Elephant

Back to stamping with Elusive Images elephant stamps. This was part of a challenge from last year with the theme of "Exotic Colours". The background was achieved with a small elephant stamp which was stamped and embossed in a random nature using bright coloured embossing powders. The ornamentation on the elephant's cover were achieved using Viva Pearl Pens. The background mat for the larger elephant was made by painting various colours of Viva Precious Metal paint onto black card and cutting to the correct size when dry. The large elephant was stamped and embossed in gold on black card and cut out. The precious metal paints were used again to colour in the elephant's cover. A matting layer of gold mirror card was used between the background and the metallic painted sheet to help give dimension to the card and the elephant was mounted to the card with foam pads to give more depth.

Kimono 2

You liked my first kimono card so I thought I would share another one. This one is more basic than the first card as I used pre-printed backgrounds. I think they were from a Crafter's Companion CD ROM - the Oriental one. I printed it out in 2 different tones of blue and used these to create layers on the white A5 card. There is a small piece of "feathered" friendly plastic as an embellishment which was made by cutting narrow strips of various colours, laying them side by side and heating to make them soft. A comb was dragged through one way and then the other, like doing feathered icing on a cake. Once cool the plastic was trimmed to the required shape. The hand folded kimono, which was lined with a separate piece of paper, was then mounted on the front. Gold thread and some oriental looking beads were added to the spine for a final flourish.

Oriental Lady

Loads of different stamping going on here. The background card was created using a stamp on a Judikins stamp cube. The colours for this were applied from brush pens to give images stamped in more than one colour. A water brush was used to draw the colour in from the outside of the flower to tint the petals. Another stamp from a different cube provided the bamboo leaf image which was stamped and embossed. The lady was created from a stamp from the Stamp Man which was stamped, embossed and coloured with Twinkling H2Os.

Fantasy World

Sometimes you just have to escape planet earth and go wandering around the universe. Here is a very bold piece of art showing the beauty of a planet far away! Notice the 3 moons (one half hidden by a mountain). These were made by heating a circular piece of metal and placing it against the wax that was already there from creating the sky. It was then carefully lifted away to remove some of the wax and leave the lighter circular impression. As for the spiral structures around some of the rugged hills - natural features of made by aliens..... who can say. The picture is A5 in size.

Deer.

A pretty scene using Clarity stamps and many of the techniques used by Barbara Gray. All done with one colour of Adirondack ink - Bottle, I think. The hills were done by sponging along the edge of some torn paper.

Seahorses 2

People like Seahorses. They are such delicate looking animals. In fact to me they look so fragile, I am surprised they survive. So here is a second encaustic rendition of them. This time the seahorses were stamped onto the piece of glossy card using Stazon black ink. You have to use a solvent based ink because hot wax will make water based ink run to give a muddy mess. However, for the solvent ink you do have to let it dry thoroughly or else that will run as well. Once it was dry the wax was applied over the top. You have to be careful with your choice of wax for this as some colours are very opaque while some are a lot more transparent. Also you have to use a lot of clear wax to ensure that you can see the stamped impression beneath. Once the watery background was in place, the seaweeds in the foreground and the overhanging rocks at the top were added.

Silk encaustic work

Now here is an unusual piece of encaustic work. The background is made of silk which started off as a plain white piece of material. A textured pattern, using coloured waxes, was created on a piece of white glossy card and then this was covered with the silk and some protective paper and heated with an iron. This melted the wax picture and the wax soaked into the silk and set to give a resist to the silk paint that was dripped onto it. Once the ink was dry, the whole thing was ironed several times with plenty of paper to melt out the wax leaving the silk. This was secured to a piece of card which in turn was mounted onto a card blank. The picture is another piece of encaustic work of a flower created with the tip of the iron. It is not supposed to be a real flower - just a made up one.

Dragonflies

A simple piece of encaustic work today. This is done by a technique called the Indirect method. Here, the wax is applied to a tissue and then this is melted from the tissue onto the card with the encaustic iron, a bit at a time so that you can control the shpes that you are applying to the card. The grasses and fence are done using the edge of the iron. The dragonflies are added with a stylus tool using metallic wax for the wings to give a hint of a sheen.

Contrasting Photographs

Here is another contrast. The photograph was taken by Keith, my other half. The card featuring the decoupaged flowers is the original photo of an old water wheel which is now located at the entrance of a small industrial estate in Abergavenny. The other version has been converted to black and white and then the ivy has been coloured in using Promarkers. I like the contrast on this one.

Craft fair - Abergavenny

Amazingly it is a month from my original converstion with Shirley (Nannieflash) who encouraged me to start up a blog. This visit to the craft market was less profitable than last month but it is a great place to catch up with the other crafters and even some of the regular traders. I said, last month, that I would take some pictures of my stall... so here they are! You might recognise some of the items from photos on this blog!

