Month: March 2017

Simple sketch

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I made this card to enter the ‘Clean and Simple colours and sketch’ challenge. I try to do clean and simple frequently, but then always add more, then more, so this was certainly a challenge for me. I am not sure about the background to the circle on this one, but I feel even if we are unsure, or maybe not quite feeling the love from a card we have made, then still publish. I like discussions – often with myself! – about what could be changed or tried.

As I had recently joined a challenge using stencils – and found I had quite a few – I chose the Leonie Pujol ‘Friend’ stencil set. This set comes with varying sizes of the word ‘friend’ to act as a mask, and also comes with the stencil which has the same sizes of the word. She has a whole range of words which can be used quite easily.

I cut a circle out of some paper, and attached that to my card with Crafters Companion ‘Stick and Spray’, a repositionable adhesive – ideal for using masks and stencils. However, maybe I did something wrong, but I did have some adhesive left on my card in the word ‘friend’ and around the outside where I had stuck my outer mask – thankfully, my trusty Creative Expressions adhesive eraser came into play…..

After placing the stencil and mask down, I used Catherine Pooler ‘Lovely Notes’ and ‘Lovely Flowers’ stamp sets in the Catherine Pooler inks – Grass Skirt and Flirty Fuchsia. These little stamp sets are very versatile, and ideal for adding small details. There are lots of stamps in these small sets, with lost of small elements for filling in very small spaces. Hmmmmm – probably going to play more with those stamps today………..

Once the stamping had been done, I needed to create a background to the word ‘friend’, so it showed up more. There was too much white around the word and it didn’t show up very well. So – were the flowers I inked dry? Could I sponge over the top of them? Would they smudge? I didn’t know – so had a go…….

I used a heat tool anyway for a few seconds, just in case. Then I used Altenew ‘Frayed Leaf’ ink and started to blend into the circle. It started to smudge. So – I then decided to just blot into the circle with that same colour, with my Ranger ink blending tool – went quite well, I think. However, see my thought process below for how simple this could be to rectify.

I stamped a sentiment from the same ‘Lovely Flowers’ stamp set in the Flirty Fuchsia ink, mixing two of the wording options together, which I think worked well with the friend word inside the circle. I cut the sentiment out with my Sue Wilson banner die cut set, and raised that on foam pads. The only dimension I added – quite a feat for me – and added that to a green card base.

Some thoughts throughout the process:

The ‘stick and spray’ does leave residue behind, so don’t put your work upside down on your craft table until you have either washed the surface of your table, or have used an adhesive remover where the stencil has been. I’m going to have a look at their web site to see if I did something wrong, or if this is the way it is!

The Catherine Pooler inks are absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. They are vibrant, they cover the stamp beautifully – even big background stamps – and are a joy to work with. But – they do stay wet for a while……….if you are planning on blending over the top of inking – then wait…..and wait…..and wait….just to be sure. Alternatively – blend the background first. I know, you were saying that before. I didn’t hear you!!

The stencils are also very, very good. There are a lot of options with sizes in each pack, and I find they are good quality, and easily cleaned.

So – I have finished my thinking for this card and this post. If anyone has any hints and tips about using sticky stuff, feel free to contact me. I am always looking out for improvements and ideas…..

Using a stencil for vintage

I’ve just a fun and quick time making this card. The inspiration is from 2 challenge sites that I have entered this card into – ‘Just Us Girls’ with a challenge to use stencils, and ‘Creates and Makes’ to have an optional vintage theme. My initial thoughts were that I had so many stencils, where do I start? I also have stencils I have never used before. I viewed the examples from the design teams, and the one made by Chris on ‘Just Us Girls’ caught me eye. It brought to mind my Tim Holtz stencils, as Chris had made some tags, and Tim is famous for his tags.

So I went to my stencil drawer, looked through my Tim Holtz stencils, and found the ‘Doily’ stencil. This is a lovely lacy/floral design, which I thought would add some great detail to the background. I was going to use a texture paste, but thought the design was so cute and floral that I just went with my distress inks.

