Sue Wilson

Tulips

I suddenly realised today how close we are to the end of March – hasn’t time flown? It only seems yesterday that we were celebrating the New Year, and we are now celebrating the appearance (probably) of Spring. I love the flowers which are now starting to appear – the daffodils in full bloom, then we have the Bluebells to look forward to. We have loads of bluebells covering the gardens around here, and a carpet of blue is definitely something worth seeing.

For this card, I have used inspiration from the Altenew challenge for March with the gorgeous inspiration photo full of colour, the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge of ‘Anything Goes’, and Make My Monday Challenge with the theme of ‘white embossing’.

When I looked at the inspiration photo, I thought of my Tulip stamp and die set, but I didn’t quite know where I was going with it. I stamped approximately 16 full tulip heads in black Versafine, and embossed with clear embossing powder. I didn’t want a thick outer line, which is why I used the Versafine, but just something to outline the flowers and differentiate them from the background. I also stamped and embossed the stems, all of the variety in the stamp set, just in case I wanted them.

I wanted to water-colour again, so took my Derwent Inktense pencils and had a play. I did some flowers all in one colour, then added a darker colour, merging the colours together. I know that tulips are usually a single colour, but my  variety of tulips are a mixture of two, if not three colours! I used the three coloured pencils in the photo above – Tangerine, Sun Yellow, and Poppy Red. The pencils certainly do pack a whole load of ink and I really, really enjoyed playing with them.

I then cut out the whole bunch of flower heads with the matching die set. I must admit, it took a bit of manoeuvring to get the dies to sit just right around the flower heads – some cut off to one side, but I think I finally got the hang of it.

Once I had the flower heads and stems, I started with put them onto a 7 inch square card base. I started laying the flowers down, added the stems, removed the stems, re-arranged the flowers – this process took me approximately 20 minutes, until I was happy. I decided not to use the stems, and arranged the flowers into a shape which slightly resembles a heart. Can you see it? Is it just my imagination?

For the background, I wanted to add some interest, so used my Sue Wilson A4 embossing folder ‘Checkboard’. This is a dimensional embossing folder, called a ‘PinPoint’ embossing folder, and gives an impression of a trellis. I know that tulips don’t climb trellis’s – but artistic license is certainly used whilst making this card. I embossed white card, and added straight to the card base, re-arranging my flowers yet again, and sticking them down using foam pads.

Now for the sentiment. I didn’t have a whole row to place a long sentiment, so used two of the ones provided in the tulip stamp set, and cut them out with my Stampin Up ‘Bunch of Banners’ framelits, putting one on the top left, and the other part on the bottom right. That way I thought the eye would be drawn across the whole card.

Quite a simple card, but it took a lot of fiddling around – colouring, die cutting, arranging. All good fun.

 

 

Pink, Purple, yellow

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For this card, I was inspired by two challenges. The first was Paper Play Sketches with the theme of yellow, purple, and pink, and the second was from Cardz 4 Galz with the theme of pink. I decided to go back my roots and use a lot of die cutting and embossing.

The base card is 8 inches square, with a slightly smaller purple layer, cut with my Sue Wilson stitched square dies, and embossed with Tattered Lace ‘Lily Spray’ embossing folder. The purple and pink card is from Creative Expressions, but the yellow is a textured card from my stash – no clue where I got that from!

I used the Sue Wilson Noble Dies ‘Ornate Pierced Design’ to cut the pink portion of the card, in-laying the lacy layer for interest. On top I used the next embossing layer, and cut the smallest die from that set for my sentiment, which I decided to do in yellow, to match the flowers.

I was trying to decide which flowers I wanted to use, so turned to Sue Wilson yet again. I used the Finishing Touches ‘Delightful Daisies’ cut all four of them out, and then added them to my card. The photgraph was taken with sunshine streaming through the sindow, but it does show the embossing and flower dimesnion quite nicely, I think.

