Birthday ATC's.

This is a selection of the ATC's I made to share, showing the various colour blends.
 They were all done with Distress Inks, and assorted Versafine colours for the stamping itself.

 After the ink blending, I used a dots stencil to sponge through a little of the darkest colour through in patches, then flicked water over them and blotted it with some kitchen roll.


The WOYWW was done with some alpha stamps, little wooden peg ones from Hampton Arts I picked up for a quid somewhere- either going to be Hobbycrafts the store, or the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC. The 8 comes from a Tim Holtz alpha & numbers set called Mini Worn Text. They were stamped in Versafine Crimson Red.

  I also made use of my Stamping Platform to get the fairy, from Lavinia Stamps, in the same place on each card, which was slightly more critical than normal, in order not to end up mixing with the WOYWW8 stamped in the bottom corner.

  She was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black, and heat embossed with clear powder.To get her away from the numbers, and give me room to stamp 'Believe in Magic' on the right, I needed her to be stamped slightly off the page.

Bit of improvisation here- I used a clear ruler lay along the left hand edge of the platform- which is the 'closed' side- butted my ATC up to it, added the magnets to hold the ATC down, then removed the ruler & stamped. A cheap & easy way to give yourself a bit more freedom in positioning.

I know Versafine isn't specifically meant for heat embossing, but I find that dependant on the cardstock used, and sometimes how quickly you can do it, it is possible. The cardstock for these ATC's, by the way, are Clarity ready cut ATC's.

 These pics seem out of order, but I made another 10 on top of my original batch of 20 to have some extras for sharing, and clearly didn't do everything in quite the same order!


  Next bit to be added- and again I used the Stamp Positioner so I didn't get it wonky- was the 'Believe in Magic'. This comes from a Lavinia Stamps  one that reads' Those who don't believe in Magic will never find it', but I didn't want the whole thing, and the positioning of the words on the original didn't work for me either, so out came the scissors.

I snipped out Believe,which was on one line, and In Magic, which were part of the next line, and arranged them alongside each other. I used Onyx Black again to stamp the words.

 The hanging leaves along the top are stamped in Olympia Green Versafine, first & second generation stamping.





 Final stamping was some Tiny Mushrooms, Lavinia stamps, in Versafine Majestic Blue along the bottom.

Now to give them some dimension, and I used Liquid Pearls Onyx on a few of the 'buds' at the ends of the flower the fairy is resting on. On others I used Stickles Black Diamond.

 Just about visible here is Stickles Diamond used on the Fairys wings, and then just a few dots to her right for a bit more sparkle. Then I decided the mushrooms needed a bit of bling, so added some Stickles Midnight Blue to the tops.

The backs were stamped finally with an ATC stamp bought from Stamp & Go, in Versafine Sepia.

Craft A Scene- A Little Sand & Sea

Back to using digi-stamps, this time from Make It Crafty. Called Tropical Beach, the image is the shoreline, palm trees, sea & clouds, with a couple of shells on the beach. The Ship in the background is a ‘real’ stamp, as is the Travel,Explore, Discover phrase. Most of the colouring on the image was done with Promarkers, with a little sponging on the sky.
The torn map is a stamp by Stamp & Go, called Antique Maps, SIFS65, a sheet of u/m stamps that has 3 large maps, 3 small and some ships.
To give you an idea of size, the largest map is just under 6"x4". Its a really good set for mens cards, I find.



  The map was stamped onto an alcohol inked background with Black Staz-on, then torn & the edges inked with Distress Ink Vintage Photo. The starfish charm is a jewellery embellishment, and the compass was cut out with my Silhouette and patted with Vintage Photo and a Copper Embossing ink, then had some Copper Embossing powder and some Black embossing Powder sprinkled randomly on before heating. I covered a base card with some vintage travel themed paper, then added the Sea & sand image. The map was matted on with some foam tabs and the two embellishments added with silicone glue. I added the phrase with Cracked Sapphire Distress ink, then added the dots either end with the Distress Marker in the same colour.

WOYWW #114

First on my desk this week is another map card.The maps are from a set available from Stamp & Go.com, SIFS65,which features 6 maps, some waves, a couple of ships, and a ship in a bottle. It was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black onto an alcohol ink background then cut into a mosaic and matted onto black card. The two tags use a stamp from Artifacts, The Stamp Bugs own stamps, Spirit of Adventure Collage. Just went to their site to get the link, and their u.m stamps are on sale at the moment, with 25% off! The Time & Tide stamp is by Paper Artsy, Clocks plate 3, which also features some of the stamps in the third picture I have posted. I sponged old Paper, Antique Linen & Walnut stain Distress inks onto some script background paper and both tags.



  The second card is again using alcohol ink backgrounds, and the Crafty Individuals stamp from a couple of posts ago. The square card base was covered in paper from Dovecrafts Aquamarine Floral Prints paper pack.

Here are some of the clock images from the Paper Artsy plate, stamped onto Distress inked card, cut out then the 'glass' created with Glossy Accents. The card was coloured by swiping Distress inks onto a craft mat (mine came from Poundland, a baking sheet) spritzing with water then wiping the card/tag across the ink. Here is a link to Tim Holtz showing how he does it. The clock hands have been cut out using the Silhouette, using a 'dingbat' font that features clocks & timepieces.Have a great Wednesday, and if you are new to this idea, visit the Amazing Julia Dunnits Stamping Ground and join the fun.

Kanji strip

For the card on the left I took a strip of thick card and coloured it with red dye ink. This was then triple embossed.The Kanji letters were inked up with Gold Encore ink and pressed into the final embossing. When cold I gently bent the card to get the cracked effect.Edged with gold Krylon pen. I scored a box, slightly larger than my stamped panel, in the centre front of the base card. The panel was mounted with DST, and a gold & Red cord wrapped around the fold. The Kanji stamps are by Stamp & Go .com  and come as a set of 13, plus a pair of koi carp. Item Number SIEWKFS01B.
The card on the right used black dye ink on the panel instead of red.