heavy Handed Crafter: Christmas for crafters comes early!

Hello!! It's been a while....again!! I have so far failed in my attempt to gain another day in the week solely dedicated to crafting, so instead find myself resorting to finding whatever spare moment I can get, usually when my five year old is busy entertaining himself by pestering Daddy!!! I sort of have to quickly, and quietly, sneak away before either of them notice!!

This months competition at Trimcraft has me very excited as it's all about stamping. I've found myself getting a little bit more into stamping lately, especially as my collection of the lovely Distress Inks by Tim Holtz grows. Sadly, for me, there are very few craft shops near me, and they don't stock many stamps. I will be honest, when it comes to craft shopping, I do favour being able to pick them up with my hands and see how big they actually are!! I was lucky in that I was able to pick up a Sheena Douglass stamp set from one of the shops.

Today, though, I haven't got the card made with her stamps to show you...mainly because I sort of turned it into too big a project, and it needs a little bit more work before I am ready to put it out there! I find I tend to do that, start off with an idea and it sort of grows and grows, I need the crafting skill that is knowing when to stop!!!

Instead, I have different stamped card design to show you... Now I know it's July, and most aren't ready to think along these lines for another four or five months.... but today I'm sharing a Christmas card, my first one of the year in fact!! I've not yet reached the point - and the stock - to be able to ship out bucket loads of Christmas cards for everyone and their dog, but I do have some nice things that I've collected and stared at over the years! Crafters who do make their cards, though, do have to start early to be able to get through them all! The craft shops and Create and Craft are all starting to sell this years Christmas designs, cant wait to see them!!

Today's card is made using Michael Powell's stamp Silent Night, it's a lovely Christmas village design which I absolutely love working with. I think Docrafts used to sell it - I'm not sure as I have lost the packaging, and sadly it was out of stock on his website (made the mistake of looking and now I want more!!)

Here is how the stamp looks when stamped out in black ...

Now if you just excuse the fact that I am so far hopeless in getting the middle of my stamps to behave... trust me, I have spent some time researching, so if you have any handy tips, please share!!

Now for this card, I wanted to do a little experiment. I decided to firstly create a colourful design with one of the stamped images, using Tim Holtz distress inks...here it is..

Very easy to make, as I find the distress inks lovely to work with (and this is coming from someone who usually favours acrylics over waterpaints!!).

I then decided to create different effects by sticking to one colour and using different tones for it.
I started with greys..

Then blues....

Brownish yellows...

Then reds,,,

I found it to be a really easy effect to achieve, and with the style of the shape and working with distress inks, I wasn't overly bothered if I went over the lines. Using the red style, I'll share with you how I achieved this look...

Step one

Get ready!! These things are a lot easier to do if you have everything that you need ready. I love my blending mat, it keeps the ink wet for a long time, and if it does dry out, you only need to add a little water to be able to use the ink again. It is also wipe clean, brilliant!!!

I stamped out a bit of each ink pad I wanted to use, here being Spun Sugar, Festive Berries, Ripe Persimmon and Fired Brick. I also use a self watering paintbrush - these are very handy as you fill them up with water and you're ready to go!! I just squeeze it if I wanted the brush to be wetter, or if I wanted to clean the brush - or you can also dip it into water to clean.

Step two

Start by using the lightest colour that you have of your distress inks - in my case this was Spun sugar. Load up your brush with the ink and paint the entire stamped image - don't worry if some of it looks darker than other bits, as this adds to the effect.

Step three

Start to add detail. I worked with the Ripe Persimmon and the Festive Berries to start to add depth to the stamped image and to create different tones of buildings.. I also painted in the moon and stars and the lights..

Step four

Add some more detail! I used the darkest tone I had, being the Fired Bricks, to add more depth and darkness to the buildings, and some of the brick details, as well as colouring in the trees..

I then mixed some of the Spun Sugar with Ripe persimmon to create a tone to use for creating the shadow on snow effect..

Step five

Create the tone you want for the sky, depending on how dark you want it.. it's also nice to start of a bit darker at the top and use the water on your brush to help bleed the colour down towards the main image.

There you have it, a completed image.

I finished off each design - except for the coloured one, by using Docrafts metallic markers on the moon, stars and lights, just for a little extra special tone.

For my card itself, I decided to have two on the front, then you open to another two, and finally open to the middle of the card to find the coloured image. I only have A4 white card stock, so I had to use two and trim them to 20cm wide, scoring at 10cm, and then mounting one 10cm section on to the other, so that it would open up. I mounted my images onto Trimcraft "Dovecraft Back to Basics Christmas" pack and inked the edges with distress inks. I stamped my statements using Trimcraft wooden stamps - great little things that come in a variety of fonts, very cheap too!!. I then used a black marker to create a sewn on effect ( couldn't do it with a real sewing machine, I have no skills with one!!)...

Here is the finished card, I hope you like it!!..