Wildflower Spring

Posted: May 8, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Nature Walk, online class, Taylored Expressions, Wildflowers Vol 1, Wildflowers Vol 2 | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, online class | 5 Comments

These spring flowers are all silhouette stamps from Darkroom Door, some from the Nature Walk set and a few from Wildflowers vol 1 & 2. Even though the stamps are solid with no detail it is possible to use ink pads and markers to give them more depth.

This card is a sample from my Floral Faves online class. In the class I feature no-line watercolour with outline stamps, techniques with brushstroke stamps and ways to use silhouette stamps as featured on this card. I often use my silhouette stamps with a black or dark ink over a sunset sky but I do like to give them colour sometimes with a pale watercolour wash in the background.

I hope you are seeing spring colour in your garden or perhaps fall colour if you are in the southern hemisphere.

Floral Collage Cards

Posted: April 8, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: A Pocket Full, Collage cards, Dies, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions, this way | Tags: collage, Darkroom Door stamps, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Taylored Expressions | 2 Comments

The collage and ephemera cards just keep coming. Today’s cards feature old book page collage overlaid with one layer of a floral napkin. I have a few collaged ‘mini masterboards’ made so I can cut elements or backgrounds out when I need them. For the card above I picked the rusty orange from the napkin to be the accent colour.

I recently bought a notch punch so I can create file dividers of any size; in the card above I made the blank orange one a little larger to show behind the floral & collage one. I added tickets stamped and die-cut, a scrap of hessian and a cut out from an old Betty Crocker ‘Good and Easy Cook Book‘!

On the second card I used an aged book page as the background and added the paper napkin layer to the mini notebook page with some mulberry paper for framing and contrast. The little green postage stamp is real and the vintage label is stamped.

For the recent collage cards I have pulled out some supplies that I’d almost forgotten, the pretty label border stamps, the mulberry paper and the ‘office’ type dies from Penny Black are in the current rotation.

The file dividers on the card below remind me of a recipe card box which is why it ended up with the little recipe book snippet on it. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ‘Simple Strips – Thanks’ but I chopped it up to add to the file tabs.

This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Greenery Collage Cards

Posted: April 3, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, Darkroom Door, Dies, Finetec paints, gift card pocket, global postmarks, Leaves, measuring tape, Mixed Media, paris postcard, Penny Black, Tim Holtz, wild flowers #1 | Tags: collage, Darkroom Door stamps, Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, Mixed Media, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tim Holtz | 6 Comments

Continuing with the collage theme I have three cards featuring greenery from a paper napkin. I know people have been creating with paper napkins for years but I am new to the game. I have a small collection of pretty paper napkins to use on cards, book covers and journal pages. The green ones featured here are large dinner napkins found at Winners, probably in that tempting ‘just before the checkout’ area!

I glued the printed layer of the napkin over book pages to make my main panels and aged the edges with green and brown inks. I created a couple of little vintage postcards with the Paris postcard stamp, a background with the Measuring Tape stamp, sentiments and postmarks all from Darkroom Door.

Once again I used some cute dies from Penny Black to cut tickets, file divider, tag and leaves adding blending around the edges for the vintage look.

The scrap of cheesecloth, the lace and the grosgrain ribbon were all found around here, maybe the ribbon is actually vintage; it looks a bit discoloured from age which meant it co-ordinated well.

The lovely Queen Anne’s lace die is from the Tim Holtz ‘wildflowers #1 set.

I did make my own little postage stamps for the postcards because I’m still in love with faux postage. These ones had to be quite small so I didn’t use a die I just punched tiny holes with a needle to perforate the edges. You can see a bit of splatter here and there with ivory paint and there are touches of gold watercolour paint on the petals of a few flowers too!

This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Vintage Collage Cards

Posted: April 1, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Collage cards, Darkroom Door, Dies, gift card pocket, handwritten ledger, Mixed Media, number medley, Penny Black, Tagged | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Mixed Media, Penny Black creative dies, Ranger archival inks | 6 Comments

I’ve recently fallen down an vintage ephemera rabbit hole and emerged to make some of my own backgrounds and elements. There are companies that make beautiful co-ordinating ephemera, papers, chipboard pieces, etc. but I am committed to ‘using what I have’ so I’m pulling from old books, calendars, greeting cards, sewing patterns and scrapbooking paper along with a few handy tools.

I’m not going to list every die, ink or paper but I will mention some of my favourite resources. The old books that I am removing pages from include music books, dictionaries, atlases, novels, poetry and recipe books. I also have some lovely papers and vintage pages that friends have given me, so it is fun putting them to use.

The inks I reach for are the distress brown tones from Ranger, not always the dye inks, but often the archival inks as they don’t dilute or smudge when I add glue or stamp on glossy paper.

I have a bunch of background stamps and sets from Darkroom Door which give me vintage style text, patterns and elements including but not limited to the ‘handwritten ledger‘ and ‘number medley‘.

I found amongst my Penny Black dies a file folder, notebook page, several tags, tickets, pockets and decorative borders. I also treated myself to a corner rounding punch that punches in three different sizes and of course the postage stamp die set I’ve featured a few times recently.

