WOYWW #579- The MINC Edition

So, back in the craft room for our regular Wednesday met up of desk around the world, commonly known as Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday, courtesy of our much loved leader, she of the recent birthday, Julia, at home in The Stamping Ground.

On my desk, is evidence I've been playing with the new toy I bought myself months ago, a MINC. I went for the 12" version- there's also a 6" one- as I often find myself working on 7" square cardstock, so I have some leeway.

The reason I bought the MINC is that I want to be able to use my stamps with foil, and I wasn't haven't a huge amount of success with my laminator. But to be fair, it's a really basic one- an on off switch and thats it. One speed, one heat. Works fine for it's original function, and is usually quite successful with  foiling over stencil paste, but was having no luck with stamping.
 As you can see, notes jotted on various experiments so far, just trying to find the perfect combo of ink/powder/heat for repeatable good results.
 So that's going to be an ongoing thing  for a few more days, a blog post will appear when I get the results I'm looking for.


The weekends Christmas cards were done with the tree stamps and various embossing powders.
The stamps are all quite old now, made by a company called Butterfly Kisses, but they seem to have faded away, can't find any reference to them or their stamps any more.


One thing about the MINC I do want to mention, is for anyone thinking of getting one, be very careful if you go through Amazon. Looking at reviews, I saw that a number of people had ones with the wrong plug delivered- now that could just be errors in ordering, as there are EU, UK and US plugs available, maybe the buyers didn't notice that- one person got a 6" one instead of a 12", and someone else had things missing from the box. So I ended up ordering mine via Hobbycraft for safety. I don't know if the sales pages have been changed since those comments were made, as now you get a separate page for each plug type, perhaps it was a 'tick box' system before? Like I say,most could  have been buyer error, but I wasn't taking the chance.
 And so I'm done for this week, nice and short & sweet.
Good news for Dougs family, Tim, Lyndsay & Curtis are all ready to be released, the council have found them a bungalow as a temporary solution until they can all safely manage stairs, when they'll move them to a 3/4 bed house. Friends & family have been in since the weekend painting & decorating, and furniture is being delivered tomorrow, so they should be home by the weekend. Livvy isn't ready for release yet, but she's doing tremendously well, I honestly think far better than was anticipated when she was admitted.
To all my crafting friends who shared the GoFundMe page, and to everyone who donated, a huge thank you from us, and from Tim & Lyndsay too, it is so appreciated.💓
Which brings us round to ......And Finally.......

...and that would be a catastrophe!

Christmas Card Club Challenge #14- Christmas Trees.

It would be really bad form if I was late with this fortnights challenge, as it's chosen by me, and I've asked for Christmas Trees, although we always have the option of Anything Goes. You can't even imagine how many photographs it took for me to get ones you could actually see clearly- Sparkly/Holographic Embossing Powders and cameras do not play nicely together!

My 4 cards are made with A4 cardstock folded in half, and I've used a selection of trees with a variety of Embossing powders for my offering  this week.
 The stamps are all by a company called Butterfly Kisses, who seem to have vanished from the industry. I bought the stamps quite a few years ago, at a couple of NEC visits, but haven't seen them for a very long time.

They are a mix of grey rubber and clear stamps,with 7 different designs for the trees. The grey rubber used to be wood mounted, but I unmounted them a long time ago.






  I finished them off by wrapping a black & white checked ribbon round them, then added the greeting onto a die cut banner label


I completely forgot to take any in-process photos, so I'm afraid it's a short and sweet entry from me this time round!

Christmas Card Club #7- Santa

Late this week, but I'm finally here. This fortnights Challenge was set by Rita, and she wanted to see Santa on our cards.
 I've made a total of a dozen cards, in three different colours, and two designs.

 Not the most fantastic photos, sorry, but the silver EP and the Sparkly one do not play nicely with the camera lens!

  There are three green, three blue and 3 red.
 In each case I stamped then die cut with a tag die the Santa image, then die cut three more white tags and embossed each with a Christmas Embossing Folder.

I found it's better to die cut the tags, then emboss, rather than the other way round, as the embossing gets flattened going through the machine to die cut.


Made a small hit on my eyelet stash, to add one to hold each pair of tags together.

