Tiles

Posted: April 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Collage cards, gel press, Tim Holtz, vault wildflowers | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Do you have more gel prints than you know what to do with? Are some of them not very interesting or only partial prints? I definitely answer yes to both those questions. I keep finding though, that the grungy prints make really nice backgrounds for journal pages and cards.

I have many of my gel prints sorted by colour so I pulled several 6 x 6 prints from the blue folder and used them on a few different cards. I also had green, yellow and gold toned prints on hand to make some multicoloured cards; I’ll share them another day. To create this card I cut the blue gel prints with a rectangle die then arranged them like tiles over a navy background before trimming end to fit.

I added a die-cut flower from the Tim Holtz vault wildflowers set and a little Penny Black sentiment. If you like blue then maybe this multi-print collage will please you as much as it did me! This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Dancing Pink Daisies

Posted: April 24, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: dancing daisies, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

April showers bring May flowers I’ve heard so the showers we’re having today should only help bring some colour to the garden in the coming weeks. The dancing daisies stamp from Penny Black is such a beauty and I love to create a sense of movement with layered stamping.

I created this panel on hot pressed watercolour paper a few years back as added inspiration for my Floral Faves online class but it was sitting in a folder not being enjoyed. I recently trimmed the ends off, turned it into a card and it is on it’s way to a friend for her birthday.

I only used three ink colours and relied on water to dilute their intensity along with second generation stamping for paler background hues. I used sweet blush, scarlet jewel and new leaf inks from Papertrey ink but you could do something similar with any watersoluble inks you have. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Alcohol Ink & Foil – Video

Posted: April 17, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Alcohol Ink, grafix, Penny Black, Tutorial | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

Recently I spent a happy few days creating with alcohol inks after quite a break. They did not disappoint! I am looking forward to more experimenting and maybe some Christmas card designs.

I created some cards using Grafix white craft plastic (also called bright white dura-lar), Grafix metallic foil board and Grafix double tack adhesive. These are all products I’ve used before and definitely recommend. You can see my process in the video below.

In the cards above and below you can see the wavy ocean effects I achieved easily by applying alcohol inks with a felt applicator. I love watching the inks continue to move after I lift the applicator.

The panels below were all made by moving the alcohol inks and isopropyl alcohol around. I tilt the panel and use an air blower to move the the ink. Where there was too much of one colour or too much intensity of colour I diluted with isopropyl alcohol or just dabbed ink off the panel with a paper towel

I used some of the green and the blue metallic foil board from Grafix to add to my designs. To see another project using the foil board click here.

To add the sentiments I used an alcohol lift inkpad from Ranger. Its been a while since I’ve used alcohol lift ink and I was thrilled with how well it lifted the ink from the grafix white craft plastic. With a few repeat impressions and removal of diluted ink I was able to remove the bold green and blue inks to reveal sharp white words.

The sentiments are from the Penny Black ‘how sweet!’ set and ‘Let’s Go Wild’ set. Both are rubber cling sets which seem to hold the lift ink well and apply it evenly. 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.

Floral Collage Cards

Posted: April 8, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: A Pocket Full, Collage cards, Dies, Penny Black, Taylored Expressions, this way | Tags: , , , , | 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: | 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: , , , , , , | 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.

Blue Birthday

Posted: March 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: banner blooms, banner blooms cut out dies, Dies, exquisite envelope, online class, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments

Blue is my favourite colour and the different hues seen on this card are examples of why it appeals to me so much. I tend to prefer the blues that are a little bit purply but I like the teal blues as well.

All the blues on the card are made from one ink, chipped sapphire distress ink. If you watercolour with your dye inks you have probably noticed that some inks separate into different hues when diluted. I thought I would share this card today because it features in one of the lessons in my Colour Clues online course. Colour Clues is a card making course which covers colour blending, contrast, separation and mixing. I created a 40% discount for all my online courses back on February 29, mentioned it in a blog post then forgot about it! That’s why I’ve been featuring it more this week. The discount code LEAPYEAR40 is active until the end of March 28 which is now two days away.

