In my Halloween Coffin Cards post the other day, I mentioned that I was going to share some tips based on what I discovered whilst colouring the images for my latest batch of Halloween cards, it boils down to another of those I'm so totally rubbish at this, lets give up moments.
Perseverance and a new tack meant that I discovered that it wasn't me being rubbish at the colouring, but it was the cardstock I was using for the job!
I started off using Neenah Classic Crest Solar White card stock that I got from Crafters Companion and My Favorite Things Hybrid Ink pad 'Black Licorice' which works for both water based markers and alcohol based markers.
When I started to colour I was getting frustrated when within minutes the markers were bleeding outside of the image and at that point I wasn't really laying down lots of colour. I tried again this time with Hero Arts 'Intense Black' ink that is specifically alcohol marker friendly and once again the markers bled out of the image and once I'd laid down a darker colour to add depth to the image and I went to blend in, it was dry and wouldn't budge. At this point I was about to chuck in the towel and have a sulk, instead I channeled by Grandad and went and had a cup of tea and thought about the problem.
As I sat sipping my brew I mulled over what I'd done, on the product description for Crafters Companion Neenah it says "This high quality Neenah Classic Crest card is ideal for use with all alcohol based colouring mediums. " Having read that, again I figured it had to be me at fault, I tried again and pressed on and as you can see from this photo CC Neenah card stock is not an ideal card stock to use with Tonic Nuvo alcohol markers!
I decided to have one last go, but this time I opted to change the cardstock to Tonic Craft Perfect Ultra Smooth cardstock, and the difference was incredible! I did the same darker grey line for shading on the Craft Perfect that I did on the Neenah, but on the craft perfect it blended out like a dream, the colours didn't bleed outside the image (see the grey on the Neenah witch's hat) or merge in to each other. Working on the cardstock was different as well, the markers glided across the card and it was easy to control laying down of the colour.
Lesson learned, it wasn't me fluffing up, it was the cardstock that wasn't suited to the markers I was using! If I get time over the next few day I'll try using Promarkers and Spectrum Noir Markers on both lots of cardstock and compare the results. That said, in future when I'm colouring with Nuvo Markers I'll only be using Craft Perfect card stock.
Again I'm thrilled with how the final card came out, my colouring and fussy cutting are getting better and I used up bits from the Maybe Someday box to make the card. A while ago I die cut one of my Tim Holtz dies 'Birch Trees' and I used some black Starlights paint to colour it, when I'd finished and it had dried I decided it was too dark for the project I was working on, so I didn't use it. The panel at the back was another panel I made when I was experimenting with Distress Stains a couple of weeks ago. When the panel was dry I embossed it my Tim Holtz 3D embossing folder 'Lumber', when I accidentally put both pieces together they looked perfect and screamed turn me in to a Halloween card lol! So I did, I have pumpkins on the brain lol!
I'm so chuffed with my latest crafting endeavour that I can hardly contain myself, I guess that I really do need to get out more 😂😂😂 For such a long time I've suffered from the misplaced die problem, you know the one, the I need "THAT" exact nesting die that just happens to be missing from the set in the box (and which box did I put it in anyway?) and no matter how hard you look, your favourite sentiment die or shape has disappeared? So, so many times this has happened to me, but not any longer, this week I finally got organised and its made a huge difference to my crafting endeavours already.
I have a system in my room, well its a work in progress but as each stage of organisation occurs, crafting in my small space gets easier. My stamp and die combos are stored in plastic storage boxes which are labelled with the names if the companies in the box, and until now storage of my nesting dies was a little pot luck and I found that most used dies often went missing as they got covered over with other stuff. Or they would wind up sandwiched between cardstock and packages in a box that they aren't supposed to be in. Hunting for the die I need turned in to an epic adventure and often I'd give up and put the project to one side, or end up using another die that wasn't the right shape/size.
My brainwave isn't original, I've seen lots of similar ideas on Pinterest, but for once I did more than just think an idea would be useful and actually but it in to effect, because it would be practical, but also because it made me think of an additional use for the new Sizzix Tim Holtz Impresslits dies 😉 So I ordered a roll of 3M Self Adhesive Flexible Magnetic Sheet for just over £11. The sheet I got has a pulling force of 40g/cm2 is 300mm wide and 1 metre in length and is 0.85mm thick.
I cut the sheet in half to make 2 x 50cm pieces, and cleaned the door with some cleaning alcohol before adhering the sheet pieces to the door. It went on really easily, if you don't press too hard initially you can quickly peel the sheet off again to reposition it if it all goes wring, once you're happy with the position use a cloth (I used an old tshirt) and smooth it down pressing hard to help adhere the sheet to the wood of the door.
As I said above, it occured to me that the new 3D Impresslits I got recently would make a nice frame for the die holder, it looked a little raw prior to this and I wanted it to look a little more decorative. I cut enough strips of gold metallic card to make enough pieces to go around the whole of the magnetic sheet area and cut 4 of the smaller dies from the 3D Impresslit 'Burst' dies following Tim's instructions (mist with water and pass through the machine 3 times) and the pack instruction sandwich guide for my Big Shot.
Once I had all my pieces ready I then added a gave them a little distress treatment to tone down the colour a little, it was too shiny gold before. I added a small amount of 'Patina' Alcohol Ink and pounced on some 'Gunmetal' Mixative Alcohol Ink to all of the pieces.