As I didn’t want to add ribbon to an already ornate card, I then used the embossing strip folder from the same tattered Lace pack and placed my flowers underneath that strip. I left the flowers unstuck at the top, so they add some movement to the card.

The sentiment is from Heartfelt Creations ‘Timeless Sentiments’ which I stamped in Catherine Pooler ‘Flirty Fuchsia’.

I did enjoy doing a virtually completely die cut and embossed card, and used the tattered Lace folders for the first time – even though I’ve probably had them for a couple of years! The embossing folder set has an 8 inch folder, two strip folders which are 2 inches wide, and a corner folder. It also comes with matching stamps and dies for the flowers and other elements,

Before I became more comfortable with stamping – and before I had my Misti – I very rarely did any stamping. I found I couldn’t really get the hang of it, something always went wrong – whether that was a blurry image, an incomplete image, or I smudged everything. The main thing I learnt was that I had to use the correct inks for the correct card, and the technique of actaully stamping was then easier.

As for die-cutting, I am sure I am not alone in saying I have more than one machine. I have several. Well – at least five. All different, and bought for different reasons over the years. The main machine I use is the Big Shot Express which is on my desk. I use this all the time, my main machine. As it is electronic, it is so easy to use. I tend to send my dies one way then bring them back – I don’t have to stand up, then!

As this is only for dies which are 6 inches or less, I also have my Big Shot Pro. The Beast. He is sitting on a table my sister altered to make it ‘shabby chic’ for me at Christmas. He is the one I use to cut anything bigger than 6 inches, and to emboss with my A4 embossing folders. He is heavy, and huge – but love it. So gald I now have a table for him, as he was taking far too much room up on my desk.

I enjoy particpating in challenges, as I use them for inspiration. that isnpiration also leads me to try different techniques, but still I am able to use a lot of the products I have bought over the years, and sometimes even mix and match together. The cards I make go to my firends, but mainly go to the charity for them to sell. So – any excuse to make cards, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colour challenge

I was beginning to panic yesterday, as I saw one of the challenges I wanted to enter was closing – and I hadn’t even started my card! The challenge is from ‘Just US Girls’ and has the theme of using three colours – pink, purple, and grey. I had an idea in my head, and just didn’t get round to doing it. Until yesterday.

I was using a grey ‘Narwhal’ card from Lawn Fawn, which I had bought from Sevens Hills Crafts, and thought that would be a good base for my card. I was going to use the unicorns from the Avery Elle stamp and matching die set ‘Pegasus Duo’, and I wanted to make a shaker card. I haven’t had much luck with shaker cards, but I still keep persevering, and having a go. I look at quite a few videos on YouTube – and usually still get it wrong!

This time, I stamped the unicorns, embossed the outline in black, coloured them in with my Zig pens, die cut them, and then planned to have them on the outside of the shaker shape, with clouds and stars from the same set – then I changed my mind. As always!

I cut a heart-shaped aperture in white card with my Sue Wilson fillable die ‘Fluttering Hearts’, added a piece of acetate then added two layers of white foam, raising the white card enough to add sequins and glass beads. This is where I usually go wrong – I forget the acetate. This time, I kept concentration enough to remember. Yay!

Once I layered them together, I searched my sequin and bead stash for colours of sequins with the purple and pink theme. I found a few, but they were mixed with other sequins. How much time did it take me to get enough out of the pile that I wanted? You don’t really want to know….honest.

I placed them in the aperture behind the acetate – then how do you add the base card so it is square, and the beads don’t fall out whilst doing it? I guessed! I tried adding the base grey card with no glue and felt how close to the edge it was, added the glue, then went for it. It worked….!

This is where I decided not to use the unicorns and to stamp the three little stars around the aperture instead. I can hear you now – what if it goes wrong? What if the stars don’t stamp correctly, what if I make a mess of it? I know, I know. But I did it anyway.

You could probably hear my squeal of delight across the whole of Chesterfield.

