Robots? What? No!
Posted: February 13, 2023 Filed under: cog wheels, craft roulette, Dies, Penny Black | Tags: craft roulette, Penny Black creative dies 7 Comments
I mentioned last week that I was scheduled as a guest on Craft Roulette live youtube show on Friday. Thank you to those who dropped in to watch; I saw a few familiar names in the chat. The show is an improv crafting show hosted by the energetic and enthusiastic Mary Gunn. During the show a wheel is spun to choose four parameters then Mary and I each make a card live on youtube which follows all four parameters.
On Friday night before the wheel was spun Mary asked me if I would like to veto one of the parameters and I mentioned it was hard to choose between ‘robot’ and ‘gnome’ because I would be at a loss with either of those elements. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I vetoed gnomes and the wheel stopped on robots!

The parameters on Friday night were:
- project – MAP FOLD
- colours – BEACH COLOURS
- element – ROBOT(S)
- random – LABEL(S)
Here’s my reaction 46 minutes into the show!
It all turned out just fine and I made an’ out of my comfort zone card’ but featured two lovely pieces of paper from my stash and some fun dies.

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

New YouTube channel – New Video
Posted: February 11, 2023 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, baby blue leaf embossing folder, Branch 9 die, cricut, Dies, grafix, Moda Scrap, my designs, ornate tile embossing folder, Paper Rose, Penny Black, Pink & Main, scripty, silhouette birds, so extra supporting sentiments, Stampin Up, thank you squares, Tim Holtz, Tutorial | Tags: cricut, grafix, grafix craft plastic, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Alcohol Ink, Stampin Up, Tim Holtz 6 Comments
If you have been visiting this blog for a while you will know I had a youtube channel for many years. In 2022 after ten years of adding videos and gathering a community of 7000 subscribers my channel was deleted. In recent weeks I have started again with a new channel and some videos ‘from the archive’. My new channel is called Heather Telford Art and I would be very happy if you decided to like, subscribe and tell your friends! There is content on there that you may remember from the last few years and starting today there is new content also! The new ‘2 for 1 Alcohol Ink Panels’ is freshly filmed for my new channel and I hope it will be the first of many!

There are quite a few photos in this post because, well, this is a 2 for 1 technique and I created three panels which of course became six panels and one was cut in half so there are seven cards to show you in this blog post! Grab a cup of tea. I have added a linked supply list at the very bottom of this long post.
As well as a new youtube channel I am also a new Cricut owner. The stencil used on the card below was designed by me and cut on my Cricut. It is available as a cutting file from Echidna Studios etsy store.


Most of the 2 for 1 smooshed panels I left as a full card fronts adding only a sentiment or some die-cutting. As the panel below reminded me of the ocean, the PB wavy scallop border seemed a nice touch.


The panel below is a half panel from the first one I showed on the video. I love the patterns from the isopropyl alcohol ink spray even though they don’t stay distinct. Even when die-cutting the word from the panel I couldn’t leave it off so I popped it up. Not so funny story: I guess I haven’t popped up a die cut word in a while because I flicked those little shapes inside the letters into the garbage when I poked the word from the die. So yes, I had to hunt through my garbage to complete the card.


I don’t know why I hadn’t tried it before but seeing how well Grafix craft plastic responds when put in an embossing folder has been a revelation! I thought it might crack but it doesn’t so you can have the subtle impression of your embossing folder on a panel or the bold inked pattern as I’ve done on the card below. Sentiments in circles might be a little fad I go with for a while too; they look cute!


You can see the soft look of embossed script on the panel below, especially in the close up. This detailed embossing folder is from Stampin’ Up and is called ‘scripty’. I don’t think it is available anymore but you might something similar.


For this final card I cut six little birds from the panel and played with layouts for quite a while. I ended up just using two which means I have four birds in hand for another project. (pun definitely intended)

The intricate half circle cut out behind the birds is also one of my new cricut cutting files but more about that in another post. If you got this far, you’re a champion. Thank you for supporting me here on my blog and I would love to see you over on youtube as well.

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

Pretty Paint Pour birthday card
Posted: January 31, 2023 Filed under: Echo Park, heart border, mckell lowercase alphabet | Tags: Penny Black creative dies 7 Comments
I am not the best at remembering birthdays in a timely manner. Also, I don’t make many birthday cards for children so when I need one I don’t always have one in my stash. I did, however have this groovy paint pour! Shall we bring back the word groovy? I have only done paint pouring a few of times. The last time I did it, a talented friend took me and a few others through the process step by step and we got some lovely panels like this one.

You know I love to have blues and purples blending in my cards so this panel featuring both colours along with some gold, black and grey definitely made me happy. Because of the the few pops of gold I chose gold metallic cardstock to frame it and add alphabet and heart die-cuts. It’s a larger than usual card because why would I want to cut off some of that yummy paint pattern and texture?