I pulled out twine, ribbon and lace for finishing touches and some vintage butterfly cut-outs that were all joined together by little tabs. I have had them for years ever since I inherited my mother’s teaching resources. You can seem them in the close up below.

Now just in case you are worried, I am not ripping pages out of beloved old books, but I am putting to use some books I inherited and don’t have a personal attachment to. Anne, Heidi, Jo March, Jane, Ratty and Mole are all safe! Old calendars, diaries, magazines and greeting cards are fair game because honestly, I’ve held onto some of them for a very long time. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox and Scrap’n’Stamp . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Scrappy Journal Challenge

Posted: March 18, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, gel press, global postmarks, Handmade book | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, gel press, gel printing, Handmade book | 5 Comments

I’ve mentioned the Handmade Book Club before because I enjoy the 5 Day Challenges they offer. The most recent challenge was held last week and was called the ‘Scrappy Journal Challenge‘. The designer and teacher of the challenges, Ali Manning, came up with a tall narrow design which was very attractive. I changed the shape for mine because I will soon need a new art journal and the challenge was the perfect opportunity to get one made. The zig-zag sewing of the signatures was initially tricky but I soon got into a satisfying rhythm and finished them with only one early unpicking incident.

Other than the size of the book and the type of paper in the pages, I followed all the instruction from Ali. She is one of the best teachers I have had the privilege to learn from. I used watercolour paper for my pages and a heavy watercolour paper for the cover. I collaged the cover with vintage papers, then gel printed tissue, fabric washi tape and used postage stamps. The last details added were the gingham ribbon sewn onto the cover with a sewing machine.

The first photo in this post shows the front cover, next the full cover and spine, above is the back cover and below you can see the top view and four signatures.

After sewing the ribbon onto the cover there were random lines of stitching on the inside of the cover so I glued black mulberry paper with gold thread in it over the complete inside cover. After I’d taken the photos I decided to add gingham ribbon ties to both the front and back covers to tie the book closed.

This is the third challenge I have completed with the Handmade Book Club. Here are the links to the other books I’ve made. Mixed Media Journal, Small Coptic Journal, 7×7 Coptic Journal

Faux Postage Stamps – Video

Posted: March 7, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Elizabeth Craft Designs, fine flowers vol 2, global postmarks, Nature Walk, Tutorial | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Elizabeth Craft Designs, Ranger Distress inks, video | 6 Comments

Recently I created some faux postage stamps from a stamped and watercoloured panel. I pulled out another floral panel from my ‘pile of possibilities’ and filmed myself making some more faux postage stamps to feature on cards. The watercoloured panel features a repeated flower from the Darkroom Door set, ‘fine flowers vol 2’ and there is a video of my watercolouring process for that too.

The large postage die set I used is from Elizabeth Craft Designs and includes a die to cut perforated stamps of different sizes which remain joined until you cut or tear them apart. There are also dies which cut rectangles to fit in each of the ‘postage stamp’ spaces. There are also bonus number and symbol dies, so the set offers quite a lot.

I chose this set because I liked the way the postage stamps were all joined and I have the option of creating combinations or individual stamps. There are dies available from other companies which just cut the perforated lines and I demonstrate how to do the same thing with that kind of die towards the end of the video. Adding stamped postmarks and even small words makes the faux postage look real and I’m really enjoying using stamped panels, patterned papers and gel prints to make my own postage. I think any hand delivered card I make from now on should have a handmade postage stamp on it!

Family celebrations

Posted: February 27, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Ciao Bella, Darkroom Door, global postmarks, rice papers | Tags: Ciao Bella, Darkroom Door stamps, Mixed Media | 9 Comments

We recently enjoyed an exciting weekend as a family celebrating a birthday and a premiere. I used rice papers, sheet music and dictionary pages to create two custom cards. If you have done any of my online classes you might know my son is a videographer. He filmed my five classes for me but most of his time is spent on very different projects. Over the last few years he has been working on his first movie length documentary. It premiered in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago and our family along, with an excited crowd, were blown away by ‘City Limits: Ottawa’s Hip Hop History’.

I had a lovely time creating a celebratory card using a sheet of Ciao Bella’s rice paper. I have a little stash of Ciao Bella papers that I hadn’t dipped into and this was definitely the right occasion. The paper is aptly called ‘The director‘. I cut a large section to be the card front, tore a corner featuring film reels to go inside and transformed two small bits into faux stamps for the envelope. I am a little obsessed with faux stamps at present and like to make them realistic with the Darkroom Door global postmarks stamp set.

I used a couple of dictionary pages to add to the overall theme. Behind the projector panel is a dictionary page featuring the word ‘film’ and you can see the torn section of the ‘documentary’ page below.

We celebrated my husband’s birthday the same weekend and I paired the CiaoBella blue note cards rice paper panel this time with sheet music, being that my husband is a guitarist. The rice paper already had a tiny music print on it but the music paper I glued behind had a larger staff. I used it inside the card and under the greeting as well.

And yes, he did sight read the little segment I glued inside the card; he’s a musician!

