Black Ice Steampunk Clock

Hi everyone.  Here is my second card this month as a Guest Designer over at Chocolate Baroque, and with a masculine card using a technique called Black Ice and stamps from the set Steampunkery.

Basically you start with gold or silver card and brush your Black Archival ink pad over it very lightly angling it so that the edges catch the black ink and there is a little brushed across the face of the card, working in one direction, and then turning and sweeping it back across in the opposite direction.  I again used the Black Archival ink to stamp the image and some of the words.   I used a stamp positioner for this as it helps to get a good crisp outline on this shiny surface, otherwise with a steady hand and a straight down and up technique holding the card still as you lift is the way to go, plus perhaps talc or something similar brushed on to the surface helps to stop the stamp from slipping on contact.  When dry I swept the Versamark ink across very lightly just letting the weight of the pad do the work.  I then heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder, which has given it this shiny icy look with a slightly uneven surface as the Clear EP does not entirely cover it.

I then cut the background piece from white card and dry embossed it using an Xcut Embossing Folder called Galvanised Steel.  I ran it through twice to extend it.  I then used some Gold Mica Powder with a wet paint brush around the edges and then added some Hickory Smoke Distress Ink applied with a blending tool to darken and dull it down just a little.

To finish I added a gold on black narrow banner with the sentiment heat embossed using WOW Gold Metallic EP.  When putting the card together I decided to add a piece of foam to the back of the topper to give it some dimension.

I will be back over on the Design Team Blog again next week with my last card for this month.  Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

Chocolate Baroque Fluttering Hearts Anniversary

Hi everyone.  I am back again with another Guest Designer spot on Chocolate Baroque.  I decided to use the Fluttering Hearts set of stamps, and I took four heart images from that set, one of which has a bird on the top which I decided not to include, and I stamped them on to a piece of white card using Versamark Ink and then heat set with WOW Gold Metallic Embossing Powder.   I coloured the cut out hearts with Dusty Concord and Broken China, plus a small amount of Peeled Paint Distress Ink, using a waterbrush.  I then went over the top with a Wink of Stella pen to give the hearts some added sparkle.

I then made a background by laying colour down on a Tim Holtz stencil Flourish using Dusty Concord and Broken China Distress Ink, spritzed with water and pressed the stencil down on to a piece of white card.

Finally I cut the background and also another slightly larger piece of white card using a Crealies Pierced Rectangle die and mounted it all up as you can see using dimensional glue gel behind the hearts, and finished with an embossed sentiment using the Gold Metallic EP.

I will be back on the Design Team Blog next week with my second card of the month and hope you will join me again then.

Thank you for visiting today and I will see you again soon.

Under the Bridge

Hi everybody.  I needed a masculine card so decided to use one of a set of Urban & Country stamps by Sheena Douglass, and this one is called Under the Bridge.  This is a silhouette stamp actually, but I decided to change it and watercolour it as a scene rather than stamp in just one colour.

I stamped it using Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink as the base colour and then gradually added shading and some background and foreground foliage, and the train passing under the bridge was coloured with Aged Mahogany DI which is a reddy brown colour.  The green is Pine Needles, and the shadows are Ground Espresso.  The sky has some Chipped Sapphire and a little of the green added for a bit of contrast, and also some Dusty Concord.  The colours are all well watered down as I didn't want anything too strong so you can see some of the lovely brickwork on the viaduct.  I framed it with dark blue and kraft card and added the sentiment using Versafine Vintage Sepia ink heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

Thanks for your visit today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Monday Challenge - 'B' is For? - Bridge, Birthday, Blue and Brown.
Uniko Challenge - No. 50 Celebrate (no twist).
Happy Little Stampers December Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes (no twist).

November Rudolph Days Challenge

Hi there.  Here we are round to the last Rudolph Days Challenge of the year...where did that year go?  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, and will start again in the new year.

I decided to make a couple of cards to show this time as they are simple quick makes and I need to get more cards made .  These are both upcycled from last year's cards.  The penquins I thought were cute and I have just added a silver mat and an embossed and inked background.  The embossing folder is called Entwined Holly by Crafter's Companion which I bought recently and inked with Salty Ocean Oxide Ink on to a piece of white card.  I used a blending tool and lightly rubbed it over the embossed service.  It isn't too bad but some little bits did inevitably get on the background

The second card is a simple nativity scene which I die cut using a stitched square die, and which I have backed with gold card, and I have added a sentiment banner, again something I had saved.