I wanted to create a vintage and aged look so went through my stencil with Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain, moving the stencil about three times around my 7×7 inch piece of card. I liked that you can’t see where I moved it each time, which shows how detailed and delicate the design is.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to put something on top. I was thinking some flowers, a sentiment, how would I matt and layer it without losing the stencil detail on the back. Again, looking around my craft table, (my table is never tidy and neat) and my eyes fell upon my IndigoBlu stamp set – Word Block #1 – and decided to use that set. My only decision here was which words to use out of the 6 available in the set.

I went with ‘Faith, Hope, Love, Thanks’ as you can see, leaving out ‘Celebrate’ and ‘Beauty’. For these, I stamped them in my Ranger Perfect Medium, and used a Cosmic Shimmer Dark Bronze Lustre embossing powder. Once they were embossed, I thought the colour wouldn’t really match, and was ready to try another colour, when I decided to shade the squares with the same two distress inks I had used on the background.

These two inks took away the glare of the white card and matched the background well, but I still inked the edge of these with the darker ink – Walnut stain – so they stood out as little more from the background. This meant I also didn’t have to use a piece of card as another layer.

Then how to add them so they were even and square in the card base…..I used a square Sue Wilson stitched edge die that was 6 inches square, stuck it to the background centrally, and then just stuck the squares in the corners…..talk about thinking outside the box!

I added this onto a brown/Kraft 8 inch square card, and liked the whole monochrome and vintage effect it gave. I was thinking of adding some embellishments of some sort, but decided to leave it as it was. To say the card quite quick and easy to make, I do like the overall effect it has given. Even using the brown inks doesn’t make it drab at all, and I have tried to take a photograph showing how shiny the embossing powder is.

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Ink and sketch

I have waited a few weeks to play with the new additions to my crafty stash. I like Lawn Fawn, and I also like the way a lot of their dies co-ordinate with each other – the same curves, same width of die, and the possibilities for using them individually or together.

My usual crafting style has changed – I don’t have a ‘usual’ style now. I’ll have a go at anything – as you can see from my previous posts.

On this particular card, I saw the sketch from ‘Just add ink’ and immediately thought of my Lawn Fawn sets which included the houses and the road. I was going to add some trees behind the houses, but decided against it.

I used a base of the water colour card from Crafters Companion, and inked my sky and my grass. I added some water to the card to make the ink spread a little easier – I don’t have the patience to wait and wait and ink and ink. I found adding just a little water made the inks spread easier and faster. I used Tim Holtz distress inks – three blues, and three greens for the grass from Altenew. Both of those inks are an absolute pleasure to work with – whatever the crafting you are doing. They blend well, and are very forgiving. I splashed some water onto the background for a more mottle defect, but found the water colour card had a texture to it which I also liked, so left it possible to see that texture through the inks.

The houses were from Lawn fawn ‘Little Town Border’ and the road was a ‘Road Border’ lawn cut. This die has the middle holes cut into it, and I added some yellow card hind it from the accompanying die to create a more dimensional road with a middle line. Thinking on it now – why did I use yellow? Our middle lines are white…….oh well! Creative license!

The sentiment was stamped combining two sentiments from Altenew ‘Birch Land’ stamp set, curving it slightly as I didn’t want any straight lines. I inked that piece up with some distress inks, but in hindsight, I’m not sure it that works or not……

I added the water colour card to a green layer, then a white top folding base card.

Green and copper

For todays cards, I had a little play with my water-colour paints and tried out different ways of using them with a stamped image. The inspiration for these cards came from the Chocolate Baroque challenge, and one of their stamps I have recently purchased.

The stamp is ‘Rose Script’ and I loved the simplicity of the design, incorporating its own background with the script behind the rose, and the sentiments that come with the stamp set are going to be used a lot in my crafting – I can tell!

The challenge was a colour swatch of the greens, and one metallic element – copper. I realised that the only copper item I possessed was an embossing powder from Cosmic Shimmer, so I that’s where I started. Do I emboss the stamp? Do I emboss the sentiment? How about an embossed edging to the card? As I was in a conundrum – I decided to do them all….in conjunction with some water colouring.

