Rubber Band Technique

Hi there everyone.  At CAS Mix Up this month they have asked that we use the rubber band technique on the card we make.  This means using them wrapped round a brayer or an acrylic block and inking or heat embossing in some form or other.  I decided to make a check/plaid pattern, and this is how it turned out.

I have recently bought my first four Distress Oxide Inks so decided to use these.  I found two wide and one narrow elastic bands and wrapped them round my acrylic block making sure they were perfectly flat with the two wide bands on either side of the narrow one with a similar space in between.  Using a piece of white card I inked the three bands up with Salty Ocean and stamped two sets of three stripes horizontally across it.  I then turned the piece of card and after cleaning off the bands inked again with wild honey and did two more sets of stripes vertically.  I then did two more sets of stripes vertically using Worn Lipstick placing the lines just to the right of the previous Wild Honey ones.  When perfectly dry I blended Squeezed Lemonade over the whole thing and then I die cut this using a Stitched Square die from The Works.  I was very lucky that the gaps between the two sets of stripes was about the right distance when it came to die cutting the piece and the lines are fairly straight although only done by eye.  A more luck than judgement piece I feel...lol.

I made a double layer sentiment to give a bit more dimension using the Sue Wilson Mini Expressions die, and then heat embossed the top one with WOW Metallic Gold Embossing Powder before sticking the two together.

I decided to give the white 6" square base card a bit more interest by adding two dry embossed corners to it using a Tim Holtz Mixed Media mosaic like corner die, and then added the stitched square with the sentiment across the middle letting it hang over each side.  I then added another small stamped sentiment beneath the square and gold heat embossed it to match the main sentiment.

Thank you for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon.  

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Mix Up April Challenge - Rubber Band Technique + Stamping + Own Choice (I have used Heat and Dry Embossing)
Seize the Birthday - Vibrant Colours.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add Some Texture.
Uniko Challenge - No. 46 Colour.

Silhouette Tree with Stencilled Leaf

Hi everybody.  I'm here with another masculine birthday card, and a quick one as this was a last minute make.  I used a couple of stamps by Sheena Douglass from her A Little Bit Sketchy range, the tree from Looking Up and the balloon from Under the Bridge.  The two balloons from this set were one stamp but I cut them apart as I thought it would be handy to be able to use them individually.

A while ago I found a free image of a leaf on line and I made myself a stencil from a piece of card so I could keep it to use again.  I then stamped through the stencil shape on to a piece of white card using one of the stamps from a Chocolate Baroque set of stamps called Texture Fragments, and some Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink.  The card was fairly thick so I put lots of pressure on to get a good impression.  I was going to leave it like this but decided to brush some more ink across the whole thing to give the outline shape a sharper look.

I continued by stamping the silhouette tree so it covered part of the leaf using Versafine Smokey Gray ink.  I inked it up very carefully to avoid the surrounding scene on the stamp, and using my Misti I stamped it a couple of times to get a nice dark image.  I then heat embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder to make it stand out more.   I then die cut this using a stitched square from

a set by The Works, the largest die.

I stamped a sentiment top left, and added two balloons, using the smallest balloon stamp top right, again using the Versafine Smokey Gray ink, and I decided to add three little birds just over the top of the tree with a fine black Micron Pen.  I then used some Black Soot Distress Ink well watered down, and spattered some across the image, and finished by adding this to a 6" square white base card.

Thanks for visiting my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Cards 4 Guyz Challenge - No. 192 Travel or Transport.
Penny Black and More April Challenge - Black and White Plus One.
Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Embossing (Heat or Dry).

Matryoshka Anniversary

Hi everyone.  I have a set of Russian Matryoshka dolls and dies which came free with a magazine a while ago.  There are six characters, i.e. man, woman, boy, girl, baby and cat which make up the set, so I thought that perhaps the man and woman would make a nice anniversary card.  I used another freebie hearts embossing folder for the background, and my Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Hearts die.

I started with the background embossing and inked up the folder using my brayer and some Adirondack Stonewashed Ink before laying the snippet of white card inside and running it through my machine.  It inked up quite well apart from around the central heart where it ended up with some ink in the wrong place, and so I then die cut the scalloped heart to go over it using another snippet of white card.  Unfortunately to cover the mistake the scalloped heart has to sit a bit further down and not in the middle but I think it looks OK, as they say there are no mistakes, just happy accidents..lol.

