Visible Image Christmas Cards (2)

Two more Christmas cards using Visible Image stamps, actually 4 cards, as I made two in each colourway.
This one came about whilst I was putting away some white card scraps, and came across the white pearlescent strips that I've used here. I've used this basic design of resist embossing before, and it seemed like a good way to get at least 4 off-cuts out of the way.




 
 I began by stamping randomly the Christmas Words stamp and then coating with White embossing powder. My powder  of choice is the WOW! Embossing Powders Opaque Detail White, as it really is a proper white. I used Versamark ink for the stamping, and the pad I was using was the Versamark Dazzles pad in Frost. Yes, I fell for the hype when they came out, but frankly, I really don't see any difference between them and the original, so I just use any.
Heat set, then added Some imprints of the Merry Christmas and a  Happy New Year stamp.



I heat set these, then just roughly masked those areas with Post-Its, so I could stamp various sizes of the Snowflake Set.

When I decided I had enough stamping on there, I took a selection of Distress Inks in blues and purples for one set, and reds and greens for the second.

 I used Broken China, Tumbled Glass and Mermaid Lagoon blues, Shaded Lilac and Dusty Concord purples. The Reds were Fired Brick and Festive Berries, the greens Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn. I gave them all a buff up with a piece of kitchen towel to take any ink off the embossing.






My card bases for these were A4 sheets of Pearlescent white card, scored and folded in half. I also wanted to create a little extra textural interest by having an embossed line down either side of my stamped and inked strip. For this, I simply lay my strip on the INSIDE of the front of the card, and made a faint line either side of it. Then I lay the card base on my scoring board, in this case the Hougie, as it has more lines to choose from.

I scored down the lines nearest to my mark, in both cases just outside my pencil line to give me room to place the strip on the outside.

The strip was attached with dst, and the Sentiment stamped in Memento Bamboo Stalk ink on the red/green combo.
The strips were longer than the card, so I trimmed off the excess and put to one side, as I have a way to use these too.

The blue/purple combo had the sentiment stamped in Archival Ink Cobalt Blue. The green one wasn't stamped in Archival, as I realised I don't have a green or red Archival pad. But Memento works just as well for clear imprint/drying time etc.




With the stamped strip and sentiment in place, it sort of seemed like it still needed something. Then I remembered this die set I was enabled into by a WOYWWer!

6 different sizes of snowflake, and all different. I wasn't sure which I wanted to use, but the largest flake was definitely too big, so I cut out the 3 middle sized ones a few times. Glad I cut out more than I needed, as the extras came in useful on the first VI card I posted below.





In the end I used one of each of the snowflakes on each card, using a Zig glue pen to attach them, and placing an acrylic block on top to make sure they stuck.
Final touch was the addition of some clear acrylic gems in the centre of the snowflakes, and around the greeting.

So I'm now up to 8 cards blogged, and I still have a few more to show and tell.

Card Recipe:
 A4 sheet of Pearlescent white card
Strip of pearlescent white card
 Stamps: Christmas Words, Snowflake set and Christmas Greeting
Die cut snowflakes,3 sizes
Acrylic gems
Distress ( or other Dye ink) in blues, purples, reds and greens
 Versamark, or other clear embossing ink.
 WOW! opaque white embossing powder

Welcome Home card

My card was inspired by a Pinterest find the other day. About time I actually used some of that 'inspiration', lol.This is the card that I CASE'D, and the ladys blog is HERE.












 Made a slight alteration, this is a one layer card, but I did my panel on a separate piece of card.










I started by sponging on two shades of D I, Squeezed Lemonade and Mustard Seed.

 Then I added some of the new Fossilized Amber and Dried Marigold.
 I found out a mask, TCW (The Crafters Workshop) Mini Bricks.
 Through this I sponged Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade D I.

Moved the stencil down and finished off the strip. Gave it a blast with the heat gun to dry it, so I could stamp.
The stamp I chose is called Agapanthus Cluster, by Stampendous, stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.


I stamped the first one about halfway up, and extended the stems with a stem from another stamp set. Re stamped it again lower down,then added a partial stamp over the left hand edge. The butterfly stamps are from an Inkylicious set.

I changed my card up a bit more, by adding some double sided adhesive sheet to the front, then sprinkling with Glamour Dust.

Once the adhesive sheet was in place, I brayered over it with a hard rubber roller, to make sure it was completely flat.
I also put the backing sheet back over the top and brayered it again, over the Glamour Dust to make sure it was stuck firmly.





Next step was to mark the width of the panel on the inside of the card, then score lines to border the panel.

It looked like it still needed something, so two butterflies were punched out of sparkly vellum, and coloured on the reverse with DI markers in matching colours.Folded up the wings, then stuck down with Pinflair glue.

 At this point I discovered that in all my stamps, I do not have a single 'Welcome' or 'Welcome Home' stamp! Neither do I have anything in my ageing peel off collection, so no other option but to hand write it. I added a small orange flat back gem to the exclamation mark. Some orange ribbon wrapped around the spine to finish.