Added the tags to the card front with foam pads.

Two shades of Distress Oxides were blended over the edges.


I added Christmas Vellum to the card front, and found that if you use double sided adhesive sheet over the whole of the back of the vellum, it doesn't show. The drawback is- don't use textured card! You can see the problem you get with the red card, which was a hammer finish.












For the second design I used a stitched oblong die to cut out the stamped image and also an embossed piece the same size, then just adhered to the card. The embossed piece with DST, the image with foam tabs, just offsetting them slightly.

This Santa stamp is a really old one, it used to be wood mounted, so must be 15+ years old. I believe it was by Rubber Stampede.

This one, called St Nick, was also a rubber wood mounted stamp,so is also quite old, but it is available now as a clear stamp, part of a set from Butterfly Kisses, which can be bought from Hobby Art Stamps.

I'd originally added Vintage Photo DI around the edges on top of the colour, but it dulled it too far, so I ended up going over it with a second darker shade of the colour used.


On a side note, we see Santa in a Red suit these days, but pre-1930's, Tan or Green were the traditional colours. Thomas Nast, actually the artist who developed the Santa image we all know and love, then changed to painting him in a Red suit. This was spotted by an artist called Haddon Sundblom, who was commissioned to do a Christmas advert for Coca Cola, and he used Red as it tied in with that theme. And the rest is history!

WOYWW #378

You have no idea how close I came to missing this week. Blasted Bank Holidays. I remembered it was actually Tuesday, not Monday, about 10.30 on Tuesday night. So, as I'd been spending the day generally trying to get ready for going on holiday on Friday, and we went and posted the parcel of cards to Miss TeeJay, I was at a bit of a loss for what is actually on my desk. So, this is what had been on my desk:

A whole batch of cards made from left over fronts. The stamps are a few years old, and I'm pretty sure are not available now. It was a whole range of Christmas Trees, and the company was Butterfly Kisses. I know some of their stamps are available through Hobby Art, but I don't think these trees are among them. Actually, I just went and looked, and one of the sheets with two trees on it, and a backing is there.

This Santa stamp was  similar to a Butterfly Kisses set, but mine was originally a wood mount, I think from Stampendous. I added a few tiny stars to his beard, before matting and layering up the images. The stars are tiny, intended for nail art.
 I mentioned last week that a number of Tim Holtz stencils from the new release just happened to fall into my shopping basket at Countryview Crafts, along with a couple of older ones.

There are some mini stencils, which I also got the large size of.

 I have noticed lately that the name of the stencil is no longer printed on the stencil itself, but only on the packaging, hence they are written on witha Sharpie.

  They spend their life suspended from a hanging rack, with a lobster claw clip.

 Well, thats me done, and I'll be missing next week, as we fly off to Tenerife on Friday, until the 11th.
I'll be scheduling some posts to sppear over the next week, as I've been making some cards and if I don't do it this way, I'll forget all about them by the time we get back.

So, after my visiting today, I'll see you all in a fortnight. Link yourselves as always at our Julia's place, The Stamping Ground, and share your desk of shame!


Quick edit, I had to come and put this in. I was just doing up those scheduled posts I was talking about, and made a brilliant discovery! Quite accidental, and probably everyone already knows this, but for those like me who didn't it's awesome. I put a picture into my post, and accidentally double clicked on it. And around the picture came the typical 'free transform' box! You can now resize images to your hearts content, not just their 'small, medium,large' multiple choice.   How long has that been there, I wonder. I know someones going to come along and say 'years', lol.

A return to Triple Time Stamping

I like this really neat technique, which exploits the 'halo' effect you get when you stamp over a paper mask. For this card, which is on a 6x6 square base, the stamping pieces were 5", 4" and 3", and the blue mats 51/4", 41/4"and 31/4".

I cut all the white pieces first, then stacked them up using a repositional tape runner on the backs.














 I stamped the flower, which used to be a wood mount, by Butterfly Kisses, called Sakura,
in Brilliance Pearlescent Blue.










In order to get the effect, you need to make sure some of your images are stamped over all three layers.


