WOYWW #251

Gooood Morning WOYWWers! All happily linked up over at The Stamping Ground, with our Chief Desker, Julia? Good, then we'll begin. Not a huge amount on my desk this week, some new stamps from Chocolate Baroque- I've been coveting the Fragments one for ever, with all those delicious Gothic Arches. And the borders-I can see a lot of uses for those.
Other than these, just some experiments with inking card with Distress re-inkers and water.

I love the Spiced Marmalade DI- such a glorious colour- I think I got a bit carried away, it was supposed to be more subtle than that! I have a problem with subtlety, you may have noticed.





This was how I started, and was more what I was aiming for- I didn't allow for how strong the Spiced Marmalade colour is. So it'll be back to the drawing board- or the inking mat- this weekend, Less ink and water this time.
Seen on top of my 'craft mat'- £1 heat resistant baking sheet from Poundland, sorry Tim.
 

   Some cards made over the weekend in the previous post,  triple time stamping, mainly thanks to Julias experiments recently with the Brilliance pads- I'd forgotten how wonderful they are.
Speaking of Tim, thats something I am waiting to arrive. I saw one of his CHA videos about his Blending Solution pen, for Alcohol inks, and also the palette for the inks. Looks good to me, so found both online.  You can put a few drops of alcohol ink into the palette, let them dry for a few minutes, then pick them up with the blending pen for colouring.

WOYWW #503- The Fairly Tidy Edition.

'Cos fairly tidy doesn't happen too often. Not very tidy, of course, just fairly.😁
 Wednesdays here again, so time for linking up at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, for another weeks desk baring & sharing.

 It's actually better now, as I've put the stamps away. And the inkpads. And the blending sponges.
 Which are packs of make up sponges from Primark. £2.50 for a pack of 4, 1 large, 2 medium & 1 small.

The Really Useful Box contains dried out-clean- baby wipes, for inking, the way Card-io do it, by blending over the edge of torn paper to produce hills.

 Which was what I was doing at the weekend, making some Christmas Cards for the Club.

 And glittering onto acetate. Well not acetate, but OHP film, which does the job just as well. Got a couple of boxes of it really cheap when our Staples was closing down.

I have to say, the Stamping Platform is ace for this technique, as normally when hand stamped with Staz-on onto film, the stamps have a tendency to slip or slide. Not a problem now.

 Don't know about anyone else, but over the years I've picked up lots of 'glitter glue kits', with bottles & fine nibs, but I always find the nibs clog, and the bottles can be really hard on the hands, needing quite a bit of pressure to squeeze.
 Back to my favourite enabler, Jennifer McGuire, who was talking about some cheap, soft bottles she'd bought on line. So I had a look, and found some on E-Bay. 
10x 10ml bottles, each with a fine nozzle & lid for £1.62. And they are a lovely soft, easy to squeeze bottle.

The lid is attached to the bottle, but I snip that through, otherwise I found it gets in the way. I've also put some Multi Matt Medium in one, and that works great too. And so far,when I've finished with it, I just poke a pin down the nozzle to make sure it's clear, then wipe it with a baby wipe, put the lid on, and not had any clogging at all.

 On the left, stamped image with the Platform.

 On the right, adding glue from those bottles.

Here, 3 of my glittered snowmen when they'd dried.

While we're sort of still on the subject of Staz-On, this acrylic block on the left is why you should never use Staz-on cleaner on them. This happened years ago, long before I learnt what was causing it. So I didn't clean my stamp on the platform, and I've kept this block just for doing that. I know Tim said that you could use anything on them other than acetone, but I'm not taking the chance!

Now, another tip, from another You Tuber. Been watching crafting videos from a guy called Simon Hurley. He's only a young guy,I'd say late teens probably, but is clearly going places, as I saw today he's now got a product line with Ranger at Creativation. 
 His channel is called INKLIPSE.
EDIT:   Actually just found out he's 16! Total respect to someone so young,especially being a lad.
 Anyway, I digress, as usual. He was talking about blending coloured pencils, and how he wasn't happy with the results using blending stumps with things like Gamsol, or Zest -It. What he did was take a Ranger Alcohol Ink Blending Pen, and fill it with the Zest It blender for pencils, and it worked like a charm. Bonus is, you have a solid tip and a brush tip, compared to just the pointy tip on a blending stump.




I can post this card now at the bottom here, as it won't show up on Facebook! This was the card I was working on last week, a Retirement card for a work colleague.









Which brings me to.......And Finally.......








                  ...ain't that the truth!

