Oriental Card 3

Sorry, there seems to be a bit of an oriental theme developing here. But this is quite different card.

The base white card was ripped down one edge. Versamark ink was applied down the ripped edge and gold embossing powder applied and heated to give that beautiful edge.

A piece of hand made burgundy coloured paper with gold hand painted swirls (not by me, I hasten to add, was used as a wrap which was bonded in place with double sided tape.

The topper was made from a piece of white glossy card which was brayered with "Big 'n' Juicy" ink. The delightful image was stamped and embossed in gold. Again the edge was ripped and embossed with gold powder. The topper was then mounted on the front of the card with tape.

The embellishment was made from mizuhiki cord (I bet I spelt that wrong)knotted and bonded in place with silicon glue.

Oriental card 2

A simpler oriental card this time. I apologise that it is not a brilliant photo but it was all packed up in cellophane.

The Bamboo (Judikins stamp, I think) was stamped onto the red card, embossed and trimmed with deckle edged scissors. The lady (The Stamp Man, I believe) was also stamped onto red card, embossed and cut out. She was then stuck to white card and trimmed round to leave a small white border. Her kimono was painted with Twinkling H2Os.

The red backing card was adhered to a gold shimmer A6 card and the lady layered onto that. Gold threads were knotted around the spine and three jewels added for a bit of bling.

Train Card

This is the birthday card that I made for my other half this year. He is a steam train lover so I thought this one fitted the bill.
There are loads of elements for this one all stamped from a set of stamps from U mount. The Base A4 size card was white which was layered up with some brown which had been sprayed with copper glimmer mist and a dark green/gold card. An A5 white sheet was stamped with the station clock which was then embossed with clear powder as a resist technique so when the distress inks were applied the white card could still be seen.
The train scene, which was one stamp, was coloured using distress inks applied by paint brush, and then the edges aged with more inks. Two sets of luggage, the station master the clock and the lamp post were coloured in the same way. These were then all cut out to give individual embellishments.
A white oval was cut out with a Nestability die and the edges coloured whilst still in the die so that a white edge was kept. An oval scalloped shape was cut from the brown misted paper and the two were layered together. The lamp post and the station master were added to this.
All the elements were then added to the base card to give the final look. The large clock was added on foam tape to give some depth to the picture.

This csrd has been entered into the CES chsllenge at http://ceschallenges.blogspot.com/

Ivor the Engine Card.

A more unusual card from me. No stamping or encaustic art in sight. This decoupage card is not something I usually do but this was a special card for Keith and he loves Ivor the engine!

It is an A4 size gate fold card made in dark brown. The is a mat of copper mirror card on each side. The top layer was a sheet of cream card which was stained with walnut ink containing mica powder. Whilst the ink was wet a piece of clingfilm was applied and drawn up into creases thus concentrating the micra powder up to make fine coppery lines.

The decoupage was cut out and layered up with 2mm foam. The completed decoupage was mounted on brown card before being applied to either side of the gate fold.

Oriental Card

This was a card made for my niece who loves anything oriental. It was also a good excuse to try out my new Hot Foiling Machine.
The 3 pictures were printed from some clip art on a laser printer and then each image was run though the hot foiler using purple foil - Kim's favourite colour. These were then cut to shape using a Nestabilities die cutter on a Cuttle Bug. The edges were then coloured with Milled Lavender and Dusky Concord Distress inks applied with Cut 'n' Dry foam. A larger version of each shape was cut from a piece of card that I had previously coloured with Glimmer mists. These were stuck to the back of the pictures to stiffen them up a bit.
An A4 piece of white card was scored and folded to give a concertina shape. These were faced with strips of the card used to back the pictures which had been mounted on black card to make them stand out. The front strip had a purple foiled border applied in the same way as previously mentioned.
The three pictures were then stuck in position, staggered across the width of the card. A small foiled plaque was created to be stuck on the back for the greeting and signatures.

This has been entered into the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge - Step Away from the Square.

Butterflies

A piece of of work using the resist technique. The background card started off as a piece of A5 white card. The corner stamps (Elusive Images) were stamped using Versamark and embossed with clear powder.

Black ink was then applied all over the card and it does not stick to the embossing so these areas still show up as white. Once the ink was dry, the whole thing was rubbed over with a tissue to take any remaining black off the embossing.