I added some random small flourishes in Versafine Majestic Blue.
 The blue matting layers were cut next, and each stamped panel added to its corresponding mat.
 A useful tip here is to write a letter 'T'  lightly at the top on the back of each stamped and matting layer as you separate them. Its very easy to get disorientated when  flipping them over to add tape, and it can be awkward to get them layered right, depending on what images you have stamped with.
Before attaching to the card blank, I wrapped some ribbon around the panel. the sentiment is an old Penny Black stamp, and was stamped in Versafine Majestic Blue again, then die cut with a Nestie, Labels 4,small,  and a mat layer cut with the next size up (large set). I added it over the ribbon with some small foam pads.
 I repeated the design for two more cards, both for Mothers Day.

 This one was again stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Blue, this time I used a brighter blue matting layer.  The second card was stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Lavender, and a different scroll stamp used. The sentiment is die cut on the same Nestie die, just larger sizes.


Supplies:
White card for stamping
 Brilliance Pearlescent Blue and Lavender inkpads
 Versafine Majestic Blue
Matching cardstock for matting layers
Image stamp- 2 is best
Sentiment
 Ribbon
 Nestabilities Labels 4, large and small set

Christmas cards from 2012

Going to try getting back to some crafting this week, but I thought I'd post up the Christmas cards I was working on before I fractured my shoulder. I realised I hadn't actually put them up yet, as I didn't get them finished.

These three all feature a stamp called Angel Chorus Collage,by Rubber Stampede. I've used this stamp and technique here, its a technique I remembered seeing in a magazine a few years ago, but I really can't remember which magazine, nor the persons name.
The image was stamped first on cream card, in gold, and heat embossed with gold powder. I repeated this onto plain vellum.

The cream card was sponged with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress inks, just on the musical score section.
Last time I used this image, I coloured the angels on the card,this time I used Promarkers to colour the Angels just on the vellum. I did this by flipping them over and colouring on the reverse of the image.Promarkers don't blend on vellum in the same way as on paper, as the ink stays quite wet, but this doesn't matter as you are colouring the reverse. Doing it this way gives you a nice 'soft' feel to the image, and you don't have to be over fussy with your colouring. You could also use oil pastels, like for Pergamano work, or H2O's.
When the angels were coloured, I carefully tore around them, and matted them, right way up now, on the card image. I used Pinflair gel glue for this, as it didn't show through the vellum.



 
  I trimmed up the edges to match and matted onto gold card. The image was then added to the front panel for Easel cards. I've used a random selection of backing papers for the cards- I have so much Christmas paper from years gone by, so I'm not getting any more till I've used this stuff up!



The Layered Poinsettia is from the Nestabilities range- I cut the petals out of red & green paper that had a speckled effect. The only part of the die I didn't use was the centres- I used some gold beads for these, as I  didn't like the flat effect from the die cut. You can see Tim Holtz Rosettes on the top left one, and the one above has Tim's Snowflake rosette on.
                      






The white flowers are a mix of small punches, and flowers from the Tattered Florals strip die. The gold flourish on the left, I can't remember whose die it is, sorry, the one on the lower right is a Cheery Lyn, Joycraft die.

This last one used a panel I had created before, using a Papermania 'Baubles' embossing folder, and the image stamped onto Acetate is from Butterfly Kisses,Saint Nick, available now through HobbyArt.
 After I stamped it onto acetate ( I actually use Transparency Film) with Black Staz-on, I covered the back of the image with double sided adhesive film, then sprinkled Crystal glitter over it.
 See here, if you want to see how I altered the folder so I could emboss in this direction.

Love this- Triple Stamping from Frenchie

I came across this technique in a post on the SCS forum, and I love it! The technique is demo'd by a lady called Frenchie on her blog,and she has put a video up showing how it works. It is really easy to do,and it exploits the 'halo' effect you get by stamping over more than one layer of paper, a mask, for instance.

If you work off the instructions she gives, bear in mind that American cardstock sizes are slightly different to ours, so you will need to make some adjustments. I will list the sizes I used, which should give you the idea.The card here is 6"x4", and the base card forms the final matt layer, so your matt card needs to be the same colour.  So, to make this card I used:
Base card 6x4 , First matt 5" x 3", second matt 4" x2", all in black.
Then three pieces of white card to stamp on,
First piece  5 3/4" x 3 3/4", second 4 3/4" x 2 3/4", third 3 3/4" x 1 3/4".
The first thing I did was to flip the white card over and write a small 'T' at the top of each one. You need to keep all the layers the right way up for this, or the image won't marry up, and when you come to matt the pieces it is not easy to tell which way is up. 