The Making of the ATC's.

Ok, so I've been intending to do a post about my ATC's and I thought it's about time I got around to it.
 The actual backgrounds were done with a slightly unusual technique I'd watched in a video by Andy Skinner.
 He calls it the Alcohol Ink Floating background, and this HERE is the link to his video, if you want to watch it.
 We've all seen the marbling technique done with shaving foam, but this one uses just plain water and alcohol inks. You will need a tub for the water, and it needs to be deep enough to dip your sheet of card into, not lay it on top.
So, you need to cut your card accordingly, and I cut most of mine down to A5 & A6. I found the tub that washing capsules come in was a great size for this, but Ice Cream containers and similar would work just as well. What you do is pretty much fill your container with water, then drip some Alcohol inks onto the surface. You can swirl it a little if you want. Then take your card and dip it fully down into the water, then lift out. You will need a surface with paper towels/ handtowels on to absorb the water.

 You can see I cut my pieces down to ATC size, then backed them onto ready cut ATC cards, as there is often a little curling in the wet cards, which you can get rid of most of by weighing them down when dry.You will get totally unrepeatable sheets of marbled card- and the best bit is that there is colour on both sides, so whilst one side may be poor, the other side can be amazing!






 First image to stamp was the heart, and this was a new purchase from Honey-Doo crafts, when I went to Port Sunlight. I stamped it at an angle, and partly off the card to give me room for everything else.

 Rather than doing each card entirely, I had a bit of a production line on the go- stamping each element on every card before going on to the next step.

 The inkpad I'm using is Archival, Cobalt Blue, by the way.



Next stamp was 'Laugh' and this was part of a set from WOW embossing powders, and also contains the two other words I used, 'Love' & 'Live'.

Now I've added the number 7, and that comes from a Tim Holtz set, called Mini Worn Text, which has letters, numbers & punctuation.

Here I've added the WOYWW letters around the edge of the heart, and also drawn an outline around the heart, this time using a Distress Marker, in  Faded Jeans.

I used a fine tipped black pen to draw a box around the words, and to colour in the first 'W'.

Now I added a white line around them too, as a highlight.
 I'm showing you a different ATC each time, so you can see the amazing range of colours you can get with this technique.

I've added some highlight to the '7'.

Adding some Faded Jeans around the edges with the round blending tool.

 A final touch up with the white gel pen, as I thought it had faded too much.

Filling in the backs, having used a stamp from Lost Coast Designs.

WOYWW #252

Almost lost track of the days this week. We had a long weekend, booking last Thursday and Monday off work, and I've only just realised its Tuesday!We had a night out on Friday, to the O2 Academy in Birmingham, to see 5 Finger Death Punch- they were AWESOME!!!!
I do my post up on Tuesday afternoon, and schedule it, because we work nights, and getting in at 6.30ish on Wednesday morning, I'm just about capable of linking in with our head Desker, Julia, at The Stamping Ground, typing up a post would be beyond me, lol. And my desk won't change overnight, unless the fairies get to it.

So this is what it looks like- the ink palette and blender pen arrived, the palette now filled with alcohol inks, and the blender pen with blending solution on the left.More on that in a minute. Just had to order a second palette, as I have more inks than I had spaces for. Some trial stamping with Gothic Fragments stamps beneath that.A tub of stylus tools with some ink pads on top. Bits of waste from dst, and a lone stamp on its block. Nothing very exciting.
Speaking of ordering stuff, I have a few times complained that I could not find refills for my Adirondack pads in this country. You can order them from the USA, but the shipping (and what you would probably get charged for Import duty) is ridiculous. That happened to Beloved Hubby last week. He wanted a rugged case for his new phone, not available over here, only from USA. Card off the post office through the door- Import Duty of almost £3, which wasn't bad, BUT, the Post Office also charged £8 for ' Handling Costs' related to the Import Tax! Total cost £11- how can they justify that? So I try not to order too much from the USA cost wise, just because of that Handling Charge. Anyway, back to what I was about to say-the site I found my palette and pen on, Country View Crafts, well, I was browsing, as you do, and what did I find? Adirondack pad refills! She must be the only place in the country that carries them. And, best of all, she has free shipping, with no minimum spend, which is always good, its quick too, my order turned up in a couple of days. So I shall be gradually getting refills for all my pads, some of them I've had for a few years now, and could do with a refresh.Final pic, and I had to put it at the bottom, so the pic doesn't show on FB, with RSS feed, is a Wedding Card for some friends getting married in a weeks time.

