Hello again from planet I'm quickly becoming obsessed with 1:12 scale miniatures lol! I'm just sharing what I've made today and yes I'm feeling pleased with my little self, although my ever self critical eye can see lots of room for improvement, still I'm thrilled with what I've achieved so far this week. Just one week ago I had the idea to create a 1:12 scale Apothecary Shop and I knew I wanted to add a "Wise Woman" room complete with crystal ball, tarot cards, cauldron, herb and spell books and a vast array of bottles and jars of potions and ingredients.
When I started looking for bottles and jars of ingredients I found them but the majority of them would make stocking the room cost much more than I could afford, the jars are impressive but at £13.50 for 6 made up bottles or almost £40 for 20 it could get very silly. I started to think maybe I should abandon the idea due to the cost, but then I started to think of ways I could make my own, initially I doubted my abilities, but then thought better of it and decided to just go for it.
So here are the first batch of 'ingredients' for the wise woman's room that will form part of the apothecary shop & garden. I've had so much fun concocting this little lot tonight and I used just what I found in my room. Some of the jars will change colour as the resin stuff dries out, so I'll take another photo when they change to their true colour and add the photo here. I already had a pack of mini bottles of varying sizes I bought from the works a few years ago and they've been sat in my stash doing nothing.
Then when I went out to The Range today to pick up some tissue paper and craft sand, I found some miniature gems both figuratively and literally. These jars of mini gems cost £1.99 for 8, which is brilliant value when you think that 4 empty jars will set you back £3.19 at the Dolls House Emporium. I wasn't sure what I was going to fill them with this afternoon, but I bought them anyway. Picked up a table and some picture frames as well for £1 each, both of which can be experimented with.
I've seen a Pharmacist Table by Reutters on the DHE website, its lovely but at £71.99 for a table not much different to the one in my photo above and some accessories it seems rather excessive and I'm pretty sure I could make one myself for a lot less. I've seen the same table for sale at another online dolls house place for £99.99 which considering what is in and on it unbelieveable. It can be a rather costly business like anything I suppose, which is why I'm going to try and make as much of the contents for my dolls house myself.
To fill my little jars I let my imagination run riot, pieces of lavender leaves became 'Rats Tails', left over Lycopodium was chopped in to another jar and became 'Centipede Legs', red alcohol ink became 'Dragons Blood', lavender buds became 'Cockroach Parts', and a little white craft sand became 'Powdered Unicorn Horn'. I've created 'Fish Scales', 'Eye of Newt', 'Toe of Frog', 'Slug Slime' and a few other gruesome sounding ingredients, 11 jars of joy. I didn't have any resin for the jars so I've improvised and used Tonic Nuvo Drops, time will tell if it dries out and becomes clear, for future ingredient bottles I may invest in some resin, but I just wanted to play today.
My head is full of ideas for other ingredient jars to make and I've got a couple of mini bell jars, moss, tiny toadstools and skulls winging their way to me, as well as about 60 mini bottles to play with. So by the time I've finished the apothecary shop will be well stocked as will the wise woman's room, that realisation makes me incredibly happy, this time last week I was about to throw the towel in thinking my idea wouldn't get off the ground because it would be too expensive. It makes me wonder just what else I can create, years ago I made a 1:12th scale wingback chair, a sofa and I even made a padded quilt and pillow, they weren't prefect but I'm certain I could make the same kind of things, only better because this time round I have more skills, tools and supplies. Here's to the next miniature adventure :)
Hello fellow bloggers and blog visitors, tonight I'm sharing my very first attempts at making 1:12 scale herbs ready for the herb garden that will eventually be part of the Dolls House Apothecary Shop that I've begun making.
So far I've dabbled with lavender, calendula and thyme, I'm not 100% happy with any of them, the thyme is so naff that I'm not even going to share a photo of it on my blog. It was a last minute effort with some bits of Lycopodium left on the desk after the lavender making ended for the day all I did was dab on some glue to the trimmed greenery and then added a shake of flower soft and the results are rather lame.
The lavender flowers are too "fluffy" I used flower soft and its not the right colour, but I couldn't find a darker purple, I'm also not sure that the texture is right. Lavender isn't as fully, you get occasional bits when the buds open out towards the end of the flowering cycle, but the buds are more closed and more solid in texture and form than fluffy.
So I'm going to try craft sand dyed with alcohol ink next, that way I can get the colour that I'm happy with because I can create it myself.
