Friday 31 January 2014

Creating with BaRb-Stampin'up-Watercolour Starburst

Watercolour Starburst
Hello again
Thanks for visiting
I am still having fun playing with the products I have from the new catalogues. 
This is what I created with the new starburst dies
I love this watercolour paper.(From new occassions cat.)
Card is smoky slate, and white for the image. Stamp set used is Papaya collage with the sentiment from Itty bitty banners. Lace trim finished with pearls runs down the left side of the card.
The twine is from the sweet sorbet acc. kit in Sale-a-bration cat. The flower is white stampin' clay.
Inks used are smoky slate, tangerine and gumball.
The sentiment on the insert is from Express yourself.
Have fun-Keep crafting
BaRb

Monday 27 January 2014

Online store


Hi everyone,

Just a quick reminder about our store.
Many of our designs are available to you, and if you are after something specific please contact us.
At the moment we are running a special on our packs of 3 assorted  handmade cards, suitable for many occasions



These cards all have stamped inserts with space for a personal message and come with envelopes.
These two packs are an example and many other pack designs (including Christmas) are available.
                                                  To see them please visit our Online store
                               Special price is $12 per pack and postage is free within Australia.

BaRb and ShEll

Creating with BaRb-Stampin'up-Open sea flip card

Open sea flip card
Hi there
I have been meaning to show you this card for a couple of weeks now, but I have been having so much fun playing with the wonderful new products in the new occassions and sab catalogues, that I have been sidetracked.
So here it finally is

Colours used are Island indigo, vanilla and black. Stamps are from The open sea, Itty bitty banners, and Happiest birthday wishes on the inside.
The paper is from Modern medley pack, The ship is stamped with black craft ink and clear embossed.(I felt it looked too heavy when black embossed)

As I wanted space for a message on the inside, I cut the card 6cm longer than required for the die, scored and folded in, before placing the card in the die (making sure the folded edge would not be cut).

                    

The front section is embossed in the houndstooth folder. The anchor is wrapped with linen thread and indigo bakers twine, and coated in crystal effects. The banners were die cut and outlined with stardust pen for a bit of sparkle. Candy dots in blue and black finished off the design.
I hope you enjoy this design and happy crafting.
Till next time

BaRb

Sunday 26 January 2014

Creating with BaRb-Stampin'up-Petite Petals - Plant trough

Petite Petals - Plant trough
Hello again
 Another card for you, again featuring products from the new occassions and sale-a-bration catalogues.

 
















This time I have used the Hardwood stamp, Petite petals stamp and punch, fringe scissors, and silver twine from Occassions and Banner blast stamp and punch from Sale-a-bration.
The plant trough is Ticket punch, with an extra small ticket for the second leg, punched from espresso co-ordinations card and sanded back. The leaves are from bird builder punch.
The plant is flowering flourishes stamp, and the grass is a torn strip of patterned paper, cut with fringe scissors.
Colours are grey, smoky slate and olive, with the flowers stamped in tangerine on daffodil card. Silver mini brads form the main flower centres, with pearls on the fallen flowers and highlighting the flourish.
The insert uses Word play for the sentiment, flowering flourish, and petite petals.
Time to go play. Enjoy
BaRb


Friday 24 January 2014

Creating with BaRb-Stampin'up-You & Me card

You & Me card
Hi Everyone






















This card features Silver foiled vellum,and Perfect pennants stamps from the Occassions cat. and decorative dots embossing folder from sab cat.
The foil has been used as an overlay, over the embossed, stamped and embellished front panel and is attached to the card front before the panel.
Other products used were white card, die cut hearts(mine were from More amore ds. papers, but the dies from Hearts a flutter would work well or paper doily hearts).
White bakers twine, rhinestones and a stardust pen added glamour.

I (heart) Hearts stamp set and Field flowers stamp set were used for the sentiment on insert.
hope you have gained some inspiration from this idea.
Till next time- Happy Crafting
BaRb


Wednesday 22 January 2014

Creating with BaRb-Stampin'up-Watercolour Petite Petals


Watercolour wonder petite petals

I have created this card using Watercolour wonder paper, Simple stems and Petite Petals stamps and punch from the Occassions catalogue, and the Decorative dots embossing folder from the Sale-a-bration catalog.
Other products are ovals dies, cantaloupe pleated ribbon, Wetlands stamp set greeting and ticket punch.
Colours used are white, tangerine, gumball and curry, all on white and tangerine card. Candy dots and rhinestones are final touches.

BaRb

Sunday 19 January 2014

Stampin'up-New catalogues

Hi Everyone

Just a quick note to let you know the new Stampin'up Ocassions and Sale-a-bration catalogues are now available.


