I chose the Penny Black sets Banner Blooms and Exquisite Envelope for this card because there were plenty of enclosed petals and leaves to trap colour. Banner Blooms just happens to have a co-ordinating die set which sped up the layering of blooms and leaves. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox . If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Do you have a favourite colour. Does it turn up often in your crafting or perhaps in your wardrobe? I definitely wear a lot of blue!

Fuchsia Favourites

Posted: March 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: captivating, Dies, gift card pocket, online class, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

As I wait for spring I thought I would post a couple of cards I made a few years ago when filming my Floral Faves online course. I used the beautiful ‘Captivating‘ stamp from Penny Black to teach a no-line watercolour technique. All my online courses are discounted by 40% for a one more week.

Edited to add: use the code LEAPYEAR40 if the discount doesn’t appear automatically.

I used watercolour paints to colour the two cards featured today but I have also used waterbased inks smooshed onto a glass mat as they also work well for the technique. I added the tiny little tag from the PB ‘gift card pocket die set‘. It’s a set that I never use to make gift card pockets but often reach for one of the tag or label dies included.

I had fuchsias looking pretty in the planters at my front door last year. They were the opposite colouring of the ones above with pale pinky purple petals hanging down and creamy white petals at the top.

It might be time to pull out this stamp again and try it with the new pastel pencils. For more inspiration with this stamp click here and here. Today’s post features affiliate links to The Foiled Fox.

Postage Stamp Tulips

Posted: February 7, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Elizabeth Craft Designs, global postmarks, online class, Penny Black, postage stamps, splendiferous | Tags: , , , , | 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.

Roses on gel printed collage

Posted: January 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Echidna Studios, gel press, Mixed Media, Roses digital stamp set | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Unsurprisingly I have built up quite a supply of gel prints. Recently I turned a bunch of them into collaged panels. You can see in the photo below the simple collage I created by gluing torn strips of three different prints in a brick-like arrangement. To make things easy I tore the strips the width of my ruler so they are all 1¼” wide.

Once I trimmed the collage panel to card sized pieces I chose a trio or roses that I designed for printing and cutting and cut it from blue cardstock using my cricut. It is one of three designs in a set called ‘Roses‘ which is available in the Echidna Studios etsy store.

When you cut a design on the cricut or with a die you often have inside pieces you can discard or use to fill in the cut out shape. I cut the rose trio from dark blue and from pink patterned paper then saved the inside pieces from the pink to inlay the blue outline.

I added embossed sentiments from the Penny Black set ‘ever thanks‘ and some embossing around one of the panels with Ranger rose gold embossing powder.

I was able to cut two smaller square panels which I also make into cards featuring the Penny Black die, ‘harmonious’. When you look at the gel prints themselves they don’t look all that fancy but when combined this way I really like the play of colours and textures.

I created a few more A4 panels from collaged gel prints and they are waiting for inspiration. I will share them here once I have a plan for them. 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.

Mini Festive Fragrance

Posted: December 28, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: festive fragrance, Penny Black, Sizzix | Tags: , | 5 Comments

Today’s card features ‘festive fragrance‘ a Penny Black brushstroke stamp, which I think could be used all year round especially if you choose colours accordingly. I used the following distress inks (either ink pads or markers) to ink the stamp: brushed corduroy, forest moss, rustic wilderness, mowed lawn, festive berries, aged mahogany, candied apple. I spritzed the stamp lightly before stamping on hot pressed watercolour paper. After stamping once I reapplied ink to the stamp if necessary to get more coverage but in some cases all that was needed was some blending with a paintbrush to fill the leaves or berries.

I definitely did more blending on the vases then ruled a thin line behind the vases to ground the image. You may have noticed on some of my recent cards I have embossed the panels after stamping and watercolouring. I did so on this one with the twiggy embossing folder from Sizzix/Tim Holtz (sorry I don’t know the name). I knew I was taking a risk embossing a perfectly good panel with a large non-symmetrical embossing folder but I think it worked.

You can’t tell from the photo but this is a smaller card than my usual A2 cards. This one is 5″x 3¾”, which is half an inch smaller in height and width. I’ve chosen to make some cards this size because I have some envelopes this size to use up and sometimes smaller is cuter. To see the image on an A2 card take a look at an earlier card here. 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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