With some more snippets of white card I stamped the two dolls using Versafine Smokey Gray Ink and coloured them with some Spectrum Noir pencils and then cut them out with the die. 

I then mounted the hearts background on to my 6" square white base card and then adhered the scalloped heart and the two figures, and added the stamped sentiment using the Misti and Versafine Smokey Gray Ink and heat set with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

Thank you for dropping by today and hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - No. 323 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Uniko Challenge - No. 46 Colours ( I have used 3 of the colours: blue, green and pink)

 

Reindeer Circle

Hi all.  I am a little late getting to the party but did want to get my card in for Rudolph Days Challenge which is run by the lovely Mo over at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo, and starts on the 25th and runs until the end of the month.  I used the Memory Box Reindeer Circle and Craft Emotions Snow Crystals dies and a technique of impressing the die shape into the card which I saw over at Jennifer McGuire's blog a while ago.

The impressed die technique needs a die with a flat base, and when dry embossed with the flat side down against the paper it leaves the outside shape pressed into the card, and then the die cut shape sits on the top and gives another look and another way of using your dies.

I die cut  a stitched circle of approximately 4" with a snippet of red card using a set of circle dies from The Works, and impressed the die as described above, and for more information see the technique on Jennifer's blog here.  I filled the circular shape with some glittery goodness using my Wink of Stella pen and then I die cut it again from another snippet of red card and removed the reindeer from the frame and added it over the glittery circle.

I took a 6" square white base card and impressed two of the smallest and one medium snowflakes in opposite corners, and then die cut them from a snippet of white card, and before adding them over the impressed card I also added WOS to them to make them stand out.

At this point I thought the topper looked a little plain so decided to remove the reindeer, which luckily proved fairly easy, and added some embossed falling snow to the topper using a Marianne Snow Flakes Embossing Folder.  This did take away some of the depth of the impression I had made with the die, but it does improve the look of the topper.

Lastly I added the sentiment using Candied Apple Distress Ink which stamped very evenly,  always a worry with the DI's as the make up of the ink does make getting a crisp image more difficult, but using the Misti meant I could add the ink several times to get a good finish.

Thank you for your visit and I hope to see you again soon, and I hope you all have an enjoyable Easter.

I am entering the following challenges:

Rudolph Days March Challenge - Anything Goes.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop  - No. 322 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge  - Anything Goes.
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge  - No. 378 Anything Goes/Optional theme.  I have used the optional theme of Christmas Song or Carol (mine was inspired by Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer).
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Embossing.
Sparkles Christmas Challenge - No. 86 Twinkle Twinkle.  Stars.
The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge - No. 25 Anything Christmas Goes.
Happy Little Stampers March Christmas Challenge - Anything Goes/Reindeer.
Happy Little Stampers March Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.

Watercolour Garden Scene

Hi everyone.  Well, I have managed to get my card made for the CAS Watercolour Challenge, a little close to the wire but  I made it.  This is a challenge which I do love to enter and the theme of garden seemed to indicate a mix of flowers, so I came up with this which I hope is OK.

I had a white stitched mat of approximately 4" square which was the waste from the frame I made for the last card, so decided to  use that.  I found a sketchy PB Irises stamp which I have had for a while, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be readily available now,  and infilled with a leafy stamp from a set by Chocolate Baroque called Lily.

I inked up the CB stamp with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink, spritzed with a litle water and stamped the foliage to either side of the mat, a little poetic license as the foliage would normally not be blue but I love the combination of the blue with the purple.  I then used the Irises stamped with Wilted Violet for the flowers and Lucky Clover for the foliage and again spritzed with some water and stamped it three times to fit into the gap.  It did overlap the other stamps a little but looks OK without doing any masking which is difficult to do with this sort of stamp.  I did ink just parts of the stamp with this in mind, and I used my Misti which means you can go over it repeatedly until you are happy with the results.  I finished with a bit of second and third generation stamping of the CB stamp just to give the impression of a border full of flowers.

Finally I added some background colouring with blending foam, making a sunny patch in the centre using Fossilized Amber and Carved Pumpkin,  and then around the edges with more Mermaid Lagoon and Cracked Pistachio around the bottom.

I finished with a mat using a dark green card and added the sentiment using Versamark Smokey Gray ink.

Unfortuately I didn't manage to get the two cards done for Darnell's Twofer Challenge or Loll and Bonnie's other challenge CAS Christmas, as with everything else going on at the moment I know I won't have time, but there is still over a day to go on both of these so maybe some others of you out there may be more organised than me.  Things do return to normal after this weekend though. 