When the ink was dried I added a little Cosmic Shimmer 'Chocolate Bronze' Gilding Polish and buffed it off the strips and the bursts and left them to dry. The final step was to squeeze some 'Ruby Slippers' Nuvo Glitter Drops to the centre of the bursts and allow it to dry and set throughly. The magnetic sheet takes a good quality glue really well, I used some Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue to fix the distressed strips in place along the edge of the mat, starting centre bottom and working my way around, once all the strips were in place, I adhered the bursts to the four corners.
When it was all finished and I'd waited for the glue to dry I began adding my nesting dies to the newly created storage area, whilst I was doing that and rummaging in boxes I found a pack of Xcut A5 Adhesive Backed Magnetic Shims that I'd bought from The Range a couple of years ago. The original plan was to use them in some folders for die storage, but the logistics of how many I'd need etc put me off. When the A5 shims surfaced initially I was going to attach them to the door, but I realised that when I want to add more layers of the 3M stuff in the future, the the smaller shims would be in the way.
I couldn't decided where to put them initially, but then I got a secondary brainwave! At the side of the door I have a bookshelf that I keep a lot of my crafting stuff on, its almost 8 inches wide and the A5 sheets would be perfect, its a dead space as the door opens on to it, but its perfect for storing dies. I have some space to add a few more shims in the future and I have some free space on the large sheet for adding more dies. The pull for the shims isn't as strong as the 3M sheet, but its sufficient to hold the dies you can see in the photo.
Prior to adding the sheet to the door I had a couple of hooks on the door that I hung an assortment of clutter and an apron from, the clutter forced the door to not open properly and it would often swing back trapping my arm, since moving the clutter that doesn't happen and that means no more doors closing on me and bruising my arm 😁
The additional bonus which hadn't occured to me prior to doing this but has turned out to be so useful is the fact that I can take the stamp I want to cut or mat and see what size and shape it would look good on, before I even stamp the image. The whole project was rather quick to put together, the longest part was the die cutting and distressing the pieces to make the frame. Having the right size die to hand is briliant and as soon as I've finished using a die, I put it back on the sheet so its there ready to use again, which means no more lost dies 🙌
There's been some more changes to my craft space and its tidier with more room to craft, before now my alcohol markers, Zig pens and an assortment of other items were in front of my Distress ink/oxide racks making getting the lower colours of Distress ink out a royal pain.
It was cluttered and cramped, so this week I set too re-organising things, I packed away some books I don't access very much and changed where I stored some items and generally made things easier to access. There's still some work to do, but already its less cluttered and everything is so much easier to use. If I want to colour with my markers they can be brought down on to the desk to be used and put back when finished.
I sorted through all the boxes of card stock and papers I'd printed off to make cards (I had 6 scattered around the room!!!) I try to save every scrap, so when I cut something out I stick the left over card stock/paper on a pile, piles build and end up in a box, they were all higgledy piggledy so they needed sorting. The irony is I save the offcuts but I don't use them because I can't remember which box the relevant bits are in!!! Now I have a coloured cardstock box, a printed papers box and I've put all the white card (watercolour, Neenah etc) in a poly bag, same for all the mirror card and black cardstock and put the bags in a magazine rack!
I still need to add colour swatch labels to my Oxide inks and I have some none nesting dies that need to go into the folders I got a while ago so I can find them when needed, but already my room is so much tidier and a more efficient space to craft, most of what I need is around me to easily access, and if I thin out some of the stuff I'm not using then there will be even more space.
This week I've also been stocking up on Distress Re-Inkers Black Soot in regular distress and oxide for making galaxy backgrounds. I've picked up some more alcohol inks, blending solution and acrylic paint for splattering on galaxy backgrounds and I'm gearing up for making Halloween and Christmas cards and gifts as well. This afternoon I've been playing with little monsters and action wobblers, just some card blanks to make and I can layer it all up. I have to admit though that I am now looking for more ways to add impresslits to the room decor, yes I'm still patting myself on the back lol!
I'm on day 7 of no spending this month and day 9 if you add the last 2 days of Feb, and I'm loving finding treasure of all kinds in my stash, thank you to all of you who commented on my Miserly March post and were so supportive, it means an awful lot to have the love and support of such a super talented bunch of lovely people. I'd like to give a special shout out to Shabneez of Happy Hijaabi's Papercraft Creations for her kindly nominating me for an Altenew giveaway such a lovely surprise 💖💋.
This morning I completed a couple of cards using some digital images from the 'Lovely Jessica Collection' a free download back in January from Making Cards Magazine, you have to sign up to get the downloads but its so worth it, each month you get a email newsletter with a link to something to download, usually additional backing papers to go with the cover gift but sometimes something different. MCM is now the only magazine I subscribe to monthly, their free papers and downloads are brilliant and I can always find a use for the free gifts.
The backing papers on both my cards are from the collection, and they work fabulously together. I had to play with the images in Corel PaintShop Pro x8, I captured the image I wanted to play with and saved it as a jpg file.
I then took the jpg into the paint program and removed the surrounding images and resized it for my card and then printed it off, finally die-cutting it out with the largest die from my Wonky Nesting Ovals die set from Craft Stash.
I used another die from the set to cut an oval for the sentiment and the sentiments for both todays cards come from the "New Best Friend" stamp set from 'My Favorite Things'. I'll be using the actually images soon from the set, they are soooo cute, I'm going to make some cards for the craft fair in May for people to send when someone they know gets a new furry friend 😸 I used a leaf and the flower dies from a Crafters Companion set from their 'Floral Delight' Collection the die set is called "In Bloom".
