A brush with Brusho!

I have seen quite a few crafty blog posts and Pinterest projects recently featuring Bister and Brusho. It seems that Bister is soot based which is interesting but I have not been able to track that down in the UK, whereas Brusho is easily available.

I made this card by sprinkling some of the Brusho powder crystals in red, turquoise, yellow and green across some Fabriano Ecological paper. Then, I sprayed quite liberally to get the colours to spread. This process takes quite a while to finish and I found that my experiments passed some of the best effects as the spreading continued, so I would recommend drying gently with a heat gun to preserve a stage you really like. I am still learning!

I finished my card by matting onto black and adding Hollyhock die cuts from an Impression Obsession die, a black gem swirls and words stamped using a Stampavie Suzi Blu set I treated myself to this week.

I am delighted to say my Blog Candy surprise also arrived from Australia from Darkroom Door following their brilliant joint blog hop with Art Journey stamps. I really enjoyed the samples I saw on the blog hop using stamps from two of my favourite companies, so this parcel was a real bonus!

Thank you Rachel for such a generous prize, I can't wait to get inky with these lovely stamps. In the meantime though, I have something else taking my attention! My new tiny art studio, all 1m x 2m is nearing completion and is currently this blank canvas!

 

Getting to this stage has required lots of emptying, cleaning, stripping old wall paper and stuck down hideous carpet and paint and repainting and wallpapering. It has been hot work in there in these last few tropically hot days! We are now at the exciting stage of adding colour and equipment. It may only be a tiny space, but I have big ideas for it and will report on progress very soon!

 

I am off to pick the first blackberries for a blackberry and apple crumble tonight. There is something special about the first blackberries of the season! Whatever you are doing I hope you are having a lovely weekend and keeping as cool as you can.

 

Elaine   

Friends indeed!

I wanted to make a card for a friend to let her know I was thinking of her this week as she is going through a stressful time. I decided to use an Inkylicious sentiment I bought at Ally Pally.

I wanted to make quite a simple and unfussy card. The sentiment is the focal point here. I also bought the star embossed card at Ally Pally as I could see how well it would work with the sentiment. I added a bit of ink shading in various shades of Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Chipped Sapphire. I am really loving my little round mini DI applicators, they may even tempt me away from my old favourite chunks of Cut and Dry!

 

While I was in the mood for making cards I decided to make a second to add to my box of cards for selling. This time I used a stencil to add ink to the card blank and then added some Imagination Sparkle medium using my finger.

 



I'll leave you with a pic of the lovely sight that greeted me outside the front door yesterday. This beautiful pink lily that has that amazing nutmeggy fragrance of lillies I love so much. The scent got stronger as the day went on.

Things are rather busy here. We are working on renovating the tiny space of an old larder which is only about 1m x 2m. I am going to trial it as a tiny indoor workspace. I have seen lots of cupboard and closet craft spaces and I think it should be as workable as my current winter arrangements in the living room.  There has been lots to do stripping old layers of paint, wallpaper, stuck on carpet and all the grime that goes with it. I have chosen new paint colours and am cooking up ideas of how to make the most of the space. The transformation will be revealed in due course.

Have a good week!

Elaine

Another leafy card!

This is another of the cards I made with some of my leafy prints from the other day.

 

 

This time I printed with a smaller leaf, a hardy geranium if I remember rightly. Then I overstamped with a leaf stamp made of pinky purple rubber, I think it is a See Ds stamp that someone rehomed with me! I finished with overspraying with a vibrant Cosmic Shimmer mica spray in a lovely golden green colour.

 

The sentiment came from a bargain bin wood backed stamp at a craft show in Newbury I think. The die cut butterflies are from the Tim Holtz Butterfly Frenzy die.

 

This next  card uses the lovely Stampin Up Hardwood stamp and one of their sentiments from the Wetlands set. I added some die cut leaves using an Impression Obsession die coloured with Pan Pastels, mounted onto branches cut using a Memory Box die. 

 

 

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I am just waiting for a loaf to finish baking so I can pack a picnic as we are going out for a walk before I plan to sit down to watch the Wimbledon final.

 

 

Elaine