Happy New year! Time to party with Sam

Let us start by wishing everyone a very Happy new year, in some parts of the world you may of already celebrated, for us in the UK we have aproximatly 17 hours until Midnight, i know many of you will be planning parties to celebrate tonight's passing of the old and into the new and Sam has got a wonderful project depicting old and new.

Party Time By
Sam Crowe
Items Used

8"by8" Card Stock
SplodgeAway Mat
Papers - Sketchbook by American Craft
Stamps by Crafty Individuals,
& Free in Creative Stamping Magazine
& Docraft
Inks - Ranger Distress Evergreen Bough
         Adirondack - Mountain Rose
Gems from Suzicraft
Glitter Glue - Dovecraft
Glossy Accents

Whats it about

This card started off in my head as a card of different images that remind us of parties or in particular New Years Eve parties and days gone bye - Days gone bye when you like Vintage inevitably goes back further than I can remember!!! So it all ended up being a bit Art Nouveau and as that is the latest upcoming (or actually I think it has arrived) trend its not surprising that my images leaned toward it.

Methods used

I Stamped the background of the main card with the diamond stamp and stamped the words Party randomly over it.  I then cut out (by eye) the patterned paper to fill the card except for a piece at the top which was going to be left as it was.  I then cut out the background squares and oblongs and decided where they would sit on the card.  Once I had decided this I then placed my stamps over each piece and decided which would be my centrepiece.  Once that was decided I individually stamped them and put them in place.  I then decorated them all at the same time so that I could put it aside to dry.  I decorated with the gems, glitter glue and Glossy Accents.

The tag came about because when I placed the patterned paper on the card I had only glued two sides  to make sure I got it straight before sticking the others down, however I pulled a little tight from the opening to the join of the card and this immediately made me think that it left a great opening for the "Party Invite" or "Party Reply" to slip into.  So to make that I of course glued down the bottom of the slot and made a tag, stamped Party on it in the centre and used a card that I had got a Vintage fridge magnet out of - it left the perfect hole, so I stuck that down and filled the centre with glossy accents which makes it look quite plush!

I know this project is a little crowded but Hopefully so will the party be!!!!

Bye for now
Sam

Happy New Year, party time with Kay

New Year is a reason to celebrate and for new beginings, we are starting of the tradition with our party and new begining  themed cards.

Kay is bringing in the New Year with her gorgeous Humphries Corner card.

PARTY TIME

Materials Used

8x8 card blank
SplodgeAway Easy Ink Card
SplodgeAway swirl mask
Distress Inks in squeezed lemonade, picked raspberry, shaded lilac, seedless preserves and peacock feathers.
Spellbinders edgability Classic Scallop die
five co ordinating buttons
Free papers from papercraft essentials magazine featuring Humphrey the elephant
Sakura pink sparkle pen


To make this card I first embossed the easy ink paper with the swirl mask. I then used masking tape to keep the mask in place on the paper before I used my distress inks to randomly colour the mask. This needs to be done very slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the pattern on the mask. I used all of the coloured inks except seedless preserve.
I then cut out the Classic Scallop die and used the shaded lilac to colour the straight edge and then squeezed lemon to colour the scalloped edge. I then went over the edge of the lemon with the picked raspberry.
The images and tag were then cut out and edged with the picked raspberry and the word party written onto the tag with the Sakura pen. The two images were then layered over each othe and glued to top left of swirl card. The scallop glued across card underneath and the tag attached using foam pads.
The buttons were then glued to each corner and on the tag.
Before attaching to card I also lightly went aroung the edge of the finished topper with seedless preserve to take of the starkness, this may not be needed as it depends on how you distress the base card.

thank you for taking the time to view.
Happy Crafting
Kayx

Congratulations challenge winner

Congratulations to Dawn Louise, you are our challenge winner for this month. We loved your take on the 12 days of Christmas, and the way you used the SplodgeAway mat to create the room scene.
Here is the card Dawn created

To claim your prize please call the Tom at shop on 01642 605117 but please be aware the shop is closed for christmas and will reopen 3rd January.

Please drop by on the 5th January for our next challenge.

A few days left

You only have until Saturday to enter out current monthly challenge you will find all the info here
The goodies on offer this month are some lovely crafty individual stamps

Merry Christmas from us all

SplodgeAway and the Design Team would like to wish all of our followers, customers and friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year to you all.
I hope you will all join and support us in the New Year as we bring you some exciting new masks.
We will leave you with some Christmas inspiration from designers past and pressent.