The embossed background is the Couture Creations Tied Together folder- love that one, its probably my most used. Little half pearls were added to the joins in the embossed design.The stamp is At the Altar, by Stampendous,stamped a second time onto a red vellum, and just the overdress cut out and added on top with Pinflair glue.Its a useful way of bringing the wedding colours into the card, I find. The message was printed on my pc, onto white pearl card. I chose the Ultra Glossy Photopaper setting in the printer, and the ink was wet enough for me to be able to sprinkle with Silver Detail embossing powder and heat set.

Distress Markers- a little playtime.

    I’ve had my Distress Markers for a while now, but only found a few minutes to have a go with them, so today I made a determined effort to do something more creative. I’ve watched the Tim video of him at the CHA, and loved what the pens will do,especially being able to colour straight onto the stamp. What really amazed me though was just how many impressions you can get from just one inking of the stamp.
   I had also bought the Papillon (CMS106) stamp set, Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous, and wanted to have a play with that too.  I had bought some Tim Die cuts on e-bay, dies that I haven’t got yet, and frankly, at the price, they’re a fantastic way to get a good selection. Loads of people are selling them on there, mine came from DIECUT HEAVEN, and I got the Sewing room set,some Weathered clocks, Cogs and Bird & Cage, and I think each set cost me around a £1, and the Sewing set for instance contained 10 each of the Mannequin, cotton reel and button.


 In the main, I used Clarity card for stamping on, again, only bought recently, but highly recommended by a lot of people I know. I can see why, having tried it. Its a silk coated card, and is indeed a beautiful surface to work on. Its A5 in size, and they pack it in either 25 or 100 sheets.
So back to my Tim Markers & stamping:





     This was the stamp I saw him using in his video, blending the inks on the stamp, then ‘huffing’ on it to re-wet the ink. So for my first go, I used :Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Frayed Burlap,Tea Dye, Aged Mahogany , Brushed Corduroy, Spun Sugar, Barn Door and Rusty Hinge.
As he explains, you can take your time at this, there is no rush to get the ink on, because you reactivate it by breathing on it.

  


You can see here that I got 4 impressions from just one inking, obviously getting paler each time, just by breathing on the stamp between impressions.The first one is on Clarity card, the second on a piece of white card that had been coloured by dipping into water that had had alcohol ink dropped into it, a technique from Andy Skinner, ( I’ve linked this to his video tutorial) the third onto a white pearlescent card tag, and the fourth onto a piece of white copy paper.
Being quite pleased with the success of this, I tried it again, using mainly Blues & Purples:


  The first one I did onto one of the Die-cuts, which is just a plain white cardstock, the next two onto Clarity card again, and the final and palest onto a  piece coloured using the Andy Skinner technique.
   Looking at this picture now, I think I have  number two & three the wrong way round, but the imprints were so close together in colour I wasn’t sure which way round they were.
The pens blend together wonderfully, and even working dark to light, you just scribble the pen onto scrap paper and the colour returns to true.
 Another stamp set I had was the Wallpaper & Wood set, also by Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous. I tried the Wood stamp using a combination of Distress Inkpads & Distress Markers.










Again, I got three really good impressions, and would have got a fourth,really pale one. For these, I first swiped all over the stamp with Pumice Stone Distress pad, then added Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo in thinner swipes & patches. Finally I added Walnut Stain, Tea Dye and Brushed Corduroy with the brush end of the Markers. All three pieces were done on Clarity Card, which is just a tiny bit bigger than the stamp.
I  also stamped one of the mannequins with the Wood stamp using Walnut Stain Distress pad,and then using another piece of  Clarity card,I stamped the Wallpaper, this time using a blue selection of Distress pads; Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans, Broken China & Tumbled Glass. I applied the pads using a slight swiping and twisting motion, so I got more of a blend of colour without any sharp edges.




Finally I stamped yet another mannequin, this time using the Papillon background with Archival Black ink.















So I have a few nice pieces now, and something to expand on. I think I might get some nice tags from the Wood background, and I am also thinking that the Butterflies would look good stamped over the pale Wood background as a second impression, using the first Impression to cut them out and mount over the stamped image, slightly raised, like the sort of thing you see in museums.
And perhaps a dress for the mannequin, cut from the Wallpaper background? Now that reminds me that I have a box full of fabric swatches somewhere- maybe a nice silky/shimmery piece of fabric draped over the mannequin? Methinks that the Tim Holtz magic is working, because Mr Mojo is definitely edging closer than he was this morning!