Crafty Bargains, Ideas and Inspiration

The postman brought me a new set of stamps today, these are rubber background stamps which I intend to use for embossing and for creating pearlescent effect backgrounds for cards. They were a bargain from Craft Clearance, I've ordered from them a few times before but I'm always amazed at how speedily they get your order to you. I ordered at 18:30 on Wednesday evening and my order arrived at 11am today (Friday), super speedy or what? The stamps are all around 4.5" x 5.75" with really deep patterns on them, I'm looking forward to playing with them this weekend, they're made by an American copy called JustRite who seem to have a really good range, that I can see myself acquiring more of over the next 12 months!

Remember the gold embossed card I wrote about last weekend and said I didn't have an idea what to put on it at the time? Well a little more inspiration hit me this afternoon and I played with some die cuts and alcohol markers and added some sticky gems and made the above topper. The cards not finished yet, I'm waiting for some mirror gold embossing powder to arrive so that I can add the sentiment, but its getting there :)

I've actually blown my monthly allowance this month on card making stuff, but I don't care, I'm becoming more engrossed in the hobby and I really can't wait to get on making things with all the ideas I've had, I'm learning new techniques all the time and experimenting. Tonight I made my first attempt at distressing the edges of a topper using ink. I used a pigment ink pad because my distress ink pads still haven't arrived, so the ink was a little thicker than I think it should be. But I think for a first attempt it 'smooshed' really well and I can't believe the difference it made to the edge of the die cut shape.

I was testing out inks earlier and stamping sentiments, I have lots of the 'Pretty Color' pigment ink stamp pads, they were in my craft stash leftover from the years when all I did was collect card-making stuff, because I was scared that I'd mess things up, sometimes I do and sometimes things work out really well :) I was looking for the right words for my card, its a thank you card for a friend, I found it on one of the stamp sets by Clearly Besotted that came free with Simply Cards & Papercraft issue 133. I tried using the Pretty Colour inks, but figured that I was just rubbish at stamping because none of them worked, they were smudged, smeared or didn't have enough ink on them.

I started to beat myself up and told myself that actually I was pretty rubbish at this stamping lark and I decided it would be better to go down the printed sentiment on the computer route, when I remembered I had a last month bought a 'Memento' ink pad in Tuxedo Black. Some of the YouTube tutorials and blogs I've looked at recently recommended this kind of ink for stamping, so I cleaned the 'Pretty Color' ink off the stamp pad, dried it off and inked up with the Memento. You can see the results in the photo above, crisp, clear and well perfect if I do say so myself :) I did some more ink 'smooshing' and finished it off with a couple of sprays of Perfect Pearls Mist in Heirloom Gold. This test was on a piece of ordinary printer paper, so its not being used, although it could be :)

Suffice to say over the next few months I'll be adding a selection of Memento inks to my stash in an array of colours that I'll use often and a couple of other high quality inks. I also need to take in to account the type of paper I'm using and make sure I match it with the ink I choose to use. I'm still waiting for some fairy die-cuts, more embossing powders, some blending tools, satin effect printer paper, a bargain 'Everyday in Mulberry Wood' CD of cute characters I can print out on the computer to make toppers, card stock designed for alcohol markers, a 5" x 7" acrylic stamping block and of course the distress inks to arrive. Once that little lot gets here there will be no stopping me, I'm sure there will be some mishaps and good ideas that go badly wrong, but I can't wait to get stuck in. The CD was reduced from £15 to £4.75 at Crafters Companion and as I'm trying to build up my digital crafting source material it was a good item to add.

DIY Heat Embossed Toppers

Rather chuffed with tonight's little experiment, I'd seen a video on YouTube that I now can't find grrrr, in essence you take a paper or cardboard cut out cover it in embossing ink, then clear embossing powder and heat until the powder is melted. Whilst its still warm you coat it again and heat it, and then a third time to give a good hard glossy coat.

Whilst my test pieces aren't perfect, the process worked, above is a photo of the printed piece of paper and to the left the piece embossed. The colours are changed and a little smudged but the result is very shiny and glossy which makes up for it. A little research and I may find ultra clear embossing powder or a true transparent look. If the technique is used on paper that has a random pattern on it like the flower, it works very well.

