Let’s Skate

Posted: November 22, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, Brutus Monroe, Dies, Echidna Studios, Foiling, layered Xmas wreath die set, let's skate, Penny Black, silver sketch deco foil, snowflake digital stamp set, stocking stuffers | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t let that blog post title trick you. I won’t ever be the one saying, “Let’s Skate”! I will happily say, “Let’s make cute cards with skates on them.” My less than stellar skating experience ended when my children became proficient and I realised I didn’t have to get out on the ice and wobble around any more.

These lovely skate dies are from Penny Black and I was thrilled when I saw them. I have been using them in the Christmas card class I’ve been teaching but decided to make a few vintage looking pairs with various pieced layers. Quite unusual for me to piece layers but I do like how they turned out. On card above I filled them with die-cut foliage.

Both pairs of skates are popped up on snowflake backgrounds printed then foiled from my daughter’s snowflake designs available in her Etsy store. I printed the file on kraft paper on my laser printer then foiled in white on the piece above and Brutus Monroe silver foil on the design below.

The vintage style cream colour I used for the boot is a gel print, black cardstock for the heel, silver for the blade and some burgandy for the trim. Fiddly but worth it in the end.

These skates look really cute cut from patterned or collaged paper too. Not cute enough to make me want to skate though!

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp & Ecstasy Crafts)

Back on Craft Roulette

Posted: November 17, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, Dies, Penny Black, petals & branches | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

I was once again a guest crafter on Craft Roulette last Friday night and it was loads of fun. Mary Gunn, the host keeps the action going with crafting, chatting, and sharing over eighty card samples made by viewers. To see Mary and I chat and create pop over to the Craft Roulette youtube channel. (To just watch the card making part you can skip to 55:11)

Craft Roulette is a crafting game show where a wheel is spun four times to choose four parameters which must be used on the project being created live during the show. Last Friday the parameters were:

Card type: ‘Lil Chubby’ ( like a slimline but wider)

Colour choice: Warm colours

Element: ‘It’s a sign’

Random: Crumpled paper

The finished card is 4″x 8″ with a blended background that I patterned with a wet crumpled tissue. The colours are warm and that banner die looks like a ‘sign’ to me so I squeaked it in.

It was lovely to see some familiar names in the chat, encouraging me and asking questions. Thank you Karen for staying up late in Wales to watch. I didn’t see all the chat because, well, I had to do some crafting but I was able to read some of it. My dad watched from Australia and was chatting along.

There is definitely an added pressure when crafting live but it is all great fun and the community is such a friendly supportive one. If you have never watched Craft Roulette, I highly recommend!

Supplies

Exquisite

Posted: March 9, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, exquisite, Script | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

My final springy card for this week features this lovely big flower in two of my favourite distress stains, chipped sapphire and seedless preserves. I stamped this one on cold pressed watercolour paper so once again having the panel in a stamp positioner helped me get a good impression. I inked first with chipped sapphire over parts of the flower, stamped, wiped off the stamp and inked sections again but this time with seedless preserves. I ended up with some blue flowers, some pink and some a purple mix.

I blended the petals of all the flowers with a damp brush and let them all dry. I was going to leave all the centres white but it didn’t look right so I ended up painting them all darker with undiluted stain. To create a soft textured background I dropped a few drops of water around the flower then partially stamped the script stamp in the same ink stains. I dabbed out some ink with a paper towel and added some splatter as well. To frame the whole panel I ran the seedless preserves dauber around the edges then softened the colour with a damp brush.

To complete the card I stamped a sentiment on a fancy little die cut banner and popped it up over the stem of the flower.

Supplies

Stamps: exquisite, script, banner sentiment (Penny Black)

Die: birds & banners

Inks: chipped sapphire & seedless preserves distress stains, majestic blue versafine ink

Paper: cold & hot pressed watercolour paper

Simply Irresistible – A Card Challenge

Posted: June 15, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, Felicity, Guest design | 6 Comments

I am very excited to share today’s post; I’ve teamed up with The Foiled Fox to host a challenge. It’s a fun one and there are some generous prizes from The Foiled Fox on offer. As the name hints, the challenge involves the emboss resist method, one of my recent fave techniques. I decided to use the distress oxide inks alongside some gold embossing because I wanted to see how the DiOxes worked with emboss resist.