Sue Jimson

                           

Karen Wright

Kay Foreman

Rosie

Eileen Godwin

Flitter it Mini by Sam Crowe

Thanks to Sam for this gorgeous example of how to use your SplodgeAway masks with Indigo Blu flitter glue and flakes

Make it Mini

By Sam Crowe

Items Used

SplodgeAway Mask

Indigo Blu  - Flitter Glu & Sponge
Indigo Blu -  Mega Flakes

Card Stock - fm Suzicraft

Ruben d'emballage - Rope style Ribbon

There is not a lot to tell on this one it is one technique throughout - it came about when I was playing with my Flitter Flakes and Stamps in Suzicraft and Tom asked if I had tried them through one of his masks.  My answer was no but I will now!  This is the result!

So "Word of Warning" If you try this the first thing you need is a bowl of water big enough to wash your masks, or a very close sink! 

Hold your mask over the card, or use stick and spray to keep it in place.  Load your sponge with half a teaspoon of Flitter Glu and just work it into the sponge a bit at a time.  Give the sponge one or two minutes to "rest".  Sponge over the mask making sure you get to all the corners, I did it a little bit like I would a Stenskape, working from the edge into the centre of the shapes. Take the mask off and give it a wash in water, this also takes the glue off your hands immediately.  Once you have put the glue onto the card it stays sticky for a long time.

Put your Mega Flakes onto the card - If you get larger pieces just lay them out by hand to get full use of them.  Once you have covered all areas gently rub with your fingers to take of excess.  Put Flakes back in box or carton and with the Polishing Sponge you get from the starter kit just gently rub all over your work, this takes off the excess and buffs it up a bit. 

I actually did the centre separately because I was looking for something to place in the middle but thought that really just the Mega Flakes would do it as the Mask itself looked so lovely done in this way it didn't need anything - except of course the little "Best Friends" sentiment.  The sentiment was also done in Mega Flakes but this time the glue had been used on the stamp.  Do wash all equipment straight away in plain water, the glu washes off very easily.

I hope you like the effect and I hope you give it a go.

Sam

-- 
Bye for now
Sam

Make it in Miniture by Jayne Davies

Making it in Miniature - A mini book by Jayne Davies.

I thought it might be fun to make a mini book using something I wouldn’t use and came across this cigarette tin in the pound shop! I removed the inside elastics , rubbed down the tin and used acrylic paint to colour it. The pages were made using a simple accordion method.

 The outside of my book

The inside.

The pages

    A closer look at a few of the pages

I used Indigo blu art quotes stamps and SplodgeAway mini masks to decorate my book but you could use any colour scheme and topic you like. The added bonus in using a cigarette case is that you have a built in fastener to keep your pages safe!

Hugz, Jayne xxxx

Make it Mini by Kay Foreman

This week we are showcasing some of the mini masks, Thanks to Kay for this gorgeous sample using the hearts and butterflies.

For this project I have used  SplodgeAway 6x6 Art Nouveau mask and SplodgeAway Mini hearts and butterfly masks.
6x6 piece of SplodgeAway Easy Ink card
6x6 card blank
8x8 Elegance card stock from SplodgeAway
Distress Inks in worn lipstick,seedless preserves and peacock feathers
Dylusion ink sprays in Vibrant Turquoise, Bubblegum pink and crushed grape
Diamond Sparkle stickles
Pink and silver pearl makers.

To begin I sprayed the Elegance card stock with all 3 Dylusion Ink sprays randomly and then when dry placed the heart and butterfly mask onto the card and embossed with embossing machine, cut out and shaped with my hands to give dimension.
I then placed the Art Nouveau mask onto the Easy Ink card and embossed through embossing machine. I kept the mask in place and them using the 3 Distress Inks coloured over the mask being careful not to get ink onto centre piece.
I then positioned the hearts and butterflies and secured with pinflair glue. Once glue dried I then used the Diamond Sparkle Stickles to highlight the body of the butterfly and put dots on hearts. Note that the stickles takes on the colours of the Dylusion Inks below. To finish I then made trails from the butterflies with the silver pearl maker and dots around completed card with pink pearl maker. The work is now ready to be mounted onto the card blank with your preferred glue.

Thank You for taking the time to look.
Happy Crafting
Kayx

Reschedule of show

The Design team have been working really hard to produce some samples for what was to be today's show on Create and Craft TV, unfortunately it has been rescheduled to 4th January when we will be doing 2 shows. Our plan over the next couple of weeks was to showcase all the design teams samples that they have been busy getting ready for us, but good plans don't always plan out!
So we apologise  if you were looking forward to today's show, you have a little longer to wait for the amazing new masks. Remember to mark 4th January in your diary.