Both examples were printed on A4 white printer paper using an inkjet printer, nothing special, so using 240g card and other weights of paper may have different results? Using laser jet images or items stamped with archival ink may also give different results. I'll do some more experiments over the next few weeks an blog about things that work and things that don't.

I did try the method at weekend but burnt my finger because I couldn't hold the piece I wanted to emboss very well. So my clever hubster came to my aid and used the 3D printed he's built to design and print me a handle to hold the pieces, there is some blutak involved until I can come up with a better way of fixing the piece I want to coat to the handle. All went well with the 'Happy Birthday' piece but the flower I had problems with, it embossed it self to the base lol! No worries, the hubster is going to make a couple of other handles in different diameters to take the different sizes of embellishment I'm working on.

I used a stick on gem in the centre of my flower which I think finishes it off, just need to make a few more and I'll be able to attach them to a card and show the full effect. It means that I can make any kind of glossy toppers, tomorrow I'll experiment with shop bought die-cut sentiments and see what a bit of shine does to them. I love this learning curve, looking forward to the melt it powder and silicon moulds arriving any day now so I can use the heat gun to make 3D roses :)

All That Glitters

This weekend I've been playing with glitter and shimmer and I think the 'Fairy Wishes' card above has to be the favourite card I've made to date. I know these cards aren't as professional as some of the card makers out there can make them, but I've only been doing this for just over 5 months now and I'm still learning. I've mentioned in other posts my reluctance to rubber stamp after the lack of success I had years ago when I tried to take up card making and failed at the first hurdle. I did try again a few times over the years and was unsuccessful again, so all the stamping stuff got put in a box, and shoved under the bed and forgotten about.

Last month the stamps came out from under the bed and I gathered together all the new stamp sets and put them in a drawer with the rest of my craft stash, progress of a sort. To help give me some inspiration I've taken out subscriptions for a few card making magazines, and picked up one off mags that have had some lovely stamping sets in them, with the wistful 'one day' idea. One of my favourites to date is "The Fairy Collection" that came with issue 138 of Cardmaking & Papercraft, it went in the stamp drawer and I've admired the cards published in C&P that other people have made using them.

To put the 'Fairy Wishes' card together this is what I used: - A free paper download from the Love Hunkydory Collection, you have to be a member of Club Hunkydory to download it, but once you are there are lots of freebies to download that make useful backgrounds and toppers. I used purple card and purple pearlescent paper from my stash to matt the layers. The dark floral iridescent coloured  border between the papers was done using Perfect Pearls 'Interference' colours on black card. Then after I'd set the pearl powder with water, I embossed the coated card and cut it to size. The tree scene-scape came from a free download from Papercraft Essentials, back in issue 107 they gave away a fairy stamp set, mirror card and the papers. I wasn't getting the magazine then so I don't have that fairy stamp sadly, but I could download the free papers, so I printed them off, the orange paper is still to be used.

Next I got my fairy collection cling stamp and stamped the fairy on to my background page and was amazed when it came out perfect. I did stamp the sentiment in black but it smudged, so I cut a small piece of leftover purple card and tried again, the inking was successful so I added some silver embossing powder to finish it off, it worked well I think. Finally I put it all together and finished it with a few purple sticky gems. When I look at the photo it seems to be missing something, dark purple or lilac ribbon trim methinks, so when I make another one I'll try that.

Something else I played with this weekend is colouring embossed areas on cards, my first attempt using Papermania tinsel gold embossing powder was a bit hit and miss, but it did add sparkle to the card. So I got bold and tried a larger card and embossing folder.  Once I'd embossing the card I took a foam pad and gently rubbed ink from a Hobbycraft gold 'Ink Pad' on it and dried it off with my heat gun. Once dry I added some clear embossing ink and some of the tinsel gold embossing powder and set it with the heat gun.

The final stage was to dust the card with gold coloured Perfect Pearls and set it with water. When it dried it has a lovely antiqued shimmery effect, the photo makes it look grubby but its a lot more sparkly and I was going for the distressed look. I added some gold coloured sticky back foam to the top and bottom using a fleur-de-lys die cut, I'm now waiting for inspiration to hit for the topper. I'm thinking maybe a sepia photo and gold frame or maybe a Parisian inspired design? I do like this technique though and will be making more use of it in the future.

