Birthday Card with Indigo Blu stamp

So, I can blog this card, now its been handed out.
 I mentioned last week we were going down to Plymouth, for a friends 30th birthday meal, so a card was a necessity. The stamp used, by Indigo Blu is one of their 'Dinkie' range, it measures 3" x 2 1/4", and features a Penny Farthing, which seemed perfect, as Rob is a keen cyclist.









The card is based on samples I saw at Pink Tulip crafts quite a while ago, when I bought the stamp.

I must admit, I did a few colour variations, both in the stamping and the inking, until I found one I really liked.The stamping was all done in Archival, apart from the grey, which is Versafine.

Out came the trusty stamp positioner, as I cannot 'eyeball' this sort of thing, I'd never have got an even spread of the stamping. Its just 3 images stamped from one inking, so they gradually fade out.






I did one pretty much the same as the samples.

Then added DI in Tumbled Glass & Salty Ocean, Scattered Straw and Old Paper.







Same inks, but this time in bands across the cardstock.

Then I tried a sort of half and half.

Then the one I finally used.This one is again DI in Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean, then Adirondack Sandal and Lemonade, with a little DI in Squeezed Lemonade also.



The corners were punch with a SW punch- can't remember when I last used that,and matted onto dark Blue cardstock.

Dark blue brads in the corners.


For the front of the card, I used some Tim Holtz paper from the Lost and Found paper pack, which features a bicycle themed sheet, in french.

The sentiment was stamped in the same Cobalt Blue Archival, onto an offcut sponged the same as the main image, then punched and matted to match.

The numerals for 30 are a set of stamps from Dimension, who used to be Dimension Fourth. I stamped them in the same ink onto offcuts of the backing paper, and attached them with Pinflair glue gel.







I now have a number of stamped, and some inked, images left over.




When I was looking at the samples after I'd done this card, to get the image for this post, I noticed the Butterfly card in the left corner. Its been done with Adhesive film and Glamour dust. So, I thought, I wonder what one of these images would look like?

 I took the one that I'd inked in bands, and added a sheet of double sided adhesive film to it.

Before I peeled the backing off, I burnished it down well with a hard rubber roller.

Peeled off the backing paper, and sprinkled it with Glamour Dust, in Crystal. Rubbed over it first, to make sure it was well covered, then tipped the excess off.

Came out looking pretty good, I thought.
I matted it onto some pale blue card, stamped a sentiment and matted that onto pale blue too.

Now it needed a backing, and I wanted something fairly light. In the end, I embossed a sheet of thin white card with a Cuttlebug folder, called Cogs and Wheels. I added a couple of strips of adhesive blue gingham ribbon, then the image over the top, along with the sentiment.
 So, two cards out of one idea.

Artful card- Artists Pastels, Stamping & a Watercolour background!

I'd been musing about this idea for a while, after seeing so many gorgeous projects using Pan Pastels, but having a mass of Artists Pastels & crafters chalks, absolutely cannot justify buying any! Pastels (& chalks) tend to imply, and give, pale colours, so I wondered how I could use the Artist Pastels sticks in my cards, and get some nice strong colours too.
 I've used chalks over Versamark before now, but one problem I always have is that rubbing on the chalks can smudge the image- best cure is to dab them on, rather than rub them in. Artist pastels are in a stick form, and not so easy to get colour off and onto your applicator. One day, whilst roaming around Tesco, I spotted what I thought might be a solution- A Nutmeg Grater!


 So here is what I started this project with:
 A pack of Artists Pastels,  with the Nutmeg Grater in the top left corner  of the pic.

I took one of the Acrylic plate stamped sheets from an earlier post, Versamark ink and a selection of Tim Holtz stamps.

The heart was stamped first, then had some blue pastel grated over it, and dabbed across the image with a cotton wool ball.

I was actually quite shocked at how well it worked, and gave a nice clean image, without a 'halo' of colour, which chalks sometimes give.














 
Another stamp in the lower right corner, covered this time with purple pastel.Dusted it off again, and out pops the clock image.

Next came a brown pastel, over a filmstrip stamp here at the top, and you can see the grated chalk better. I also stamped the filmstrip onto a post it note, and just rubbed the cotton wool ball over it to make a mask for later on.

 Dusted off with the cotton ball again. I like how its applying colour, but with an almost 'distressed' finish, which works brilliantly with the stamps & background.

