Monthly Archives: March 2015

Technique Tuesday – emboss resist

Leave a reply

This appears to be one of my favourite techniques, or at least one I do frequently. But I suppose that’s no surprise since it uses the heat gun. At the crop weekend I attended last month, I learned an embossed resist technique using a brayer, elastic bands, embossing powder and sponging. I decided to do it again but with two colours.

Stampin' Up! Hello You

I wrapped a couple of elastic bands around my brayer ensuring that they crossed and twisted. I then took a piece of very vanilla cardstock and after rubbing it with the embossing buddy to remove static, inked up my brayer (or actually the elastic bands) with versamark and rolled it across the card in a couple of directions. Then I sprinkled on clear embossing powder and heated it. I next took tangelo twist and hello honey and sponged the ink onto the card, wiping off the excess with a paper towel. This piece then sat in my Leave For Later pile because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. I was more interested in playing with the technique!

On going through the pile recently, I decided that I wanted to leave as much of my “DSP” visible and so out came the Hello You thinlits dies. I cut out the thanks in tangelo twist and carefully added drops of the tombow glue – giving it a little time to set a bit so that it wouldn’t ooze – and then attached it to the background. I then mounted this on a base of hello honey. The envelope is lined in hello honey from the backgrounds DSP.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Finally Zoo Babies for a girl

1 Reply

I’ve been making baby cards for a boy a lot this month; I was producing a number so that Julia had a reasonable selection – and the next time that anyone needs one, I’ll be ready. Unless the baby is a girl, that is. So I decided to make a pink card, just to be prepared. And the Zoo Babies set was still on my desk so out it came again.

Stampin' Up! Zoo Babies

The three rhinos are slightly too big to fit on a standard sized card, so I cut a piece of very vanilla at 5.5″ wide. This meant that I could add a quarter inch border on the base card and be able to make an envelope out of a sheet of regular 8.5″ by 11″ card stock, essential since I don’t have blushing bride in 12 by 12. I used a ruler and pencil to draw a line to help me line up the rhinos which I then stamped in blushing bride. I added the toucan stamped in perfect plum and used the same ink for the sentiment which is from the Bravo set. I mounted the very vanilla on a base of blushing bride.

I then took another piece of blushing bride and cut it to a 8.5″ square which enabled me to make the matching envelope sized to fit a 4.5″ by 6″ card. Whilst I still have my stamps inked up, I added the little toucan to the front of the envelope as well.

Stampin' Up! Zoo Babies blushing bride envelope

There, now I’m prepared for any births.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Blending Tulips

Leave a reply

I know that the blendabilities have been discontinued due to quality issues, but I’d coloured in this image before that news broke. I used all three shades of each of cherry cobbler, calypso coral and daffodil delight to colour the tulips, adding some highlights with the colour lifter. The stems and leaves were coloured with just two shades of wild wasabi, I randomly switched between the two and I liked the effect. The newspaper was coloured with the lightest of the six nude shades. I cut out the coloured image using the ovals collection and the big shot and that’s where the card stopped for a while.

Stampin' Up! Love is Kindness and Spring Flowers TIEF
Recently I went through my Save for Later pile (I assume that you have one too?) and realized how I wanted the card to go. I abandoned the wild wasabi oval mat that I’d been toying with and instead dry embossed a piece of whisper white with the new Spring Flowers folder. I popped the tulips up with stampin’ dimensionals to both give interest and to make it easy to fix it to the now bumpy cardstock. I mounted this onto a daffodil delight base. Of course the envelope needed some attention too and I used the envelope liner framelits to cut out a liner in the backgrounds DSP in daffodil delight.
See you tomorrow,
Liz

More thoughts than prayers

Leave a reply

Here’s another card that I made whilst I was experimenting with the tree from Thought and Prayers; this time a thinking of you card. I am really enjoying going back to the Work of Art swoosh that everyone played with so much when the catalogue came out and finding new (for me) ways to use it. I’m also having a lot of fun playing with the effect of changing colours.

Stampin' Up! Thinking of You, Work of Art, Sheltering Tree

I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the swooshes (of course) otherwise it’s impossible to get them snuggled up against each other and in line. The first is, surprise surprise, pear pizzazz and then old olive and mossy meadow. I hadn’t been using mossy meadow much until I did the CAS Colour and Sketches challenge earlier this month and then I was reminded what a gorgeously warm colour it is, so thanks for reminding me, Jane! I then used the Thoughts and Prayers tree and stamped that in early espresso as I did with the sentiment which is from Sheltering Tree. I then mounted my piece of very vanilla on a mossy meadow base. The matching very vanilla envelope is lined with the backgrounds DSP from the in colours 2014 family in mossy meadow. I may need to challenge myself to use these papers for something other than lining envelopes, but that’s for another day!

Bokeh Birthday

1 Reply

Last month I created a card with a twist on the bokeh technique; this is the technique which mimics photographs where the light is out of focus. In the carding world, it consists of a coloured background with white circles on top. I decided to be different, a surprise I know, and do red circles. But whilst I was creating that which was for a colour challenge, I rather liked the look of the background before adding the red. So I made another one.

Stampin' Up! Hello You thinlits dies and Crazy About You

As before I thoroughly dampened the piece of watercolour paper with the aquapainter and then added crumb cake and soft suede, also with the aquapainter. I blotted the excess ink and water from the edges. I used my stencil and sponge dauber to add craft white ink in various sizes of circles. You must allow the water colour paper to dry thoroughly although you probably don’t need to leave it for a month as I did on this occasion!

I made the stencil using the circles collection and the big shot and an acetate sheet from a photopolymer set. I had a spare acetate sheet after adopting the method of just sticking the stamps directly onto the box inside. You glue the printed sheet inside the plastic cover which gives you an instant nudge if there’s a stamp missing. Until the photopolymer stamps have been stained by red or purple, it’s easy to lose them on the desk. And the staining doesn’t impact their performance.

I cut out the word happy using the Hello You thinlits dies and soft suede card stock, using a piece of wax paper to help facilitate its removal. The word birthday is from the Crazy About You set and is stamped in soft suede also. The water colour paper is matted with more soft suede and held on with sticky strip to ensure that it stays put. This is then mounted onto a crumb cake card base. Rather than lining the envelope, I dry embossed the flap with the hardwood embossing folder.

See you tomorrow,

Liz