I decided to make these cards a little bit special by adding a surprise inside in the form of a bookmark, I've done the same thing before in September 2017 using some cute 'Barry the Book Owl' images from Making Cards Magazine. I detailed how I did it in that post so I won't repeat myself, but you can follow the link if you're curious.
The bookmarks are super quick to make, and these images were just the right size. There's a cool bit of upcycling in these cards as well, I cut the ribbons off tops I buy and save them in a jar and use them for adding to bookmarks and for gift tags.
I think a bookmark card is the perfect accompaniment to a book gift voucher and its something to keep once the event the recipient has been given the card for is over. I've found lots of images for making more for young and old, I'm also going to make some with stamped images and attach the bookmarks to the front of the card like a topper.
Before I go I thought I'd share a tip and I know this will be old news to most of you, but for anyone that is new to the world of alcohol markers and card making I thought I'd share... You can use alcohol markers to colour sticky gem stones to match your project. Whilst working on these cards this morning I found the
perfect gem for centre of the flowers for the pink version of the card, but I didn't have them in red. So I used one of my red Nuvo Alcohol Marker pens to change the pink to red et voila, the flowers got red gem stone centres!
I have clear gems in my stash just for this purpose, you can also use the markers to colour white ribbon and lace so it matches your project with your pens. I always colour my gems off the card on the acetate backing, that way you won't accidentally catch the card or paper you're working on, this I learnt from experience. Once you've coloured the gems set them aside for 5-10 minutes so that the ink dries totally, then attach the gems to your project as you normally would. Clear gems are better but if you are going for a similar tone pink to red, yellow to orange, light blue to dark blue etc. then any colour works.
Cute little pop up box isn't it? This is one of my 'bargain' China dies that turns out to not be that much of a bargain, insomuch as the die itself isn't the same size as the true Lawn Fawn die. So when I thought I was getting a bargain at £2.70 and saving myself around £25.00, I wasn't. Not if I want to make actual Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box Card Pop Up to add my Lawn Fawn stamps to, so that everything is to scale.
It's a shame really as the die cuts really well and all the bits are included but sadly the width of the box is supposed to be 3½ inches it's only 2½ inches. It's usable if you want to make a small pop up and the dies that come with it will be useful like the hello die and the small hearts and stars, even the little banner dies will be useful but size wise its not big enough. Hubby took pity on me and treated me to the full size one so I can proceed with my Xmas card pop up ideas and I've chalked it up to experience, at least I was only £2.70 out of pocket.
I had the same problem with the Lawn Fawn Fancy Box set, this one is supposed to be 3½ inches by 2¼ inches but in actual fact its 3 inches by 2 inches, it makes a cute little treat box but it isn't big enough to fit a gift card in. Its about the size of 2 match boxes side by side to give you an idea, just a fraction too small to take a gift card 3⅜ inches by 2⅛
This time the size wasn't as big a problem because I'd bought the die set to hold sweets and small gifts like jewellery which will fit comfortably and the word sentiments 'Thanks' and 'Yay' and the label dies will be very useful, so worth the £3.80 paid for this one, but if you are expecting to get the full size die you'd be disappointed. The quality of both dies is really good for the price, its just a shame that the scale is wrong, but for the price I guess it would be daft to expect it to be the same.
I also picked up a Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait and also Landscape for less that £3 each, again a big saving and whilst the die is the same quality as the Lawn Fawn one and even the right size and has all the right additional bits (stitched hill or tree background and leaves), it cuts to put the tree on the right hand side of the die cut, whereas the Lawn Fawn cuts with the tree on the left, unless all the card examples I've seen are turning the die cut about.
Again though its something I can live with, the Landscape clone version of the die is the same, the tree is on the opposite side of the original. I have tried die cutting and flipping the cut image over, but sadly the back is dull and the edges look as crisp. It's something to be mindful of though and I'm wondering what will happen with the other dies I've ordered will look like, will they be reversed as well? The Lawn Fawn 'Little Town Border' die certainly appears to be, again its not the end of the world, but its worth noting that the images are reversed? It's probably how they manage to get away with looking so much like the real deal dies?
I'm really getting in to making ATC's and I'm finding that its a perfect thing to craft with scraps and things from my Maybe Someday Box late at night when I can't sleep, but my Big Shot takes up a lot of space on my craft desk and by using it I make noise as the floorboards that side of the room make a noise, which wakes the hubby up and makes him grumpy. So I wanted a smaller machine that I could use on my computer desk the other side of the room and a size specifically for making ATC's.
As I already have a Big Shot Plus and a Big Shot, my criteria for getting a new machine was it had to be universal. What I mean by that is it had to take any make of dies and embossing folders of the size that can be used to make ATC's. It had to fit on my computer desk, be light weight but sturdy and enable me to die cut shapes up to 3.5" and emboss folders up to 5" wide - the size of the majority of my most used embossing folders.
If it couldn't take those it required me to buy smaller folders and meant I couldn't use my favourite embossing folders late at night. If I had to buy smaller ones, it would be more expense and the mini machine starts to become a niche rather than universal machine. I asked people on a Facebook group I belong to what they thought of the top 2 best selling mini die-cutting machines and took their comments on board. I did some research myself and decided then to go along to Hobbycraft and get a feel for the machines on offer that were in my price range.
I ruled out the Tattered Lace 'Baby Blue' machine almost straight away, as soon as I encountered its flimsy plastic handle and when I realised that actually it wasn't wide enough for some of the dies I wanted to use and felt not very stable. I didn't appreciate how small it was to be honest and it just didn't fit my criteria. So I'm glad I went to check the machines out, I struggle with sizes, when something is described as being 3" for example, I don't always register how big it actually is until I see it and I'm often disappointed and moan that I expected it to be bigger/smaller.