 I added some stampings of a floral swag,  in brown at the top right and orange in the lower left.

Next I stamped the Umbrella Man at the bottom, using Sepia Versafine. The post it note filmstrip mask came into play now.







The centres were cut out with a scalpel, and the image covered  with it. I used one of the Three Top Hatted men to stamp in Sepia again, into each of the frames.  To make sure I got them in the right place, out came the  Stamp Positioner- I hate it when I do it by eye, I'm always slightly 'off'.

I added some prints of the numbers and small ticket strip, using the second & third print, with Sepia Versafine again.

The final image was a single pen nib in a couple of places, just inking up one nib on the pen nibs stamp, and using the second impression.









 



     For the backing, a piece of Craft Core card, in a Teal colour embossed with Tims texture Fades 'Gears' folder. After I'd embossed it, I rubbed over the embossing with a Chipped Sapphire Distress Inkpad.

  I wanted to add a Clock die-cut to the card- I don't have this die, but had bought some ready cut from e-bay. This is a great way to get a selection of die cuts, without having to buy all the dies, especially if you are not likely to be constantly using them.
 I added colour with Distress Inkpads Faded Denim, Dusty Concord & Chipped Sapphire. Then added a covering of Versamark and clear embossing powder.




The hands coloured in Black soot, and clear heat embossed too.

Now they were layered up, sandwiching the clock face between the two card layers. The clock hands were held in place with a black brad, and I used copper brads to hold the two sheets of card together.

This is my desk, mid composition, lol. It was marginally worse at one point, here I've moved the stamps and my pad for working on, and put the DI pads away.

The whole thing is mounted onto a dark blue card base using copper brads. I  used two to attach the right hand side of the card, then removed the original two, made corresponding holes in the base card, and reattached them. I also added a Tim Holtz token to the top corner.
 Final addition was a pen nib, added with Pinflair Glue gel, over one of the stamped pen images.








Supplies:
Artist Chalks ( The Works)
Nutmeg Grater
Assorted stamps- mine came from the following Clear stamp sets( all bought from e-bay)
Lifes Possibilities
Lost & Found
City Central
Pen nibs & Top Hatted men from Cling Stamps Curious Possibility
Versafine Sepia
Versamark
Clear Embossing powder
Heat Gun
DI Pads in  Black Soot, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans & Dusty Concord.
Clock Die Cut (E-Bay)
Texture Fades Embossing folder, Gears. (Comes in a two pack, with Blueprint)
Craft core cardstock
Embellishments & brads

Tags, mats & colours

I spent some time yesterday colouring some tags, so when I came to clean up my craft mat, I spread another colour or two on, spritzed with water and lay a few pieces of card on, before I wiped it all off. Waste not, want not, eh?

Talking of mats, the one I'm working on I picked up from the NEC, the 'unbranded' (ie, cheaper) version of those Splodge away mats. All they are is a sheet of Mylar, so ones as good as another, the way I see it. After having used it for a while, I find the only real difference between using this one, and my 'heatproof'  baking mat from Poundland, is that the Mylar one is rigid, whereas the other one is as flexible as paper. It is better than copy/scrap paper for sponging from, as you are not wasting any ink, which does mean you need to be careful how much ink you put down, as coming off this surface, a little goes a VERY long way.

 An assortment of tags- all cut myself, mainly from  assorted white card, although the one on the far left, and the two almost top centre, were cut from manilla coloured card. Some were done with the duster brushes, some with sponges and a few with cut n dry and a blender tool. You can see that the blending and finish varies quite a bit depending on the surface & how it was applied. The smoothest blends came from the Ink Duster brushes on tags cut from offcuts of Pearlescent white card. The 'patchy' ones were mainly done with sponges, and both looks could be achieved with the cut n dry, more depending on how heavy handed I was. I also used a mix of Distress pads & Adirondacks.

These off cuts were done with the Ink Duster brushes from Inkylicious. The two orange on some more of the pearlescent white, the green & red onto glossy.

Ink Blending pads for my new tools

Following along from making some new blending tools, I thought it would be cool to have some more blending pads,and as I have a couple of sheets of Cut n Dry foam, decided to give it a try.