I do like the little butterfly twists I added to the lavender, those will stay for the next attempt because I can then make French or Butterfly Lavender and some English Lavender minus the butterfly tops. The tops are just some small petals cut from tissue paper and stuck to the end, but they are effective, I didn't add any shading to the stems or the 'leaves' yet, I need to play with mediums to get the effect I like the most.
Of the three herbs I made tonight I'm chuffed to pieces with the way that the calendulas have turned out, although they aren't perfect and still need some perfecting. I die cut lots of tiny petals and used a tiny embossing tool to shape each layer before layering them together with glue.
There are no leaves on them yet and I forgot to add the shading and edging with some 'Spiced Marmalade' distress ink on one, in my excitement to get a few flowers finished. You can tell the difference between the two, the one with the white edges to the petals on the left is the one I forgot to edge and I do think it looks better to add some shading and highlights.
As I said above, none of the flowers are properly fixed in to their pots yet, no point in wasting pots because I won't be using the ones I created tonight because I'm not happy with them, I also don't have any dolls house plant 'potting compost', I need to pick up something soil like to use. As soon as I am happy with the results I'll share another photo with my progress and the finished articles.
Something else to share, when you're making miniatures for your dolls house, having a hubby with a 3D printer is a real bonus and tonight I was so grateful that Si supports my hobbies like I do his. The white pot is from a set of 4 different sized pots that Si 3D printed for me tonight, and he's going to make me more and also make some different shaped pots. They need a little sanding and I'm going to paint them terracotta and try to weather them, but they are brilliant and I'll be making up displays for some room boxes I want to make.
Not all the herbs I'm making will go in to pots because I want to create a garden scene, but some things will be in pots. I have ideas for creating some Chamomile and Poppies next and maybe some Hollyhocks and before anyone says that hollyhocks don't belong in a herb garden... the flowers were used medicinally for their emollient and demulcent properties, which made them useful for treating chest complaints, they have a similar action to Marshmallow, which is another herb I could add now I think about it.
I've seen kits for making Mullein, Sweet Violets, Madonna Lily and Foxgloves some of which I'll buy, although I want to make as many of the herbs as I can myself, but more practice and a magnifying lamp is called for, but I think I that I'll be able to do it with patience and time. I also seen some wonderful pots of basil and chives that are made from fimo and something called cold porcelian, neither of which I have any experience of. I do have some fimo though so maybe I could try playing with some of that soon.
Finally for this post a quick update, I doscovered that there is a small dolls house shop not far away from me, they don't have a huge range, but I visited today and picked up 2 dorma windows for the attic rooms and some skirting boards. Still waiting for the copper tape and lights to emerge from the loft before I can make a start but progress is being made 😀
This week I've excitedly begun a new chapter in my crafting endeavours, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but for a long time now I've wanted to own a period dolls house, not just any period though, I love the Victorian era, in that era herbs and remedies made from them - which is another of my passions - were widely available to help cure what ailed you, from either the local apothecary shop or from the local medical botanist.
Years ago Simon bought me a fully made up 1/12th Arkwright's Shop which is fashioned in the Victorian style, its a standing joke that he didn't want me to work with the dolls house because when we got it home, he promptly declared that it was put together all wrong and would have to be taken apart and put back together. That was in 2008 and until the other day, that 1/12th scale shop was still flat packed in the loft, on many occassions I've asked for it to be brought out and excuses were made, no space to house it was the usual and the shop stayed in the loft.
We visited the Museum of Childhood at Sudbury at the weekend and once again my nose was metaphorically stuck to the glass of the display case they have housing a large doll house in there. As I moved away from the display I repeated my request for my shop to be brought out of the loft, and sighed, expecting my request to once again fall on deaf ears. But when we got home, Si disappeared into the loft and he emerged a little later with the flat pack shop AND the Springwood Cottage flat pack he bought me for my 40th (I'm 54 now!!!). We have a sideboard that is perfect to display the shop on (I got that for my 50th lol) and space to create it.
To do the job properly it will take a while, first I have to install electrics then decorate the exterior and interior before I can begin furnishing the inside of the apothecary. If you followed the link to the shop details on the Dollshouse Emporium website you'll see that the shop is split into two areas on the ground floor, there are two rooms above and two in the attic.