I know, I just started to play with water colouring – and loving it. It may not be technically correct, it may not be what is taught in class rooms around the world – but in my little personal universe (I call it the Loopylooverse) – I’m enjoying playing and creating.

The darkest coloured card I started by embossing the stamped image in copper, wet down the whole piece of card, and just swept my water-colour greens across the image. I liked how some of the colours pooled within some parts of the embossed image, especially on the leaves, and decided to let it dry as it was.

Another piece of water-colour card and I embossed the stamp in clear embossing powder, and again swept the colours across the image. The embossing resisted the water-colours, highlighting the stamp. I added sentiment in the copper embossing powder, and also edged the piece in the ‘Be Creative’ double-sided sticky tape (again) added embossing powder, heat setting it, which created another dimension on the card.

The third card was a little mistake – but I actually like it. I wet the card, swept my colours over it, dried it with my heat tool, then stamped over that with my Ranger perfect Medium. I couldn’t see the stamp, so I wet the card again, and took most of the colour away, and it left the stamped image with an outline in the three different greens.

As I had used quite a bit of colour with those three cards, I decided to do a fourth (I had cut my A4 water colour card into four pieces) quite plain and simple. I stamped the image and embossed in copper. I used a small amount of each of the three green colours to a different part of the image, but I wanted most of it clean. The darkest green is on the stem, then the next two greens are on three of the leaves. That’s it. I put it down and refused to add any further detail, as occasionally I don’t know when to stop!

I used Crafters Companion water colour card, Gansai Tambi water colours, Chocolate Baroque stamp set – ‘Rose Script’, Cosmic Shimmer copper embossing powder.

Embossing background

Looking around today for inspiration for making a card, so went to the Paper Playful web site. This site lists a range of challenges for crafters. They post a list every day, so there are certainly quite a few to choose from.

The inspiration for this card came from two challenges – Simon Says Stamp and Cardz4galz. The challenge from Simon Says Stamp was to create a background, and the second challenge was to use embossing powder.

My idea on the background was to create a dimensional background. I used the MFT Fancy Flowers stamps and coordinating dies. First stamping the images with Ranger Perfect Medium clear stamp pad, and adding my ‘Wow’ embossing powder, heat setting it, then using the matching die set to cut them out. I wanted a tonal and quite monochromatic look to my card, with added bling with the ‘Wow’ embossing powder.

For the central element, I cut a square of the same card, and ran ‘Be Creative’ double sided sticky tape around the edges, added the same embossing powder, and again heat set it. This tape is my tape of choice for matting and layering my cards, as I find it quite strong, and the added bonus is that you can use embossing powders to it and heat it up. I don’t know if there are any other sticky tapes around that do that, but I find it helps to create cards which have the edging the same colour as other elements on the card.

The sentiment is from a ‘Chocolate Baroque’ stamp set called Rose Script, and I am sure I will be using the main stamps on that sheet in the very near future. The embossing powder for the sentiment is from Creative Expressions – detail silver, as I thought the Wow powder had a tint of silver and I wanted it to match. I did think of gold or bronze, but decided they would be too different to the rest of the card.

The way I put this card together was to use a base craft card 6 inches square, almost as though there is earth beneath the flowers. I wanted the flowers as the background, and to be dimensional, adding some flat with glue, some with one layer of foam pads, and some with two layers of foam pads. I wanted the flowers to look as though they were bursting from the base card, almost pushing the sentiment forward.

I know most backgrounds are quite flat when it comes to cards, and are mostly stamped images, but I thought I would make a quirky twist to the usual way of doing things.

I have used both of my favourite embossing powders for this card ‘Wow’ and ‘Creative Expressions’. The glittery embossing certainly adds the bling, and the detail the silver powder brings out – especially with words – is ideal.

Lotus layering

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On arriving home from work I thought I would have a little focused play with a set of layering dies. I have used them before, but decided to play a little more. The inspiration for this card came from another challenge – Make my Monday weekly craft challenge. The challenge is to use at least three of the colours of the rainbow listed – red, orange, yellow, green, blue indigo, violet.

