Rare Earth seasonal delicious digis USB

The latest Rare earth delicious digis USB has over 800 digi stamps and covers a range of themes that will keep you busy all year round. It includes animals and insects, Christmas, Easter,  everyday, Halloween, nature and sentiments. The images can be printed to any size and you can use the tools of My Craft Studio Elite to create a variety of effects The designs can be used to make cards, home decor, printing on fabric and so much more. here are some samples I made using some of the designs.

This lovely design of Santa climbing the chimney looks lovely when coloured and makes a wonderful Christmas card for the young at heart.

There are some lovely background designs on the USB. You can print onto coloured card to save on ink. I coloured and decoupaged the penguin and the holly and sentiment are also from the USB.

I coloured and decoupaged the  jolly Santa  and mounted it on some background paper I had created. The sentiment is from the USB.

The deer and foliage is from the USB and it was mounted onto background paper I had made using my stamp collection.

The lovely border is from the USB , as is the Christmas pudding. I used some holographic card to give it some sparkle.

I made this z card with backing paper from the USB and elements cut and coloured from designs on the USB.

This is one of the owls from the animal section. I used one of my Tattered Lace dies for the branches and a variety of different sized circles and dies cut flowers to decorate

I coloured the peacock using alcohol markers and pencil crayons and  added one of the many feathers on the USB.  the backing paper is from one of the Tattered Lace magazines.

This is one of the designs that is based on the dies that Tattered Lace have produced. It was coloured and mounted on a background paper i had made.

The chick is from the Easter collection and is again based on one of the dies.

The Easter lamb is also based on a die.

I like the rabbit shape filled with flowers. it is a little bit different.

I love this little mouse waiting for a kiss under the misteltoe.

The wedding balloon is from the everyday section

The girl paddling is also from the everyday section.

I love pop- up box cards and the images can be used to tell a story. These images are all from the halloween section.

Here is another card made from the characters and background papers from the halloween section

I saw some altered art sardine tins on the internet and decided to have ago. be careful of the sharp edges on the tin if you want to try this.

I printed this design onto transfer paper and ironed it onto a bag and painted it using fabric paints.

Have a pheasant Christmas

I have used the lock-down period to make a start on my Christmas cards. I like the Draw cartoons and because I had a bit of time have been hand colouring the stamped images. Here are a few of them.

Hopefully they will put a smile on somebody`s face.

Seasonal digis

Here is a sneak peek of some of the new digi stamps coming up on the latest Rare earth dvd. There is a good selection of designs.

Altered art bottles

A few months ago I volunteered to do a workshop for a group of our occupational therapists. The workshop was based at Emmaus in Carlton where homeless people are given the support to help them get back on their feet again and part of the project includes them up-cycling and selling second hand items. I choose altered art bottles because it is something I wanted to try and because it fits in with us occupational therapists aiming to see the best in people and supporting them to move on in life. We were giving discarded bottles another lease of life. I have meaning to do a blog on this but am just getting around to it now. Better late than never is my motto.
Altered art bottles is just a posh way of saying that the bottles are being transformed using paints mediums and embellishments.
this first bottle is one I made as a sample before the workshop to give ideas.

I started by covering the bottle with white gesso. I used white because that was what I had in the house. I then added some texture paste over a stencil to give some texture.

A lot of the embellishments were made by sticking together three or four layers of die cut cereals box card. I also tried adding some paper flowers to see how it would work. I also added lace.

I painted in one colour and then added sprays and waxes.

This is another I made using string, buttons, glass pebbles etc.

This bottle commemorates our wedding anniversary- 20 years...

This is the bottle before it was painted.

I used the mixed media face dies by Leonie Pujol to create this character. I layered the die cuts to give them some depth  and used coiled string and buttons for the hair.

I used a key as an ear-ring.

The bottle was fun to create. Unfortunately  I can`t find the photos from the actual workshop at the moment. However I started the face during the workshop and finished it afterwards.

Craft cabin

The Rare Earth Craft Cabin stamps would make lovely cards for any craft enthusiast. They cover the crafts of knitting, quilting, dressmaking and embroidery and include a wide range of stamps you can use for many occasions.

I love making pop up box cards and thought the knitting basket and accessories would look effective.

I used a collage of the stamps to make this card

I made a little tag book using the Tattered Lace Reflections Scallop Label dies.

I added ephemera I had stamped 

and distressed the edges of the pages.

They would be lovely with little pockets.

This is the back of the book.

I stuck the lovely craft suitcase to a quilted background made with the stamps. The colours are a bit wild but fun.

I used the stamps for the backgound and layered some up to make them look as though they are laying around the embroidery hoop.

I made another type of collage card with the dressmaking stamps.

I stamped the quilting squares onto coloured paper and arranged them into this pattern with a button in the middle.

For this card I stamped  the hearts and message onto the card and stitched on the top with embroidery silk. It was quite easy to stitch onto the card.

I love the stitched background and made this card for a keen knitter.

To give this effect I folded cut out circles around squares and placed them together to give this effect. I added a few buttons to the design.

The background for this card is a bit wild. The stamps did not want to do what I wanted ! Anyway, I did not give up and made this crazy card.

I put the knitting in the aperture to make it the focal point.

I loved using these stamps and think they have great potential to be be used in a variety of cards.