On the Beach

Hi there everyone.  Well,  I suddenly realised the other day that just over a year has passed since I started writing this blog, and actually it has gone by really quickly.   I wasn't sure whether it would still be going a year on, but thanks to you all it has exceeded my expectations and I have so enjoyed getting to know my fellow bloggers in this wonderful crafting community.  Hopefully I will be sitting here next year looking forward to the start of my third year.

I love doing sea themed cards and this one is for a male birthday.  Looking at it I hope it can be considered to be a masculine theme, personally I think so.  Anyway, I used some stamps I have from Crafty Individuals called Seaside Treasures.  I also brought the Gelli Plate out for a bit of an airing.

I started by blending the colours on the Gelli Plate with my brayer to create the background scene.  For the sky area I used some Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers and Faded Jeans.   I laid it down in stripes with the Faded Jeans at the top, then the Tumbled Glass and then a very little Peacock Feathers and used a brayer to blend.  Then for the beach I laid down Walnut Stain at the bottom, then a small amount of Spiced Marmalade and a larger amount of Sunshine Yellow, and again blended with the brayer.  Finally I loaded my fingers with a little water and dripped it gently on to the Plate.  I have some nice 7" x 7" Clarity white card which I use, so laid this over and pulled the print.  It worked beautifully, and this was my base on which to put the shells etc.  The shells were stamped with Archival Black, on to a snippet of white card and coloured using Sunshine Yellow and a little Shaded Lilac, Spiced Marmalade, Adirondack Espresso, and Black Soot, and then stuck down with Pinflair Glue Gel.   For the birds and the sentiment I used Archival Black.  I darkened the edges at the bottom with some Walnut Stain, and round the top Some Faded Jeans, and using a cocktail stick I added some shadows and texture with little bits of Adirondack Espresso.

As I already put a sentiment on the outside I added the 'Happy Birthday' on the insert.

Thank you for dropping by today, and thank you again to everyone who has made my first blogging year such fun.

Pat x

P.S  As some people have asked, and perhaps I didn't make it clear in my explanation, for this background I put the ink from the pad straight on to the plate and then used a brayer to smooth it out.  It is best not to pat one colour over another because of contamination of the ink so try to keep them separate, and frequently remove excess ink from the brayer to keep the colours clean.  As far as I know only water based products should be used with the Gelli Plate.Hope this is of some help.  Barbara Gray at Claritystamp does a lot of work with the Gelli Plate, and you can find her blog here, and there are lots of other sites too featuring Gelli Plate techniques. 

I am entering the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 144.  I have used just some snippets of white card this time.

Summer Garden Angel

Hi all.  Things are returning to normal now after a wonderful holiday in France.  I was hoping to be able to keep up with some commenting whilst away, but I'm afraid it very quickly went wrong as wifi was a bit variable to say the least, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

I made this card for one of the younger members of our extended family.  It is another stamp which is getting it's first outing, and I also used some LOTV papers and a sentiment stamp which came free with a magazine.

I used two different snippets of this paper which I backed with Purple pearlescent card, and then cut two mats in purple and white using my S/B Decorative Elements - Labels Eight, the middle two dies.  I cut the purple one as a frame, and then cut the smaller die in the white which makes them fit together like one layer.  I stamped the Angel with Black Archival ink and then coloured using my Spectrum Noir pencils and after cutting the image out adhered it to the mat.  I also used a little Perfect Pearls - Pewter, mixed with water, on the wings and flower centres and on bits of her dress to add a little sheen which doesn't show up very well in the photo, and also the wings look rather dark.  With hindsight I wish I had used just the mica powder and water on the wings so they would have stayed whiter. 

I finished the card by punching some flowers using a very old pair of punches from Dovecraft and some snippets of pink and lilac glitter card.  I used a narrow piece of white ribbon for a bow and then stamped a 'seven' with Black Archival, on to a mat cut from a S/B Labels Thirty Two set using the smallest die, and before  attaching it to the centre of the bow I inked with Distress Ink Picked Raspberry.  I used the freebie sentiment again stamped with Black Archival and inked with the Picked Raspberry, both used snippets of white card.

Thanks for dropping by.

Pat  x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 143.  I used lots of snippets on this card which means I will certainly be allowed through the gates this week.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Stencils and Stamps.  If I have interpreted this correctly you can use one or the other or both.
Cuttlebug Mania - Anything Die Cut.
Lili of the Valley - Pretty Papers.

Embossed Hearts and Flowers Anniversary

Hello everyone.  This is another scheduled post.  I got the idea for this card from Pinterest and adapted it for this card.  The original had flower shaped apertures with patterned paper behind and this led me to think of circles with paper behind and then hearts stuck within.  I used my Xcut circles  and my Nellie Snellen Multi Frame hearts dies.  I embossed the hearts with a Cuttlebug EF - Divine Swirls, and the outer embossed layer was a Crafter's Companion EF - Regal Damask.

The paper was snippets from a Papermania pad.  The flowers were also punched from snippets of different papers from this pad together with a few white and red punched flowers, and then a Marianne Creatables die - Forest Branch was used for the red and black foliage behind the flowers.  I finished by stamping the sentiment using Black Archival on to a mat made using the smallest die from the S/B Labels Eight.

