C.C.C. Eclipse Christmas Cards.

I've seen this technique a lot on Pinterest, and thought it was time I gave it a go, as it looks really good. Simple too, and depending on your die sizes, can be made to fit pretty much any size card.
This fortnights Christmas Card Club entry too, as I don't think I have anything that fits the Challenge- Turkeys, Camels or Sheep.

These cards are an A4 sheet folded, and the top pair were made  using letters from an ICraft alpha die set, which are quite large letters.
 I had wanted to have the word  SNOW on the front,as I was using snowflake stamps, but the letter W was too wide to allow the word to fit, so I settled for NOEL.












To get round the letter size problem, I cut the word SNOW out with my Silhouette Portrait, using 2 different fonts, as the first font was a little difficult to work with. I hadn't considered how thin some of the lines on the words were!





So you can make sure your word is centred, you do need to cut your cardbase and panel to size before you start. I often trim them to size when I'm done, but that won't work here. I trim my card base about a ¼" from the width, as I find a full sized sheet makes it too tight a fit when putting into the envelope, even if the card is totally flat. Any embellishments/raised areas make it impossible. It also gets rid of any misaligned edges from folding, or damaged corners.
 I stamped a selection of snowflake stamps of varying sizes in Brilliance  Pearlescent Blue pigment ink.


 The letters were 'dryfit' first, to get the spacing right, then held in place with a little stencil tape.
 Making sure your letters are level can be awkward, but a 'T' Ruler helps here. Butted up to the edge of the card, you can be sure all the letters are placed the same.

To die cut, I have the plates in my 'Bug swapped around, with the 'B' cutting plate on the bottom, instead of the 'C' plate. That goes on top. This way, you can just lay your card & dies straight down, without needing to flip it over, and potentially having your dies move. Not my idea, I saw a few You Tube crafters doing it, and realised it was a great idea.

The letters die cut out. Make sure to retain any centre pieces from letters, such as the 'O' here, as you'll need to replace it to fill in the letter on the card.


I also die cut the same letters from some fun foam, to give the dimension. You don't need the centre from the O for this.You can use a few layers of cardstock layered up if you don't have any fun foam to hand.

To add the letters on top of the fun foam, I used a ZIG glue pen. Any glue pen will do the job,as will glue with a fine tip applicator, or you could put a sheet of  double sided adhesive on the front of the fun foam before die cutting.




This Zig pen has a chisel tip, and makes adding glue easy. It comes in different nib types too- there is a rollerball version, and a pointed tip version. The glue starts out blue, and turns clear as it dries.


One thing worth mentioning- 'dry fit' letters like the O before you add glue. I was surprised that although they LOOK symmetrical, they are not exact.Even the ones I cut on the Silhouette. Obviously, this depends on your dies- some may be perfect, others, not so much.

Next add the stamped panel to your card front,and I found it helpful to add tape runner to the parts of the letters remaining as well, such as the pointy bits of the N, and the parts of the E, to keep them flat.

You need to replace the centre of the O, and I recommend popping the letter back in place to make sure you get the pattern orientation right. Then just add a little tape runner/glue to the back of the centre, and place it inside the letter and press down.
 Now you can add your other letters.
 The fun foam gives a nice dimension, not too much even for mailing.
 I'd suggest at least 4 layers of cardstock, plus the stamped layer if you do it that way, as I used 3 plus the stamped layer on one of the next cards, but it wasn't as dimensional as I'd have liked. The thickness of your cardstock will have a bearing on this, of course.

 To finish this off, I added a peeloff border either side of the stamped panel and stamped a greeting along the bottom. It comes from a Phill Martin set called Christmas Holly Sentiment Borders. I just masked the Holly embellishment at either end before I inked the stamp, so I just had the sentiment.






The SNOW eclipse cards were done by cutting the word SNOW on the Silhouette, and for my first one I cut the word a total of 4 times, leaving enough room above & below the first one for me to trim the panel down.  I left the cardstock on the  Cutting Mat to do the stamping, for which I used a stamp by Chloe, called Wavy Snowflake Border.
I twisted & turned the stamp to cover the panel completely.

