Polar Mimi

Hi all.  Well another month has whizzed by and I am only just in time to get my card in for this month's Rudolph Days Challenge.  It is run by the lovely Mo over at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo and is open from the 25th to the end of each month.    I have been rather pushed for time so this was a bit hurried and flurried as I didn't want to miss it and I used a stamp from Penny Black called Polar Mimi.  I was lucky enough to win quite a lot of wooden stamps over at the Penny Black and More Challenge last month and this is the first card I have made with this particular one.

I started by die cutting a circle using a NBUS set of stitched dies from The Works and a snippet of white card.  I then stamped the image using Versafine Smokey Gray ink and added WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder and heat set it.  I coloured using my Lyra Brush Markers by scribbling on to my glass mat and picking up the ink with a waterbrush.  The only other colour I added was for Mimi's little red cheeks and I used a red pencil because I couldn't get the right colour blend with the inks.  I finished the topper by cutting a slightly larger stitched circle using a snippet of dark blue card to back it.

Next I cut a stitched square from another snippet of white card using another set of NBUS dies from The Works, and the largest die fits well on a 6" square base card.  I found my Falling Snow stencil and ran this through my Grand Calibur.  It doesn't show up very well and I think maybe I need to shim it a bit as the very small dots at the bottom are not easily visible, although in real life it is better than it appears in the photo.  I finished this layer by adding the sentiment using Versafine Majestic Blue ink and then added the WOW Clear Gloss EP before heat setting it.

I layered this square on to anothe snippet of dark blue card before adhering this to the white base card and then I layered up the topper.  I thought perhaps it looked a bit bare so I added a Sue Wilson Holly Branch die cut from another snippet of white card, and cut it into two pieces to fit easier round the top of the circle.  I added the berries using Berry Red Cosmic Shimmer PVA by making dots on my glass mat, leaving it over night to set, and then added them using some Cosmic Shimmer glue.  I tried putting them straight on but this particular holly branch has holes where the berries are meant to go and a lot of the glue gel just fell through and made an awful mess.  I tried to gradually build it up as it began to dry but I just smeared the stuff everywhere and had to start again, so adding them when dry works better but not sure they look as effective as straight out of the bottle.

I realised I hadn't done anything with the bit of falling snow on the stamped image, so got the Cosmic Shimmer White PVA out and used a trick to apply it which I found over at Jennifer McGuire's blog.  You put a blob on the mat and using a very small ball tool you coat it with the PVA and dot it on where you want it.  I also added some on the ground around the figures.   

Thank you for looking at my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop  - Week 291/2 where we use our snippets of card, paper etc
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

Acetate and Tissue Butterfly

I am enjoying the challenge of using tissue paper and today I've tried something which is new to me, using tissue paper with an acetate overlay which facilitates die cutting the piece.  I used a butterfly die which I have had for quite a while which is by Marianne Designs, and also a freebie embossing folder which I thought would show it off nicely.

I started by making the tissue paper and acetate piece for the butterfly.  I used Distress Inks on my glass mat in the right sized area to cover my piece of tissue paper using Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, Festive Berries and Shaded Lilac.  I spritzed fairly lightly with water and then laid my tissue over it to soak it up, and very carefully lifted it on to a piece of copy paper to dry.  I did speed up the process with my heat tool.  I then respritzed what was left on the glass mat and did it again, and once dried it looked about right so I went on to the next step.  I decided to back the tissue with some thin copy paper so I scrunched it up to get some texture and then adhere it to the copy paper with PVA glue.  I decided to use gold on the crinkles so ran my Versamark Ink over the top and added WOW Metallic Gold Embossing Powder and heat set it.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to show up in the photos very well, but in real life it shimmers really well.  

Next I found some fairly thin acetate which I had lying about, I think this technique works better with thinner acetate, and I adhered it to the tissue paper with the PVA glue which dries clear.  I applied the glue with a piece of blending foam to get a smooth even finish.   Once it was completely dry I die cut the butterfly.  I have to say that even with the thinner acetate this did take quite a few turns through the machine before I could remove the pieces and I did have to use some small scissors to finish the job where it refused to completely cut, but in the end it worked as luckily all the pieces which needed to come out were fairly large.  Maybe one of the newer die cutting machines with better pressure would cut it more easily than my old Grand Calibur.

I then used the freebie folder for the embossed background and I am very pleased with the result, even though it did take a little time to achieve.  The white blank base card is approximately 6" square.

I'm afraid I have only just made the Loll and Bonnie's two challenges as they close in just a few hours.  I did intend to put this up yesterday morning but got so busy I have only just got around to doing so.  This technique is something new to me and using one of the listed techniques that they very kindly sourced for inspiration, I really wanted to enter it in the challenge, so please forgive me for being so last minute.  

