clarity challenge top 5

I have been doing all sorts of crafting for along time, always supported by my lovely husband (of 27 years) and my son and daughter, who always give me their input on my efforts. My first craft was knitting and embroidery, taught by my mum, but they are quite slow going so I moved onto dressmaking. I think my biggest achievement was making my wedding dress. Watercolour painting is something else I tried but the pictures never looked quite right. From there I went on to porcelain doll making which I really enjoyed. I like the fact that there are so many skills and techniques to learn just to make one doll, but I could also use the skills I had already learnt. Unfortunately it is an expensive hobby and when the children came along I had to stop. I still have the kiln in the garden shed so who knows, I could always get back into it again! My introduction to paper crafts was on tv when Create and Craft first came on. I bought a few things for my daughter to play with and ended hooked myself. Like doll making it satisfies the need for different techniques, but a bit cheaper. Along with my card making and altered art projects I make novelty birthday cakes on demand from family and friends. I have also taught card making classes at my local craft shop which was really enjoyable and I loved every second. This made me think a blog would be good, just to be able to share with other crafter's what I've been doing. I'm still getting to grips with it, as I'm not really good with computers, but I can see how it can become addictive. So if anyone is interested pop along to sallynewickcrafts.blogspot.co.uk and tell me what you think, I love getting feedback on the designs I come up with! I joined The New Design Club in February, it was a birthday present, and the challenge was the first I have entered. I was so surprised to be picked as one of the top 5 as the standard of the other entries was very high. I think the Clarity Stamps are the best you always get a perfect impression and you can do just about anything with them.Looking forward to the next challenge. 

Twilight Garden

Hi,
A new month and a new Clarity Challenge. This time it is called 'In the Garden' and the card above is my design. I decided not to go down the usual route of green grass and blue sky but chose  to do a twilight garden. I have just received the Letterbox set, the tiles really make a feature of the letters, so they had to be used! My other new purchase is the morrocan mask which gave the impression of an ornate screen, I was inspired to have a feeling of looking out past the screen into the garden. I stamped the large topiary stamp and used gilding flakes, then cut around the right side of the plant. A Grande Nestabilities die was then tucked behind the topiary, cutting edge facing away from the stamping. This will leave an aperture with the stamp as part of the frame. The panel at the back was cut with the same size Nestabilities. I used three adirondack inks denim,stonewashed and eggplant to create the garden. The bird in the cage could be a nightingale, with a little imagination! To finish, the card was framed by running a promarker around each side, then matted and layered.
Thats all for now hope you like it, any comments are very welcome.

Thank you for looking!
 - Sally

 I thought I would share a card and a book mark  
I made when I bought the lovely stamp Laugh by
Paperbag Studios. I love this stamp it makes me 
think of my daughter.
For the card I used the dandelion and sentiment from Indigoblu, the star burst is a Banana Frog
stamp. The inks used were cranberry and hazelnut adirondacks.
Laugh is the main focal point so I put her in the
corner and built up a collage around her, using the two inks. A flourish stamp was used around two sides stamping off the edge. Then hazelnut ink was softly blended around all the sides. I actually used a dried baby wipe to do this, I find sometimes cut'n'dry foam catches a little bit.

The book mark was made in a similar way using seedless preserves and  peacock feathers distress
inks, love those colours together.

That's all for now, I would be happy to receive any comments if you would like. Thanks for looking.

Sally

Clarity Stamp Challenge Extras

These are a few more cards I made for the first Clarity challenge.  I couldn't make up my mind which stamps to use so I used loads. For these fish cards I used Paper Soft-Color paints by Viva,they blend beautifully together making very soft looking backgrounds. I coloured in the fish with Inktense watercolour pencils.

                                                                    

For this card I had to mask off the areas first so I could create the background. I wanted to show the bottom of the sea and further up the fishes swimming. I coloured the fish in with pencils as before.










                                                             

 For this card I used Rosie, this is my favourite of the new lady stamps, and coloured in with Promarkers. The background was created using the Clarity masks (just bought these ) I used clouds, hills and London and adirondack inks. I love the berry trailer stamp,this little stamp is great for all sorts of highlights and accents 

This card was made using the hat montage stamp I matched this with the honeysuckle corner. I used distress inks and adirondack inks. The bow is coloured with distress markers.




Hope you like the cards

Thank you for looking


Sally