This was the one I used the thin lined font on, and you can see the other words for the layers below the stamped over area.

I decided to make the next version more dimensional, so cut the words again from a second sheet of cardstock.

 I used Silver Encore Pigment ink here, and a silver sparkle embossing powder from WOW! called Blizzard.
























 The sentiment for this one is also a Phill Martin one, from another set called  Snowflake Sentiment Borders.


















This is the finished four cards.

These are really easy to make, and could also be done using a Patterned paper, so no stamping required! The fun foam makes it faster, as there is no building up layers involved.
 As for dimension, that is totally up to you. From one or two layers of cardstock to keep it low, to a couple of layers of fun foam or chipboard for a real WOW factor, if you are not going to be mailing the card.

Hot Foils Part 3- some experiments

Back with the foils, and some experiments with glues, and stamping. One thing I realised, is that as you can add these foils with an Iron, that opens up the ability to use them in scrapbooks, art Journals and even possibly canvases!


 By the way, I found out that WOW! Embossing Powders also make a Hot Transfer Foil,called Fab Foil, and the packs are 1 Metre x 10 mm, cost £2.50, and come in quite a range of colours. Sorry the Purple foil pic is a bit fuzzy, I think it's all the reflections.










Anyway, I have a couple of glue pads, one is called The Essential Glue Pad, by Tsukineko, and the other is a Palette pad. I've never had much success with either one, to be honest, so I thought trying it with the foil & hot iron was worth a shot. I also tried some glues I have for Gilding flakes & so on, a Honey Doo one, one from Indigo Blu, and one from Sweet Poppy.





Then I had another thought. I wondered if it was possible to stamp with Stencil Paste? And guess what? It is!












So here are my 6 experiments. I wrote on each card what glue I was using, then used scraps of foil over them. From left to right, top to bottom they are: Essential Glue Pad, Sweet Poppy Stencil Paste, Palette Glue Pad, Honey Doo Mixed Media Glue, Sweet Poppy Wunda Size,and Indigo Blu Flitter Glue.

The big reveal. As I pretty much expected, the Essential Glue Pad & the Palette pad were a total fail. Even though the Essential pad says 'No Heat Needed', I've never had much luck with it as a straight glue, so this was no worse.

The Sweet Poppy Stencil Paste worked really well for being stamped, so this has real possibilities.
 Bottom row, the Honey Doo and Indigo Blue glues both took the Hot Foil really well.

 The Sweet Poppy glue I may have put on too thinly. I also realised it seemed very liquid in the bottle, and I'm sure it was thicker than that before, so it may just be past it's best. At the least, I need to try it again in case it was just me.





 The last thing I tried in this session was on a canvas. I had some I'd stencilled on with paste a while ago, so gave one a try.






It's a canvas board, and I probably ironed it for about a minute, as it was so much thicker than cardstock.

This was the result. Not a perfect transfer at all, but I think that may be due to the textured nature of the canvas. I recall all the info I read about foiling did say you needed a smooth surface. Or maybe the paste needs to be fresher than this was?
 But I think it could work well for giving a distressed look, or if it was added in small patches, for instance on the wings.

So all in all, a few possibilities raised here, and I have some more experiments drying right now. I want to see if my Dreamweaver pastes work for this, and also if regular press-down foils work this way too.

All these were done with an Iron by the way.

Honey Doo Cards

 Finally getting some of those card fronts put together. All these images are from Honey Doo stamps, those on the left here are all a design called Butterflies & Flowers Large Corner. All the sentiments are from sets by Phill Martin.
 I've added some Sue Wilson Dies ribbon & bows to them, the Red one uses Lattice Bow over the Classic Bow, which is plain. The green ones use Filigree Bow over the Classic.














The sentiment on all three is from Butterfly Elegance sentiments, and the stamping was done in Brilliance Pearlescent scarlet, and heat embossed with WOW! Sparkling Poinsettia EP. I used the same ink & powder to stamp the image onto red vellum, after cutting them out, I shaped the petals using an embossing tool, the added tiny red seed beads to the centres with Glossy Accents.
 The greens were done in the same way, this time using Brilliance Pearlescent Jade, and WOW! Golden Pine EP. A corner rounder was used to add some interest, doing opposite corners in the left hand card.