Thank you for joining me here today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Watercolour July Challenge - Butterfly.  (So thrilled to be chosen as one of the Outstanding Designs)                      
CAS Mix Up July Challenge - Stamping, Tissue Paper and Own Choice (I have used dry embossing).
Country View July Challenge - Things with Wings.

CAS Koi Carp

Hi everyone.  My card today features a fairly new to me technique using tissue paper.  I have used it on just one of my cards in the past as a sea themed background and I decided to go with a sea theme this time.  This month's CAS Mix Up Challenge has asked for stamping, tissue paper and your choice of technique and I have chosen heat embossing, die cutting and some watercolouring too.

I started with the tissue paper background and got out my Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers, Faded Jeans and Shaded Lilac.  I laid the inks from the pad down randomly on to my glass mat and sprayed with some water and lowered the roughly 5"square of tissue paper over it, rubbing the back until it had soaked up the inks, before lifting and laying it down on a piece of copy paper and dried it with my heat tool.  I did this two or three times to build up the colour.  I have to confess that the first couple of times it fell apart too much on lifting and I had to start again, but third time lucky.  It had a couple of minor tears which I was able to pull together when mounting it on to a snippet of square white card.  I scrunched it up before doing this and glued it down with some PVA glue all over and making sure to keep the creases.  I then rubbed Versamark Ink which coated the surface crinkles and then added WOW Metallic Silver Embossing Powder which I heat set.

I then cut a frame from a snippet of white card using a set of stitched square dies, the two biggest of them,  and adhered this over the top.  This left some of the tissue paper layer beyond the frame and I trimmed this until it was just a narrow blue border.  In the photo it doesn't look very level but in real life it is better I think.

I found another snippet of white card for the Koi Carp from a set by Sheena Douglass, unfortunately they don't seem to be available now.  There are two sizes and I used the smaller.  I stamped them using Smokey Gray Versafine Ink and heat set using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I then coloured them with my Lyra Water Brush Markers laying them down on my glass mat and picking up the colour with a waterbrush.  I then cut them out and glued them on to the framed tissue layer.

I finished by mounting the topper on to a 7" square white card and added a die cut sentiment using a snippet of silver mirri card backed with Stick It adhesive.

Thank you for visiting my blog today.

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Mix Up July Challnge (I am thrilled to have been chosen as one of the Outstanding Designs)
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 289/90 where we use our snippets of card or paper etc.
Virginia's Summer Blog Party - Summer Creations.
Happy Little Stampers July Mixed Media Challenge - Texture.
Happy Little Stampers July Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.
Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge - No. 251 Anything Goes.
Penny Black and More July Challenge - For the Boys.

Just Chilling

Hi there everybody.  It was my DH's birthday a few days ago, on Tuesday actually, and I recently bought some stamp sets from Sheena Douglass and one of them was this image from a set called Just Chilling which I thought was quite atmospheric and which he would like.

I started by stamping the image on to a roughly 6" square piece of white card using Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then heat embossed it with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I then set to work colouring it with my Brushos but using them more like paint with a waterbrush, and then I think I added some more colours into it with some of my Distress Inks too, so a bit of a hotch potch to get the result I wanted.  When I was happy and it was dry I added the birds using Versafine Smokey Grey ink and heat set again using WOW Clear Gloss EP.

I finished by adding a black mat before mounting it on to my 7" square white base card.  I then added the sentiment using my Misti and the Smokey Grey ink heat set with the Clear Gloss EP.  I did go over the stamp several times to darken it and the embossing always makes it look darker.

I don't know if I overinked the stamp and the Distress Inks always give a less defined finish to the stamping, but it did seem overly dark and dense but maybe next time I'll try using Archival or Versafine ink.  I only used the Walnut Stain as it was more the colour I wanted to represent its decaying state.

As soon as I saw this stamp it reminded me of a poem called Cargoes which I learned at school written in 1902 by a British poet called John Masefield and if you are interested the whole poem is here.  Although this is nothing like the size or shape of a cargo vessel, just the look of this rusting hulk brought the last verse to mind.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

I hope I haven't made you all drop off with boredom...lol, and I promise I won't be going all poetic on every post.

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

I am entering the following challenges:

Cardz 4 Guys Challenge - No 173 Beside the Sea.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Distress It (it icludes the use of Distress Inks).
Penny Black and More Challenge - For the Boys.

Lilac Time

Hi everybody.  I haven't used this Lilac stamp from Justrite for ages and I needed a quick card for a birthday on Wednesday which needed to go in the post asap, so I kept it quite simple.

