Foiled and Embossed ornaments – video

Posted: November 27, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: grafix | Tags: , | 5 Comments

Recently I made a video for Grafix which involved some experimenting with their Metallic Foil board. I created some sweet little foiled and embossed ornaments and a card. I was very impressed with the way the foil board embossed. You can see the whole process in the video below.

The double tack mounting film worked very well also adhering the foil board to the chipboard. It made for some simple but very shiny, eye-catching ornaments. If you don’t have dies that cut chipboard you could always die-cut several baubles from cardstock and stack them to make a firm base for the foiled layers.

I added a single layer embossed bauble to a card front too and the shine of the foil board looks lovely on the very neutral vintage music paper. The ornaments and bow were all cut using the Sizzix ‘retro ornaments’ Bigz die and the word ‘joy’ was cut with the Penny Black ‘joyful winter’ die.

Christmas Filigree

Posted: November 23, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas filigree, Dies, Echidna Studios, joy of giving, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

I am pretty excited about these new images. I think filigree patterns are very pretty and once I got the gist of it had a lovely time designing a bell, a star and a finial ornament. I thought it made sense to have a solid background to show off the filigree and, tada, the Christmas filigree digital stamp and cut file set came to be! This set is now in the Echidna Studios store along with three more new sets and some updated Christmas sets from last year. It’s beginning to look more like Christmas every day.

I think the bell is my favourite of the three images and will come in handy making wedding cards as well as Christmas. I wanted to show off the designs on dark backgrounds but when in comes to photographing shimmery gold, embossing on dark green or navy and the high contrast of cream cardstock as well, I can’t always nail it.

So let me tell you the bells are sitting on dark green panels embossed with Spellbinders ‘forever green’ folder. The green panel on the left below is also embossed with that folder but the one on the right is embossed with the Anna Griffin ‘regal braid’ folder. The star cards at the end of this very long post are on navy blue backgrounds and it is again a little tricky to see one base is embossed with the ‘speckles/snowfall‘ folder and the other with the Taylored Expressions ‘sheet music‘ folder.

I decorated the finials and bells with a mix of die cut foliage from Penny Black including the ‘joy of giving‘ set.

As the finial is such a long thin shape I made the card a little larger than usual, around 6″x4.5″.

I created the star cards without foliage but found suitable sentiment from PB and Taylored Expressions.

I think all three designs would make lovely tree ornaments either stacked to give them extra stability or cut from thick acrylic or thin board on a laser cutter. I don’t have a laser cutter but it is possible to book time on one at the library; if get some cut I will definitely show them here on the blog.

Thanks for scrolling all the way through this long post; I really appreciate you visiting the blog. Have a great day!

Today’s post features affiliate links to Scrap’n’Stamp. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Cones and Berries

Posted: November 21, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Cones & berries, Penny Black, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

More variations on a theme in today’s post. As mailing deadlines get closer I am creating some ‘same but different’ cards to swell my stack. I have never been one to create more than about five of the same card and even when I do there are usually variations. I used the Penny Black cones and berries stamp facing downwards and upwards. I also did first and second generation stamping for a dark and a light version.

Some of the images I cropped closely as shown above and others I gave more space as in the splattered example below. The texture of the SU embossing folder ‘timber’ gave some subtle texture to the woodsy image. You can also see I did extra blending on the card above and deeper colours on the one below.

Even with the variations this was not a time consuming card to make. I worked in a stamp positioner and inked the pinecone and sticks with distress inks, the berries and leaves with distress markers or other waterbased brush markers before stamping on hot pressed watercolour paper. With the stamp in the positioner I was able to spritz it again to create my second generation image and at one stage I was stamping either end of a larger piece of watercolour paper so I could just flip the orientation between impressions. The joy to the world sentiment is from PB Christmas sentiments set and the other sentiment is also PB, it’s red rubber and I cannot find a name for the set. Speaking of mailing deadlines, my cards to Australia were posted yesterday! Having a sprained ankle is keeping me at home right now so this year I might just be a little ahead of my usual ‘just made it’ schedule.