Both these cards use the same stamp, Floral Corner Flourish, but in the black card I placed it centrally, and in the purple card, it's in the corner.   I added clear gems to the dots in the black card, and purple one to the purple card.Purple Glitz WOW! EP was used there, and on the black one, I used Clear Hologram Sparkle.
 The sentiments are from Scribbled Sentiments, and Scribbled Corner sentiments.
Again, I rounded opposite corners on all the layers, and also on the base card of the purple one.





























This blue card is stamped with Shower Bouquet, In Brilliance Pearlescent Blue, embossed with Arctic Blue WOW! EP. Acrylic gems added to two opposite corners, and sentiment from Scribbled Sentiment Corners. The backing paper is from an old Papermania pad.

Back to Floral Corner Flourish for the pink card, stamped in Pearlescent Coral, and Clear Hologram Sparkle powder. Pink gems, a Scribbled Corner sentiment, and rounded corners finish it off.

So thats all the Honey Doo cards finished, next post will be some Emboss resist with Brushos, amongst others.

Christmas Card Club Challenge #12- Anything Goes

Sylvie has chosen this fortnights theme, and given us a lovely wide ranging brief- Anything Goes.

 Had a think about it, and decided to re-visit a design I made a few of last year, especially as I had stencil paste out on my desk at the time!


 The stencil itself is from Imagination Crafts, and is called
Poinsettia Multi. Instead of adding glitter on top of the wet paste, I mixed it into the paste itself. Makes the whole process a bit less messy, and as long as you have some small sealable pots, you can store any excess.You get better glitter coverage too, and it doesn't shed either. Plus, it's way cheaper than buying glitter stencil paste, which was what originally set me off with this idea.

The stamp is by Honey Doo Crafts, called Happy Christmas Mini. I used a matching glitter embossing powder from WOW! Embossing powders on both cards. I also added acrylic gems to the centres of the flowers. The stamped sentiment is matted onto the same backing paper I used for the main image.
 The image is set onto a 7" card base- although on measuring, I find it's the envelope that is 7", the card base is 6 3/4".
 But even so, these are quick and easy cards,and could be made smaller just by using a smaller piece of cardstock below the stencil, and then a correspondingly smaller sentiment. In fact, I think I may go and give that a try!

WOYWW #406

So here we are, rushing through March already. Linking up as always on Wednesdays with Julia over at The Stamping Ground.
 On my desk this week are three partly finished cards from Pauline Butchers Workshop I did on Sunday.
 Learnt some new ways of doing things, the Floral stencil on black is done by sponging on Gesso first, then adding colour over that. I think a sort of version of the Black Magic technique. Some of the Gesso got under the stencil, but that can be repaired with a black pen, and I quite liked this technique, so may give that another go.
 The seahorses card I'm not happy with at all and may take them back off and try something else. Maybe butterflies and flowers, or dragonflies. Not sure yet.

The background is done using Liquitex Heavy Body Gel through a stencil, then when it's dry, using Brusho's for colour over the top.
Did have a lovely time at the workshop, which Erika also went to, and met some lovely ladies. I may well do one or two more, we shall see.
This quilt picture gave me quite a shock when my daughter, Louisa, put it on Facebook and asked me if I remembered it. I had completely forgotten about it, but when I saw it remember making it for my youngest sons cot, and he was 30 this year, so tells you how old it is. I also remember making a sleeping bag the same way, and apparently she still has that too.
  So there we are, short and sweet this week. By the way, I have an appointment with my surgeon for a follow up on Friday, so we shall have more information after that. I'll let you know what was said next week.