Thank you for visiting today and I'll see you again soon.  

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Watercolour March Challenge - Garden.
The Flower Challenge - Anything Goes.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Floral Frenzy.
Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes (no twist).
Addicted to Stamps and More - Clean and Simple.
Happy Little Stampers March Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes (no twist).

Vintage Music on Acetate

Hi there.  I managed to make a card for the CAS Mix Up Challenge  who are celebrating their 2nd birthday, so congratulations to Bonnie and Loll, and this time they request we use acetate and stamping plus our own choice of technique.  I needed a masculine card for a family member and bought a new stamp recently so decided to use it for this card. It is a background stamp called Vintage Music from Creative Expressions and designed by Phil Martin as part of his Sentimentally Yours range.

I started by using some alcohol inks on the back of the piece of acetate a little over 4" Square.  I only have a couple of the alcohol inks which I bought really just to try them out,  and the colours are Limeade and Flamingo.  I don't have the blending solution but they worked OK on their own, I just used a piece of scrunched up cling film to move the colours around.  It wasn't looking very masculine at this point so I added some red and orange Promarker colours which darkened it down a bit.

When this was dry I turned it to the front and stamped the music stamp twice to cover the acetate using Black Archival ink.   I also used some talc on the front before stamping which helps to stop the stamp from sliding on the surface.  I decided to colour one or two of the images within the stamp using my Promarkers to add some extra interest, and this I did on the reverse side.

I then made a frame with a snippet of white card using a 4" square aperture with a double stitched square die, and I made this roughly 1/4" smaller than the 6" square white base card.

I stamped the sentiment on to the frame using the Black Archival ink and then placed the acetate behind the frame before adhering to the white base card.

Thank you for coming to take a look at my blog today, and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Cas Mix Up March Challenge - Acetate and Stamping + Alcohol Inks, Promarkers and Die Cutting.
National Craft Month - Simon Says Stamp Blog - Any Craft Project.
Dies R Us Challenge - No. 93 Frame It.

Kraft Card and Cranberry Valentine Heart

Hi there everyone.  I know this is a little late for showing as Valentine's Day was nearly a month ago and had written the post but just hadn't got around to showing it.   DH and I  have kept most of the cards we have sent to one another over the years, but after nearly 36 years we are beginning to run out of places to keep them now...lol.  I would love to know how many of you do the same.

I will be blogging one or two previously made cards which I have in draft over the next two weeks or so.  I have been rehearsing a show by Gilbert and Sullivan called Ruddigore and we have seven performances over the next two weeks.  I used to do shows regularly when I was a lot younger and thought nothing of it, but these days I find it is a bit more tiring.  In fact it is thirty five years since I did my last show, although I do belong to two choirs, and a concert party group I perform with in the summer.  A  friend twisted my arm to get involved as they needed more singers in the chorus, and I have to say I have found it good fun, and the first performance is on Wednesday, and the last is towards the end of March, and then it quietens down somewhat.  I am still hoping to enter a few of my regular challenges before the end of the month, but please forgive me if for one reason or another this doesn't happen.  

Anyway, enough chatter, on to the card.  This is what I call a 'neat but not gaudy' card..lol, in other words quite CAS, using this pretty heart which has had two or three outings over recent weeks.

I used a Chocolate Baroque stamp from the set called Fluttering Hearts and stamped it on to a snippet of kraft card using Adirondack Cranberry ink and heat embossed it using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I then die cut this with a square stitched die from The Works.

I decided to put another layer behind this before mounting it on to the 6" square white base card, and to tie the colours together I die cut the next size of square from another snippet of white card, and using blending foam coloured about an inch all round the edge of this square using the Cranberry ink and mounted the topper on to it.

I stamped the sentiment on to the topper again using the same Cranberry ink, and heat embossed with the Clear Gloss EP, and to add some extra interest I found a piece of elasticated twine which I think was wrapped around something and which I kept for just such an occasion as this, and cut two pieces which were stuck at the back of the topper with double sided tape before adhering it to the base card.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - No. 321 where we use up our snippets of card, paper etc.
Happy Little Stampers March Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.
Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge - No. 282 Make Your Mark.
613 Avenue Create Challenge - No. 207 Anything Goes/Optional Twist Reuse/Upcycle (my piece of elastic twine is upcycled).