Stamp Addicts Join Hochanda

We were so pleased to see the lovely Sarah and Vicky, aka, Stamp Addicts, back on TV.  Their products are beautiful, and it was great seeing their idea's and inspiration.

So, when I had a little rummage in the warehouse, the Stamp Addicts stamps literally jumped out at me.....honestly.

I'll do a few postings with the lovely stamps and hopefully show you some more idea's.

First, have a look at the stamps by following this link:

Stamp Addicts

The collections I choose first, were the Small Winter Wonderland, the Banners set and the Greetings.

I created my background first, by just cutting a scrap piece of card into a "hill" shape - this doesn't need to be perfect.  I used distress inks to shade very gently up to the hill template.  The top hill I distressed a large area above the template which will work as my sky.  I mixed a couple of shades together to get a blend.  It hardly looks like any ink has transferred, until I moved my hill template.  Move the template down the card and repeat, until you are happy with your scene.  Practice this on scrap card so you get the blend correct - the key is not to add to much ink onto your sponge (I use cut and dry sponge), and don't press to hard.  If you find it tricky to blend with the sponge give the brushes a try, follow this link:

Blending brushes

You will see the dots on the background, that was done by just splashing the card with water, allow it to soak in a little, then soak the water up with kitchen paper.  Viola, snow!!

Next I stamped my trees on.  I used my hill stencil again, and used the small little stamp which is really a branch stamp - but it does work lovely as a small tree.  Stamp the branch along the hill stencil, so it gives the appearance of trees in the distance, running down the hill.

I then stamped my larger trees in the front, largest one at the front.  I stamped using the Pine Needles Distress Ink, and then used the Vintage photo distress to actually paint the brown onto the tree.  For more emphasis I then used a dark brown pen to run down the tree branches:

Next I stamped the tree log, but hadn't dried the card properly, so the ink spread:

This wasn't the look I was going for, so I used my distress ink, and then a selection of brown pens, to colour the tree trunk.  I then used a black fineliner pen to draw in some detail, and actually draw around the part of the trunk that had bled.  This defined my image, but also rescued the trunk!

Stamp both your little birds in place, and colour. 

I cut the left edge panel off, and then mat and layered both pieces of my stamped card onto blue card, and then both elements onto a piece of white card.. I used the banner stamp and the sentiment stamp for my message, which I cut out and mat and layered onto a piece of blue card.  I glued both my stamped images onto my card, and then popped the sentiment onto the left hand side.  A little glitter, and finished.

Tune in to Hochanda every day 24/7 for lots of fun and crafty demonstrations! Watch our programmes live > Hochanda.com

You can also tune into Hochanda on Freeview channel 39, Sky channel 663 or Freesat 817.