Next I looked at the Spellbinders Prizm machine, a little sturdier than the Baby Blue but still a very narrow slot to run things through and my small embossing folders wouldn't fit. I didn't even seriously consider the Crafters Companion Diamond Press because, well it was just too damn small. It looks good for kiddies to make small shapes but not what I would pay £25 for, yes I know you can get it for around £15 in some places, but its still not something I want to play with.
I was about to give up when a display caught my eye in the store, Hobbycraft do their own small Die Cutting Machine and it came with accessories, it was more than I wanted to pay at £50, but it was sturdy and ticked all my boxes, in actual fact I didn't buy it, hubby treated me to it, I know I'm a lucky girl :)
These are the specifications of the machine: -
Machine Size: 29 x 24.5 x 16 cm (11.4 x 9.6 x 6.3 inches).
Maximum Cutting width: 14.9 cm (5.9 inches).
Maximum Cutting GSM: 220 gsm.
Included in the box - Die-cutting machine, an A Base Plate and B & C Plates for embossing and die cutting, two 15 x 10.5cm embossing folders, six 5 x 5 cm dies, a pack of 9 15 x 10.5cm sheets of cardstock (3 x red, 3 x white and 3 x black) and instruction booklet.
The machine is compatible with X-cut, Cuttlebug and most other manufacturer's dies. In Fact I've tried lots of dies in it and so far I haven't encountered any it wouldn't cut, although some are harder to cut see below.
The machine cuts cardstock and paper, and will also cut fabric with the addition of a metal shim, although one isn't supplied and I haven't tried to cut fabric with my machine.
To sum up, I LOVE this little machine, I use it all the time now in place of both of my Big Shots, only using them if I want to work with a die or embossing folder that won't fit in the Hobbycraft machine. It cuts almost almost all the dies I have that fit the machine, there have been some problems with very intricate dies like lace borders, but I've found if you run the die through a few times and use a paper shim the die will cut. I've successfully cut paper, cardstock so far up to 280 gsm, craft foam and felt with it and also cut thicker card around 2mm thick.
I got this machine for ATC making purposes, but its now my go to machine for most things I do, I don't think I've used my Big Shot's since I got this machine. I'm happy with the way the machine embosses and cuts and the real bonus is its small enough to fit on my desk so I can work all in the same space without having to move everything to accommodate the larger machine.
The dies that come with the machine are rather jolly as well and are all perfect for ATC making as well as for adding to cards and projects. You can get replacement A & B plates from Hobbycraft, I would like to see them offer more accessories like a metal shim and maybe a crease plate in the future.
The machine is lovely and solid and has metal rollers and the handle is rather sturdy, not flimsy at all like the Baby Blue machines handle, on the whole for what you get in the box, its super value for money and would
make a great beginners machine if you only want to start off making
ATC's or cards up to 5" x 7".
I've been captivated by the gorgeous flowers I've people making with a new (to me at least) material called Foamiran, which by all accounts is a very fine foam which is around 0.6mm thick and comes in A4 sheets, it can also come in 0.8mm thick sheets as well. It comes in a good range of colours and varies in price from around 99p. The Foamiran can be cut by hand using templates, or you can run it through a die cutting machine.
There are loads of YouTube videos showing the flowers being made using specialist dies and by hand, they can be coloured using lots of mediums to give the flowers some dimension. Check out Emilia Sieradzan blog for the low down on Everything You Need to Know to Make Foamiran flowers.
Making the exquisite creations is definitely on my crafting horizon but I have lots of things that I want to get this month with my craft allowance and more materials for new hobbies like the Rosy Owl dies and sheets of foamiran are not on this months crafty shopping list, that said I did want to have a play. So I decided to look and see what I had and see if I could make flowers with stuff from my existing stash.
In my stash I had some A5 sheets of pastel coloured craft foam that is 2mm thick and a large variety of flower dies to play with, I knew that the flowers I made would be a lot thicker than the Foamiran flowers but I decided to go for it anyway.
The first foam flower I made yesterday using my Sheena Douglass 'Wild Rose' die from Crafters Companion. The flowers were stuck together with a hot glue gun and I used Altenew dye ink to add some highlights to the stamen and petals. Sadly the ink smeared very easily and didn't colour the foam as I wanted it to. I also made the bee using a new die I treated myself to from Hobbycraft, more on that in a future post.
The centre of the rose I added a dot of 'Orange Soda' Nuvo Glitter Drops to add a touch of bling, I layered the large rose up with 3 lots of die cut petals and the smaller rose with 2, in hindsight it would have been better to just use 2 on both flowers. People who stamp the rose and doe cut mostly use just one layer, but I wanted to add more dimension. My first attempt wasn't too bad, but I wanted to make more flower shapes and try colouring the petals in other ways.
The pieces to make the flowers in the first photo were each die cut and then coloured and finally I used a Tonic Studios Floral Crafters Tool (12mm-8mm size) to round and curl the petals, it works on foam but not as well as on paper, below I've listed the dies and colours used : -
Purple Daisy - Cut from lilac craft foam and consists of 2 layers of the same size pieces, cut using dies from the Xcut 'Petal Posy' die set, plus a stamen cut from the stamen die in the Wild Rose die set above. I coloured the petals with a 'Grape' Gelato and also a 'Metallic Purple' Gelato, the stamen I coloured with Metallic Gold and when the flower was glued together I finished it off with some 'Purple Rain' Nuvo Glitter Drops.