I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper, embossing the Felicity stamp first, then blending DiOx inks on top. The gold embossing resisted the ink and remained shiny. Next I coloured inside all the flowers and leaves with a wink of stella clear marker which added sparkle and oxidized the colour making it all lighter. I splattered some sparkly ink of stella liquid here and there also.

I used gold cardstock to frame the panel and create a die cut banner. I stamped on the banner with wilted violet DiOx ink and was impressed by the sharpness of the impression; I didn’t emboss it, just left it to dry. The banner is popped up on violet foam which just happens to match perfectly. Yay!

Now that you have seen how easy a little emboss resisting is please let the inspiration flow then link your card up on The Foiled Fox blog. The guidelines and link up are on their blog and you have two weeks to participate.  I will be popping over there regularly to see what you have dreamed up. I can’t wait. Here’s a short cut if you are ready to post or looking for inspiration Simply Irresistible Link Up

 

Felicity

Posted: April 19, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, Felicity | Tags: , , , | 17 Comments

Today’s card looks like it was created with a background stamp, which is practically the case, but not quite. I used the new slapstick cling stamp, ‘Felicity’ and stamped it twice to more than fill a card front. The stamp is actually longer than my average card but a bit narrower. The organic arrangement of the flowers made it easy to stamp it twice and make it look like one big image. I stamped in versamark ink then embossed in silver powder on hot pressed watercolour paper. I taped it down then spritzed all over the panel with water. It wasn’t soaking wet but it was wet enough that the brusho I sprinkled on next started reacting straight away. I picked up some more brusho colours the other day to expand my collection and three out of four on this card are new to me. I sprinkled orange, sandstone and rose red over the flowers, spritzed again, tilted the panel to move the water and waited to see if I needed more. I did this a few times then switched over to sprinkling the olive green brusho over the rest of the panel. The olive green was more intense and the leaves on the panel are small so some areas got very dark, very quickly. I used a folded paper towel to remove liquid and colour where there was too much. I also tilted the panel so colour would flow down towards the closest embossed barrier which makes for nice dark contrasting areas next to some of the silver embossing.

I let the panel dry naturally then trimmed it and matted with orange cardstock. I cut a curved banner from the new set ‘birds & banners‘ and embossed one of the co-ordinating stamps from the ‘banner sentiments‘ set in silver. The die cut banner looks folded so I used a marker to add a little shadow to the areas which appear to be behind the main section. I cut the same banner from orange fun foam so I could pop my sentiment up on the floral panel.

When I looked up the name of this new stamp, I was delighted to see it is called ‘Felicity’. I have a dear cousin called Felicity who I haven’t seen in many long years but I have fond memories of. I am going to try hard to actually send a ‘felicity’ stamped card to her, maybe this one.

Supplies

Stamps: Felicity, banner sentiments (PB)
Dies: birds and banners (PB)
Inks: versamark
Papers: hot pressed watercolour
Paints: orange, sandstone, rose red, olive green brusho
Added extras: Zing silver embossing powder

Flower medley

Posted: April 18, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: birds and banners, flower medley | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

I’m sharing another card today made with products from the new Penny Black release ‘Celebrate.’ The flowers featured on today’s card were made with just one of the stamps from the new transparent set ‘flower medley’. I stamped it all over a piece of watercolour paper with black versafine ink then embossed in clear powder. I used my peerless watercolours to fill in all the flowers, buds and leaves.

The fancy little banner you see is a diecut from the new set, ‘birds & banners’ which has a co-ordinating stamp set of nineteen sentiments. I embossed one in white on the banner then popped it up over the floral panel.

When I had put the card together on the black card base I decided it needed little dots of black ebony nuvo crystal drops to fill in a few spaces and look cute!

Supplies

Stamps: flower medley, banner sentiments
Dies: birds and banners
Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, epic black neenah cardstock
Inks: onyx black versafine, versamark (Tsukineko)
Paints: peerless transparent watercolours
Also: ebony nuvo crystal drops, clear embossing powder, white embossing powder