 
It has two sides, a white one, and a grey, the white being the blending foam side.But the grey side is smooth, and won't stick to the Velcro. So I thought I would see if I could stick some felt to the grey side, which the Velcro would grip. I did this the other day when I made the blending tools, but needed to wait for the glue to dry to make sure it would stick ok, and not peel straight back off!
By the way, I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't realised this, but I was reading the info on the back of the packet, and apparently you can heat the grey side, then press in onto a texture of some sort to make a stamp! Or into a rubber stamp to get a reverse image- how useful is that? Then just re-heat to get it smooth again, or make another stamp. Anyway, that's an experiment for another day.
 (I had some blue foam from the NEC a few years ago, that you could do that with- don't know what ever happened to that stuff.), and I know you can get it in sheet form from Hobbycraft stores,
called Magic Stamp foam by Penscore.

 I have some white felt I bought off e-bay, to cut up for Alcohol Ink blending pads (me, cheap?), so tried that first. It sort of worked- that is, it stuck ok, but wasn't a very 'fluffy' felt, so the grip with the Velcro was very iffy. Then I remembered I had some Red felt I got from a Hobbycrafts store, with the vague idea of using it for Christmas cards one year- (don't ask which year, even I can't remember that) maybe make little Christmas stockings? This is a thicker felt and a bit fluffier, so I gave it a go.

I had chopped up some Cut & Dry Foam in the past, to give me small pieces I could use,so I just trimmed these to roughly fit my new tools, then cut the red felt to the same sizes.

After a few trials, I went with normal PVA glue, and added a layer to the grey side of the Cut n Dry. Just a thinnish layer- enough to stick, but I didn't want it to soak through the felt and stop it gripping.


                                                       I put the felt onto the glue, flipped it over and pressed it down with a small acrylic block.  They all went to spend the night on the radiator, and when I tested them the next day, the glue held and nothing peeled off!
Its a bit thicker than the Blending Foams you buy,but as I didn't add foam to the tool under the Velcro, it probably works out about the same. I reckon I got about  35-40 pads from one sheet.You definitely need a thicker or 'fluffier' felt for the Velcro to grip.

Making your own ink blending tool

So, following on from my mass un-mounting, I saved a few wooden blocks, with the intention of making myself some more blending tools.The  blocks I saved were mainly about the same size as the original blending tool,and one or two small squares.
           You could use the blocks as they are, but I wanted some handles on mine, so a visit to B & Q yielded these:

  Small wooden handles, a pack of ten was £9- you can get a similar handle in plastic for about a fiver.You can see they come with screws, so Beloved Hubby drilled through the blocks for me (probably safer than me doing it), and screwed on the handles.
A bit of wood filler over the holes, then left to dry overnight. I sanded them off the next morning- wood filler can be quite hard, so I improvised with an old foot- file I keep with my polymer clay stuff :), finished off with some sandpaper.

Next bit was to add Velcro, and a good cheap source for this is market stalls- especially if you are not fussy about the colour- black & white are the ones most people buy, so if you look round you will often find other colours a lot cheaper. This one I used is a sort of flesh colour, and cost me about 25p a metre- although I still always ask for a yard of something, lol. Gets me some odd looks.

So I cut some pieces to fit the blocks- and you want the 'hook' side for this,(the stiffer, rougher side) not the loop (the fluffy one). I used a hot glue gun to attach this to the block, and I found it was better to do two sides, attach the velcro, then do the other two sides. Press down well, especially the corners.

I tidied them up after, cutting away any excess glue.What I haven't done with these is add a layer of foam, which the original blending tools have. I figure they are going to have a foam pad attached, so don't need it. If I'm going to use felt & alcohol ink, then I'll use my originals. I had a browse around the net before I started, and it seems some people do add the foam, some don't.

  One lady's video I watched had a couple of ways of attaching the Velcro. One method was to run some foam through a Xyron machine both sides. Her other method was to use the double sided foam sticky tape- I got mine from Poundland. I used this on the little blocks, and it works well. The Velcro sticks to it without a problem.I trimmed some narrow Velcro down to fit, cutting the edge off both pieces so it would grip all over.

 

I tidied it up after, trimming any overhang away with a scalpel.




So here are all my new blending tools:

A later edit:
 I recommend stapling your velcro to the wooden block, rather than using the foam tape. I found it started to lift after peeling foams/felts off a few times.