Yellow Marguerite - Cut from cream craft foam using dies from the Crafters Companions Floral Delight 'Pretty Petals' set in both sizes. I used a 'Lemon' Gelato to colour the petals to be more yellow in colour and once glued together I added 'Honey Gold' Nuvo Glitter Drops to the centre.
Pink Hollyhock - Cut from pastel pink craft foam using 3 different sizes of die from my Leane Creatief Multi Die 005, I used a 'Metallic Red' Gelato to colour the edges and finished off with 'Sherbert Shimmer' Nuvo Glitter Drops.
Marigold - Cut from peach coloured craft foam, I used the other flower petal shape from the Crafters Companions Floral Delight 'Pretty Petals' set to cut both sizes of petals. The centre of the marigold was finished off with 'Orange Soda' Nuvo Glitter Drops like the Wild Rose and I used a 'Mango' Gelato to colour the edges of the petals.
Forget-Me-Not - This was the only flower that I did as a single using the small and medium dies from my Crafters Companion Floral Delight 'In Bloom' set. I edged these with a little 'Blueberry' Gelato and finished the centres off with some 'Dandelion Yellow' Nuvo Crystal Drops.
As I took the photos of these flowers, I was still waiting for the Nuvo drops to dry, when the centres are completely dry I will cut some greenery from card and use the flowers on some projects I have planned. Whilst my craft foam flowers aren't as delicate and lifelike as the Foamiran flowers, they are usable for decorating cards and other items. I have a few other flower dies sets that I can play with next and lots of leaf and greenery shapes so I should get some good effects.
I found the best way to add the gelato to the petals was to use a baby wipe, just run it across your gelato stick and then 'paint' your petal. I have seen people colouring Foamiran with Distress Inks, I've not tried that yet medium on craft foam yet, I will and update this post if it works. The foam flowers have a nice soft velvet like texture to them and go together very quickly once you've cut, coloured and shaped the petals. I can see me making more of these even after I get my hands on Foamiran. I'm pleased that I managed to create something with what I had in, rather than buying lots of new things.
I've mentioned my 'Maybe Someday' box on several occasions, so I thought I'd show you what it is, its nothing special, just a plastic box where I store experiments, left over die cuts and things I make and then don't have an immediate use for. The box contains pieces of water colour card that has been coloured with distress inks, gloss paper panels that have received the alcohol ink treatment, toppers, sentiments, pieces of card that have been coloured and embossed, gilded, foiled and painted shapes, die cuts and lots more just sat in the box waiting to be used maybe someday.
When I'm stuck for an idea, or when things I'm trying to do to finish a card aren't working out, I have a rummage through the box and 9 times out of 10 I find just the right piece to finish off my card that I didn't know I was looking for. The box also ensures that if I just feel like playing with a new technique, or just doing a bit of inking or colouring with no particular project in mind, I can play to my hearts content and maybe someday the piece will have a use. The box also acquires excess die cuts and pieces I make intended to use and then change my mind :)
So today I challenged myself to select some bits and bobs out of the box and use them to create 6 cards for my Christmas card box. I did allow myself to be able to add a few extra bits if needed like a sentiment, ribbon and gems and at the end of the day I'm happy to say I created the 6 cards I'd set out to make with my challenge and I have ideas for a few more cards for tomorrow.
I pulled out first from the box an A5 panel that I'd made when I first played with my colour burst powders, the piece I wanted to create, didn't turn out like I wanted it for the project I was working on at the time, so when it was dry I put it in the box. Yesterday I cut lots of white snowflakes for the Snowman Shaker card I made, but decided not to use them so they sat in a small bag on top of the box. The panel was peaking out as if to say glue them to me, so I did! I die cut the two white sentiments from scraps of card left over from cutting the snowflakes, it took no time at all to put them together, I added a few gems and inside 15 minutes I had 2 cards done.
The other 'Merry Christmas' card uses leftover scraps from two other cards I made recently and a panel I made using my Sue Wilson Snowflake Mini Striplet die, after I'd been experimenting with alcohol inks over 12 months ago now. To make the panel I simple glued down the die cut piece to a piece of the alcohol inked paper that I'd cut to fit, then added a few gemstones. The panel and the rest of alcohol inked paper went in the box and stayed there, today I die cut the sentiment from the left over card and used all the pieces to make the tall card.
The 6" x 6" cards both use some pre-bought toppers that I'd pressed out of the sheets and then decided not to use, so they went in the box along with some Wild Rose Studio Snowflake Corner Die cuts I had left over from last year when I made similar cards. These again were very quick to put together, I used some Bebunni papers from a 6 x 6 pad for the background, added the topper and then glued 4 die cuts to the edge, and finished off with adhesive gems before adding the sentiment. The snowflake corners on the blue card are green foil and red foil card that I decided to flip over and use the white back instead, the sentiment for this one was left over from some projects made last week, I decided for those previous cards that the sentiment looked better in gold rather than silver, so the silver went in the box.
The final card was another quick make, the blue panel was an experiment with metallic pearl pigment inks back in January, I slipped when I was inking and managed to get ink on the white centre strip, once dry it went in the box in case I had an idea for the future. The future came today when I decided to hide the inky mess with a piece of ribbon, the sentiment panel was left over from the snowman cards I posted about last week, when I'd finished I was amazed at how well the cards came out, they looked like they were intended to look like that and not be happy accidents. All of them are now in with the cards I'll be giving to friends and family this year, which leaves me with 16 cards left to make now!