This post includes affiliate links from Ecstasy Crafts where you can find these beautiful rice papers and many more. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Postage Stamp Tulips

Posted: February 7, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Elizabeth Craft Designs, global postmarks, online class, Penny Black, postage stamps, splendiferous | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Elizabeth Craft Designs, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, online class, Penny Black stamps | 11 Comments

I’ve been inspired so many times by my talented friend Stamping Matilda, aka Godelieve Tijskens including her delightful faux postage stamps. I’ve wanted to make some for a while so I treated myself to a fancy die from Elizabeth Craft Designs. There are many ways to make faux postage stamps including with a clever tracing wheel usually use for sewing.

Once I had my die on hand I had to decide what to make my stamps from. I decided not to stamp something especially for the faux stamps. Instead I started using patterned papers and stamped panels that were sitting around looking pretty but not serving any other purpose. The two tulip panels featured on today’s cards were made for my online class Floral Faves. There is a lesson in the class where I show a range of methods for no-line watercolour. In designing and filming the class I created quite a few no-line watercolour panels that were never turned into cards…until now. I stamped the tulips using the Penny Black stamp, ‘Splendiferous‘.

The ‘postage stamps‘ die cuts a large panel of perforated stamps all joined together. There are also small dies in the set that cut rectangles to attach inside the perforated sections. Once I had my tulip sections attached I used Darkroom Door set, ‘global postmarks‘ to add postmarks. I popped up my faux postage stamps on one A4 card and one slightly smaller card. Of course I proceeded to search my pile of possibility for more panels to turn into faux stamps! Today’s post features an affiliate link to Scrap’n’Stamp. If you buy through this link I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Craft Roulette Big Animals! + Video

Posted: January 30, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: African Trees, craft roulette, Darkroom Door | Tags: craft roulette, Darkroom Door stamps, video | 6 Comments

I was Mary Gunn’s guest on Craft Roulette last Friday night. If you haven’t heard of Craft Roulette it is a crafting game show that is live on YouTube every Friday evening. There is plenty of card making inspiration and discussion along with some live card making from Mary and her guest as they make a card which includes four different parameters chosen by the spin of a wheel. No-one knows the parameters ahead of time so you hope inspiration strikes as the right time!

I have been on the show four times now so I knew what to expect even though I didn’t know what the wheel would give us that night. As it turns out the wheel was pretty kind and so were the lovely people in the chat. Thank you to everyone who left encouraging messages in the chat; as you know I only see a few glimpses during the show but I went back through the chat the next day and read everything! The parameters for our cards on Friday night were:

project: a card with a bookmark, colour: bakery, element: large animal, random: horizontal lines

If you would like to watch the replay it is right here for you:

I don’t do that many animal cards so I knew as soon as ‘large animal’ came up that I would use the lovely Darkroom Door set, ‘African Trees‘. I cut post-it notes to make masks and blended yellow, orange and green distress inks to create an African savanna. I had hoped to make the bookmark line up with the front of the card so I could attach it in a way which didn’t change the scene but I didn’t get that right so it is a ‘card with bookmark’ just as the parameter stated. The trees, giraffes and sentiment are stamped with Gina K obsidian amalgam ink. And speaking of Gina K, she just happens to be the next guest so tune in on Friday, Feb 2 to see her face the wheel!

The conversation during the show covered plenty of craft related topics but we also discussed large and small spiky animals, ankle fractures, high level cake decorating, Australianisms, mould and much much more. You really should watch if you haven’t already.

Roses Stencilled

Posted: January 29, 2024 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, Echidna Studios, gel press, Roses digital stamp set | Tags: Alcohol Ink, Darkroom Door stamps, Echidna Studios, gel press, gel printing, Taylored Expressions | 2 Comments

Last week I featured the Roses digital stamp set from Echidna Studios by cutting the rose trio from cardstock with my cricut. I have also cut dura-lar stencils with the same digital files. I cut them in different sizes for gel printing, blending or working with alcohol inks. To create both the pink and the orange panel I used alcohol inks on a gel plate and either dropped the rose trio stencil on top of the alcohol inks or lay the stencil down on the gel plate then added the inks. Both techniques work but by adding the alcohol ink after the stencil you have a bit more control of your ink placement. But you know alcohol inks; they kind of have a mind of their own.

On the card above you can see two patterns. The roses stencil was laid down on the inked gel plate first so you can see the whole design. The Finnabair/Prima ‘floral net’ stencil was laid over the top so there are snatches of that pattern around the edges where it made contact with the alcohol inks. If you are interested in using alcohol inks on the gel plate, check out my video here.

You can see from the photo at the top of the post that the pink one is a smaller card; it’s 5″ x3¾. This print doesn’t include a second stencil pattern but does have some isopropyl alcohol splatter adding interest. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ‘In & Out Birthday’ set.

The sentiment below is from the Darkroom Door ‘Happy Birthday‘ set.

I used Waffle Flower A2 layers and Additional A2 layers die sets to cut the narrow border frames. These two sets have been so useful for cutting out panels and sentiments and adding very neat and correctly sized mats.

I’ll be back tomorrow to show you my project from Craft Roulette. Thank you to those of you who tuned in on youtube. It was lovely to have you there. 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.