I used a scalloped edge set of square dies from Tonic and cut the snippet of white card.  I decided to use the straight to stamp technique using a set of Lyra Water Brush Pens and my Misti so I could keep going over with the different colours.  I used a light blue, then a dark blue first adding the marker to the stamp and spritzing with a little water.  I then added a little more colour by scribbling the markers on my glass mat and using my waterbrush.  I left a few white places to add some light.  I then used a couple of greens, light and dark, for the leaves and stem.  When it was all dry I decided to be bold and get a little more definition by adding some red and I must say I was quite pleased with the effect.  I then added some of the lighter blue over the background to give it a bit more interest.  I finished the topper by adding a sentiment using Versafine Smokey Grey ink and then heat embossed using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

I finished the card by adding some embossing to the white 7" square base card.  This is an 8" square Crafters Companion Textures - Basket Weave.  I then added the topper.  Done!

Thank you for looking at my blog today and I'll be back soon. 

I am entering the following challenges:

The Flower Challenge - No. 10 Embossing Heat/Dry.



Happy Little Stampers July Watercolour Challenge - Optional Twist - Blue.
Happy Little Stampers July CAS Challenge- Birthday.

Panda Love Anniversary

It was our anniversary on Monday and this is the card I made for my DH.  I got the stamps including the cute pandas and the hearts embossing folder free with a magazine a  while ago, and have use the folder but not the pandas.  I think it did cross my mind when I saw them that they might be nice for this occasion, and my DH did smile and say it was a lovely card so job done.

I started with the embossed background and cut a piece of card to fit the folder, approximately 5'"square.  After embossing the folder I used some Festive Berries Distress Ink and my brayer and rolled the ink over the raised hearts.  A little did go on the background but not enough to spoil it, and also on the heart shaped space in the middle but I intended to put a die cut heart shape in the centre so this didn't matter.

I cut the central heart using another snippet of white card and  a Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Die, the largest in the set with a scalloped edge.

I then stamped the pandas onto another snippet of white card using Black Archival ink and heat embossed them using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I then coloured the little bow red and the balloon blue using my Lyra Aqua Brush Markers.  I used two shades of blue on the balloon for a bit of shading.  I then heat embossed these by adding some Versamark with the pen and not the loose powder and added the WOW Clear Gloss EP.  I then fussy cut these out.

After adhering the embossed panel and the die cut heart to the 7" square white base card I stuck the pandas to the white heart using some Pinflair Glue Gel to give then a bit of dimension.

Finally I stamped the sentiment with some Versafine Majestic Blue and again heat set it using the Clear Gloss EP.

Before I finish I have two new followers, the first Litsa whose blog you will find here and who is very creative with fabric and has made some very clever pieces of jewellery, and Hilary Wright who I have not been very successful in finding, so if you read this Hilary and you would like a proper shout out get in touch with more details and I would be pleased to do so.

Thank you for joining me here today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More Challenge - No. 335 Colours of Your Countrty's Flag ( I debated whether to do the pandas in the dark blue but decided that they might look a bit strange like that so did use black, I hope this is allowed and that it is considered CAS enough for the challenge).
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Red, White and/or Blue.
Addicted to Stamps and More  - Clean and Simple.

Wild Flower Birthday

Hi all.  I am so taken with my new Brushos that here is another card using them.  I am also using a NBUS stamp from Chocolate Baroque called Baroque Meadow.

This card was made for the lovely Darnell to wish her a Happy Birthday today and a speedy recovery from her recent surgery and I hope you are being spoilt rotten..lol.  I know she has received it so here it is:

This card like a lot of mine didn't turn out quite as I intended but I adapted it as I went along.  I decided to make a rectangular card for a change and cut a mat out of some white card using my Crealies Rectangle Nesting Dies with Dots (No. 44) and then stamped the wild flowers in the centre using Archival Black ink and heat embossed using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

I originally intended to colour the background using the Brushos but keeping the colour to a rectangular shape smaller than the flowers, so using one of the smaller Crealies dies I cut an aperture from some copy paper and placed this over the flowers so some of them were outside the shape.  Using four of the colours, i.e. Ultramarine, Turquoise, Leaf Green and Emerald Green I sprinkled them where I wanted them and spritzed with water then blotted with a piece of kitchen towel and lifted the paper.  I did stick some repositionable adhesive around the shape to try to keep a clean edge but unfortunately the colour had bled round the edges quite a bit and looked untidy.  I then decided to cut a frame from a snippet of white card using the same set of Crealies dies and this is how you see it now.

I finished it by adding a sentiment again using the Archival Black ink and heat embossed it with the WOW Clear Gloss EP.

With hindsight it would have been better to cut the shape from acrylic as spritzing made the copy paper quite wet which I'm sure added to the problem, or use some masking tape making sure to remove some of the tack first, but it worked out well in the end.

Thank you for visiting me today, and see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Happy Little Stampers July Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes (the optional twist is 'blue' but I'm not sure there is enough blue to for this).
Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Make it Feminine.
CAS on Friday Challenge - No. 111 Flowers.
Stamping Sensations - July - Anything With Flowers.