Inkylicious Galaxy Splatters

A quick post from me before the year ends, I posted on my blog yesterday and on a few facebook groups some cards that I'd made using the Inkylicious Splatter Circle Background Stamp that I got at the NEC back in November, and a few people asked how I did the backgrounds believing them to be complicated. In fact that were easy peasy to do, the stamp does all the hard work for you!

I used distress inks in colour combos I like using, direct from the pads to the stamp and spritzed it with some homemade shimmer spray, but plain old water would do if you don't want a shimmery background. Then using my trusty Tim Holtz Stamping Platform I applied the inky stamp to the card stock and left it sitting on top of the card, pressing it down to make sure the ink and water mixed and swirled together. Once I'd done the coloured part, I repeated the process with Black Soot Distress Ink and then left the panels to dry.

I tried applying the colours in two ways initially putting bands of colour on the stamp with small gaps in-between (leaving gaps prevents your distress ink pads becoming contaminated with darker colours of ink), the water helps the inks to pool in to the gaps so you don't get actual gaps.

The other way was to move around the stamp randomly with a selection of colours and spritz. I like both methods but prefer the random application because it looks more natural to my eye.

You can of course apply more colour I think dripping direct from a re-inker would give more intense results, I'll try doing that soon and see what happens. All of the 6" x 6" panels (that gives you an idea of the stamp size) are now ready for me to turn them into cards, I didn't want the colours to be too dark because the stamped images I want to add will be dark and run the risk of disappearing into the background. It took me all of 30 minutes to create 8 lovely galaxy style backgrounds and that included the time it took to cut the 6" x 6" pieces of card. I can see this stamp making lots of backgrounds in the future and I'm going to try the technique on my Gelli Plates to create some square and rectangular versions. Now to turn these in to cards, I have several ideas, just need to turn them in to physical things!

Christmas Playtime

I can't believe that the holidays are almost over, Si goes back to work on Wednesday, the time has sure flown by, we've been generally chilling out, eaten lots of chocolate, watched a lot of telly and done some gaming, between that and visiting family its been relaxing and fun.

I got lots of lovely crafting goodies as gifts this year, stamps, ink pads, dies, a 5" x 7" Gelli Plate, lots of Tim Holtz goodies including a second tin for my Alcohol Inks, a cover for my Stamping Platform, a Sidekick Machine and some Side Orders to go with it.

My niece and nephews got me some stamps that I can use with the wreath maker templates and fabulous set of fir trees from Inkylicious. Simon bought my a superb light that not only gives me additional light when I'm working, it also has a magnifier on it, making it easier to see what I'm working in if it involves fine details. It can be fixed to the desk with a clip or be stood on a stand like a standard lamp and there is a battery pack that can be attached for use whilst travelling if you don't have access to mains electricity. Given that I now have better light I've re-organised the craft desk to make more space, I've added a set of 4 drawers that now house my Embossing Powders, Altenew Ink Cubes, Mixed Media Paints and a few other things, much easier to gain access to them this way and I've put things I don't use as often in the places the ink cubes etc were.

There is still some clutter and things need to be organised a little better but I'm getting there, I still need to label my Oxide inks and thin out some of the other stuff, some of it will be going to my niece Zoe, for Xmas I got her a small die cutting machine and some basic kit (cardstock, scissors, glue, foam pads etc) and I gave her a lot of stuff I didn't use any more like some Docrafts dies that cut circles and scalloped squares, I have larger sets that include all the same sizes so I don't need them.

I also gave her a lot of inkpads that I didn't use, some I'd bought and NEVER used. She has taken to card making like a duck to water, I got a message from her today saying she'd just finished making a birthday card for her Dad, his birthday is on the 2nd January. As Zoe has embraced card making I'll be giving her more of the stash I no longer use, the kind of things I bought when I was just starting out, the basic training wheel stuff, not that I think I'm a professional now, but I use techniques and products that when I first started card making I didn't think I'd ever be using.

After I'd finished sorting my craft space, I decided to have a little play and dug out some of the stamps and dies that I got from the NEC back in November and made a couple of cards. Both of them have the Inkylicious Splatter background stamp on them, I used Distress inks in various shades of blue and a couple of shades of the new Versa Clair inks I got for Xmas.