I'm linking this to 'A Focused Journey' blogspot,
 for the 'Stop pinning and make something' party, which is Diane's idea to encourage us all to actually use some of those ideas we Pin for inspiration!

Resist embossed Birthday cards.

These two cards are made using the Papermania Urban stamps of Butterflies & Dragonflies I cut down in the previous post.This is the sort of thing I wanted to be able to use them individually for.
 First I stamped the Butterflies in white on a strip of scrap white card, and heat embossed with WOW Bright white embossing powder. Two things I discovered here, it was best to stamp one size of butterflies and heat emboss, and that embossing powder has a shelf life. The first one I tried, I used a different white embossing powder that I've had for a very long time, and when I came to heat it, it simply would not melt. The next one I did, it was too difficult not to accidentally smear the powder on previous butterflies. So this one was the third attempt.The inkpad I used for this one was the Studio G inkpad, by the way. After I'd completed the stamping on this, I did the Dragonflies on the second strip, this time using the Hampton Arts pad. Before putting the stamps away, I stamped an image onto post-its, peeled off four post-its and cut them out, for later.
                                                                                             
Pink and Purple Distress Inks were sponged onto the Butterflies, and Blue and lighter Purples onto the Dragonflies.Both were then wiped over with some kitchen towel to remove any ink from the images. Both strips of card were a bit longer than my card front, I left them like that till I'd finished, in case there were any bits I wasn't happy with.










Now the post it masks came into use- I wanted to overstamp with a texture stamp. The one I used for this is from a sheet by Aspects of Design, from The Stampman, of mesh, or netting. I used DI Dusty Concord for this bit.

For the Dragonflies, I used a stamp by Designs by Ryn, of water droplets stamped in salty Ocean DI. Possibly, I didn't need to mask, as hopefully the ink would have just wiped off the embossing, but I didn't want to take the chance it wouldn't.

I took two sheets of A4 white card for the card bases, scored and folded.

I'd already decided I wanted to add a little interest by placing a score line down either side of the stamped strip, so I marked on the inside of the card where these two lines should go, and scored on the Hougie board.

By some fluke, where I wanted them lined up exactly with marks on the board! You can see all the post-it masks in the background too, lol.

A stamped greeting, and for the Butterfly one I used Versafine  Imperial Purple, and the sentiment comes from a Butterfly Kisses clear stamp set.
 I think you may just be able to see the score lines on the Dragonfly one, especially if you enlarge the picture. They don't show up very well in the pictures. I used the same greeting on the Dragonfly card, this time stamped in Versafine Majestic Blue.
 You may have noticed that very often I leave my cards without any sentiment on them, I do that so that I have a little leeway with what I can use the card for- Birthday/Retirement/ get well etc. Although this sentiment will cover a multitude of sins, so I may use it more often.  The Water Droplets stamp I bought a while ago, and this is the first time I've used it, and I love the effect it gives.

Supplies:
 Papermania Urban stamps, Butterflies and Dragonflies
Designs by Ryn, Water Droplets
Aspects of Design, Mesh- sorry I think this is retired
White inkpad
Wow Bright white EP
Distress inks in blues/pinks/purples
White scrap card, approximately 2" wide
 2 sheets A4 card, scored and folded.
 Scoreboard and stylus
Sentiment stamp

 While finding links for the stamps from Papermania, I also discovered they have a group of Ladybirds- so sweet, I had to have them, lol.

Quick Birthday cards

So, I finished last weeks Documented life pages, in the post below.  Giving this weeks a miss- use something from your mailbox. As mine will be mainly junk mail- isn't it always?- I can't say the idea inspires me. And I'm not getting hung up on doing each week, just the ones that grab me. So I had some stamping time yesterday, and the stamps that came out I was reminded of in a roundabout way. I saw a post on Facebook, where someone was commenting about a bunch of the new release stamp sets from Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz Classics, and how they did not credit the original artists- SA seem to claim they don't know who the original artists were.Tim does make it clear he is not the original designer,just that he has chosen his favourite 'classic' images from SA's back catalogue. Having looked at the images, I realised I had a few of the originals, which were red rubber on wood mount. The artist who puts her name to these is Michelle Ward, by the way.

 The first image is called Artful Mosaic, and I love it because you can stamp it then colour it, stamp it onto an inked background, or as I have, stamp & heat emboss and it always looks great.
 Guess you can see why its called a classic!
 Anyway, stamped in black onto White pearl card, then heat embossed with clear powder.

 

 Trimmed the image down, then matted onto black.I cut and folded a card blank from White pearl card, to roughly 8 x 4 1/4".



Decided I would 'frame ' the image with an embossed line on the front. To do this I opened out the card, and on the inside I drew lightly in pencil around the corners of the image. Then I drew a box all around where the image would be, about a 1/4" out from the original size.