I decided to go with blue flowers, and only used two layers of the lotus stamps, along with green for the leaves. I wanted them to hang over the edge of the white card, as some flowers do seem to go wild (not lotus flowers, I know, but here is my creative license). I was wondering what to do with the other colours, as I didn’t want to create a lot to go with the flowers, and was considering stamping the sentiment in one of the other colours, then my eyes fell upon a little bee that I had stamped and coloured for another project. I thought the little bee could add the yellow, and add a little quirkiness to the card. Therefore, I have used blue, green and yellow. Hey presto. Sorted.

Then to decide what sentiment, in what colour. Should I try another of the colours? How do I tie it all in? Again – as I don’t really clear my crafting desk away completely (who does?) – I saw this sentiment from the Altenew set of the same name. I decided to use it as the challenge had inspired me to create the card, and decided to stamp it in blue. The blue I used was actually a mix of two blues, both from Catherine pooler – Something Borrowed and Fiesta Blue. Each of them didn’t work alone, but when I inked with one, then the other it seemed to tie in quite nicely, I thought. Then a blue base card.

Compared to my previous couple of days crafting with mixed media, very little adrenaline, no fear, just all seemed to work.

Messy playing

Oh my goodness. I have never, ever played like I played when making this canvas. I loved the messiness, the sheer fright that I would do something wrong. Who says that crafting doesn’t involve adrenaline? Sheer and utter fear. What if I messed it up? Did it matter if I messed it up? Who cares? Have fun. Play. Enjoy – and I certainly did.

I wanted to take myself into a new arena. For some reason, mixed media hasn’t been attractive to me. I usually prefer a more focused, planned, and tidy sort of card making. Always knowing the basics of what I was doing, even though many things changed during the course of making cards. But with this – no clue where it was going…

As most of us do, I had many items I have never used, I just bought them because we ‘had’ to have them – and there they were, sitting in my cupboards and drawers. They didn’t even talk to me! How very ignorant of them.

Then – I was searching through YouTube, saw an Indigo Blu video of Mike Deakin making – very easily and simply – some mixed media canvas. He made it look soooooo easy. It got me thinking – I have some 6 x 6 canvas, some gesso, plenty of small MDF and other items I can stick on. I had a search through my stock – hey presto – loads of stuff I can play with.

So – girded my loins, straightened my spine – and got down to playing. I covered the canvas with a layer of white gesso, used texture paste. Covered in black gesso. Embellishments were stuck on, then covered with black gesso. I thought it looked good just in plain black. The next bit is where the fear kicked in….added some colour. Looked rubbish. Let it dry. Looked rubbish. Added more white and it looked better toned down slightly. Scraped some black gesso everywhere in small slight strokes of a brush and it looked a bit better.

This is when my stubbornness and determination went into overdrive. I kept going. Added some Gansai Tambi gold, then more gold, then toned it down again. Added some spritz of my cosmic shimmer sprays. Toned it down again. Then more fear kicked in – had I ruined it? What do I do now? Is it done? Do I keep going? When do I know it’s finished? Oh my goodness…….

Eventually, after three days of playing, waiting for drying, working, sleeping, playing again – I decided I was done.

I have no idea whether I will do this on a regular basis, as I am a creature of habit – but you never know!

I am entering this into the ‘crafting while we can’ challenge, and ‘love to create’.

Frustration….

I was having a frustrating day crafting. I’ve been fighting with doing a slider card – like the ‘Octopi my heart’ card from a previous blog posting, and then trying some layered stamping. I couldn’t get anything right. For the slider card I was having trouble getting my bee (die cut shape from a stamp set) to slide around the hive. I tried a number of things to get it to slide – embossing buddy powder, original slider element from MFT, a penny – just wasn’t having any of it.

I moved onto a truck I stamped and cut out, from Stampin Up Tasty Trucks, same thing. truck too big, penny too small, wouldn’t move smoothly. Still sitting on my craft table – at least I didn’t bin it!

