Lavender and Old Lace (Plus Ribbon for Good Measure)

Gosh, I have been busy today. Another challenge card, this time for: Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge #152-lace and -ribbons .  The image is a paint fusion "Lavender" Stamp from Sheena Douglass - stamped and painted on an "aged" background and framed with gold embossing powder. The A5 double sided base card was dry embosses the right edge trimmed to the embossed line to show the lighter inside colour of the card.

Two narrow strips of cotton lace were bonded to the card and the join covered with lavender coloured ribbon. A piece of this ribbon was also bonded down the inside edge of the card. The two fancy cut outs were made with the brand new Spellbinders die called Grate Works. These were bonded carefully in place and then the image was added on top.

 

The image was finished off with a lavender bow and pale blue hot glue Swarovski crystals were stuck on place on the point of the embossing on the left had side and also to the ribbon strip on the right.

 

 

 

Autumn Leaves

Good morning. Happy Sunday.

Here we have a card for three challenges:

Critter Challenge134-sketch
Crafty Creations Challenges-189 Autiumn Leaves
The Paper Shelter Challenge-83-anything-goes

The A5 card is a beautiful pearlescent orange with a leather like finish.

The autumn leaves and the two corner squares were made from kraft paper which had been screwed up, died with Distress Inks and sprayed with glimmer mist for a bit of bling. All were cut out with Spellbinders dies.

The sentiment, from Sheena Douglass - which says, in case you can't read it, "Autumn is a second Spring, when every leaf is a flower" - was stamped on white card with Versmark and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Copper Bronze Lustre powder. It was then cut out with a Spellbinder die and shaded with Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey Distress Inks.

The ribbon was died with various Distress Inks to match the Autumn theme and this was threaded around a large gold hammered card square and tied with a bow. Everything was layered up on the card either with glue or Pinflair Gel to dive some dimension. The tails of the bow were glued in place and hot glue orange Swarovski crystals were added in the corners as dictated by the sketch.

Fire Storm

An encaustic art picture worked on canvas board. This is about 12" x 10" and was worked using the hot air blowing technique.

The board was first covered with clear wax, using the iron, which helps to make the thicker coloured waxes flow better.

Yellow, orange and red waxes were dripped all over the canvas and then remelted and blown about with a hot air gun. This is a fairly substantial heat gun, the type used by DIY enthusiasts rather than the type used by crafters for melting embossing powder and drying ink & paint.

The black silhouette was created with an encaustic iron.

I think I may well frame this one up for my exhibition at Woodruffs Cafe in Stroud next month.

Stitching and Lace with some Autumnal Colours

An A5 size card for two challenges:

The Papershelter Challenge-no-82 colours of autumn

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge-75-Stitching-and-Lace

For the autumnal colours I have gone for orange, red and green.

The background is one of my indian hand made papers which I hand dyed with inks and stitched by machine.

The main image is from one of Sheena Douglass' paint fusion range - poppies. This was painted with Acrylic paint and edged with gold embossing powder before being endged with cotton lace..

The wonderful butterfly is made using a Spellbinder die and a Cuttlebug machine.


A Study in Brown and Orange

A card for two challenges:

Crafty Catz Challenge #150 Brown and Orange

Totlally Papercrafts challenge134-use-your-favourite-stamp.html

Well, as you can see there is a lot of brown and orange on this card so I think I score on that one. The base card is orange with orange and brown mats used under the image. The flourishes and double butterfly, cut using Spellbinder dies, are in brown.

The image is from my absolute favourite stamp by Sheena Douglass from her "A Little Bit Sketchy" range. The image was stamped onto watercolour card with Adirondack Espresso ink. A water brush was used to pull the ink from the image to shade the rest of the card so that there was no white card to be seen. Once the image was dry it was matted onto brown card and mounted onto the card with Pinflair glue to raise it away from the base A5 card to give dimension.

The butterfly was just attached to the card by the body so that the double set of wings were raised up.





By the Waterside

This week I purchased an A2 hotplate for using with my encaustic art. It is brilliant, keeping a nice even temperature right across the surface of the plate and it is thermostatically controlled with variable heat settings so that you can change the temperature to suit whatever you are working on.

This is my first piece using said piece of equipment. I am quite pleased with it as a first attempt.

Encaustic Art on Parchment

In my last entry I showed examples of encaustic art which had been  transferred to watercolour card. This time I have 5 examples of encaustic art designs on parchment. Whilst being similar to painting on glossy card, you get a completely different effect. It is much softer.

 

Encaustic / Mixed Media Cards

 

Here is something a little bit different on the encaustic art front.

These have all been created by laying down the wax on glossy card, as usual. Once the picture was finished with a fairly even coating of wax, it was turned upside down onto a piece of watercolour card and heated from the back. This melted the wax again causing it to transfer to the watercolour card and whilst molten it sinks into the fibres of the card.

Pulling the glossy card away whilst it is still warm leaves some wax on the original card and some on the watercolour card. This gives a much more muted impression.

The wax then acts as a resist to any watery media added to the picture. Some of these were completed with watercolour paints and some with inks. The paint or ink will sink into the card were there is very little wax and fill in all the gaps so that on white card can be seen.

Flower Card

Here is a card for the Sketch and Stash Challenge no 96

The main image was created using a Versamark embossing pad, clear embossing powder and a beautiful stamp by Sheena Douglass. Once the image was embossed Broken China, Faded Jeans and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks were used to colour the background. The ink does not stick to the embossing which acts as a resist so it was wiped off.

The background and the strip of card were white card which was treated with yellow, blue and green marbling inks. These were matted onto black and white card. The same was done for the sentiment which is from another Sheena stamp.

The stash element for the challenge consists of the flowers which were a prize last year from another challenge.

Butterfly Dance

Here we have a card for three challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers challenge-74-winged-things
Totally Papercrafts challenge-133-butterflies, buttons and bows
The Stamp Man - Summer Sizzlers - use hot colours


The base, A5 size card was coloured with Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick Distress Inks. The image layer was coloured in the same way but it was spotted with water to lift spots of colour. The American Seam Binding was coloured on both sides using the same inks again.

The flowers and butterflies were stamped with Versamark and embossed with black glint embossing powder from WOW. The stamps  (flowers and butterflies) are by Sheena Douglass from her Silhouette Wildflowers set.

Once the image was dry it was mounted onto black card with a length of the ribbon wrapped round it. The bow was made separately and bonded in place. On top of the bow is a red button with an orangey red thread bow tied on it. and very small craft buttons, which were free with a magazine, finish off the embellishment.