A Couple of Keyrings

Hi there, hope you all had a great weekend :)

Do you remember the Coffee coasters I decorated last year? Well I bought a couple of  MDF tag shapes at the same time as the coasters and I thought I'd turn them into key-rings and share them with you today :)

They are quite large tags so probably not really the sort of key-ring you want to carry around with you all the time but I knew we needed a new one for our conservatory door so I naturally got out Altenews Garden Grow stamp set for one of them...

As with the coasters, I have painted the raw MDF with a few coats of chalk paint and 

sanded to a smooth finish before stamping the three plants onto the tag. I then made 

a negative mask for each plant pot with post it note paper so I could sponge ink

 onto them for some colour. 

I find dye ink is the best for this and the colours naturally soften as they sink

 into the chalky surface so you may need a few applications to get a stronger colour.

Yes I did make masks for the large leaves in the blue pot, quite a bit of scissor work but worth it in the end... 

for the smaller leaves and flowers I used a cotton bud to pick up ink and apply it :)

For the second key ring I chose a regal looking cat from MFT's Catitude stamp set and set about making a few negative masks so I could turn her into a tabby.... the very simplistic shapes match the whimsy style of image.

 I drew in a crown and added some extra images around the edge from various other cat 

stamp sets...some are quite subtle and don't show well in the photo 

These were great fun to make and are great gifts too with the possibility to personalise them for the recipient. 

To make them more robust I recommend a couple of coats of Matt Mod Podge to help 

protect them from knocks and scratches!!

  

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x

Coffee Coasters

Hello crafters :)

I'm always thinking of ways to use my stamps for different types of projects so when I bought the Coffee Love stamp set by Altenew recently I knew just what I wanted to make ;)

I bought a couple of MDF coasters at a local craft show a few weekends ago and painted them with two shades of chalk paint so I could distress the edges with some fine sandpaper then I set about stamping out my coffee design....

I used Versafine Onyx black ink to stamp my images and text, it needed stamping twice to make the black nice and intense but then you have to give it a good few hours to dry before adding the colour.

To add colour to the images I made a negative mask with a post it note and then sponged colour in from the left side to give intense shadow one side and highlights to the right.... I think less is more when it comes to adding the colour. The espresso pot is coloured using a grey Versafine ink, I used the same ink to stamp the coffee beans around the edge too :)

The retro coffee pot is coloured using Hero Arts Pool ink in the same way I described above. To make them durable for your coffee cups and mugs, the coasters will need a coat of varnish.... I left mine a full 48 hours before attempting to do this so the ink had time to dry fully. 

These are intended to fit in nicely with the colour scheme of our lounge..... when we finely get round to decorating it!! Haha.... hopefully before Christmas.... but they would make great gifts too :)

I hope you like them and feel inspired to use your stamps for house decor projects too... here are the fabulous sets I used..

                                 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Jenny x