Growing in Unity, Day One - You Are Loved

Good Day, Welcome to the first day of my Growing in Unity week, for those of you who don't know me, here's a little introduction;

 My name is Suzi McKenzie, I'm 46 and I live in Aberdeen, Scotland with my hubby Stewart and our 3 cats. I no longer work due to health problems, Fibromyalgia, Diabetes, Anxiety, etc, so Crafting is my therapy and my first true love.

I've been crafting all my life, I love to create Cards, Mixed Media Paintings/Canvases, ATCs, Altered Art, Calenders;  I can also turn my hand to other crafts including cross stitch, crochet,  drawing and painting. 

I have been blogging since 2007, and have been lucky to work on some wonderful design teams since my first guest spot with The Greeting Farm in 2009. 

I discovered Unity Stamp Company in 2010 when I was lucky enough to design for 'Make the Day Special' who were the only sellers of Unity Stamps in the UK.

My style is pretty eclectic, I love bright colours and making cheerful creations, but I have a pretty dark sense of humour, so like to create quirky darker creations too. I love adding texture to my projects and I'm not afraid to try something new, you'll find a few projects on my blog that I'm still not completely happy with, but they are all learning experiences, and help me grow as an artist.

I currently design for Crafty Roo Designs, which has given me the opportunity to see my creations on TV (Hochanda).  I love being able to combine rubberstamping with mixed media pieces aswell as creating cards and other papercrafts.

I'm so excited to be sharing the 'Growing in Unity' experience with you all, and hope you have as much fun reading about how I create my projects, as I've had creating them.

I love social media and how it makes this big world a little smaller, I've been lucky enough to make some wonderful friends though this wonderful online crafty world we live in. I love to share my projects with like minded people, If you'd like to join me on my crafty adventures, please follow me or send me a friend request on any of my links.

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For Today's projects I'm using the gorgeous 'You Are Loved' stamp by Suzi Blu.  I adore anything Suzi Blu creates, so It's a pleasure to work with her images in the gorgeous red rubber that Unity uses.

My first project was a lot of fun to create, I started off with some Lolly (Popsicle) Sticks and glued them together and added three additional sticks to the back for support.

I then used Distress Paints in White and Shades of Pink to colour the Sticks.

Then using Clear Ink and White Embossing Powder I stamped the hearts in the background from the Moments Like These Kit.  I then used Posca Paint Pens to sketch in a field of flowers.

Using Majestic Blue Versafine Ink I stamped my main image.  I then cut her out along with the sentiment.  I used Posca Paint pens to colour my image , along with a grey Faber-Castel Pitt Pen to add some shadows.

To finish this project I punch a couple of holes in the top of the panel i'd created, added Star eyelets and some pink twine.

My second project is a set of three Artist Trading Coins (ATCoins), I used a Two and a Half inch circle punch to punch my Coins out of watercolour paper.  I then used some Distress Crayons mixed with water to add some colour to the coins.

To create my background I used the Heartbeat stamp from the Moments Like These Kit, along with the Hearts of Old background stamp.

I stamped You are Loved three times on white card stock, then cut out just the head and torso of the girl and the sentiment.  I used Distress Markers mixed with water to watercolour the girl and sentiment before gluing them to my ATCoins.

That's all from me for today, I hope you've enjoyed seeing two different ways to used today's focal stamp.  Come back tomorrow for a couple more projects.  Don't forget to leave a comment to be in with a chance of winning a $20 Gift Certificate for the Unity Store.

Have a great day

Bye for now

Suzi

xxx