playing with gilding flakes and sticky stuff.

Two products I've had forever, and never actually tried out. A tub of Judikins Sticky Stuff embossing powder, and some metal leaf. I also have some tubs of gilding flakes in various colours- rose gold, variegated green etc.
I thought I'd try it first with this stamp, Wishing Tree from Lavinia stamps.
Basically, you stamp your image in a pigment ink, I used plain old Versamark for mine, but as you can use this product with glitter as well, you could also use a coloured ink. I also worked on black card, as I thought the image would 'pop' more.

Sprinkle the Sticky Stuff embossing powder on as you would normally. Its quite coarse grained, so this is never going to work well with a highly detailed stamp, so choose accordingly.







Tip off the excess and heat with your heat gun.What you will discover is that it melts VERY quickly, much faster than normal embossing powder, and apparently it is important NOT to overheat, as it will loose its sticky. So as soon as you see it start to melt, move your heat gun.

However, once it is melted, it stays tacky for a long time, so you have plenty of time to work with it.  I lay a sheet of the leaf over the image, and now you need to burnish it well with your fingers, to make sure its attached to all the image. This will also start to flake off all the sheet not stuck to anything, so a sheet of scrap paper underneath your project, to catch the bits, is advisable. As is  not sneezing, coughing or breathing hard! Be very gentle with moving any sheets of paper/card, and DO NOT tap the back to get stray bits off- the slightest air movement sends this stuff everywhere- it makes glitter look positively restrained! After you've got most of the excess off, you need to go over it again to tidy it up, and I found a stiff paintbrush was ideal. The fine brush I used to remove any stray specks of the embossing powder.
Next I thought I'd try a more solid image, so stamped a row of mushroom groups, and a word stamp, again by Lavinia stamps.

This worked quite well, it definitely looks better on a more solid image.

Here I tried a row of Dandelion heads, Lavinia stamps. There are three in the set, but after I'd put the flake on, it didn't work so well.Two of the heads just ended up as a solid block, so I put this to one side and tried again, just using the head that came out well.

The lines of the image are far enough apart on this one for it to work, and I tried flakes on this one, a variegated copper.




 
 

The process is the same though, I found dabbing a clump onto the Sticky Stuff worked well, then burnish with your fingers, finishing with the brush.

Next up I wanted to see if I could create a scene, so I tried the Two Fairy Houses stamp, and although its quite detailed,the image remained clear enough to use.I used the sheet leaf for them, which is called Abalone. Above I stamped Trailing Vine, and used the Variegated green flake for those.

The Sticky Stuff stays tacky for a very long time, so you have plenty of time to get your leaf/flake on, there's no need to rush. With the flake,it was easier to pick a clump up in my fingers and dab it on, rather than tipping a whole pile over the image.

I added a couple more trails, some small and large mushrooms,cherry blossom branches and finally some dragonflies. The dragonflies were done in silver, the 'shrooms in Variegated Copper.When you add more images, you need to check previously flaked parts for powder, as it will stick to it, and when you heat it you will get leaf sticking where you don't want it. A few of my leaves have silvery bits on them.
With the Wishing Tree earlier, I also tried adding a Footpath stamp, and didn't like how it came out. So from this one, along with the Dandelions heads row that I didn't like,and a few off cuts from trimming down the Fairy Houses image I punched out squares. Sheer fluke, I got 9 squares.

So I matted them as a mosaic onto black card, then some gold card run through the 'bug with an embossing folder, then onto black again. Don't know why, but it screams 'Oriental' at me. Maybe the colours, maybe the cherry blossom. I don't know, lol.

I gave the Mushrooms row the same treatment.















I added a couple of Dragonflies to the Dandelion Heads row too,  in a silver/gold mix.
 So these will get turned into cards over the coming week,and I will be trying the Sticky Stuff out with glitter, as I was very impressed with how well it worked.

Supplies:
 Metal Leaf, Eberhard & Faber , or there is a Fimo Brand too.
 Metal Gilding Flake, mine came from Crafty Notions , bought at the NEC
Judikins Sticky Stuff embossing powder
Versamark Ink
 Stamps
 A lot of Patience!!!!!

Playing with shadows

Back on my WOYWW post, I had some shadow stamps on my desk, and Queen Lightwell asked what that was about, so I thought a little (?) post was in order.
 This particular one is by Whispers (Do-Crafts), but a number of companies make them.
  What made me get them out was seeing a few cards on Pinterest using them, mainly Clean & Simple ones.

This is a perfect example, and you can see more on Kris McIntoshs' blog, HERE.





I spent some time playing , just stamping onto an A3 paper pad. I like to have one of these to hand, its only a cheap one from a pound shop, but its a great way of trying things out without wasting 'good' card & paper.

I inked up the stamp with a Marvy pad for starters, and found that you need to sort of tap & swipe the ink on,turning the stamp around too to avoid getting lines. I also found that brayering the ink on gets a smoother result.







This was the print from just tapping the ink on.