Today’s post features affiliate links to The Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Stripes and strips

Posted: November 14, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas background, Dies, Hand drawn, Hand lettered, My Favorite Things, Penny Black, starry night | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

If you have scraps of patterned or solid coloured paper today’s post is for you. I made a panel of striped cardstock by cutting thin strips of patterned paper and gluing them to a piece of light cardstock. From my homemade ‘striped cardstock’ I cut a hand drawn tree, a hand drawn bird and some simple triangle trees. You could use dies for all the elements I was just playing with ideas and decided to sketch and cut myself.

I used an embossed snowflake background for the card at the top of the page, a stamped kraft background for the tree above and then plain kraft for the bird. The little stars that decorate each card I did not hand cut of course! They are cut with the PB ‘starry night die’ and applied with the help of one of those sticky ended tools. Little embellishments have a high fiddliness factor which I don’t appreciate but these tiny stars were necessary!

I added outlines to both the bird and the tree with white or black gel pen along with some dots and a handwritten sentiment.

Cutting my own shapes was fun and put some of the many paper scraps to good use!

Old favourites

Posted: November 10, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Berry kissed, Penny Black, Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

When I say old favourites I am talking in crafting years not harking back to my grandmother’s time. The PB stamp featured on today’s card is definitely a favourite, it’s called ‘berry kissed‘ and it’s been around a few years.

Another old favourite on this card is my often used technique of splattering masking fluid on my hot pressed watercolour paper before stamping or painting. After all the ink is added and dried I remove the masking fluid to reveal little white dots here and there which look like snow.

The final old favourite worth mentioning on this card is the ‘magic’ ink, memento northern pine. It is a dark green dye ink and when it is wet it bleeds into greens, blues and browns. I stamped the leaves with this ink then blended over them with a paintbrush and you can see all the different tones, especially in the close up photo. And yes, the placement of the sentiment does cover a few blotchy berries!

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp

Seedling Pots

Posted: November 8, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, seedlings | 4 Comments

I’m featuring the seedlings digital stamp from Echidna Studios today. You might remember seeing these little pots before but they were sized differently last time to show the whole digital stamp. To create today’s card I printed the image larger on hot press watercolour paper and once again used watercolour paints to add colour.

As the image has quite a few leaves and stems it was less fiddly to paint it on a larger scale. I kept my colour palette minimal using a green I mixed myself along with two browns and a black for the pots.

The Echidna Studios etsy store is my daughter’s store and is filled with a mix of digital images, most are her original artwork but there are some of my designs also. We are continuing to add to the store regularly and are working on some videos to introduce you to the world of digital stamps and cutting files. I print on a basic laser printer but my daughter tested some of the images on an inkjet printer recently and they worked very well. I cut the svg cutting files on my Cricut but a Silhouette or a ScanNCut would also work.

Thanks for dropping by today.

Tree Canopy

Posted: November 7, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, gel press, The Crafters Workshop, tree canopy | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

Some might say this print didn’t work and I admit, that was my first thought when I looked at it. On later inspection I decided I really liked its imperfection and incomplete nature. The technique is alcohol ink through a stencil on a gel plate. Once the alcohol ink dries I pull the print with acrylic paint. (I have several videos on my youtube channel showing the technique)

When applying alcohol ink through a stencil onto a gel plate I have had the most success when using stencils full of fine lines not large solid spaces. The tree canopy stencil from The Crafter’s Workshop has some very fine lines but quite a lot of solid tree trunks also. The alcohol ink pools under the expanse of stencil plastic and takes quite a while to dry. If you move the stencil before the ink dries it starts moving again. I don’t believe I waited long enough for the ink to dry so I have some distinctly tree-ish bits in my print and some very abstract blobby bits. Despite the indistinct image I love the atmosphere of the print which I pulled with white acrylic paint. The stencil is 6″x6″ and so is the gel plate I used so I chose the best part of the print to make my 4.25″x5.5″ card. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ‘In & Out birthday’ set.

So let me know, is this too abstract for you or do you see a bit of whimsical forest atmosphere in there?