Finally for now, the above is made from the leftovers! I had a small rectangle of black card and the pearl powder that was shaken off the paper for the Fairy Wishes card became mixed so it couldn't go back in the pot, instead I put it in a small clean pot to use to add sparkle, the feather die was free with Simply Cards & Papercraft a few months ago, the sparkle on them is different in real life but mimics the sparkle found on black bird feathers. The butterfly stamp came free with 'Docrafts Creativity' magazine and the dragonfly is from a Joanna Sheen Signature Die called Butterflies and Dragonfly that I got as a free gift when I subscribed to Papercraft Essentials last year. The butterfly and dragonfly were die cut from a piece of the card left over from the frame piece hence being a bit more colourful. Again I love this technique and will be using it a lot more in the future, although I don't have a use for the above elements yet, they'll go in a box until the write project comes along.

DIY Embellishments - 3D Die Cut Flowers

After spending hours lately looking at Pinterest and discovering ideas, tips, tricks and tutorials and saying ohhhh and ahhhhh I thought I'd give some of them a go. The first thing I tried was to combine two techniques to make flowers that I found via Pinterest Julie's Inkspot Blog and on the Verity Cards blog.

I have an Xcut Petal Posy die that cuts 6 different sizes of petal shapes and an assortment of circular centres (not used here). So to combine the two ideas I cut 3 petal pieces out in varying sizes and folded each of the petals in towards the entre, glueing the base of the largest one and putting the next size in on top of it, then the next one until you have all your pieces in place.

The next step is to use a hot glue gun and place a large blob of glue in the centre of the flower and fill it with seed beads to form the centre of the flower. It all went pear shaped here because I couldn't find the seed bead box grrrr! So instead for the purpose of taking a photo I used larger beads from a tub on the desk, although they are too large and I don't have enough of them, you can see the effect. When I find the seed beads I can complete the project, properly and when they're done they'll look brilliant with some die cut leaf shapes (I have a die cut for leaves to) and make superb floral embellishments for decorating cards.

After not being able to find the seed beads, I decided to try another idea I saw on Pinterest, this time for making your own glitter tape over at Damask Love, the idea is sound and as you can see from the first photo it works, BUT the lady writing the blog didn't mention the fact that it would be almost impossible to use the tape. The only way I can see the technique working is to lay the tape on the card in situ, glitter it and voila! The idea is brilliant and it will save me a fortune on the Border Glitteration ribbon strips I got from Anita's. So its back to the drawing board on the DIY glitter tape, but I will crack it.

Embossing Like A Boss!

I've been a little quiet on the crafty front for a few weeks, I've been working on the book I'm writing so not had as much crafting time, but I began getting withdrawal symptoms so last weekend I got my craft on. After seeing an article in issue 140 of 'Cardmaking & Papercraft' magazine I was inspired to want to have a go at making my own 3D rose toppers, so I ordered the moulds and WOW Melt it that I needed over the weekend and went out to 'The Range' and bought a heat gun and a few embossing powders to tide me over until my new goodies arrived.

I've been embossing card with my Sizzix Big Shot and my Xcut Xpress Die Cutting machine's for a while now, examples of the sort of effects you can achieve can be seen on one of my previous posts here. I'd not done any heat embossing before, mainly because I didn't have the heat gun, plus my previous attempts at rubber stamping had gone a tad pear shaped. The results were so rubbish I abandoned the ink pads and stamps in favour of more easily obtainable results like machine embossing and die-cutting and using pre-made toppers and die cuts, whilst secretly wishing I could make use of some of the wonderful stamps that I've been getting with my craft magazine subscriptions.

Realising that I wouldn't be able to have a go at making the rose embellishments until the goodies I'd ordered had arrived, I was itching to get started, the only course of action was to beat my fear of stamping and have a go. I'd picked up an embossing clear ink pad when I bought my heat gun, so I had no excuse. I chose a small sentiment stamp from out of my stamp drawer, yes I have a drawer of stamps, some I've ought but most of them have come with craft magazines and stored because "maybe one day..." Well this weekend that one day came and I decided to emboss like a boss!