I wanted a sentiment, and I wanted it in purple, as I had just realised that the purple I was going to add was on my unicorns – and I wasn’t using them. I used my purple Zig on the sentiment stamp, and stamped it a couple of times with my Misti, on a spare piece of card, as I wasn’t brave enough to stamp it directly onto the card. (I can hear you all again, breathing a sigh of relief) I also wanted to have a grey layer underneath the white sentiment strip.

The white sentiment and grey layer were cut out using my Sue Wilson ‘Frames and Tags’ die set, as they layer together quite nicely, and have a stitched inner part. I did consider making the banner slightly raised and wavy, but kept it flat to the card, feeling that the shaker element added enough interest.

I am very, very pleased with the way this shaker card turned out. There are a few tweeks I want to make to future attempts, but all-in-all I had fun. Isn’t that the name of the game? I’m having LOADSA fun playing with it.

 

 

Flowers and colour throwdown

I have quite a bit of time to play this weekend, and I am enjoying every minute of it. There are a few challenges about to close, so I thought I would combine two challenges with this card. The ‘Colour Throwdown’ and ‘Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge’.

The first challenge is to use the colours green, black and gold, and the second challenge was to use hand-made flowers. When I want to use gold, I see cards as being quite decadent, and sumptuous, and then thought how I could incorporate flowers and decadence.

I returned to my roots, by using quite a few of my Sue Wilson dies. I have a few of her flower sets, and wanted a solid flower for this card. I also spied my Corner Garden from Stampin Up – I haven’t used that for a while.

I started with a brown Kraft base card of 8” square, used my Sue Wilson stitched squares for the layers of black, green, then black again. I used my embossing buddy over the smallest square, and stamped the ‘Corner Garden’ stamp with my Ranger Perfect Medium, using a Cosmic Shimmer ‘Detail Gold’ and heat embossed the image. The image didn’t come all the way across the bottom of that square, so I decided to use my flowers to cover the blank area to the bottom left. I usually put my flowers on the bottom right corner, so this is a little change for me.

To get the flowers to match the gold of the embossing powder, I covered a piece of black card with ‘Be Creative’ double sided sticky tape, added the same gold embossing powder, and heat set it. I then cut out several sizes of the flowers from ‘Perfect Peony complete Petals’, so I could put several layers on the flowers. I curled the edges of the petals slightly, and layered them together to create three flowers. I like the way the embossing with this tape isn’t completely smooth, I think the added texture gives some more interesting detail to the flowers. I didn’t put anything in the middle of the flowers as I couldn’t think of anything which would work, so left them as is.

I then used the remainder of the gold embossed black card to cut out the leaves from the matching set ‘Perfect Peony Open Petals’. I didn’t want the leaves solid, as I felt it would cover too much of the base card, so only used the outline dies.

I added the flowers and the leaves to the card with Pinflair Glue gel, so I could manipulate their position, and insert the leaves where I wanted them. I did move them around that corner a few times until I was happy with the placement of them.

The sentiment is from ‘Paperartsy’ and is part of a guest designer collection. The set has a number not a name – ELB05 – is has 6 sentiments relating to flowers, some of the quotes from William Blake, and Henri Matisse. I chose the one I used as it fit the open space perfectly. I used my Perfect Medium again, and the same gold embossing powder.

I was nervous to stamp it, but I stamped it using my Misti, before I added the flowers – just in case. I find the Misti has made me use stamps more than I ever have as I can just go over the image again and again if it hasn’t stamped well.

I was tempted to use some dew drops, some other embellishments – but I restrained myself, and am overall liking what it came out like. I liked the clean lines of the card base and the layers, leaving the eye to be drawn to the flowers, stamp and sentiment.

It felt good to get back to my die-cutting roots with the Sue Wilson dies, and also incorporating some newer stamp sets from Stampin Up and Paperartsy. As always – loving embossing!

 

 

 

 

 

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…..