The same technique was applied for the Butterflies again a stamp from EI (this was entered in one of their challenges last year). Once the ink was dry and they had been buffed up, their wings were curled slightly to make the whole thing a bit 3D and then bonded in place with silicon glue. Mats, in white and black, were added to complete the front of the card.

'LOVE' Word Book

This was the card that I made for Keith, my other half, for Valentine's Day this year. It was the first wordbook that I had attempted.

The base cards, with the letters on, were compiled within My Craft Studio software. These were then printed and cut out. I outlined each of the letters with fine border peel-offs to give them more definition. The edges of the papers were inked using distress and Adirondack inks and Cut 'n' Dry foam - a marvellous invention.

Through out the book are embellishments made from cutting various hearts from white card using Nestabilities. These where then stamped using stamps from Elusive Images and inked with distress ink.

The larger embellishment on the front was a Nestabilities scalloped heart with the cut out made using a Nestabilities plain heart. A piece of heat resistant acetate was stamped with some swirls (again from EI), using Versamark, and then embossed in gold. This was trimmed and stuck on the reverse of the heart frame. It was then mounted on foam pads to the front page.

Once all the pages were completed the whole thing was bound together with a Bind-It-All machine.

Friendly Plastic Embellishment

Friendly Plastic lives up to its name. It is a terrific material to work with. One great advantage is that it can be re-used so not a scrap is wasted. This card embellishment was made from scraps that had been cut from other things, They were reheated and dragged through with a comb to give this lovely effect. This is very similar to feathering icing on a cake but I only dragged through in one direction.

Tree Card

What a hectic week it has been. Still, here we are on the 1st of October and autumn is well under way. Therefore I thought I would go for an autumnal coloured design.

I loved making the background paper on this one. It was made by washing a piece of white card with walnut ink with mica powder in it, Whilst it was still wet I sprinkled salt on the page which absorbs the water thus concentrating the mic powder around it. It gives a wonderful effect, When it is dry you just brush the salt off.

The main image is on glossy whits card which has been brayered. The moon was created but using a mask made from a Post It note which was stuck in place before the brayer was applied. When dry, this was then over stamped with a tree on a hill image from Elusive Images.

The smaller sentiment panel was a tree image from EI which was stamped onto glossy card using clear Versamark ink. When this was dry it was brayered over so that the Versamark ink acted as a resist to the bryered ink. This was then over stamped with the sentiment.

The background was ripped to give rough edges and then lots of layers were built up to give the finished A4 size card.

I hope you like it.

Pink and Yellow card

An unusual card for me as it uses very bright colours which I do not often do. This was made for a challenge a few months ago.
The background is made from 3 sheets of paper taken from an Artylicious CD ROM. They were cut into strips and woven together, trimmed to the required size and stuck together to make sure the strips did not move.The front panel was made by stamping a paisley stamp from Elusive Images, using Versamark ink, and the pale orange and lilac embossing powder was applied and heated to set the pattern. A small piece of black card was stamped and heat embossed with the sentiment and layered up with matching card. The ribbons were a freebie from a crafting magazine some years ago which I always knew would come in handy one day.

Flower and Butterfly Card.

Another exercise using Alcohol Inks. Don't you just love them. The top and bottom layers were both done with the inks with the top layer being stamped with the flower and butterfly stamps. The flower stamp is the same one as used on the Glittery Flowers card that I posted a few days ago, with a different butterfly stamp which was also designed by myself. They were coloured in using Promarkers. The top layer was matted onto some gold paper before being layered onto the other inked surface. Gold thread rounds off the look down the spine of the card.

Butterfly Card

This was an exercise in using Alcohol Inks. Three different sheets were made on glossy card using different colours and gold mixative. The stamp that was used is from a collection from "The Stampman". It was stamped directly onto the top layer of the card using black Stazon Ink. An olive green organza bow completes the look.

Heritage Scrapbook Page (Digital)

This is the sort of page that is would be almost impossible to do in traditional scrapbooking. The photo, which dates from around the early 1930s is of my Dad's Mum. There is no way, in the traditional sense, that you could put the faded image of the photo onto the backing paper like that. Well, not without having the negative and putting it onto the paper through photographic processes anyway. I always loved this picture when I was little. The long string of pearls and the dress were fascinating.