This one was brayered, which gave a smoother, paler impression.

This one has the Blue Marvy tapped on, then DI Walnut Stain gently dragged around the edge.

This is my favourite- DI Mustard seed & Spiced Marmalade. I put the yellow on first, then dragged the orange around the edge- obviously not too cleanly, as I got Orange in the middle too- but I like how it came out. Of course, I have zero chance of recreating it, but never mind.

 I overstamped  this with a Penny Black flower stamp, using Walnut Stain DI.

 Another thing you can do with Shadow stamps, is put colour on them, then overstamp with another stamp, in a darker colour.

I said earlier that brayering gives a smoother finish- on this image I've dragged the inkpad across the stamp, not sure if it shows up well enough to see, but this is the print you get from it:












Another technique for shadow stamps is also called the 'kissing' technique. Using an un-inked stamp, you 'kiss' it against the inked shadow stamp, to remove ink.
















I tried this with the Adirondack & DI, but it didn't do so well. I thought maybe a thicker ink would work better, as both of those are very 'wet' inks. I used a Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson pad, which is a Pigment Ink.

The stamps are 4 leaves from a Judikins cube stamp, and you can see the impression here after I pressed them against the inked shadow stamp.

That worked much better, and I think if it was done on a better quality cardstock, you'd be able to heat emboss the image after.
 Coming up in the next post, I had a bit of inspiration for making my own shadow stamps!

Asian Panels

Three more cards, this time using the glittered Asian Panels. This stamp is available from Non Sequiteur, which can be bought from De Stempelwinkel. It also used to be available on a plate from Tanda Stamps, but having just been looking, I see they are no longer trading.
I started off by matting the glitter panel onto some silver mirror paper, then onto Red glitter card.

I used an assortment of oriental papers, the one with the lettering is a print off a Joanna Sheene cd, and the one on the left, which is the same image as the panel, was from a block of Kimono papers, from Arts & Crafts Direct. I remember buying these from a Hobbycrafts NEC show, and having searched the Internet, they only seem to be on e-bay, with a few items of cardstock!

I added a triple embossed Kanji letter to one, and a Kanji letter stamped & heat embossed onto an alcohol ink background to the other two,with some cord wrapped around the spine as a final touch.The Kanji letters were bought a long time ago, and don’t seem to be available now, although Judikins do have 2 large Kanji cubes, and I’ve linked to that below.


Links for the products:
 Samurai Plate 67, Non Sequiteur,De stempelwinkel
Kanji Cube 2
Kanji Cube 3, both at Blade Rubber Stamps.

The Night

The stamp is from Stamp Francisco, called The Night. Stamped in Timber Brown Stazon on marble effect card.Matted onto black then marble card. The diamond stamp is by Judikins, Harlequin Background(2671J) also stamped in Timber Brown Stazon over part of the base card, then added atorn piece of text paper from K & cos Lifes Journey pad. Small peeloffs for sentiment.

Wolf Birthday

Black base card with gold flecks, card from PDA Card & paper.Piece of blue card stamped with the Judikins Harlequin stamp and clear embossing ink. Sprinkled with a variety of metallic embossing powders then heated. Trimmed to size and matted onto gold card, attached to left hand side of card in topfold format. The wolf image is by Coranado Island Stamps, bought from Aries crafts. Stamped in Stone Grey Ancient Page ink onto blue marble effect card. Placed the image where the blue marble would look like sky & cloud. Matted onto gold card and blue card, added pewter square brads and mounted across the Harlequin panel.

Ophelia 3

Black base card, used in topfold format.Stamped with harlequin stamp and clear embossing ink, then dusted with a mix of purples, blues and pink micas. Ophelia stamped in Black stazon onto an alcohol ink background made with Stream &Denim ink with gold mixative. Mounted onto gold then blue metallic card. Two dull gold brads added in lower right corner. Wide blue, medium purple and narrow pink organza ribbon wrapped around card front and stuck down where the image will be placed.Ophelia image mounted with foam pads. Two small feathers stuck down with a little silicone glue, a small curl of wire embedded in the glue, and a large blue acrylic flatback gem.

Ophelia 2

This is the Ophelia image facing the opposite way. Stamped with Stazon Timber brown, onto grey marble card, and the corners punched with a southwest punch, then mounted onto dark brown card.I then added a little colour with some pink mica powder applied with a cotton wool bud to the flowers in her hair. The base card is cream linen A4 sheet scored, folded and cut to 15cm square, trimmed with a deckle edge blade and used in topfold format.This was stamped with the Judikins Harlequin background in Light Brown Ancient Page ink.The image is then mounted on foam pads at a slight angle.Narrow dark brown ribbon attached to the left hand side, cut at an angle. The 'bow' is made with two pieces of ribbon folded in to a circle then attached one on top of the other with a pearl headed pin, then cut off the majority of the pin with wire cutters, and fold over the remaining pin with a small pair of pliers. Stick in place with a little silicone glue.Small peeloff sentiment to finish off.