Tomorrow I'll see what else I can find in the box to create more cards, to be honest I need to use some of it up, or get a bigger box, as its starting to over flow lol! Do you have something like my maybe someday box or do you only make things you'll be using? As always thanks for stopping by and any comments you leave I appreciate them :)
I'm not sure when it happened, or how, but I appear to have transformed from a being a card maker in to a papercrafter! It started with my frustration at the fact that I can only find white and cream card blanks and envelopes at a reasonable price locally. That and the difficulty of finding patterned envelopes in the same size as my card blank, coupled with the fact that sometimes I make a topper and its just not the right size for the pre-bought card I wanted to put it on, so I abandon the project or put it on a smaller or larger card blank so I have an envelope that will fit.
I decided last week that I'd invest in a couple of pieces of kit that would mean in future I could make my own card blanks in any colour and any size I wanted, and in any card weight as well. I asked the lovely people on the Docrafts forum to recommend their favourite score board and I used their responses to do some research and I ordered a trimmer and scoreboard which I'm waiting to arrive. I decided also that it would be a good idea to have a go at making my own envelopes, so I treated myself at pay day to a We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board.
It arrived yesterday and I couldn't wait to get stuck in, so far I've made a few envelopes for A2 size cards, some for 5" x 5" cards and a couple of floral 6" x 6" envelopes. I've been using a variety of paper pads of 8" x 8" and 12" x 12" sizes I've picked up cheaply so far, I did make a few mistakes initially, I'm a get stuck in and don't read the instructions kind of girl, but I've figured it out now, easy when you know how and from this day forward I'll be able to make cards and envelopes to match, go me!
I just need to buy some lick n stick adhesive to add to the edge of the envelope for sealing in the card now and I've cracked it. Suffice to say I'm rather chuffed with my results, I can make any size from a 2" x 3.5" gift card size envelope right up to 6" x 8.5" envelope, which will cover most of the card sizes I make, I'm pretty confident that with a scoreboard I can make 8" x 8" size envelopes as well. If you can't get the hang of the paper sizes and where to score, American Crafts have produced a free to download Envelope Generator App for Android, I think there is a version for iPhone as well if you're so inclined. Using the app all you have to do is input the size of the card you need an envelope for and the app will tell you what size paper you need and which
punch guide to use, isn't technology wonderful?!
I did a little further research today and discovered that using the envelope punch board you can also make paper bows and boxes to hold notelet cards in, as well as small envelope boxes for posting cards that have some dimension to them. I love the idea that I can do more than one thing with the punch board, and tomorrow I'll be having a play. I've found the punch board so useful already after just a day, that I'm seriously considering getting their box making punch board and a pillow box board, I already have their crop-a-dile tools on my wishlist for rounding corners on cards.
This weekend I also got round to playing with the box making die that came as part of the starter set for my Big Shot Plus. It makes a 6.5cm x 6.5cm lidded box, that can be used for making wedding favour boxes or small gifts to hang on the tree at Christmas. The box is the perfect size to put a votive candle, a couple of wax melts or half a dozen of your favourite herbal teas in to send to a friend :)
The set came with a floral die that cuts a floral panel in the box side or lid, some butterflies, hearts and a scalloped straight piece that you can decorate the inside of the box lid with, as well as some flower and leaf dies. I decided to use one of the tattered floral roses I made last weekend on the top of this box.
My box was die cut from an 1 x A4 sheet of Lavender Centura Pearl cardstock, although to me it looks dusky pink, hence using the pink flower to decorate the box. I closed the box with a small piece of pale pink organza ribbon, I'm going to have a go at making a fancier box this week using the other dies that came in the kit. The box in the video was made from card covered in pattern paper, it just occurred to me that I could use the same paper as the envelope to make a co-ordinating gift.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I'm a bit of a sparkle and shine addict, whenever possible I like to add sparkly touches to my cards, be that glitter, touches of Stickles, Glamour Dust, sparkly embossing powder, gilding wax or sparkle touches with pens like Wink of Stella or my new love Spectrum Sparkle Pens and Starlight paints.
I wanted to add more solid pieces of shine to projects though and I've been really impressed with the new hot foiling techniques I've seen some card makers do over the past few months, so much so, I wanted to recreate the effect myself to give the ultimate shine to projects. As I investigated what people were doing I realised that I didn't have a hot foiling machine or a laser printer, which meant the technique was not going to be a viable one.
Foil works best on toner inked images because it transfers better when the foil makes contact, some magical chemistry happens, which I haven't fathomed yet. Makes me wonder if someone will bring out a toner ink pad in the future?! Then a few months ago I watched Jennifer McGuire's YouTube video on adding foil to cards using embossing powder and a cheap laminator and I got my hopes up!
The image I posted at the beginning was my very first attempt, I ended up with a foiled piece, but it wasn't so good, it didn't transfer well in places and it also smeared in others. I threw my dummy out of the pram and decided that I would have to wait to be able to buy a laser printer and a foiling machine.
Several weeks later, I decided to have another go, but this time I did a little more research and I realised that I'd done several things wrong the first time: -
1) I turned on the laminator and ran the piece through as soon as the green light came on, yes the laminator is ready, but it isn't hot enough!
2) I used a cheaper embossing ink, and a coarser grade embossing powder, my examples below will show that you get totally different results depending what sticky medium you use.
