WOYWW #479

There has been crafting done, lol. Post below has Triple stamped Christmas cards in, and the one below that has a couple of cards for the Christmas Club challenge, Winter activities.

One thing I like about triple stamped cards is that it provides a use for a lot of the smaller stamps that sets always contain, and then often never see ink.

Currently on my desk is a mountain of cards that need inserts stamping and adding, along with envelopes. I keep telling myself I should do all this at the time I make the card, but rarely do. So that's a work in progress.
They've all been cut to size, so just need to get stamping now.

 Bought myself an ATG gun. I use a lot of those Stix2 tape runners, especially for adding inserts, and sort of realised I can buy a refill for one of these, which costs about the same as a tape runner, but is way longer. My only complaint? It's PINK!!!!
 It would have been nice if there was another colour choice, any colour would be better than this, but they only do this particular size in this, so I'm stuck with it. Can you guess it's my least favourite colour?😡


Realised it's only 5 weeks till the crop, so I'm also getting stuff sorted out that needs a new home. As a heads up, I'll be bringing my dies as usual, so pack your cardstock.😊 All the details are available on Julias blog, if you've not done one before, do just jump in at the deep end and come say hello.

 I have cards to get down to over the next few days- Beloved Hubbys, as it's our birthdays next week, and my daughter is 40 on the 17th. In fact, from this Sunday on, for 9 days, there are two family birthdays every day- we have a real pride of Lions here.
 Limping a little today. Managed to twist my ankle on the stairs this morning. Fortunately, I only slipped a couple of steps, but have a twisted left ankle, and a bruise on the back of my right thigh where it rubbed on the stair. Only me, rofl!

And finally..........( I think I may already have achieved this though!)


So that's me for another week, I'll be seeing you all over at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, for this weeks desk fest.

Holly, Mistletoe & Snowflake Triple stamped Christmas cards.

Right then, the last of my recent run of Triple Stamped cards,and I used the technique to create myself a dozen Christmas cards. Despite what it may seem, this is actually a good way of batch making cards that appear a little more work than they really are.


The Snowflake one is the card made in the You Tube video.


Just so you know, this is quite a photo heavy post, lol.

First part was cutting all the layers, and choosing stamps.
 I'll put the measurements used at the end of the post.

The first stamps I chose came from Chocolate Baroque sets,  Holly Script & Mistletoe Script sets, both still available.

To the Holly, I added a couple of Card-io stamps, from a set called Festive Fircones, and also from a Rubber Stamp Tapestry peg stamp set called Cardinal in Holly.

I used Versafine Clair in Rain Forest for the stamping.






Before stamping the image stamps, I stamped and heat embossed in Gold detail powder, a sentiment on each one. I used 4 different sentiments.

The top two are from Hobby Art, the set is called Winter Wishes.
 Bottom left is a very old stamp from Denami, which used to be wood mounted. Bottom right is from a Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous set called Scribbled Woodland.

My four pieces, all stamped and ready for matting. Word of advice, separate and layer each set individually. If you mix them up it will take forever to sort them out again into the correct order!
 I used a dark green cardstock for the matt layers for these.

 All layered up, and the one has a piece of ribbon over one corner. It actually makes a nice way to add something a little extra, but was really there to cover a bit of the stamping that blurred a little!

I added some red acrylic jewels to the Holly berries, but if you want to keep them as flat as possible for posting, you could colour them with markers, or use Stickles or Pearls for this.

Next we move on to the Mistletoe ones, I used the same sentiments, this time in Silver ink and Detail Powder.

The stamping was done using Versafine Spanish Moss.
 I didn't have any cardstock in  a similar colour for the matts, so used some white pearl cardstock that I coloured the edges of with the Versafine to match.
 It seemed like a good idea at the time! But I don't recommend using Versafine on Pearl cardstock.

It seems to take forever to dry, even with heat setting.