I would just like to say a big thank you to Mo for all her hard work during the year in keeping the challenge going, and also to her lovely Design Team for all their great inspiration.

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

I am also entering the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - No. 413 Anything Christmas Goes (optional twist - make your own background) - my penguin card has an embossed and inked background.
Sparkles Christmas Challenge - Embossing heat or dry (my penguin card has dry embossing).
Watercooler Wednesday - No. 198 Gail's "All About Holidays" Challenge.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

Using those Dies

Hi all.  You know sometimes it is difficult to break out of those creative ruts we get into, and I guess we all have our own style and it can become too easy just to do very similar styles of card all the time because that is what we feel safest doing.  Lately stamping and inking is what I do most and I have so many dies which are just not getting any use, so when I saw this card over at Ros's blog here, the second card on this particular post, though both are beautiful, it just gave me  a push to get my dies out and do something using similar dies.

I have a Tim Holtz Mixed Media set of dies which included this crackle corner and I cut it into a snippet of white card and used a Spellbinders scalloped edge Curved Borders 2 die to cut it.  I cut this down and added it to another snippet of white card cut with a Crealies Pierced Rectangle and the edge cut again into a curve using another of the edges from the Spellbinder set of dies.  I then mounted this on to a piece of craft foam before adding it to my white base card.  I then die cut some Sue Wilson Delicate Fronds and highlighted them randomly with some copper gilding wax and added them to the mat.  I finished with a large die cut sentiment cut with a piece of white card and I added the copper gilding wax over it.

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. 340 - where we use our snippets of paper and card etc.
Happy Little Stampers November Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.

Twelve Tags of Christmas

Hi everyone.  Lovely Loll Thompson has been running her 5th annual tag challenge over on her blog Stamping with Loll and this is to be her last year.  Although she has actually finished showing all her tags, and those of her guests, the challenge is still open for another few days so do go and take a look, and enter if you can.

The tag has to be Mixed Media based and the required elements are Stamping + two additional elements of your choice.  My tag includes, stamping, colouring with alcohol inks, dry embossing, gilding polish and distress ink blending.

I decided to use a new embossing folder which I bought about a week ago which is from Sarah's Signature Collection and is called Entwined Holly, and embossed using a piece of white card which I then shaped into a tag.  I coloured it using first some Pebeo Silver Gilding Wax and then I applied some Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress Ink over the top to take the whiteness off using a blending tool.  As the material is a little shiny it didn't end up taking the ink all that well, even when I used Faded Jeans which is quite dark, but it has given it a sort of bluey grey colour, which nevertheless is quite pretty.

I stamped the Chocolate Baroque image Robin the Spruce on to a piece of acrylic using Black Archival Ink and left it until it was perfectly dry before adding some alcohol inks to the reverse side.  I used a piece of white card to back it and I creased it and wrapped the acrylic round the card and stuck it down and then adhered another piece of card over that for extra security.  I then cut a pierced rectangle from Silver Mirri card slightly larger than the image and layered it on to this before fixing it to the tag.

I finished the tag with a piece of sheer white ribbon which has a nice glittery look and then because it is difficult to stamp on to an embossed surface, and I didn't want to add another strip with the sentiment on I decided to use one of my very old silver peeloff sentiments.

Thank you to Loll for running this challenge for the past five years and for giving us some absolutely marvellous inspiration and great prizes too, with all the different mixed media techniques she always manages to include. Thank you for visiting today and I'll see you again soon.

p.s.  I was so thrilled to have been chosen as one of the Top Tags for this challenge, thank you Loll.

Handsome Buck

Hi everybody.  This Serendity Buck, or deer as we say here, is an image I have had for quite a while but haven't used it recently, and I needed a quick birthday card and although you can colour this image to within an inch of its life, just a bit of simple heat embossing will do equally as well.

I found a piece of packaging which came with an embossing folder and which I kept as I thought it might come in useful with its woodgrain look, and I used some Aged Mahogany Distress Ink around the edges and over the lines which as it is shiny didn't colour it as much as I had hoped but stained it slightly.  I then cut a snippet of kraft card with a square stitched die from The Works and then inked the stamp with Versamark and heat set it using WOW Metallic Copper Embossing Powder.  I finished by finding another snippet of black card and stamped and heat embossed the sentiment on to it again using the Metallic Copper EP, and cut it into a fishtail banner shape and rounded the other end.  I layered the topper on to the piece of background card and then wrapped some jute type string around it twice and knotted it before adding it to my 6" square white base card.  I then finished by adding the sentiment.

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

I am entering this into the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - No. 339 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.