Guest Designer – Keren Baker

We are so excited to welcome Keren Baker as our October Guest!
Here’s a little bit about her:

I have crafted since I was little, but only really got into stamping after my Mum sent a box of wooden stamps my way containing some embossing powder. After various experiments trying to heat the powder over a toaster (NOT recommended) I bought a heat gun, fell in love with the magic of stamping and embossing and many years later, I’m never happier than when I have ink and stamps by my side (possibly along with a cup of tea and slice of cake too!). I live in Liverpool, England, have 5 kids, a patient husband and work part time freelancing in the craft industry.

Hello everyone! I’m thrilled to be with you today. I adore SugarPea Designs products and really love how they mix and match so perfectly.

With Autumn (as we call it in England) or Fall drawing in, I was thinking about wreaths. I’m in the middle of creating an autumnal one for my front door, but as I was looking at the Cottontail Cuties Stamp Set, I wondered why we don’t create vegetable wreaths! Those gorgeous little stamps in the set needed a starring role, so in combination with the Eucalyptus Wreath Stamp Set I created this fun card.

The wreath in the Eucalyptus Wreath Stamp Set is gorgeous, but I wanted to max the size, so used the individual leaf images in the set to create a larger wreath. I actually curved the stamp slightly on my acrylic block (I love how you can do that!), pressed it well onto the block and then stamped in a grey hybrid ink (Nuvo Metro Grey). I used the grey as I wanted the clover and veg to be the focus and for the wreath to be softly in the background.

I do love fussy cutting; I find it therapeutic, and believe it or not, these leaves were cut out pretty quickly. I added foam pads onto the reverse and then arranged them into a circle (well, it is almost circular!!). My card blank measures 15cm x 15cm.

I then built layers. Rather a lot of them, in fact. I am giving this card in person to a good friend, so didn’t need to worry about the cost of sending in the post or protecting the layers!

Aren’t those layers lovely? I do think they give the card a real wow factor. I then stamped out the rabbit, clover, carrots and tomatoes with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, so I could colour them with alcohol markers. As they’re not large images, the colouring is done really quickly. Now I just had to add foam pads behind them all and build the layers. I put clover down on top of the eucalyptus leaf wreath and just randomly added the veg, finishing with the cutie rabbit.

Adding the sentiment was the last job, along with lots of little white gel pen details. I really love to add to love white dots and dashes as I feel it helps bring the design to life. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first guest designer project. I can’t wait to be back with you with some more ideas!

Keren x

Cottontail Cuties Stamp Set 

Eucalyptus Wreath Stamp Set