I'd inked the edges, and left overnight. It was a good 15-18 hours before I got back to them, but it was still wet. So I heat set, but that only improved it slightly.















I had originally tried Promarkers, but even though the colour was great, I couldn't get one even coat all the way round, and any overlaps left a darker area.



The Versafine did give me a problem with inky smudges, so i took to wiping my fingers with a baby wipe every time I handled one. Even though I couldn't see any ink on my fingers, there clearly was!

However, I did have a fix for getting rid of the smudges.

A while ago I mentioned Tombow Mono Sand erasers, as being recommended for removing stray specks of embossing powder that had been heat set. Which it works extremely well for, I might add. I've discovered it's also very good at removing ink.

Hopefully you can see the ink smudges on the bottom layer.

 Here is what it looks like after I've used the eraser on it.






So that eraser is a really useful bit of kit to have in your arsenal. Available HERE on Amazon.

The 'open' Mistletoe is the Chocolate Baroque one, the 'closed' one is from Card-io, a set called Christmas Greenery.

I've added two sizes of half pearls for the Mistletoe berries on these.

Final set of cards uses a selection of Snowflake stamps, mainly from a Clarity set called Snowflakes, with the addition of some random tiny snowflake stamps to fill gaps.

Still using the same sentiments, and again silver heat embossed.
The snowflakes were stamped using Versafine Majestic Blue, and I added some WOW! Embossing powder in Arctic Blue, which just gives the snowflakes a little sparkle.

 The Snowflake embellishment is a box of wooden snowflake embellishments from Kaisercraft, picked up at my local craft store. They were coated in Oxide  Broken China, then clear embossing ink. Sprinkled with the Arctic Blue EP and heat set. I then added another layer of clear embossing ink, and a layer of clear UTEE, then finally another layer of the Arctic blue while the UTEE was still hot. You could replace the UTEE with a clear powder, just maybe using two coats. Don't do too many layers though, or you will lose the detail.
 I stuck them to the front with a little Glossy Accents.



To keep them flat, you could either skip the embellishment, or die cut a snowflake or two from glitter card/paper.

The measurements for these cards are as follows: the card base is 4⅛x 5⅞. This was created by cutting an A4 sheet of card in half lengthways, which then gives you a 'landscape' card base, 2 from each sheet of card. The card base itself is the first matt layer.








So, your matt layers need to be:
 4⅛ x 5⅞ ( card base)
 3⅛ x 4⅞, and
 2⅛ x 3⅞.
 Your stamping layers are:
 3⅞ x 5⅝
 2⅞ x 4⅝ and
 1⅞ x 3⅝.
 It is better to use a thinner cardstock for your stamping layers than for the matt layers.

 

Christmas Card Club Challenge #16- Christmas Activities.

 This fortnights challenge over at the Christmas Card Club has been set by Maureen, and she's hoping to see cards featuring Christmas activities- Sleighs, Sledges, Skiing. The only stamps I have along this line are from Card-io, in their scene building sets, and one, called Festive Fun, has stamps of Sledges, and an Ice Skater.


 My first card features a Snow Globe, called Crystal Globe. The tree-line is from the same set. The snowflakes are from another set called Winters Kiss, which has half a dozen or so different sized and shaped snowflakes.

My second card starts with a snowflake wreath, made up from an assortment of snowflake stamps, in various blue Memento inkpads- Danube Blue, Nautical Blue and Bahama Blue.


The trees are Card-io again, Winter Woods, the dog walker & skater are both from Festive Fun.
 Matted this one onto some pale blue glitter card, and I rounded the corners on both pieces.


So those are my offerings for this fortnight.

Triple Stamping and an Embossing Folder.

This is my most recent Triple stamped card, and includes the use of an Embossing Folder.
 It's also the first You Tube video I've managed on this that I'm happy with!


The card base is, according to the package, a 7"x7", however, that measurement applies to the envelope, on square cards, I've found. The actual card base is 6 3/4" square, and that holds true for all the sizes, so something to bear in mind when you are cutting layers to fit any of them.