I have to say that the Versa Clair 'Nocturne' (black) ink is my new go to black ink, it stamps so crisp and clean, picked up details just like Versafine it is smudge proof after about 50 seconds but you can still emboss it for up to 5 minutes after stamping!

The ink dries very quickly and once dry, stamped images are waterproof and will not smear, the images are light fast and fade resistant and once dry you can use water colour pens without any smearing. I'm getting the rest of the colours for my birthday so when I have all 24 I'll do a post on them by way of a review.  If the inks could be use for alcohol inks as well it would be perfect, I will be using these inks a lot more from now on. Look at how crisp and dark the Nocturne ink has stamped on both these cards.

I have a lot of black ink pads and I've always used Versafine 'Onyx Black' for stamping sentiments, but I think Versa Clair 'Nocturne' will be replacing the Versafine. Both cards I made today are part of my efforts to make some flatter cards that cut down on postage costs and also to challenge myself to try and create a cards with layers of ink rather than layers of paper. That's all from me for now, wishing you all the best for the New Year, I'll be back soon with more wreath template posts and a lot of ink ideas to share with new goodies I want to master, HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at Warts n All Towers xxx

Concord & 9th Winter Wear

Oh boy has it ever been busy here since I last blogged, we seem to have gone straight from one thing in to another since September, always something happening or somewhere to be.

We added to the workload with the bedroom decorating which now looks lovely I may add 😀 Although the door still needs painting so does the radiator, and those are jobs for the Xmas hols lol! How are you getting on with your festive jobs? I'm down to the general cleaning and tidy up and the food shop left to do, the decorations are all up, all the wrapping, card writing and faffing has been done.

I confess that this year despite wanting to make a lot of gifts to send to people, I just didn't get the time, I had lots of ideas and made a start on several projects which just didn't get finished sadly 😞 So much happened in the last quarter of the year that I found it difficult to keep up sometimes and from mid October to today, there hasn't been a lot of time for crafting. Tomorrow we do our last teaching session of the year, Simon finishes work for the holidays, and aside from a trip to visit my family in Manchester sometime over the weekend we are all done and we can now chill and relax. Time to regroup and plan for 2019, we already have the first Young Roboteers sessions booked early in the year and have had enquiries to run some other events.

I started my chilling session earlier today, I'd done all my chores for the day, so I got out a new stamp and die set I'd recently been treated to, its by Concord & 9th and is called Winter Wear, I fell in love with the set back in November when I saw Kristina Werner use it to make a card as part of her 2018 Holiday Card Series, that's 2 stamp sets I bought as a result of her demos lol! I used Nuvo Alcohol Markers for the first example, they blend very well but there aren't very many colours, I'm hoping they will release more soon as the choice is pretty limited at the minute. Kristina used Copic Markers on her card but they are way out of my price range at the moment, but I would like a set of basic colours, something to collect in 2019 maybe?

I confess that I had a minor fluff up, originally I stamped direct on to the card blank with the intention of making a single layer card, but I stamped the elements to low down and it didn't look right, so I die cut the stamped image using one of my favourite wonky stitched circle dies and stuck it on to a card blank that was sitting on my desk left over from the 2018 cards. I decided not to add a sentiment on the outside, keeping the focus on the images and stamped a nice sentiment inside the card. I didn't get the scarf and face bits lined up and small amounts of white space were left. So after I'd coloured the image I used a black fine liner pen to finish off the lines.

I've got lots of ideas for using this stamp set and I'll be making batches for sending, the two cards in this post are now officially my first cards for posting out for Christmas 2019! I know it may seem early, but I'm taking the stance that early in the year and in parts of the summer nothing is happening. So if I use that time to make my Christmas cards and other items, then I won't be as stressed as I was this year because I still needed to make cards to send instead of having them all ready.

The second card was coloured with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol, I need more practice with coloured pencils but the finished card didn't turn out so bad. I used an embossing folder that was free with issue 185 of Simply Cards & Papercraft. I bought the magazine for the folder as I'd been trying to find a knitting effect embossing folder for a while. The sentiment is from the Winter Wear set and was originally going to go on the first card, but I decided that it didn't look right so put it to one side.

In 2019 I want to improve my colouring skills, I may even try to take a class either near me or online! I also want to try harder to only buy things that I will actually use, and not buy things just because I think they look cute. Something else I need to do is stop buying all the colours of a new ink pad, embossing powder etc until I've actually tried the product out. I've been caught out on more than one occasion, allowing my "full set" syndrome to dictate how I spend. I started dabbling with Mixed Media this year and bought lots of jolly things to pursue that area of crafting, so over the Xmas hols I think I'll have a play and see what I can create.