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat  x
 

Cherrylicious

Hi there.  This is a scheduled post as I'm busy at the moment, so please forgive me if I don't get to visit as often as I would normally.   I have a couple of birthdays coming up and I have this embossing folder Cherry-licious by Crafter's Companion which I haven't used yet (hereafter known as NBUS - coined by Darnell of djkardkreations).  I decided to emboss on to a snippet of white card and then colour using my Spectrum Noir Pencils which are my favourites at the moment.  After colouring I used an Adirondack Pink Sherbet ink pad and some blending foam to gently colour the background.

I then made a frame using a snippet of white card and a S/B Captivating Squares die, the second largest, and I cut out the centre, and then cut the next size die to fit within that.  I finished by stamping the sentiment in the centre using Black Archival ink, added a bow and mounted on to green card then on to the base square white card.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Pat x

P.S  I am back in the blogging swing again and I would like to enter this card into the NBUS Challenge which is running over at Darnell's blog at the moment and has only a few days left to run, so do go take a look.

Vintage Telephone

Hi all.  This is a scheduled post as I am busy still, so please forgive me if I don't get round to visiting quite as often as normal.  This telephone is a NBUS Cottage Cutz die.  It comes as one 4" x 4" plate and as most of it is black I used a snippet of black card across the whole plate, and then the gold bits were a snippet of gold pearlescent card which I ran through the machine after.  I think what makes this so fiddly is that the plate does not have any holes to help release the card from the die, and some of the components are very small.  Anyway I did like the finished result.

The background was a snippet of card which I embossed by running through my machine using a chevron stencil from Creative Expressions, and then inked over it with Distress Inks in Mustard Seed and Mowed Lawn.  When putting it together I thought the telephone merged into the background too much so I embossed part of the stencil again in a snippet of dark green card and then cut out two strips and attached them to the background as seen here.  Finally I stamped the sentiment using a Black Archival ink pad.  The base card is a square cream card, but actually looks more like white in the photo.

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat  x

Hunkydory Celebration

Hello All.  This is a scheduled post as I am busy at the moment, so please forgive me if I don't get to visit as often as I would normally.  I needed an Anniversary card and thought of a set of stamps which I have had for quite a while made by Hunkydory called Celebrations.  I have been practising with my Gelli Plate and decided to see what I could do with a mask I have from That Special Touch called Chevrons.  Here are the results.

   
As you can see the one on the left is rather pale.   I used Memento Lady Bug which is a nice bright red but didn't come out red at all.  I think I layed the stencil on the Gelli Plate and inked through the stencil before removing and pulling the print.  On reflection I think the other red I have, which is Distress Ink Fired Brick, might have come out darker.  The middle sample I coloured after printing using three different shades of red Spectrum Noir Pencils, and then the right hand one I used the Lady Bug with Memento London Fog and I think I inked up the stencil with the first colour, layed it on and brayered over it, lifted the stencil pulled the print and then did the same with the other colour making sure before pulling the print that the card was replaced in the same position but the other way up so the chevrons overlap each other.  You do have to be careful that you don't mark the Gelli with anything sharp as the marks will obviously pit the surface and leave the marks on any subsequent prints.  The thing with the Gelli is that the results are quite random and you can never be quite sure what will happen, especially if you are using several colours.  Although you can use dye based inks I do think acrylics give more dramatic results, but at the moment I don't have any so am going with what I have.  It is certainly fun to use.

The print I went with in the end was the reverse of the third sample which I made by covering the Gelli Plate with the Lady Bug ink and then inked the stencil, layed it on and then I think I dabbed through the stencil with a tissue to randomly remove some of the ink before lifting the stencil and pulling the print.  I decided to cut round the chevrons to give it a shaped edge and then backed it with black card.  I used the champagne glass stamp and using a snippet of white card I stamped with Archival Black ink and and as it stays wet a little longer I used the clear holographic embossing powder which I'm afraid does not show up in the photo.  I stamped two of these and coloured in parts of the image using a red Spectrum Noir pencil and then cut them out.

As a finishing touch I decided to make a small tag for the sentiment and attach it with Baker's Twine to the stem of the glass before adhering it to the card.  I also wrote the sentiment by hand.  I have some of the small nibs which attach to the Promarker Pens which made the writing fine enough, but I have to admit it took several goes before I was happy with the writing.  I cut the label shape by hand using another snippet and punched a hole in one end and rounded the other with my Tonic corner rounder.  I assembled it using my usual square white card.

Thank you for dropping by.

Pat  x

CAS Flowers

Hello there everybody.  I saw this sketch over at Less is More and I thought as I am a bit short of time at the moment it would make a nice easy card.  I used  a Chocolate Baroque set of stamps called Poppy Meadow, one of the smaller stamps in the set.  I have used this stamp before, and in similar colours.   I don't know why, but with this flower  just seems to draw me to orange, red and blue.

I used a smallish rectangular shaped snippet of white card and stamped with Black Archival ink and then coloured with my Spectrum Noir Pencils - Primaries.  I made the background using the same set of pencils.  I mounted this on to a piece of gold card, and then on to a piece of dark blue.  I stamped the sentiment using the same Black Archival ink on to a snippet of white and then mounted this on to another snippet of blue card.  I used a Gold 7" x 5" card and shaved approximately 1/4" off the length and the width which I felt made it look more balanced.  In real life it is actually a bright pearlescent gold colour but looks rather beige in the photo.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More - Week 186 a sketch challenge.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 139 where we use snippets of card or paper, and I have excelled myself as every single piece was a snippet!
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.