I picked the "Happy Mother's Day" stamp because it was small and looked fairly easy to work with, not because mother's day is coming up, my mum passed away 12 years ago so I don't have a reason to send MD cards any more, although I do know some people I know that have fur babies who I think would appreciate a surprise Mother's Day card ;) I inked up the stamp with the clear embossing ink, pressed on to the card, applied the embossing powder and shook off the excess, all easy so far, all the stamped bits were covered. Now to heat it... and OMG you'd have thought I'd found buried treasure of had been targeted for my skills by the Ministry of Magic!

I was amazed, the first (pink) sentiment I embossed worked perfectly, okay maybe the ink wasn't added evenly but for a first attempt it was pretty good for me :) The second attempt (lilac) wasn't so good, I slipped with stamp when I pressed to the card and it left a smeared effect. I used an xcut die cut to shape the sentiment, then as you can see in the first image, I edged it with a Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers I got for my birthday (thanks Dad!)

I embossed a piece of pink card with a floral design from the Sheena Douglas called 'Fabulous Florals' which came free with "Crafters Companion Crafter's Inspiration Issue 4 Spring Edition" and used a double sided floral and dotty paper from the A4 "All My Love" pad that I picked up cheap from Crafter's Companion in the January Sales. Finished with pink organza ribbon from my stash, which I think came from 'The Works' and a few pink stick-on jewel gems. I was thrilled with my efforts. I can't describe the thrill I got from creating that card using the first thing I ever embossed, I was certain that it was going to go wrong and was amazed when it didn't :) Yes I know its not perfect, but its perfect to me!

I'm now waiting for orders of embossing powders, fairy shaped die-cuts, toppers, distressing inks, stamps, embossing folders, coloured card, silicon moulds and an assortment of other embossing and card creating goodies to arrive for new projects I want to try. I learnt this weekend that buying stuff and not using it (something I'm guilty of in the past for fear of wasting materials or seeing a project fail), is just as wasteful as using it and it going wrong, you learn by experience, the more you do it, the better you get, so from now on I'll be embossing like a boss and using the results to make cards and tags. Watch this space!

Cards For Herbaholic's

One of my greatest passions in life is the love of herbs and their uses, I was bitten by the herbal bug in my 20's and over 30 years on I am still fascinated by them and love using them in a myriad of ways, so much so that I'm lovingly referred to, by myself and my friends as a herbaholic, guilty as charged!

I have a fair few friends who share my herbal passion and I'd love to be able to send them herb themed cards and gifts. So imagine my delight when I came across a CD full of floral images with a whole section on herbs! By chance I found a double CD set of designs by Jane Shasky called 'From The Heart of The Garden' and the herbal designs are enchanting, as well as toppers and sentiments there are ideas for complete stationary sets, bookmarks and decoupage projects. I've already printed out two of the notelet cards from two of the stationary sets, as you can see in the photo above. My plan is to make some pretty herb decorated boxes and make sets of notelet cards that will be herbally scented for presents for some of my herby friends for Xmas 2016.

Back in November I found a set of three herb die cuts by Spellbinder going cheap on Amazon, and I'm looking forward to playing with them over the next few weeks. The die-cuts aren't very big, the 'pots' stand just 3.5cm high, so with the herbs in they're be approximately 9cm in height, but I think they'll look pretty on some of the backing papers from the 'Herb Garden' set from my CD. I also plan this year to press herbs like lavender from the garden and use them to decorate cards and bookmarks.

Above are three examples of cards made using the 'From the Heart of the Garden' CD, also embellishments that I'd cut out using my die cutters. The background paper on the borage happy birthday card is a scan of one of the borage pages from Gerard's Herbal, not an actual page, I'm not that daft lol! I think it worked really well and I'm already planning a series of cards using pages from old herbals as backgrounds. I'm also going to use some old botanical prints and some herbal photos that I've taken myself. I'm looking forward to the next batch of cards which I've already begun to cut bits out for and work on the designs, combining herbs with card making is like getting a double dose of stress reducing goodness. Now where did I put the sticky foam pads....