Columbine Card

Another example of rubber stamping. The main picture is an Elusive Images stamp applied to white card and coloured with Promarkers. This was cut out and mounted on a bronze coloured mirror card, both having been cut out with Spellbinders Nestabilities.
The background paper is one of my old bits of kitchen roll that was used for mopping up excess glimmer mists. The top layer of the kitchen roll was applied to a piece of spare card and stuck down with Modge Podge (matte). Another coat was applied over the top.
The three embellishments were made from Fimo clay. The pattern was applied with another stamp and before the clay was baked they were given a dusting of Perfect Pearls mica powder.
All the elements were assembled onto an A5 size card, with the embellishments being mounted on a separate strip of the backing paper and a layer of white card for contrast.

Glittery Flowers

The colours are not shown here quite as bright as they actually are but here is a card I made a while back. The images are from rubber stamps that I designed and had made for me. They were stamped with black Stazon onto acetate and once the ink was dry the glitter was applied on the back with "dries clear" glue. The back ground was a piece of white card which was coloured with inks in an oval pattern with the colours getting darker towards the edge. Both layers were attached to the dotty base card with brads so the no adhesive could be seen through the acetate.

Autumn Scrapbook Page (Non-Digital)

The other day I showed you a picture of a digital scrapbook page. This time I thought I would go for a real, made of paper, page. This took a long time to do.

Having chosen several different autumnal coloured papers I proceeded to cut them into strips that were then folded over. It is a bit like Iris Folding but without the pattern to follow. They were stuck down onto backing sheet in a chevron pattern. The ends of the strips, in the middle, were covered with horizontal panels to neaten the whole thing up.

The photograph, of a street where I used to live in France, was matted onto a suitable coloured card and added to the page. The tags are embellished with some snails and leaves cut out on a Sissix die cutter.

I was very pleased with the effect of this. There is a partner page too which I may well put on the blog another day.

Landscape

A simple encaustic landscape to show how by just changing the colours you start with, from the ones you would expect, gives a different outlook on life.

Treble Clef

On a slightly different note (get it...joke...musical notes..!) here is a card made from my encaustic work again.
The blue background was made by putting different colours of blue wax onto the card and then whilst the wax was still liquid, tapping the surface with scruched up paper to give a pattern.
The second layer was done in the same way but with multiple colour bands of wax which when tapped with the scrunched paper gave the pattern but also blended the colours slightly.
The treble clef was added by drawing it with a block of red wax. Once the wax was set (which takes only seconds) the surface was buffed with the soft cloth to give it a shine (just like polishing furniture only I know which one I prefer to do). These layers were mounted onto the base A5 size card and finished off with corner peel-offs.

Cat Napping

I have mentioned in a previous blog that one of my passions at the moment is digital scrap booking. This, I hope, shows the beauty of this craft form.

The picture of the cat was a cross stitch picture that I did some years ago. Before I gave it away, I took a photograph of it. Now to make the most of the picture rather than just have it as a file on my computer or as a photograph in an album, I have incorporated it into a digital scrapbook page.

The photo was blended into the background paper and the embellishments were added including the text which was given a shadow to give an impression of depth.

Swirling Leaves

Where has the time gone. 6 days since I did my last entry.

So here we have a clarity stamp card using 2 different sizes of Swirling leaf stamp.

The back grounds were made by spraying the card with a few different colours of Glimmer Mist. Once dry, this was over stamped with the 2 stamps using Adirondack ink.

For the main element, a piece of white card was coloured with various shades of brown and beige Adirondack ink applied with cut and dry foam.. It was then stamped using both sizes of stamp, first in a dark brown and then in lighter brown , the second colour being offset from the first. The outer edge of the piece was then aged with a dark brown ink. The whole think was the triple embossing with clear powder to give a glossy finish. The edges were then embossed with some copper embossing powder to complete it.

To build up the card I started with a dark brown A4 sheet and folded it in half and trimmed off a piece from the front. The inside of the back cover was lined with the previously manufactured stamped & sprayed sheet. Matting and layering more of this sheet with copper Mirror card gave a good grounding for the centrepiece and finally the centrepiece was added.