Mistletoe & Rhyme Tag by Kay Foreman

Mistletoe & Rhyme Tag

By Kay Foreman

For this challenge I decided to do a tag as its something I normally dont do but was inspired by a workshop that I recently attended with Annette Lee.

Material needed.
A tag 10x20cms made from SplodgeAway Easy Ink Card
Some white ribbon
Stamp Addicts "The night before Christmas" stamp
Mistletoe stamp by Hobby Art.
Adirondack Inks in Meadow. Eggplant and Terracotta
Memories Ink Pad in Unicorn
Versamark Ink Pad
Silver and White embossing powders
HTO's in Sea Glass and Holly Leaf

Method

To start, using the SplodgeAway mat and the three Adironcack inks I blended them around the card until all of the area was covered, then spritzed with water and dried with a heat gun.
Making sure that the tag was dry I dusted with an antistatic pad and stamped on the Night before Christmas stamp at an angle twice using the Memories unicorn ink pad. Again making sure that this was dry I then randomly stamped  the mistletoe stamp with versamark then embossed in white.
To colour the mistletoe in I mixed both of the H20 inks on the SplodgeAway mat and painted.To complete I wiped around the edge of the tag with the versafine and embossed with silver. ( This does not have to be even, hence wiping around as the end result is meant to be uneven)
To complete I added the white organza bow.

Thank you for taking the time to visit.
Kayx

Splodgy christmas - Eileen's Mistletoe and Rhyme

Eileen, has a gorgeous tag to share with us today. She has used the SplodgeAway mat to get that perfect blending, and if your wondering on how she has achieved that perfect brilliant white it is a Posca pen these are available in various point widths and will colour over any medium. 
Check out Eileens blog for more inspiration

Mistletoe by Sue Jimson

Sue has showed us here how to make a super quick card, and as we know this time of year every minute counts as we have many cards to make, have a go yourself, don't forget to share your cards with us. You can get your SplodgeAway mat and masks from here

By Sue Jimson

Ingredients

8x8 Scalloped White Cardstock
Piece of Easy Ink Card
Splodgeaway Mat
Splodgeaway Snowflake Mask
Iced Spruce, Pine Needles and Fired Brick Distress Inks
Red and Green Stickles

Ribbon

Spellbinders Label 17 Die
Sakura Glaze Pens in Red and Forest Green and White

Mistletoe Stamp

Recipe

Run snowflake mask through grand calibur using easy ink card, cut it down to size with border to fit your card stock. Distress embossed card with iced spruce and pine needles distress inks. Then cover the snowflakes with green stickles and leave to dry. I then stamped the mistletoe stamp and coloured it with sakura glaze pens and then ran it through the calibur using the labels 17 die, before I took it out of the die I distressed the edges with fired brick distress ink. I stuck it down with some pinflair glue to give it some dimension and then I made a little rhyme up printed it off, distressed edges with the fired brick and then attached it to my card. I made two bows from my ribbon and attached to the top edges of my card. I then went around the edge of the embossed piece of card with some red glitter stickles, I also glittered a few of the green leaves on the stamp. Hope you like it, its a simple and quick card to do and at this time of year every minute counts! TFL huggles xxxxxxxxx

Sue

Mistletoe & Wine and Farewell Rosie

Its with sadness that we say goodbye to one of our talented ladies, Rosie has decided to step down from the SplodgeAway Blog design team, but she will still be designing for the TV shows, so we still get to see some of her amazing work.
Here is her last piece that she made for the blog.
Thank you very much Rosie.

Mistletoe & Rhyme by Sam Crowe

This week we are having a play on words courtesy of Sam Crowe, Sam is always making up little ditty's and poems so she suggested the theme for this week instead of Mistletoe and Wine we are playing Mistletoe and Rhyme.

So its only right that we showcase Sam first this week, you will all agree she has done an amazing job, over to you Sam.............

Materials used

SplodgeAway Mat
Flitter Glue

Flitter Flakes - Yorkshire Dales

Distress Ink - Vintage Photo

Mouse Stamp - Free in Magazine last year

Fire Place Stamp and Reindeer Stamp - Creative Stamping Mag, current one.