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

Deer and Alcohol Ink Skies
Posted: January 20, 2023 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, grafix, leap of joy, Penny Black | Tags: grafix, grafix craft plastic, Penny Black creative dies, Ranger Alcohol Ink 8 Comments
I know it is yet another alcohol ink sky post! If you look closely at the panel below you will see one of the things I love about alcohol inks and dye inks and that is the separation of pigments when a colour is diluted. It is more obvious in some inks that others but you can see it in the eggplant ink below. There is purple, grey, blue and shades of maroon. So yummy!

The panel above was diluted with isopropyl alcohol more that the panel below but I definitely used it on both to move the inks around.

To complete the cards I die cut the PB deer from white cardstock and add small simple sentiments. Small sentiments are my favourite; I think I’ve mentioned that before.

I think my next post might not be alcohol inks! Stay tuned!
(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox & Scrap n Stamp)

Alcohol Ink Sky Baubles
Posted: January 17, 2023 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, around town, Dies, grafix, Penny Black, trees and hills | Tags: grafix, grafix craft plastic, Penny Black creative dies, Ranger Alcohol Ink, Taylored Expressions 10 Comments
Yes, I have a few more alcohol ink skies to share. This time I have layered navy die-cuts over the alcohol ink panels and cut them into circles so they look like Christmas tree baubles. These ones were already cut and ready in my pile of possibility I just had to find suitable backgrounds and add cord and sentiments.

The skies were part of a big panel, alcohol ink on white craft plastic and there are some hints of gold here and there. Some is from gold alcohol ink but there are also threads of gold foil pressed onto the panel.

The backgrounds are embossed panels; sorry I don’t know the name of the lovely branch one, it doesn’t belong to me so I’m not sure who made it. The dies are Penny Black, ‘trees & hills’ and ‘around town’.

I added some gold cord and Taylored Expression sentiments to finish them off.
(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox & Scrap n Stamp)

Alcohol Ink Winter Skies
Posted: January 12, 2023 Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Dies, Penny Black, tall trees, Taylored Expressions | Tags: grafix, grafix craft plastic, Penny Black creative dies, Ranger Alcohol Ink, Taylored Expressions 11 Comments
It is unusual for me to be making Christmas cards in January but the supplies are still handy and I will be happy to see the cards in October! I have a small stash of alcohol ink panels in my pile of possibility so the next few blog posts will feature those backgrounds paired with wintry scenery and Christmas greetings.

I’m sorry I can’t tell you exactly what techniques I used for these panels but it looks like I added blue and green inks to white craft plastic, added a generous amount of isopropyl alcohol then blew the liquids around the panel with a hand held air blower. I love the frilly ribbon look on the sky above.

I chose the wonderful ‘tall trees’ dies from Penny Black and hand cut some snowy hills from white cardstock. The sentiments are once again from Taylored Expression because they are so handy and neat!

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

Christmas Elegance
Posted: November 18, 2022 Filed under: christmas elegance, gel press, Penny Black | Tags: gel printing, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 6 Comments
You might recognise the type of background I used for today’s card. It is one of my gel printing clean up sheets. I think this one looks a bit like plaid. I used the Penny Black ‘Christmas elegance’ die to cut the tree from the panel and splattered with gold paint.

I attached the die cut panel to an embossed piece of white cardstock, also plaid. The sentiment is a little tricky to see; I think it might have been better to stamp it in navy ink rather than emboss those tiny words. All in all the card is simple and elegant and I like that combination!

By the way I have updated the classes page with my final in-person class for the year. I wish I could tell you the new online class is also ready! I’m working on it!
(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp)

Stay Cosy
Posted: November 16, 2022 Filed under: Dies, Echidna Studios, Foiling, Penny Black, Skis 'n' sled, snowflake digital stamp set, winter wardrobe | Tags: Echidna Studios, Foiling, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 5 Comments
Today is the perfect day for a ‘stay cosy’ message. Overnight the snow started falling and the world is white once more. I guess that lovely long autumn wasn’t going to last forever!

This card came together quite easily as I had some of the elements left over from other projects. The background is made from a digital stamp designed by my daughter (Echidna Studios on Etsy). I printed the snowflakes on kraft paper with my laser printer then foiled with white white foil. I love how delicate and pretty they are.
The sleds, skis and cosy winter clothes were left over from previous years and I had stored them with the dies just in case. They are all cut from painted watercolour paper. I hand cut the snow drifts from linen textured paper and added the sentiment from the PB ‘jolly snippets’ set.

Hope you stay cosy today!
(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox, Scrap n Stamp and Ecstasy Crafts)

Holly Flourish 2 for 1
Posted: October 19, 2022 Filed under: Dies, Finetec paints, gel press, holly flourish, Penny Black | Tags: Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, gel press, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black creative dies 7 Comments
This isn’t the first 2 for 1 card combo I have posted. A few weeks back I did a similar thing with a striped watercolour background. Today’s cards are cut from gel printing clean up sheets. When gel printing I have a heavy weight art paper to the right of my gel plate where I roll off excess paint from the brayer. I cut this yellow, red and blue panel from one of those sheets.

The pretty Penny Black die is called ‘holly flourish’ and, as you can see fills a card front nicely. I have used the cut out below and splattered both negative and positive panels with gold paint. The cardstock is Neenah solar white and I added a gold cord detail to the card above.

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n Stamp )