                     There are some wonderful new products and qualifying orders earn free product.

                                           To get your copy please visit my Stampin'up Demonstrator page.
                                                                             BaRb

Saturday 18 January 2014

Lady Beetle Addiction

Hello,

Hehe - caught your interest with the title didn't I??  Who doesn't love Lady Beetles??  Some people call them Lady Bugs same thing....

Our Guest Designer - Riss - is highly addicted to Lady Beetles - she has pencil cases, pens, brooches, blankets, charms - lots and lots of Lady Beetleness (is that a word?) - she loves them!!!

Riss was 10 years old when she made this canvas - she has used a few different types of Beetles here - Charms, puffy stickers, wrapping paper and hand-drawn images of Beetles - fantastic! Love it, Love it!!


Riss created this canvas with a Multi Media style background - paper tearing and tissue paper to create texture, then added her collection of Lady Beetles.  The red, black and green really stand out against the neutral colours of the background.

How could you not love Lady Beetles - must be the red and black combination of colours!!

Enjoy!
Shell
xox








Stampscapes Scene

Hello

I thought I would show you some different stamping today. I have used the beautiful Stampscapes images to create this scene


The main images used are Cabin with fence, Rocky peaks, meadow and oak branch., horse and geese, sun and clouds.
I stamped onto glossy card and coloured with Marvy dye inks and markers. I used a glaze pen to highlight the fence and cabin windows.
I love these stamps and can be absorbed for hours creating and colouring scenes.
I hope you enjoy this scene as much as I do.
Visit my Pinterest board to see more of my creations.

Till next time
BaRb

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Creating with BaRb- Stampin'Up-Birthday Cards

Birthday Cards
This first card features the beautiful Gingham garden papers. Colours used are Pear pizazz, Regal rose, daffodil, old olive and Island indigo 
The card base is stamped round the edges with Morning meadow image and the Birthday sentiment is from Perfect punches. The regal rose matted floral paper has been embossed in the dots folder. Candy dots finish off. This second card is in the colours of Baja Breeze, Saffron, pear and indigo. The paper has been embossed in Elegant bouquet folder, with the embossing sponged with saffron. The leaves are die cut Little leaves, sponged and then coated in crystal effects. The flowers are from Mixed bunch, stamped twice and punched.
Happy birthday is from Sassy salutations. Rhinestones add a touch of glimmer
This final card is in regal rose and rose red. Embossing folder is Vintage wallpaper and the sentiment is from Label something, stamped twice, punched out, and the oval centre of one cut out and raised over the other. Pearls add a touch of glamour.
I hope you find some inspiration for your own creations.
BaRb


Sunday 12 January 2014

Fisherman's Canvas

Hello

Is there a Male in your life who loves to fish?  I have a couple of those!!  A canvas is a great way to show off some of those fantastic fishing catches!  "I caught a fish this Big! ......................."

Here is another Canvas I have created - I guess you can say it is a Multi Media Canvas...


For the background, I stamped the Journal Entry Stampin Up stamp all over tissue paper, which I then crumpled and adhered to my canvas using impasto gel.  I then randomly painted the canvas with black gesso.  


I heat embossed The "Gone Fishing" chipboard with a couple of different colours and added two Trout Brads.  With the same embossing powder I added small sections all over the canvas to tie it all in.


Using twine, fishing line, charms and a sinker (From my Husband's Shed) I created an embellishment for the bottom corner.


I hot glued the fishing lure (yes I did check that this was not one of his favourites!!) onto the canvas.  The lure was where I actually chose the colours for my canvas from.  I wanted it to appear murky like a creek or a river where you would go fishing.  The stamped images were from a couple of different stamps sets from Darkroom Door and Stampin Up.  These images were all heat embossed with black embossing powder.

Anchors, ropes, compasses, speed boats and of course you can't forget the camping chair to sit on!

Happy fishing - and crafting
Shell
xox

Christmas Cards, Tags etc

Hi,

Well, the bells have all jingled and the gifts have all been delivered for Christmas 2013 - but I just realised I had not shown you the Cards and Tags I had made using leftover products from the Advent Calendar I made for Wild About Scrap.







Some of the above have been featured on Wild About Scrap's Blog - with instructions and a list of products used on each.  I basically used leftover papers and paint and added Kaisercraft and Dusty Attic wooden and chipboard embellishments - reindeer, trees and holly and also used some of the Tim Holtz Dies to create these Tags and Cards.  Sorry they are a bit late for Christmas - early ideas for Christmas 2014 perhaps?!?

Thanks for looking
Shell
xox

Button Heart Canvas

Hello, how's things?