Mistletoe - stamp from last years stash

Red Paper from - Milton & Co Christmas Paper Stash

Poem - Made up for my project

X-cut Die - Oval

Sponge Tape

Pro-markers - Poppy & Caramel

The Poem is an up-cycled version of Twos the Night that I did - I will put it at the end as I don't think you can see it easily on the photo.

Method

Rhyme - I printed off my poem then cut it out with the x-cut die and decided this would be my centre piece. You can pick any poem of your choice.

Flitter Flakes - Put 1/4 tsp of Flitter Glue onto a piece of sponge about 1 1/2 cm by 1cm work in with a palate knife, metal or plastic.  Always put your equipment straight into water after using Flitter Glue, then it comes off really easily.  Stand your sponge for a minute or two - no longer than that, then with your tree stamp dab the sponge over it as if you were putting ink on, place stamp onto paper and take off straight away.  Apply flitter Flakes rub in and off with your fingers ensuring all glued areas are covered and then use the Flitter sponge to buff it up and take off the excess.  Then run the sponge around the edge of the oval and use the same method with the flakes.  This also applies to the Mistletoe, Reindeer and Fireplace.

Antiquing - Ink the edges of the oval using the SplodgeAway Mat and the Distress Ink - I normally use a few inks but once the Flitter Flakes are on it adds to the antique look so I liked it as it was.  Also ink the main card measuring up to the Red piece of paper in the middle.  I hold everything in place till I feel it is right then stick everything down.  All layers are flat except the fireplace which was added with sponge tape.

Stamps - all but the mistletoe stamps were applied Before any inking was done.  The mouse and fireplace were coloured in with Pro-markers.

So Once you have done the Reindeer, fireplace, centrepiece inking and put everything together, then go ahead and stamp the mistletoe over the card and the centre paper again using the Fitter glue and flakes.

And there you have it.  Everything on the card was just meant to make it look christmassy to go with the Rhyme - So here it is, don't hold your breath:-

Twos the night before Xmas and all through the house,
was a feeling of excitement AND a little brown mouse,

the Xmas tree laden with decor and lights,

the children's stockings looked a lot like tights?
Santa's Big Feet walking about on the roof,
Dancer and Prancer were tapping their Hoof,
Down from the chimney came a Big Red Butt,

and a LOUD noise as Santa banged his Nut!

the dust it did settle, but not for a while,

and the mouse waited patiently with his Little Brown Smile!!

Merry Xmas
Sam

3rd SplodgeAway monthly challenge - 12 days of Christmas

Thank you for joining us with our challenge and well done to Sue Ward for winning our blue and silver challenge.

This months theme is The 12 Days of Christmas and here is what our design team have created for your inspiration using SplodgeAway products available here

Join us and play along for your chance to win a selection of Crafty Individual stamps, all you need do is make a card using splodgeaway products and follow the theme The 12 days of Christmas, add it to the link button below and link us on your blog. This challenge will finish on 29th December, Good Luck.

                                                          

Sue Jimson

  

Eileen Godwin

Hi this is my DT sample for this months

SplodgeAway Challenge

 'Twelve Days of Christmas'

This card depicts the

'Two Turtle Doves'

( bit of artistic licence here, tic)

The stamp used to make the Christmas Wreath

 is only ½ inch in size!

Come over to my blog

http://eileenscraftyzone.blogspot.co.uk/

  See how I made this card with the help of my

SplodgeAway Mat.

Come on

Enter our Challenge

Win a SplodgeAway

Prize!

Eileen x

 

Jayne Davies

Sam Crowe

Kay Foreman

Shell Shirley



Challenge winner

Thank You to everyone who took part in our 2nd Challenge its pleasing to see a few more of you taking part, and we have loved coming to visit your blogs.

Its wonderful to see everyone's different takes on the Challenge.

We are pleased to announce this month's winner is:

Sue Ward

This is the brilliant card she made using the snowflake mask and the snowman stenskape

If you call Suzicraft on  01642605117 Sue or Tom will arrange to have your SplodgeAway goodies sent out to you.

Check back with us tomorrow when we will be unveiling a new challenge.