In my head the main shop area will be the apothecary that Mr Slack, one of the Victorian medical botanists that I'm writing about who lived in Derby as an aside and he will be the minature proprietor of my little miniature apothecary shop. The side room will be a surprise that pays homage to my love of gothic mysteries, Harry Potter, witchy and wizardy and those shows that give us potions and spells to change the world and not always for the better 😉.
I want to add a herb garden to my apothecary shop, back in the Victorian era most apothecaries grew their own herbs in the gardens of their shop premises to make their remedies. Or if they lived in the inner city and their shop didn't have a garden, they went out into the local woods, meadows and hedgerows to gather herbs and plants to make remedies with locally sourced ingredients. This era of herbal medicine is very close to my heart, I'm researching and writing about two practitioners of herbal medicine from the Victorian era and have written several articles on the era with my herbal hat on. The photo below was taken when I visited the Black Country Museum a couple of years ago now.
They have a 'Chemist & Druggist' shop there that is a recreation of a 1920's chemist shop, although many of the items date back to the 19th century, as the business was a father to son affair, handed down with knowledge shared. I was amazed at how few people actually paid attention to the garden laid out at the back of the shop, I spent ages looking at the herbs and enjoying the way the beds were laid out for respiratory medicine, digestive problems etc. It would have been nice if more information was made available to the general public that connected the chemist shop to the garden and maybe a little booklet of recipes, but hey ho! Apparently the chemist whose name was Mr Doo used to make many of the remedies he sold himself, and had a considerable reputation locally for his home made medicines and pills.
I'm looking forward to making a trip to Blist Hill in the not too distant future to see the pharmacy that featured in the BBC series Victorian Pharmacy, if you haven't seen the series, below is the first of the 4 parts, you can find the rest on You Tube. I have the DVD and the book, and a few other books on Victorian herbal medicines, patented medicines of the era and strange cures based upon very scary ingredients, I may even add some articles on that subject to this blog as I share my apothecary makes and progress if people would be interested? Let me know in the comments in that sort of thing would interest you?
I've been watching Youtube tutorials on making medicine bottles and herb jars, lotions and potions too, and I've ordered a pack of 50 mini glass bottles to begin making the medicines and herbs that Mr Slack is going to stock in his shop. Although I fear that 50 will be nowhere near enough, I've ordered some different shapes of bottles and already have a few others on my radar and I've drawn up a list of items that can be used from other sources, e.g. the Tim Holtz Idea-ology domes will make perfect "specimen" jars as will the Ideo-Ology skulls.
As I delve more in to the world of miniatures, I'm seeing projects that others have made where I realise that I have tiny flower dies that I can use to help me to make 1/12th scale flowers, and small fern and leaf shape dies that can be used to make potted plants. Si has offered to 3D print some pots and things that I can decorate and I've realised that the array of paints, distress inks, alcohol markers and things like gilding wax and embossing powders that I have can all be used to make miniatures, which makes my heart sing 😍
Something else on my list of things to make are 1/12th scale books, there are a few printables out there for making herb books, but I want more, any good apothecary should have a well stocked library full of herbal information, as well as medicines, and as another of my passions in life is collecting herb books, making miniature ones for my apothecary shop is a must! I have a large collection of herb books including a 17th century copy of Culpeper's Herbal, so its only right that for my little apothecary I'm going to make some 1/12th scale herbals and receipt books for the resident medical botanist to use to treat and supply remedies to his customers and patients. Yes I could just put paper covered wood blocks in as pseudo books, but I want my books to open and be readable, its all in the details right?
I love how I'll be able to marry all my hobbies in one, I've started creating some plants for inside the living areas of the shop and I'm researching how to make miniature herbs like dandelions and lavender. I'm also working on stitching a 1/12th scale rug, although my eyes aren't what they used to be so it could take me a lot longer than I think. I'll be sharing my miniature endeavours as and when I have progress or something that I've created that I think will be of interest to others. At the moment I'm waiting for things to arrive like moss, bottles and an assortment of other tiny components to make my creative dreams a reality.
I've already got some 1/12th scale furniture from the era, it surfaced from the loft yesterday (Si is still trying to find all my accessories, wallpapers etc), sadly when I unboxed the items they hadn't been stored very well, and some of the delicate bits had been broken, as can be seen in the main photo above. So I set to with wood glue and painters tape and I've repaired the broken bed and table, cleaned up the other pieces of dust and debris and even managed to trim down some brass panel pins to make new door handles for the wardrobe, which had apparently lost the ones it originally had but I have no idea how?