Buttons, buttons everywhere...  Are you like me and have a stash of buttons - all different shapes, sizes and colours??  I remember when I was a little girl at school there was a saying - "Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!!  (Heard that one before haven't you?!?)  Anyway, one of my little school friends changed it and said - "Find a button, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!"   So, every button I saw from then on - I picked up - okay, maybe this is where my collection started.....

Today we have a project from our  "Guest Designer" - Riss.  This is one her fantastic creations - a Heart Canvas - made using buttons.





Looks fantastic - doesn't it!?!  Love the different shapes, sizes and colours used here!  Notice the lady beetles in there? 

This is one of those projects that the longer you look at it - the more things you seem to see!!
We will be featuring more of Riss's Crafty Creations.

Make a button creation today!
Shell
xox

Saturday 11 January 2014

Melted Crayon Canvas

Hello,

Have you ever melted a crayon??  This melted crayon technique is really amazing to watch!! Riss created this canvas after seeing one her cousin had made - it was shown on a television show - (I think "Better Homes and Gardens"???)




Great isn't it!  First Riss laid out her crayons in the colour pattern she liked - then used a hot glue to glue them into place.  Then, very carefully as the wax from the crayons can get very hot as it melts - she melted it with a heat gun.  As you are controlling the gun you can decide how much or how little you melt the crayon!!

Cool technique huh!
See you again soon,
Shell
xox


Multi Media Canvas

Hello Multi Media Lovers!

I happened across (as you do!) a blog from an unbelievably creative artist - Finnabair...  If you have not seen any of her creations - you need, yes I said need to check out her blog (I have put a link to her blog to the right).  I was so inspired - I just had to make a Multi Media Canvas of my own...


The piece I based my theme on for my canvas was the chipboard dressing table/duchess.  It inspired me to create a little girl's room - as if I was looking into the room -  through the open curtains. 













I created this Multi Media Canvas for an 11th Birthday Present.  If you look closely you can see that I have used many, many different types of goodies.  I raided my Husband's shed and found lots of things there, raided my buttons and all my little bits and pieces of things - I have even counted some of the elements to make sure there was 11 of each i.e. 11 butterflies, 11 dragonflies, 11 hearts, 11 stars, 11 Lady Beetles etc, as well as using a chandelier, a starfish, an angel, a bird, an owl, flowers - so, so many things....

First you prepare your canvas (gesso), then start adding all of your goodies - time consuming but sooo much fun!  Then you coat it all in gesso again to prepare it for whatever (paint/spray...) type medium you will be colouring your canvas with, then colour away!  I used watered down acrylic paint for my canvas, which I applied using a fine paintbrush to make sure the paint went into all the little gaps between all those elements!

As you can see - you can use absolutely anything on a Multi Media Canvas - So when you hear people say that they don't throw anything away - this is where they use it!!.  I have created a couple of other canvases and I will show them to you soon.

Happy Creating
Shell
xox  

























BaRb'n'ShEll Creations - Online Store reminder

Hi,

Just thought I would quickly make a post with a reminder on how to find our online Store...




You can click on our link to the the right or

go to

www.thehandcraftedshop.com


Once you get there, click on Stores and scroll until you find us -

BaRb'n'ShEll Creations


(The stores used to be arranged alphabetically, but now they are randomly arranged - so please keep looking until you find us - more and more stores are being added all the time - so many crafty people out there!!)

Happy Shopping,
BaRb and ShEll
xox


Tuesday 7 January 2014

Mini Album - All Male - Birthday

Morning,

Male Albums can be a little bit tricky for some - I think if you just keep them fairly simple you can't go too wrong.....

BaRb gave me 3 sheets of "Male" oriented cardstock embellishments from a magazine so I decided to make a mini album.


I created the album itself with my Zutter, using packaging for the front and back cover, and used black pages.


 I raided my paper leftovers to cover the pages with - you may recognise some of the colours from my Mini Travel Album...

When using the cardstock embellishments I tried to group them as a set i.e. the ones I used on this page are all nautical themed and I then stamped more sea images to continue the theme on the pages a bit more.




No. 1 - Best in the world!



I Like these ones - "Shed - by Appointment only and Pottering in Progress - do not disturb".  How many males in your life have a shed??



"Pale Male"



Travel Themed.


So I could keep the Album a bit more general, I placed the specific i.e. father, brother, son, football hero etc cardstock embellishments in a zip lock bag in the back of the album.


The back cover.

I chose the colours of the papers to match with the embellishments - reds and blues are always very safe for male colours.  I will be putting this album on our Shop - so if you live in Australia and would like to purchase this album - please link through to our Online Store.

Have a great day
Shell
xox