3) I used cheap foil! I found a foil art kit in 'The Works' for £3, compared to foils I've since bought its a lot thinner and not as easily transferred. It's designed to work with cold glue on to paper.
In all my examples I used a Tesco A4 Laminator that I've had for a about
8 years, I used it a couple of times for what it was intended for, but
it has sat in a cupboard ever since not being used. Lets be clear, if you're expecting professional results you won't get
them, its not 100%, however it does, when done right give a very
acceptable result. So with those points in mind I decided to try again, this time making some changes and this is what I discovered: -
Temperature Matters- I turned on the laminator and left it to warm up for 30 minutes, the hotter it is the better the results you get will be. Once you've stamped your image, applied and heat set your embossing powder you have to let the image cool down BEFORE you run it through the laminator, see the gold image below. You also have to allow it to cool down a little before you remove the foil.
Sticky Medium Affects Results - In the first example here I used Ranger Sticky Embossing Powder, I did let it cool, however as soon as the heat from the laminator hit the sticky embossing powder, it heated and pooled to give the puddled mess at the top of the image!
In the bottom part of the image above I used WOW Clear Gloss Super Fine embossing powder and allowed it to cool after heat setting, placed my foil on top, ran the card through the laminator and got a near perfect result. In my original image (the 'Wishes are Magic' Tim Holtz stamp) I used Clear Papermania Embossing Powder, which isn't that fine, it works for solid images, but if you have lots of detail on the stamp you're using, then the finer the embossing powder you use, the better the result!
It also helps if you use an anti-static tool to help prevent getting the embossing powder where you don't want it. I have to add that I've discovered that the type of ink used will also affect the results, in the very first example I used Dovecraft Clear Embossing ink, its not good for this technique. I then tried using a Clear Tsukineko Emboss pad, results were better, but no where as near as good as using Versamark, which is also made by Tsukineko strangely. As an aside I'm fast discovering Versamark is making all my embossing more successful, its like the Rolls Royce of embossing inks, until I find something better, but so far its the best I've tried, but I digress...
Type of Foil Matters - I've shown the results given from cheap foil in the opening image, I've discovered that the best results come from foil that has been designed to be used with heat and the best colour range so far and performance results I've experienced is from the iCraft 'Deco Foil' range made by Therm-O-Web, I particularly love the rainbow foil. Point to note is Deco Foil can be used on fabric and once heat set its permanent, it can also be used on wood and on porous surfaces.
I've also got good results from WOW Fab Foil, and they also come in a good range of colours. N.B. the gold hello image here shows what happens if you don't allow the heat set image to cool before it goes through the laminator! In the example at the top of the image I heat set it, added my piece of foil and put it through the laminator, without allowing the embossed image to first cool down and you can see it all smudged and smeared.
I used the same WOW embossing powder and Versamark ink combination, heat set it and allowed the image to cool for 60 seconds, gently wafting the image in the air like a fan to cool it. Then added my foil and put it through the laminator and the result can be seen at the bottom of the image. I was so happy with the result of this image that I literally shrieked with delight and my hubby came running up the stairs to see what had happened. Exit from the room one bemused man, not understanding the joy of a successful foiling attempt lol!
Toner IS the Bomb - I thought it would make for a good and fair test to show foiling on a piece of paper that had a sentiment which had been printed on a laser printer. As I said above I don't have a laser printer, but hubby has one at work, so I asked him to print out a sheet of sentiments for me.
This 'Fairy Wishes' sentiment is one of the toner examples. The toner acts like the 'glue' and helps to adhere the foil to the image, the results are almost flawless and a lot smoother and also faster, because you don't have to heat set an image first. However, you are limited to files that you can create or download and put into a word document or paint package on the PC, or the expensive pre-printed sheets that some of the companies are now selling. With the printed toner method, although it looks fabulous, you can't use any stamp image from your cling or rubber stamp collection, unless some genius comes out with a toner based ink pad we can use to stamp images for foiling! If that sort of ink pad existed, then ANY stamp could be used on almost any thickness of paper/cardstock. Currently you're limited to whatever thickness of card/paper your laminator can cope with and as I said a limited set of designs.
However this could well change soon, as there is now a Toner Pen, and also Toner Paint on the market, I reckon toner ink stamping pads are not that far away, fingers crossed! Although I'm not liking having to wait, so I'm playing with ideas for making my own toner paint/ink, so watch this space, I just need to get my hands on some toner powder first! I hope you find this post useful and it will help you with your foiling attempts. I'll post any updates if I find anything else that works, if you've found anything that works then please let me know in the comments. :)
I don't know about you, but now that I'm getting better at stamping and given that I've become addicted to using distress inks, I'm amassing lots and lots of ink pads, in a huge variety of colours and remembering which I have and remembering what the colours actually look like when they get stamped is getting harder.
This photo shows some of the ink pads I have, there are more to my side and I also have a box of Distress Inks, a box of Adirondack dye ink pads, a box of alcohol inks and an assortment of dye ink and distress sprays. All this and we're not yet even looking at the number of paints, waxes and embossing powders I have! All of which adds up to colour confusion.
On top of this, I've recently discovered the delights of over stamping to create images of things like flowers, using the different stamp pieces that form the flower or leaf, and a selection of dark, medium and light complimentary toned inks you can create some beautiful images. I recently got a free rose stamp and die set from Simply Cards & Papercraft, as I looked at my inks in order to begin playing with the stamp and die set, I realised things were everywhere and I didn't really have an idea of which colours went with which colours.