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp

Double Tweetings

Posted: November 3, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Penny Black, season's tweetings | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

Today’s cards are a 2 for 1 technique. Using the PB stamp season’s tweetings I created both a bold and a soft version with only a little extra inking on the second generation impression. I worked on hot press watercolour paper with distress inks and markers. After stamping the first time I blended the leaves and bird with a paintbrush and water.

If you haven’t heard the term ‘second generation’ in regard to stamping it is simply the pale ghost image you get when you stamp a stamp a second time without re-inking. In this case I spritzed the stamp lightly with water before stamping a second time so the inks would not be too dry to leave an impression.

The second impression gave me the pale, slightly blotchy leaves which I quite liked so I dried the panel and added more ink to the bird with markers before stamping again. Of course working in a stamp positioner makes this very straight forward. The result is a bokeh type background with the bird prominent in the middle.

Many of my Christmas cards this year feature a one stamp design with loads of white space around the image. It is a bonus to get some two-for-one panels.

I finished both cards with a small sentiment from the PB set ‘holiday snippets’

Today’s post features affiliate links to The Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Coniferous Silhouettes

Posted: November 1, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Coniferous Silhouettes, Echidna Studios | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

You know me; I am always up for more tree stamps and the latest release from Echidna Studios is made to order. No, really, it is made to order; I asked my daughter for some evergreens and she designed this digital stamp from one of her own photos. It is called Coniferous Silhouettes and includes five different versions: ‘detailed’ which is the one in the card above, ‘solid’ which you can see in the card further down in the post, ‘simplified’ version not shown in this post and two versions with just tree tops – no trunks.

I printed the images on neenah solar white cardstock with my laser printer then foiled with black foil to make them darker. The foil resisted the blended distress ink just as heat embossing would do. You can see how I masked and blended in the short video below.

Even though the cards look very similar you can see some light through the trees in the image above whereas the image below is solid.

Back in the olden days I blended ink on many scenes like this using sponges; I must admit I like the smoother and faster application of the blending brushes.

Several blog readers have expressed interest in a how-to video to introduce you to using digital stamps and cutting files. We are working on getting that done for you.

Both cards with dark blue skies feature unchartered mariner and broken china distress inks; I like to have a lighter ink for the foreground snow and to blend around the moon. The card below was my test run and it features tumbled glass and peacock feathers distress inks. You can see I blended across the moon in the card below. I did it to cover a smudge but I think it looks a bit more realistic this way; maybe I’ll go back and add a light blend to the other two moons.

Little did I know that I would have snow on the ground when posting these cards but it’s there!

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp

Just Trilling

Posted: October 30, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: CAS, Penny Black, trilling trio | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

These two sweet birds are from the Penny Black ‘trilling trio’ set. There is also a cardinal in the set. I made these cards as samples for my current ‘Painting with Stamps’ class. They are examples of when slow and steady wins the race. The stamps were in my stamp positioner and, starting with the palest colours I slowly added ink to the stamp a colour at a time, stamping after each application so as to not overwhelm the small image. I did some blending on the panel with a paintbrush but again my process was ‘little by little’.(Trilling Trio is available in both the US Foiled Fox store and Scrap n Stamp in Canada)

I do enjoy the clean look of a simple image on a plain card base but added just a little texture to these images with an embossing folder to create a distinction between the panel and the base.

On the little chickadee above and below I stamped the large coloured sections in the stamp positioner then at the very end added some ‘feather texture’ with the fine tips of markers.

If you are working with bird stamps and your images are not quite coming alive I have found it helpful to use a fine tip pen to define the eye, adding the white dot back in if necessary with a white gel pen. I had not positioned this little chickadee well on my watercolour paper and it looked like it was falling backwards until I drew a simple twig with a marker to give it a reason to be at the odd angle I’d placed it! The tiny sentiment from PB ‘holiday snippets’ was just what I needed stamped in grey to keep it subtle.

Today’s post features affiliate links to the following companies. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The Foiled Fox & Scrap’n’Stamp

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