Adventures in Nuvo: Mousse

Hello there and thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate the lovely people that visit my blog and leave comments, sometimes I forget to say so which is very remise of me, so I thought I'd correct that before I say anything else. 😀

I did manage to sort out the stuff that was blocking access to my work desk, which means that I've been able to sit there and get my craft on, I've been playing with Nuvo Mousse thanks to a fab video tutorial that my friend Jennifer Kray did via a Facebook Live.

She gave some brilliant tips for using the mousse including one I'd tried before, when I tried it I coloured first then embossed, but Jen's technique involved embossing first and then adding the mousse with a smoothie. Jen used a couple of embossing folders but the one that blew me away was the example Jen did using her We Are Memory Keepers Next Level Geometric embossing folder, I don't own any of the WAMK's folders yet but I now have my eye on a few, thanks Jen 😛 I do have some 3D embossing folders, a couple by Sizzix including the 'Woven' one above and the 'Leaves' one below both are by Lynda Kanase for Sizzix.

I do have a selection of Crafters Companion 3D folders as well and I'm waiting for a the new Botanical 3D Tim Holtz folder to arrive, can't wait either, my Nuvo mousses have gone a little stiffer than when I first bought them and Jen showed us how to revive them.

I got a 2.5 litre bottle of de-ionised water from Wilkinson's for the princely sum of £1.25 a real bargain, its in the section where they have the stuff for cars if anybody is interested.

My camera isn't picking up the subtle changes in colour, I used 3 different colours of Nuvo Mousse to create the background, I think some highlights of gold would have been perfect but I don't have that colour yet, its on my list of things to acquire now 😉

On both of my cards I used a My Favorite Things border die from their 'Scallop Basic Edges 2' set, I just bent it round the embossed panel and held it in place with a couple of small pieces of washi tape before I glued the panel to my card base.

The Hello topper is done using a set of dies I picked up on Ebay a while back, both of the hello toppers were made from the cards we were sent at Christmas by friends and family, they look fab from this side but the reverse of them which nobody sees you can tell that the toppers are recycled, but nobody sees the back of them once they are glued on right?

The set has a matching stamp and if you use it the O is more clearly defined, I used a variety of inks on the backs of the cards, the foil and glitter ones were die cut from cards that had glitter and foiled sections on them. I did find that some types of card didn't take to ink so readily if you look at the blue 'Hello' I used a Hero Arts Ombre Ink which is a dye based ink, on the glossy card the ink went on splotchy, I was going to throw it away but I left it to dry and discovered I liked the mottled effect that it made and to anyone looking they'd think it was intentional, it was a happy accident 😂

I used distress oxides as well and added some water to create splashes, some inks didn't work very well and in the end I stuck to oxides and dye based inks, any pigment inks I tried just refused to dry, I think thats because most of the recycled cardstock is coated some how which makes it repel certain forms of ink. I ended up making about 30 of these from the Xmas cards and I'm down to my last 6 now. It's a good way of recycling cards, I have some birthday cards that I need to do the same with, some of them will even make toppers for other cards as well. I'm off to make a birthday card for my Sister-In-Law now and then to make a start on the annual christmas card pile, making some for the Cats Protection to sell as well so I need to make lots!  Enjoy the rest of the day and thanks for stopping by :)