The above card was made using the free die and stamp set I mentioned above and was stamped using a combination of Versacolor Pigment Inks and Memento inks, for anyone interested - Main colour Versacolor pigment ink in 'Orchid', mid tone layer Memento in 'Rose Bud' and top layer Memento 'Lilac Posies'. Leaves main colour Memento 'New Sprout', mid layer colour Memento 'Bamboo Leaves' and top layer colour is Memento 'Cottage Ivy'.
I used a WOW De-Vine background stamp and stamped it with Docrafts
Artiste Pearlescent pigment ink in 'Dusky Rose' on to a pink card base. The tone on tone idea I got from the lady I'm about to talk about below, a constant source of inspiration and brilliant ideas.
I'm a fan of Jennifer McGuire, she puts together some amazing cards and she also shares some fabby ideas and techniques on her blog and on YouTube, including ways of organising your crafting tools to ideas for using your stash in different ways to get the most out of it. It was whilst browsing her videos that I came across her idea for making ink swatches, so you could see the actual colours that you get on paper and you can use those swatches to mix and match your colours to get the best results, it also stops you buying an ink pad you already have!
On her blog Jennifer has a video showing her system, she cuts the pieces of card in to 2" x 2" squares that she then puts into small vinyl pockets - the kind that coin collectors use - she includes print off sheets for all the major US ink colours like Ranger, Mama Elephant, Lawn Fawn, Hero Arts etc on her blog. For those not included in her lists, Jennifer has provided a downloadable and editable sheet that you can add your own ink range to, I've done it for Adirondack Dye Pads, Memento and Artiste inks.
I've gathered all my swatch sheets together in an A4 ring binder, I do plan to put them altogether grouped by colour in the future when I can find some coin holder pages, for now they are grouped by brand. I think its a brilliant idea, you can use the type of card you stamp on most to see what you will end up with, and organise them by colour, by tones etc. My next task on the organising front is to add stickers and labels to inks that stack on top of each other so you can see what colours they are.
Brands like Memento have a colour swatch on the side of the lid, which is pretty helpful, although the colour on the lid, isn't the actual colour you get when stamped, but at least you can identify shades and colours roughly. If you check Jennifer's blog there is a video and tips on doing this like the one above. When I've finished sorting out my ink pads, I'm going to do the same for my sprays, embossing powders and paints. When the jobs finished I'll be able to look at everything and gather together the colours I want for a project using the swatches, and then go retrieve the inks from their racks/boxes. Instead of like currently getting everything out and faffing until I've found the right ink for the job.
When I ink paper I like to add shimmer sprays to them to give a sparkle and sheen, I can't help it, as well as vivid colour I love sparkle and glitter, I've been using perfect pearls mists in the past but recently I experimented with a mist of perfect pearls and water but it took a while to dry, which after waiting for the inked paper to dry was a whole new level of testing of my eagerness to move onb with a project.
So when I was recently on holiday in France I found bottles of 74% alcohol that the French use for cleaning, it comes in bottles and is scented with aromas like vanilla, raspberry, peach, green apple... the list is endless, so I picked up raspberry and vanilla to experiment with. To make your homemade misting spray you'll need a spray bottle, colouring medium (re-inker, acrylic paint, food dye, water colour paint etc), alcohol, water and pigment powder like perfect pearls. I've seen YouTube videos with people using eye shadow powder to make their sprays, these recipes involve adding glue or gum arabic to the mix to make the eye shadow stick. If you use perfect pearls, the product is especially formulated to contain a resin that reacts with water which then makes the mica adhere to the surface you spray on.
To make a 50ml bottle of spray you need to half fill the bottle with alcohol (using alcohol will make the spray dry a lot faster), to that add your colouring medium around ½ - 1 teaspoon depending how strong you want the colour to be. I prefer to just have a light coloured mist, but I am thinking about making deeper colours to spray to colour paper where I would use distress inks. Next add your perfect pearls powder, I use a couple of small scoops using a lolly stick, I'd say around 1/8th teaspoon. Put the spray in to the bottle and screw down securely and shake the bottle to mix all the ingredients, once mixed top up your bottle with water, re-secure the lid in place and give the bottle another good shake to mix. You can then use the spray.
I made a white spray that I coloured white acrylic paint with perfect pearl, silver which contained silver metallic acrylic paint and perfect pearls and a purple spray that contained metallic amethyst acrylic paint and small amounts of Perfect Pearls Interference Violet and Interference Blue. I also made a gold misting spray which wasn't as successful, I used DecoArt Ultra Fine Glitter Paint, as my sparkle medium, but the sparkly bits are larger than the mica pigments and once dry then don't stick to the paper, will try adding some glue to that spray and see what happens, its a shame really because the sparkle is very intense.
Above you can see examples of the shimmer I achieved, the purple panel was inked with distress ink on to 230gsm water colour paper, once dry I lightly sprayed with the purple mist, sadly the photo isn't showing the sparkle as well as the second panel that was done in shades of black and grey and was then lightly sprayed with the silver mist, the shimmer is rich and intense, can't wait to use the silver panel for a halloween card idea I have. I love the fact that whilst working with these sprays they give off a pleasant aroma, which does transfer to the paper, although how long it will last... I'm already thinking about making my own autumn and Christmas fragranced sprays using alcohol and essential oils, I like to scent my cards for giving at Christmas and I usually do it by storing the cards in sealed boxes above wooden balls that have been infused with essential oils, I make blends, to me it adds a whole new dimension to the card, so if I'm successful with the aroma spray metallic misting spray I'll add another post in the not too distant future!