         Next, layer all the white pieces together, keeping them equally spaced, using some repositionable glue or tape. Now choose your stamps, you want probably two, and a sentiment.

For my card I used a Butterfly Kisses Happy  Anniversary stamp, one called Sakura (the flower) also from Butterfly Kisses, and a flourish stamp.

Mine is slightly different from the ones on Frenchies blog, I used the sentiment stamp as the main focus on the top piece of card. Then I stamped the flower, and finally the flourish, making sure they all overlapped the three pieces of card. Don't worry about the 'breaks' in the design, this is exactly what you want.
Next you take the three pieces apart, and matt each one onto its corresponding matt. You can see how its hard to tell up  from down !


 








When you put the layers together, your eye just completes the image. To embellish I stamped the Sakura flower a couple of times, heat embossed with a sparkly powder, then cut them out & layered them up with silicone glue.

This is such a simple technique, yet makes, I think, a really stunning card- perfect for fast cards! I'm thinking this could be great for Christmas cards this year  
I got a bit carried away, and did a few more:


The Blue card uses a DoCrafts Whispers Words stamp, 49902, for the sentiment, the Sakura flower again, and another swirl. The Best Wishes is another Butterfly Kisses stamp.
I then wondered about other shapes, so did some tag shapes, sponging them in Oranges & Yellow Distress Inks. I've overstamped them with a Crafty Individuals stamp, CI305, for the central image in Adirondack Espresso,and the cogs are from PaperArtsy, Clocks Plate 5, the clock and cogs from Clocks Plate 3, in Versafine Sepia.






I shall be matting these up onto a dark golden brown card.
I also thought that maybe Nesties shapes could be good for this, and have cut out some Octagons, which I haven't stamped yet, and some labels which I have. Just need to add some colour to those.

Stampscapes Easel

Background brayered in Adirondack Sandal & Latte, with a post-it note mask for the sun.Stampscapes  Pine Row,150E, and Single Pine, 196F, both from the same U/m Nature sheet as the next card, were stamped in Distress ink Forest Moss. The flight of ducks,(Lavinia Stamps) and sentiment, (Butterfly Kisses Art Collage clear stamp set) were stamped in Adirondack Espresso. The image was trimmed and matted onto dark green, dark brown, then a steel grey card. For the base of the easel, I punched a strip with an X-Cut Fleur Di Lis punch, then added a strip of the grey card. A wide green ribbon was wrapped around, and a folded bow added to the top with glue dots.

You can't cross the Sea....

Both main images are from The Stamp Man, the Antique Map, and the Ship Collage  are here.The map is stamped on an Alcohol ink background, the ship on a brayered one in similar shades. Both matted onto black card, the map is mounted with DST, the Ship image is raised with foam pads. The sentiment is from Butterfly Kisses, from a set called Nautical Collage. This is stamped onto a scrap of the Alcohol ink background and matted onto black card. I set it in place with silicone glue, so I could angle it slightly- it is raised from the card base at the top. Two dolphin charms were added, also with silicone glue. The dark blue card base was cut to 15cm square. I have entered this in the Simon Says Stamp & Show challenge for this week- using your newest stamp.

The Last Batch of Christmas Cards

My final batch of cards use a variety of images,all stamped onto alcohol inked backgrounds using Black Staz-on.  All mounted on a base card embossed with the Papermania Baubles embossing folder, using the Cuttlebug.

              The image on these two is from Hero Arts,K4829, Collage  Merry  Christmas.
   The baubles were accented with sticky gems to match the colour of the image.
                       

                


                   


The stamp images are:
    Santa & Girl, Inkadinkado 93146.X,
     Seasons Greetings, Hero Arts, Collage Seasons Greetings, K4827,
        Christmas tree collage, Inkadinkado Illuminata,91277.Y and
         St Nick, Butterfly Kisses clear set, which includes sentiments.