All fixed now though by my own fair hand 😁, when the glue has fully cured I'll remove the painters tape and will use some wax crayons to hide a few scratches that have appeared on the surface of some of the pieces. I have to say that there was a minor set back to my repairs, I fixed the bed last night, left it to dry but couldn't resist looking at my work late last night before I went to bed. My tired clumsy fingers fumbled and I dropped the bed on the glass mat and the bottom broke off again lol! Luckily it was an easy fix and I am keeping my fingers off for a while until its dry and I'm not too tired to remove the tape, carefully lol!
In other crafty news, my Tim Holtz glass media mat has finally arrived, I pre-ordered it back in April and I've been impatiently waiting ever since lol! I've also acquired a tin to store my alcohol inks in, but I need another one because guess what? That's right I have more alcohol inks than the tin holds lol! That's all for now, I have to go and sort out a way to store the miniature stuff until I can use it and try to find the copper tape for the electric installation, I may be some time 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!
Hello to you out there in blog land, its been a couple of weeks since my last blog post, I've had my 14 year old niece Zoe staying with me for a week and I introduced her to the art of card making and Distress Inks, she took to them really well and went away armed with some distress inks, a heat gun, embossing powders and ink and lots more besides and I look forward to seeing what she creates in the future.
The week went by so quickly and I didn't get to show her everything I wanted to, there were trips to some National trust places, Sherwood Forest and we went to see Mamma Mia 2, which we all really enjoyed, it was all I could do to stop myself from singing out loud everytime the cast did the musical bits lol! Now Zoe has gone back home it seems so much quieter here, not that she was noisy, but having an extra person in the house changes the dynamic and when they aren't there you notice it.
One thing that was odd was the inability to be able to wander into my craft room late at night when I couldn't sleep and play with ink and paper, now that I have my craft space back I've started creating again. Yesterday we went to a local craft centre and I picked up a lovely stamp from Lavinia Stamps called Aerial. It occured to me that despite having about 20 Lavinia Stamps stamps I very rarely, if ever use them. More of the Tim Holtz fear I think, I see people create stunning projects and feel I can't do the stamps justice, so I put the stamps in a box and look at them every once in a while. It's actually been over 2 years now since I did anything with the stamps and because of how pretty the stamps are its a crying shame.
Not using the stamps seems a stupid when I think about it, given how much the stamps cost me initially, the fact that if it goes wrong the bin will accomodate the mishaps and whilst I'm playing I'm learning in the process. So last night I decided to have a play with the new Aerial stamp and my trusty distress inks and make myself a bookmark. 😁
I cut a strip of watercolour card and shaped the top with one of the dies from the Sizzix Tim Holtz Baroque set, then I began to layer the Distress Inks. I used one of my favourite colour combos, Wilted Violet and Picked Raspberry with bits of Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and some Black Soot to edge and ground the image.
Before I used the Black Soot I spritzed some water on the cardstock and blotted it after a minute to lift the ink. Pleased with the result I wanted to add a Moon to the image, I do have a couple of Moon stamps, one from Altenew and the other from Just Rite but the first was too big and the second too small. I sat thinking and my eyes hit upon the solution.
On top of my Distress Ink storage units sit a variety of items from Gamsol, glue, erasers and embossing powders. It occured to me that the small sized jars of WOW embossing powder were the right size for the moon I wanted to create. So I spritzed the lid with water, placed the bookmark on top and pressed down firmly making sure the cardstock didn't move around. After a minute I carefully lifted the bookmark off the lid and used a paper towel to blotch away the ink leaving a light moon shaped patch.
I think really I should have left it as is, but I attempted to edge the moon with a gel pen and I didn't get a perfect circle as my hand wasn't steady enough. Something else I need to work on, I decided to add some Pumice Stone Distress marker to the moon and again spritzed with water and lifted off and then gave the moon a lick of Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen. It helped disguise the messed up bit a little but its still not perfect, but does it have to be, its only for keeping my place in a book, and I've used chocolate wrappers, bits of ribbon, and torn pieces of paper before now lol!
I stamped Aerial, the leaf branches and mushrooms with Onyx Black Versafine Ink and added some Wilted Violet and Black Soot Distress Inks to the bottom to 'ground' the fairy. I added some specks of Stickles to Aerial's hair (Black Diamond) and dots to make stars (Crystal) and highlight the end of her wand. The final step was to use a hole punch at the top centre and thread some purple organza ribbon through.
