WOYWW #370

Don't know about you, but I really can't get my head around how fast this year is zipping by. Into July already, some summer about now would be nice.Big hugs and lots of love to our recovering Head Desker, Julia, and more love & big Hugs, to our Deputy Head Desker for a while,LLJ.

On my desk this week, loads of images stamped onto OHP film. I got a bargain a couple of years ago when we made a trip to Staples, and they had some boxes of OHP film  reduced to clear. I like it for lots of things, one of them being this- I stamp the images so that I can use them as an aid to placement. I've done lots with my Stampscapes stamps, for scene building, and I thought it would be really helpful with all those stencilled backgrounds I've done lately. Doing it by eye always results in something being adrift or skewed, which irritates me.

This sort of thing is what I mean, using Cardio stamps and one of the Clarity Stencil backgrounds.

  I've made a couple of cards with them, and I'll post them over the next few days.
Because they are on film, I had to use Staz-on ink, and from some research on the net, it appears the ink doesn't harm clear stamps, it's the Staz-on cleaner that does.
So, it's fine if you don't mind stained stamps, and I don't.
 Two tips I've come across doing this- first, if you don't want Staz-on staining your stamps, then if you apply Versamark first, then Staz-on, the Staz-on will wipe straight off your stamps afterwards, but as I was doing this on film, I'm guessing that would not have dried, so defeating the object.
Second- what if you get Staz-on onto your acrylic blocks? The cleaner definitely ruins them, I ruined a few before I found out about the cleaner. Turns them cloudy, with loads of fine cracks appearing. Well, apparently, Antibacterial hand sanitiser gel will clean them up. Sounds mad, doesn't it? But, nothing to lose by trying it.
Here was one very mucky acrylic block.
















                                                                                          

 
I squirted a small amount on,spread it over with my fingers, wiped off with a paper towel, and hey Presto! It works! Literally, wiped over with my fingers, and it came straight off. No rubbing or scrubbing.

That was definitely a wow! moment. I really wasn't sure it would work. But it does, perfectly.
So, something useful there.

Finally, I though these may amuse you. It does prove that dying your hair in a variety of colours clearly runs in the family.
Top picture is my eldest son, Ant, with his green beard, and opposite, my youngest son, Mike, with his two tone one. Amazing, that as Mike ages, he looks more & more like his brother.
 As they say, madness does not run in our family, it just wanders around, having a good time in the process.

Yet another set of Christmas Cards.

So it's yet another set of Christmas Cards, 2 in each colourway, so 4 cards altogether.
 For starters, I masked off  the centre section of a piece of square card, roughly 5"x5", using some torn copy paper.  For the Blue and purple card I used Broken China, Tumbled Glass & Mermaid Lagoon blue D I's, with Dusty Concord and Shaded Lilac purples to sponge between the torn edges of the copy paper.
These were left to dry out thoroughly, as I wanted to heat emboss the lettering, but didn't want the Embossing Powder to stick to the sponging as well.

For the red/green card, it was Shabby Shutters and Mowed Lawn, along with  Candied Apple and Festive Berries.
  
 The Christmas Words stamp is by Visible Image, and on the blue/purple card I used Salty Ocean to stamp with. I generally find on all but the most porous of cardstocks, Distress Inks are wet enough to emboss with, and if in any doubt, I tap clear embossing ink on the stamp first, then the coloured ink, and that works just fine. Barn Door was used on the red/green base.
In both cases, the masks were replaced so the word stamping was only visible on the sponged areas.
 Both were heat embossed using WOW! Clear Hologram Sparkle Embossing Glitter. They were now matted onto a matching cardstock, then attached to the card front with DST.
 I'd cut some Christmas trees out, using the Tim Holtz Woodlands die set, and one of these was added to each card front with a Zig glue pen. I lay an acrylic block on top of each, and left them to set overnight.

The snow effect on the branches was created with White Opal Liquid Pearls, with Glamour Dust glitter sprinkled over the top.
Final addition was another Tim Holtz die, Holiday Words Script 1, using Merry Christmas cut from white card for a white on white look.
 I think the Snow Words stamp has been retired now, but you could substitute any words stamp, or indeed use a few small stamps, mixed with some snowflake stamps.
 You could even use the words die to cut some words from fun foam and make your own word stamp- just remember to cut them out back to front.

So, I'm now up to 21 cards finished, and I have the fronts for another 10 on my desk.

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.

WOYWW #233

Well our Mistress of the Desks has been redecorating- a nice shiny new blog over at The Stamping Ground, although you may need your sunnies this dreary November morning, lol.
Not a huge amount going on on the desk, so you have 2 shots for the price of one visit today. My usual working desk:

Odds & ends abound- a dead babywipe scrunched up, a piece of kitchen roll (can you tell I didn't tidy for the photo?) a couple of acrylic blocks. Some stamps and a Versafine pad. A try-out for some scene building on scrap paper, seeing if I could mix Stampscapes & a Lavinia stamps cat. I've got a bit of a cats theme on the go this week.( Post below for glittered cats)- no not poor Ambrose, he escaped the glitter storm this time. The two black photo albums at the back hold brass stencils, 5x7, they hold larger ones easily, and I just stapled down the middle of pages to hold thinner/tall ones.



Cheap storage solution, and stops them getting bent.





The 'desk behind the desk'- the long table thats behind me, something I wanted when I put my room together, somewhere to put stamp folders when I got them out, put stuff to dry etc.

Of course, its got all sorts of other stuff on there too- glittered cats, bottom right,  easel,  Indigo Blu Christmas cards from earlier post, Distress Markers, a tub of cotton wool balls, and those little sets of plastic drawers, full of 'stuff' thats too small to store anywhere else, without losing it forever. Underneath are some 4 drawer storage ( from B&Q/Instore), they come with wheels, but I didn't put them on, that have all sorts of stuff (do you notice I have a lot of 'stuff'') I wanted close to where I work in the hope that would mean a) less searching for it and
b) it might actually get used!
 So thats all for this week folks, I'm back on my much loved night shift, so I'll be seeing you all later in the day.

Stamping with Acrylic blocks

I've seen this technique around, and wanted to give it a try. An acrylic block, dye based inkpads and a mister. You also need card to stamp onto, and it needs to be able to take water without buckling. I used it on watercolour card, and on some fairly thin, smooth card. The trouble with the watercolour card is that its not smooth, although such a thing is available. Mine isn't, but I did find that the back was smoother than the front.
All you do is apply inks to the block- you can use markers as well as inkpads.

I used Distress Inkpads- Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Salty Ocean & Peacock Feathers.
Then spritz with water. How much you spritz is up to you, and the surface you are going to stamp on, I found. The watercolour paper takes up a lot of the water, so the result can be patchy if you haven't added enough.

On the other hand, on smooth card, you want less water. And you don't want that much water that the ink runs when you start to flip the block over to print.

First print, not too bad- you can spread the ink a little with a fingertip if its blotchy.










    I topped up the ink, and added a lot more water this time.

 Excess ink in the corner, from how much water I added. I soaked it up with a piece of kitchen roll.

Went a bit mad experimenting, and made a few more. I decided to trim them all down, and use as backgrounds that way. Not sure how successful this would be using it straight onto your card front- I think theres too much likelihood of the card warping as it dries.

So, its cool for a soft, watercolour-like finish, with softly blended colours, I shall try it with some other cardstock, to see if I can get a 'one-layer' card from it.

Supplies:
 Dye based inkpads/markers
 Spritzer bottle
Acrylic blocks
 Card, or watercolour paper.