Butterflies & Brayer by Jayne Davies

Brayer inspiration by Jayne Davies

Hi all. Well this theme had me a bit beaten as I’ve never used a brayer in my paper crafting before! Still I thought I’d give it a go and this is what I came up with:

                            

 Ingredients

SplodgeAway mat/ easy ink card and butterfly swirl mask

Persimmon, mustard seed and mowed lawn distress inks

8”x 8” card blank

Dark green card 19.5cmx 19.5cm

Copper mirricard 19cmx19cm

Copier paper

Creative expressions Art Phrases stamp set

Dark green glitter embossing powder

Copper liquid pearls

Metal butterfly charm

Versamark ink

Fancy yarn

Recipe

Layer dark green card onto front of card blank then layer the copper mirricard on top of it. Put to one side. Cut easy ink card to 18.5cmx18.5cm.  Fix it to craft surface and tear the copier paper into strips, positioning them in sequence over the easy ink card. Leave spaces in between the strips and fasten them down to surface (not onto your card!) Once all the pieces are in place lay down your 3 colours of distress ink side by side on your splodgeAway mat and ink up your brayer. Brayer the ink diagonally across the strips and card and keep inking until the desired effect is achieved.

Remove the paper strips, ink around the edges of the card and then  lightly all over to soften the harsh stripes. Ink up the butterfly mask and place face down in position on your patterned card before running it through a manual die cutting machine. Sprinkle embossing powder over it and heat set.

Stamp chosen sentiment with versamark, emboss and heat set. Wrap a few strands of the fancy yarn around the panel at the left hand side and tie in a knot, leaving long ends. Mount onto the layers on your card blank and add the butterfly charm to the yarn before trimming it to the desired length.

Finish by adding liquid pearls to highlight the butterfly images.

Like using the masks as a ‘stamp’ and embossing it – lovely effect. Why don’t you experiment with different colour combinations. Hope you like it and thanks  for looking. Hugz, Jayne xxxx



Chocolate Box by Sam Crowe

Tools Used
SplodgeAway Mat - Demonstrator
Distess Inks - Warm Lipstick, Weathered Wood - Faded Jeans
Black Archival Ink
Indigo Blu Stamps
Crafty Individuals Stamp
Clarity Stamp
Black & Pink card
Clarity A5 Coated Card Stock
Hole Punch - small
Pink Spotted Ribbon
Blue Ribbon
Hougie Board

Most of the above items were bought at Suzicraft

Project - Breyer

For this Project I wanted to try a few new techniques with the breyer and I am pleased with the results.  My theme is a vintage style Chockolate Box - by vintage, really I mean the ones we used to get as kids at xmas with them old pictures on them.

Breyering stamp image and background colour all at once.

I put my pink ink onto the mat not too much - it depends on the depth of colour your want.  So to get the striped colour and the stamp done together - Breyer your ink over the mat until it is smooth - ink up the female stamp in Black Archival ink - run the Breyer, still with the pink ink on it, over the stamp - start at either side of the stamp but make sure you get a full picture and make sure the picture doesn't overlap on the breyer.  Thats it, you could breyer upwards on a whole piece of A4 if you liked and you would get the image with the pink background all the way up your paper in a repeat pattern with abosolutely no effort whatsoever.  The lady in the corner was stamped on from the block because I only wanted one and I wanted to put the background in later so you couldn't see the "join".

The Buildings

For the next part, I did the same method of the stamp onto the Breyer but without the background ink this time, so roll you image but think about weather you are going to breyer up-over or across your page because that makes a difference with this stamp, as I was going to go across the width I brayered over the stamped image from right to left till it filled the breyer, if I was going up-over I would have brayered the stamp from the bottom up.  I knew I wanted to leave a gap in the middle though.

Now just a bit of playing around now - I ripped up a few pieces of paper, one with a straight line to mask off the ladies on the left, one to mask off the lady on the right and one for the middle piece.  Firstly I breyered the middle so placed all the lady masks over, the one on the right is not cut out but torn around the image, so you can hardly tell where the colours join.  Breyer from you mat. When you breyer always start off the paper and end off the paper so you don't see a start of finish line on your work. 

So Mask off all the ladies - and Breyer you middle section.  Finally get to straight edges of paper for the dark blue strip, either hold them down or tape them, be we are not going for a perfect straight line here just a bit of a blend.  Put a lot of ink on your SplodgeAway mat this time, this is an outline so you want it dark.

Stamp you wording at an angle in the middle in ~Black Archival ink.  And there you have it. Decorate with a blue ribbon and attach to a bock - one I made earlier - and decorate to match.  The box was made from Black and Pink card using my Hugie Board.  See Mrs Hougie for instructions.

Hope you like it, can you smell the chocolates?
Sam

Dreams By Eileen Godwin

Eileen is so talented with her card making and we are very fortunate to have her on the SplodgeAway design team, she has used her brayer along with the SplodgeAway mat to create this stunning card

Drop by Eileens blog to see more stunning projects