I'm really happy with the way this turned out, imperfections aside, when I started the project, I was going to make a Winter themed card in blue and lilac icy shades with snowflakes/drops in the background, but somehow as I worked it turned in to this. I'm now wondering about making some bookmarks to give as gifts to friends. I actually started making some homemade xmas gifts this week. I made some Peppermint Foot Fizzes, just need to make some little boxes to put them in. I'm going to make some bath bombs as well and some notelet cards, this year I want almost all of what I give to friends and family to be homemade, I may even have a go at soap making, I've been wanting to try for a long time.
If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm a sucker for autumn and its colours and for Halloween, so when a magazine offered a free stamp set called Autumn Treasures you can understand why I got a little excited at the potential.
The magazine in question is Creative Stamping, the issue is 60 and the stamps are just fabulous to have a closer look click on the image below, like all stamps sets that come with Creative Stamping they are superb quality and stamp really well, I've had stamp sets from some magazines that just didn't stamp well at all, I never have that problem with stamps from Creative Stamping, it helps having a Stamping Platform
The magazine in question is Creative Stamping, the issue is 60 and the stamps are just fabulous to have a closer look click on the image below, like all stamps sets that come with Creative Stamping they are superb quality and stamp really well, I've had stamp sets from some magazines that just didn't stamp well at all, I never have that problem with stamps from Creative Stamping, it helps having a Stamping Platform
I've so far only used around half of the set and my head is full of ideas for using those stamps again, and for using the rest of the stamps in the set. To give you an idea of size of the stamps the 3 leaf and quote card is 8" x 8" and the other 3 cards are all 6" x 6" cards. For the 6" cards, I used a 5" and 6" Wreath Template to build up the designs.
As soon as I saw the set the idea to create this card popped in to my head, the leave stamps are perfect for using my Hero Arts Ombre 'Autumn' ink pad, lovely rich autumn colours that lend themselves so well to stamping leaves and items for autumn.
This card was so simple I die cut the 4 panels and used my Stamping platform to line everything up. The backing paper was a free download, but I can't recall from where. A couple of mats and layers and a bit of rich chocolate brown organza ribbon finished this card off nicely. I've used some different ombre pads to create some different cards for different seasons.
My next card used a selection of Memento Dewdrop Ink Pads: - Elderberry, Rhubarb Stalk, Potters Clay, Cantaloupe, Morroco and Expresso Truffle and I added some touches of Distress Marker to the blackberries, leaves and acorns. I used the 6" Wreath Template to create this autumn inspired goodness.
The sentiment also from the Autumn Treasures set I stamped on to white card and then used a Sizzix Bigz die called 'Millinery Leaves' by Brenda Walton and used some Memento Potters Clay ink to add some colour to the leaf. I stamped the sentiment in Vintage Sepia Versafine ink.
This card again was really simple to put together, again I used the 6" Wreath template and the stamps in the set designed by Hot Off The Press to make a quick almost 1 layer card. This time I stamped the design direct to the card base in Versafine ink.
I die cut 2 different sized circles and stamped the black cat from the set and the sentiment with Onyx Black Versafine ink. I used a Fluorescent Green Zig Real Colour Brush Pen to fill in the sentiment and the same pen for the eyes with a dab of Nuvo drops to finish off the cats eyes.
Some 3D foam pads and the cards was complete.
My final card from tonight's play was actually the first one I made, in hindsight I used the wrong shade for the acorns, next time I'll use a lighter ink, I was actually going to discard it but decided in the end to use it. This one was stamped with the 5" template and I used Elderberry, Rhubarb Stalk, Expresso Truffle, Cottage Ivy and Pear Tart to form the wreath.
I love this sentiment quote by Emily Bronte from the set, and I again stamped in Onyx Black Versafine. I kept this one simple again, matting the trimmed panel on to some purple foiled card, then a piece of elderberry card and finally adhered it all to a lilac Dovecraft 6 x 6" card blank.
I had so much fun creating these cards tonight even though the temperatures in my little craft room topped 29.5C again, phew! This hot weather plays havoc with some mediums, they dry out before you have time to use them, but stamping with inks is something you can do because ink drying quickly is a bonus, unless you're going to try heat embossing on it. Just another couple of days of the heat and then temperatures are set to cool down again and I'll be happier, when I get too hot I get cranky, which is no fun for my poor hubby. I hope you are all coping with the heat and managing to keep your cool, time now to attempt some sleep I think, the temperature seems to be dropping whooo hooo!