I cut the layers- stamping and matting, at the start.
 The sizes for this are:
Matt layers:
6x6
5x5
4x4
3x3
 Stamping layers:
5 3/4 square
4 3/4 square
3 3/4 square and
2 3/4 square.


I find it easiest to attach the stamping layers together using some temporary tape runner, which stops them moving about.
 The Embossing folder is by Darice, and is called Butterfly Corner.
 As you will see in the video, I have cut along the top of the folder, and added hinges at the side with masking tape. This means I now have full choice on where, and what orientation I use the folder in, and also I'm not limited by the size of cardstock I can use in it.
 The stamps used are from Card-io,
 Greenery 1, for the corner leafy branch,
Plentiful Pansies,
Summer Wreath, for the little leafy branch & the Butterfly,
 Dragonfly Garden for the Blue flowerhead, and
Summer Meadow for the Orange flower.
 All inks were original Versafines.
So here is my video of the process. I hope you enjoy.😊

WOYWW #478

And just like that, it's Wednesday again! Another WOYWW with our lovely Leader, Julia, over at The Stamping Ground.
Well, we had rain at last over the weekend, and it was just what the gardens needed. Came down in the right intensity too- heavy enough to soften the ground and sink in, without any flooding.
 There has been some crafting, there's a little video about inkpads and heat embossing in the post below, and I've finally got a video for a triple stamped card that I'm happy with, which will probably go up tomorrow.
Stamping, and the use of an embossing folder too.




Had some time cleaning and tidying, sorting out draws, and starting to put stuff together that needs a new home, in time for the crop.









Took myself out for a walk around town today, and popped into The Range, to have a browse. Came out with this stamp, I thought she looks so Goth, couldn't resist.






On the subject of buying stuff- and I know this will get me into a lot of trouble, lol- I had an email this week from Handy Hippo crafts store. She is closing down the business, so has a 30% off sale running right now. It'll run for 10 days, then go up to 50%, then finally 70%. Code at the moment is HIPPO30.
 Been and had a look, and she has a huge amount of stuff- inkpads of all sorts, including Distress & oxides, Archival, Memento.  Card blanks, cardstock, tools, Embossing powders & folders, Dies,Stamps, the whole caboodle. And she has a Clearance section where the stuff is already marked down  by 40,50 & 70%, and they are included in the 30% off as well. Lots of Memento inkpads in that section. Well worth a look to see if there's anything you'd like. Even two or three brands of the Stamping platforms on there.

Doug got round to putting up  the pictures on my wall at the weekend. The three sheepy pictures I bought from Tilly Tea Dance, and the bottom one is a piece made by Debbie Rock( Tattered Rocks).


I have 3 white walls, and one that is papered in a black glittery paper in my craft room, so the art is going on the chimney breast wall.


On another subject completely, I was getting really irritated by Pinterest lately. It seemed my main feed was constantly being flooded with stuff I had no interest in, hadn't searched for, either on there on on the net in general. Been going on for weeks. I had about a fortnight of Paleo diet posts,a week or so of Quilling and Iris Folding, and no matter how much time you spent clicking 'Hide' there were still more the next time you visited. Last straw was a few days ago, when my feed was full of posts about the Periodic Table of Elements! Literally dozens of them. I mean, really?
 I mentioned it on SCS, and a lady there told me something I hadn't spotted. Along the top of the main feed page, on the right hand side close to your picture, is now another button- Following. If you click that one, what you get is a page with stuff from people/subjects you have followed on Pinterest. Much more useful, and less annoying. I admit I like the change to Pinning now, as a suggested Folder appears over the image if you click Save, and you can navigate to specific folders right there, no more new box opening up.
 So there we have a lit, a bit of helpful info, and a dose of enabling as well, lol.
 And finally...............................

Just remembered, a HUGE Happy Birthday to our lovely Lunch Lady Jan today. XxXx