So, I moved onto to layered stamping ‘cos I thought I’d cracked the code previously – rubbish. Nothing matched. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Blinking heck was I getting frustrated……….! That almost went into the bin – but I counted to 30 (it took that long to calm down), placed it carefully on my craft table, went to make a cup of coffee, then returned to my craft room.

To cheer myself up, and to get back on the horse – as it were – I turned to my current favourite stamp set. I was sure it would cure my blues, my frustration, and my (almost) tears……and…..it did! Yay!

This stamp set is so easy to work with, items come together quickly, and I made a few variations. I mixed and matched colours from the range I have. Used patterned papers, though sparingly, and just stamped, die cut, stuck things down to my hearts content.

The two backgrounds are from a couple of stamps from Catherine Pooler. I love the candy stripe, and using my Misti, and Catherine’s gorgeous/superb/marvellous inks, it only took a couple of inking and stamping episodes for a perfectly stamped background.

The die cut on the birthday wishes card is one of Tim Holtz steel rule label dies, which I cut in half. I liked the look of the label, but it was too big, so I thought in half it matched the size of the lady well.

I am ending my day so much more happier and in a much better place than 3-4 hours earlier.

No challenges entered this time – just pure fun (in the end, anyway)

Purple Layering Flowers

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I had another try with the layering flowers from Hunkydory. I love this stamp set and have used it a few times, in different ways.

With this one I used three layers, three different shades of purple, and used a masking technique to make it look like the leaves are behind the flowers. I even layered the leaves with the stamping – I may be getting the hang of it!! I don’t even think it matters when they don’t line up perfectly. The effect is just as striking, and gives the stamping a hand drawn/coloured and water colour effect.

Stamping in layers definitely depends on the colours, but even some contrasting colours seem to work well – orange with pink etc. I’ll be producing some more attempts at stamp layering using my other Altenew layering stamps if I play over the weekend. It is definitely worth playing around a little. I find the Altenew inks – which come in packs of four, tone on tone – work well.

The base card of purple is from my stash – no idea what make! Sorry! The white card is from Stampin Up. I like their Whisper White card as it stamps beautifully, it cuts beautifully, and even some watercolouring techniques work quite well.

I added a sentiment in one of the same colours of purple, and a trio of sequins – apparently there should be an odd number……in a triangle fashion…..some psychology there – but not sure what!

I will be entering this card into the Crafting With Dragonflies challenge this week, with a challenge of using purple.

Some Beautiful You

This set of cards I’m not quite sure about………I don’t use a lot of patterned papers in my cards, usually only strips of pattern, and often find I am not happy with the results. I thought I would publish anyway, as I enjoyed making them – but I may make more without a lot of the pattern, sticking to my usual strips of colour/pattern and not layering the whole thing.

The stamp set is from Stampin Up ‘Beautiful You’, and there will be more cards coming up from this set. I find it very versatile, and easy to use, and have made quite a few which I will be giving to my charity to sell.

The lady was stamped onto water-colour card, and then used a technique new to me – reflection stamping. I got the idea – and the know-how – from Jan Brown, a Stampin Up demonstrator, who I follow on YouTube.

The three cards above have the three different outcomes of my first few tries. I really like how they turned out, from quite bold in the main picture, to quite muted in the last picture. The blurry one is because I moved when doing the reflection – but looks good in the water/puddle. Do you agree?

Basically, use a piece of acetate or packaging, stamp the image you want, then flip it and use that stamped image to stamp onto the card/paper. It could be reflected below, above, or either side. As I mentioned, the first image I moved slightly – that acetate is slippery! The second image I pressed down, and the third I really concentrated on keeping it still and pressing all over the inked image.

Once the ink was dry, I coloured with my watercolour brush, creating a puddle effect around the reflection, and added some sequins for some dimension.

I have a thought process of stamping reflection technique – two ladies, hand-in-hand -= another stamp from the same set – watch this space.

I’ll be entering this card into the challenge on Inkspirational. The word prompt is ‘connect’, and I thought that connecting the same stamp with the reflection stamping technique would be a quirky way of meeting the requirements.

loopyloocards