Christmas Card Club- Star of Wonder/Any Star

Mid way through January, and the second of this months challenges for the Christmas Card Club, set by Maureen.
 I've done two cards, mainly because I was struggling a bit! lol.
The first one uses mainly Card-Io/Majestix stamps- The Snow Globe, trees and house are all from various sets of theirs.
 The star is a random one- no idea where it's from.
The Santa and sleigh is by Inkylicious, and comes with two versions facing opposite directions, a sentiment and a sprinkling of stars.
 The sentiment inside the oval is a small peel-off, I didn't have a stamp small enough.
 The snow globe was stamped in Silver Encore and heat embossed in Detail Silver EP, the star also stamped in silver Encore, but heat embossed with Crystal EP.
 Images stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black, and Distress ink Tumbled Glass sponged for the hillsides and added with a soft brush for the sky. I'd cut out a mask for the outside of the snow globe so I could keep all the ink inside it.
 The silver foiled backing paper is from Craft Creations which I've had for ages, I think it's discontinued now.
 I trimmed down the image panel and rounded the corners, then added some silver ribbon across the top left, and some ribbon and a bow on the bottom right.

I spotted this star stamp whilst looking for a suitable one for the first card. I'm sorry to say I have no idea who made it, it's a clear stamp and I've had it for years. Again it was stamped in Encore silver, and I used two Embossing powders on it. Silver detail for the words, and a WOW! powder, one of the Chloe Endean inspired ones, called Jingle Bells, for the star. It's sort of a gold/silver mix.
 Backed it onto some gold glitter paper, then some more of the Craft Creations paper in a different colour. I also added a torn corner of some star & snowflake embossed vellum I did myself using various stamps and crystal EP. First outing for this stamp, despite how long I've had it!
 It's annoying me, as I feel I should know who made it, but the only names that keep coming to me are people who don't make clear stamps, so I know I have it wrong. Feels like it's in the back of my head somewhere though.

Simple stencilled Christmas Cards.

 A total of 9 new cards, using two different stencils, and one Greeting stamp.






The stamp is from Honey Doo crafts, called Mini Happy Christmas. It measures 2 1/4" x 4", so it's actually quite a good size.

The two stencils are ST Poinsettia Multi from Imagination Crafts, and one called Snow Flurry by That Special Touch,from Creative Expressions.

 Both measure approximately 6" square.





I stamped up a batch of the greetings, to give me some choice, using a Clear Embossing pad, and an assortment of WOW! embossing powders I bought from Chloes Creative Cards at the Happy Stampers last week. Looking at the labels, it says they are inspired by Chloe Endean, and the set is called Festive Collection. I also used a couple of my own mix of sparkly embossing powders.
It's simple to mix your own, just remember to have more EP than glitter in your mix, I'd say no more than a quarter glitter to EP.

These little boxes of tiny tubs are ideal for doing this and storing them in- from E-bay, they are empty nail art pots.
So, on to the cards.







This one with the blue snowflakes, I'd done in White Stencil Paste, then sprinkled with a blue glitter before it dried.
It's matted onto some shiny textured blue paper I had. As the paper was quite thin, I mounted it onto some spare cardstock first, then trimmed it down to size.
 The greeting for this one was embossed with an EP called 'Arctic Blue'. I matted the greeting onto the same paper, and as it was being attached to a glittery and uneven surface, I used Pinflair Glue to do this.
Just a few blobs is all you need.







I debated whether to put it straight, or at an angle. The angle won!
All the cards use a 7"x7" square card base.

This gold one had one of my own mix EP's on it. It's a mix of gold Ultrafine Glitter & Stampendous Embossing Powder in Gold Detail.
 The Poinsettia  background was done with Gold Sparkle Stencil paste this time.

Silver Sparkle Stencil paste used here, and my own Silver Glitter embossing powder.

Silver Paste again, and the same Embossing powder. Just silver ultrafine glitter and Stampendous Silver Detail EP.

This one had white Stencil Paste sprinkled with Crystal glitter, and the EP is called  'Jingle Bells'.

Three red Poinsettia stencils, two done with Red Sparkle stencil paste, and one with white paste, sprinkled with red glitter. The EP is called 'Sparkling Poinsettia'.
 They are backed onto gold glitter card, as I discovered I had no red glitter card at all.

Final card is using Green Sparkle Stencil Paste, and the Greeting is embossed with 'Golden Pine' EP.

Final touch was to add some acrylic gems to the centre of the snowflakes, and on the dot above the 'i' in Christmas.

   The same thing with the centre of the poinsettias, two have clear gems, and one has red ones.

Red gems used on the silver, gold and green ones.