I'm hoping I'll have time to make another post before the years out, but in the event that I don't here's wishing everyone that reads my blog and takes the time to comment, a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years. May 2019 be filled with crafting time a plenty, mojo abounding, health and happiness in no particular order. Your lovely words have cheered me when I've been down this year and I appreciate each and every one of you. 💖💖💖

DIY Epsom Salt Herbal Muscle Spray

When my Plantar fasciitis plays up I soak my foot in a bowl of warm water that I've added a handful of Epsom salts (Magnesium sulfate) and a few drops of lavender oil to and it helps ease my foot, and when my back aches from too much exercise or from a long session in the garden I have a warm bath, this time with a couple of handfuls of Epsom salts and essential oils of my choice, I use oils that have warming properties like rosemary, ginger and black pepper which are good for easing muscles aches and pains.

I have a bath blend to share a bit further on, but a lady in a group I belong to wanted something she could use to help ease her aching muscles without having to have a bath or shower, so enter my Epsom Salt Muscle Spray which can be carried around and used whenever you need to. A small caveat before you make and use this spray, if you get it on your clothes the Epsom salts will leave a powdery residue when they dry, it will wash out but it will be noticeable until the garment is washed.

Epsom Salt Muscle Spray

The base for your spray will always be a 1 part water to 1 part Epsom salt mix and you can add your choice of beneficial essential oils, I give two versions below that I find best.

250ml Bottle
125ml Boiling Water
125g Epsom Salts

Then either: -

15 Drops Lavender Essential Oil

15 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil

Or: -

15 Drops Rosemary Essential Oil
15 Drops Ginger Essential Oil

Method: Boil your water in a kettle and place your Epsom salts in a jug or glass bowl that is suitable for boiling liquids and stir until the Epsom salts are dissolved. Once they are completely dissolved set the mixture aside to go cold, once its cold add your essential oils of choice, don't be tempted to add the oils whilst the mixture is hot, the oils with evaporate in the heat and lose their beneficial and aromatic properties.

Pour the mixture into your spray bottle and label it with name and date, then use it to spritz your aching muscles e.g. arms, legs, neck or shoulders.

You can make this spray in any quantity you like the key is to always use 1 part boiling water to 1 part Epsom salts. So if you only have a 100ml bottle 50ml water and 50g Epsom salts. A 500ml bottle then 250ml water and 250g Epsom salts, you get the picture?

Epsom Salt & Herb Bath Muscle Soak

Back pain and muscle problems seem to occur in our house rather a lot these days, a sign of our ageing bodies methinks, and when the lighter days come around and garden activity increases the aches and pains increase as well. Usually after several hours of gardening, I have a nice long soak in the bath with my favourite herbal bath blend from a jar I keep of this bath soak recipe I make up at the start of the gardening season, but its now being used to soak muscles after a long walks and runs (my husband not me, I'm not fit enough to run yet lol).

The mix makes enough to fill 18 bath bags containing 25g per bag, alternatively have one bag and store the rest of the mixture in a sealed jar and add 25g of the mixture to a muslin bag at each bath time.

Ingredients:

15g Dried Thyme
30g Dried Rosemary
30g Dried Lavender Flowers
25g Dried Cramp Bark
25g Dried Peppermint Leaf
150g Oats
200g Epsom Salts
12 Drops Lavender Essential Oil
12 Drops Rosemary Essential Oil
12 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil

Method: Mix all the dry ingredients together, stir in the essential oils and put in a large, well-sealed, glass jar such as a kilner jar. To use, put 25g of the mix into a muslin bath bag or into the centre of a circle of muslin tied up with string or ribbon and hang over the bath tap. Relax in the bath and let the herbs and Epsom salts soak away the aches and pains.

If a long soak doesn’t help and there's pain rather than just aches going on, then make an appointment to see your GP.

Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to source the most up to date and accurate information, we cannot guarantee that remedies in our articles are effective, when in doubt, consult your GP or a qualified Medicinal Herbalist. Remember also that herbal remedies can be dangerous under certain circumstances therefore you should always seek medical advice before self-treating with a homemade remedy, especially if you suffer from any known illness which could be adversely affected by self-treatment.