Kimono

I love this card. It such a beautiful colour. Starting with a blank A5 size white card, I stamped directly onto it with a stamp from a Judikins cube stamp and I used a dye based ink. I very rarely do this as I ususally make a mistake part way through and have to start again but this time it worked. A damp paint brush was applied to draw the ink in from the outline to tint the flowers. The red and gold background paper was an offcut of some that I had in an oriental paperpack from years ago so I am sorry but I cannot remember who the manufacturer was. Using a piece of Joanne Sheen oriental paper I folded the kimono and enhanced it with some sraight line gold peel offs. The butterfly was stamped - the stamp was from Stamp Addicts - and embossed with gold before being coloured with Twinkling H2Os mica paints. The butterfly was applied to the completed card with silcone glue which was just run down the body thus leaving the wings free to be raised to give an extra dimension to the card. I hope you like the finished result.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

A simple mirror frame but with such a lovely positive sentiment which you see everytime you check your reflection! The bare frame was painted with a very thin layer of white gesso, after the wood had been lightly sanded, to even it up a bit. Once dry, the surface was covered with various autumnal colours of Distress ink (another wonderful product that I could not do without). The flourishes are stamped, in Acrylic paint (Ranger Paint Daubers) using a stylised bird stamp from Elusive Images..... these are the tail feathers! Added the sentiment and once it was all dry, a coat of matte gel was applied for protection.

Seahorse

Seahorses, aren't they amazing. Well, here is one from an Elusive Images stamp (as is the seaweed and shell combo). The board is 7" x 5" so you can see that these are sizeable stamps. This is a fairly simple picture having been painted with various shades of blue and green with the stamped images applied on top once the background was dry. I keep thinking that it needs some embellishment but I do not have anything suitable at present so rather than rush it and do something I will regret, I will wait until the right things come along. What do you think? All comments gratefully received.

A Pair of Pictures

Here are a pair of canvases as opposed to canvas boards. The canvas was painted with various colours of acrylic paint to give a nice backgound. The dotty effect on the swirl and canvas was created by applying paint to some bubble wrap and then pressing this onto the required areas. The images were stamped on tissue paper (Elusive Image stamps) with solvent based ink and then coloured with Promarkers being very careful not to make the black ink blend in. They were then cut from the sheet and applied with matte ModgePodge. The tissue paper almost blends into the background so that it is not too obvious. The swirl was created from a piece of card on which I had hand drawn the shape. It was painted after it was cut out and when dry glued in place.

Digital Scrapbooking.

Good morning to you all. I have recently started looking at digital scrapbooking and it is great fun. I thought originally that it was a bit of a cheat and could not compare to the real thing. How wrong I was. You can get some marvellous effects that you could not do in reality and you never have to wait for glue to dry! If you go to www.daisytrail.com and in the search box type in shirlfreeman, you will be able to see what I have been up to. Sorry, I have not worked out how to do a link straight to the site. If anyone can give me some advice on how to do this, then please do! I tried using the link button whilst creating this post but when I published this blog the link was not there.

Butterfly

Another canvas board project, The colours on this are more vivid in real life but you will get the idea. A heavy layer of gesso was applied to the board and this was textured, using a palette knife, to give a ripple effect down one side. After several days drying time, a piece of very coarse jute woven strip was added down the other side and that took some sticking I can tell you. However, I succeeded in the end without it fraying or sticking up too much. Pastel green acrylic paint was used to cover the whole surface. The small butterflies were stamped onto tissue paper and coloured in with Twinkling H2Os. These were torn from the sheet and applied to the rippled surface, ensuring that they conformed to the surface rather then bridging across the ripples, using a matte gel (being very careful not to disturb the H2Os). The absolutely huge butterfly was stamped onto silk card, cut out and coloured with Promarkers. All of the butterfly stamps were designed by Elusive Images. It was then an assembly job to layer up the fabric flowers with silicone glue and add some stones to the centre to give a flash of bling and mount the butterfly in place with more silicone glue and add some wire antennae as a finishing touch.

Bird Mirror - Sing That Song!

Something a bit different today - a decorated mirror frame. The wooden mirror frame was sanded down with some fine grade sandpaper just to even the surface a bit. The whole thing was then painted with white gesso and allowed to dry before adding various colours of acrylic paint for the background. The stamps used were all by Elusive Images and finally a coat of matte gell was applied to seal it. I am sorry if the mirror frame looks slightly un-square! Taking the photograph from directly above would have meant that you would have seen a reflection of my ugly mug with a camera in front of it!!

Lady

Clarity Stamps in use again. Once again a post-it note was used to make the mask for the moon. Low tack tape was applied around the border so that the completed art work would have a white frame. The blue Adirondack ink was used to produce the basis for the sky. The lady and foliage were then added, once the moon mask had been removed, so that some of the foliage crossed over the moon. More blue ink was added to complete the background. The hanging vine is used to give some extra interest. Once dry, the masking tape was removed and the artwork layered up on blue and green card and matted onto a blue A5 base card. Three sticky back jewels were added for a touch of bling. I always use an odd number of such embellishments, never an even number as it gives a better sense of balance.

Paisley Card

A card of many layers. The base layer - kitchen roll that has been used to mop up excess glimmer mists that I was spritzing around all over the place. Silver mirri card was used to add further bling. White glossy card was coloured with Adirondack inks, in blues and purples, and then run through a Cuttlebug and Paisley embossing folder. The stamped image, another Elusive Images stamp, was coloured with Promarkers. Everything was matted together and a final embellishment added which was cut out with a Nestabilities Pendant layered together with some silicone glue to give added depth. Finish off with a Navy coloured ribbon and there you have it.