 Lined this up on my Hougie board, and embossed the four sides,being very careful at the corners.
I didn't put it exactly central, as I wanted room at the bottom for the sentiment.

 DST on the back of the image, and mounted it into the 'frame'.






 The Birthday sentiment is a clear stamp from one of Debbie Moores stamp sets.

Stamped in black onto a scrap of the white pearl card.






















The second card I made was pretty much identical, except this time used a stamp called Moon Collage.
I also used a black base card this time. All the techniques were the same though.

Supplies:
Stamps: Moon Collage,Artful Mosaic, now released as SA Classics. Moon Collage is on the newest sheets released this year at CHA.
Black inkpad
Clear embossing powder.
White pearl card.
Black card
Embossing board & stylus
Sentiment- Debbie Moore Twilight Stamp 1
Heat Gun

WOYWW #201

Well its show & tell with Auntie Julia again, over at The Stamping Ground.
I  haven't been up to a lot this week, so this is how my desk has been looking since Saturday. Those glittered medallions finally getting used. As they were so fancy, I decided just to use plain white base cards, square ones, and to emboss around them.
All laying on my Hougie Board.

A close up here so you can see what I mean. I will just stamp a simple Happy Birthday onto them later this week. I used blobs of silicone glue on the backs, as I find that, or Pinflair glue gel, holds onto the glitter surface best.
 I like these a lot, and have a feeling that I will be doing some more of these. I did find the putting down the glue part very relaxing, a bit Zen-like, lol. There is still plenty of glitter around the house- I spotted Ambrose sparkling a little last night. Shows up really well on a black cat! Which made me think that a black & white version of these would be cool. He's not just a pretty, furry face.

This one was made for a work colleague who wanted  a card for a friends birthday soon. I get some mileage out of those Tattered Florals, you know. To be fair, those dies have been a good investment. I like the way you can mix them all together. The background is an MBossabilities folder, Asian. Also Nestabilites, Labels 8 for the sentiment.  Just a bit of proof I can do Pink, if I really have to!
 We popped in to see Maggie ( Silvercrafter) tonight (Tuesday), on the way home, she is well. As you know, my eldest Son is married to her Daughter. We  spent Sunday afternoon looking after Merlin & Mortimer- well Mort looked after himself, to be fair. Another gamer in the family, *sighs*- a COD fan, so Beloved Hubby approves!
Beloved Hubby also spent the afternoon turning Merlin into a nerd- teaching her all about customising her laptop, shortcuts etc.  I'm on earlies- I LOATHE them with a passion, have I ever said? Five o'clock in the morning is when you should be GOING to bed, not getting out of it. Its nice coming home at 2 o'clock, but it doesn't compensate for getting out of bed in the middle of the night! I'd never have made a farmers wife, thats for sure. So I will be speaking with you all later, have a great WOYWW.


I'm adding this part a little later in the week-  many of you know Silvercrafter, Maggie.This picture is from our wedding, and shows Ant, Geoff, Becky & Marg, with Merlin & Mortimer in front.

Tragically, Margs husband  Geoff died suddenly on Sunday morning. We are fortunate in having Marg & Geoff as co-inlaws. We have been friends for 20 odd years, which is not always the case with in-laws, is it? I know Marg has contacted some people to let them know, and just wanted to let those who she frequently gets around to, that she will probably be missing for a few weeks. We see her quite regularly, so I will let you know how she is.

Hougie!- and a cool Amazon 'tool' for us crafters

A Christmas present off my youngest son, I have sort of had my eye on one for a while, but I do have a couple of scoreboards, and thought this one was pretty expensive, to be honest. Everywhere I had seen them they were £25-£30, depending on if they had the booklet with them or not. Then just before Xmas I saw them on Amazon for £18.69, so it went on my wish list.I really liked the idea of the score lines being 1/2" apart on one side, and 1/2cm on the other. I often use a tri-fold (like my wedding invitations) but the score lines on most boards don't line up at those folds, so I had to score one line, then turn the card around to score the other. Not a problem really for a single card, but if you are doing a lot, it's time consuming. I like the flexibility this will give me for folds, as well as for embossing detail like lines etc.
          Now, while we are on the subject of Amazon, here is a very, very useful little tool they have added that you may not know about. Its a 'Wish List' button, and there are versions for Firefox users, and Internet Explorer users.
    Bear with me here, because I know you have always been able to build a Wishlist in Amazon, but this version is unbelievably cool! If you download it, you get a button on your toolbar that says 'Add to Wishlist'. The big difference now is that if you find something you would like, on ANY SITE  all you have to do is click on the 'Add to Wishlist' button, and your item will be added to your Amazon Wishlist, along with its location etc. Even e-bay items can be added. This means you can e-mail the link to this wishlist to friends/relatives etc for Birthday & Christmas pressies!! Just how useful is that? You can also add comments to the Amazon list, so you can use it to compile a list of potential gifts for other people too, and share it with your other half/family etc.
 I am so going to have fun with this one, lol.