Enjoy the Journey - Playing with Alcohol Inks and Plastic

Good Morning Everyone,

I'm still recovering from my big day at the SECC yesterday but thought I would post this card which is a compilation of a couple of the items on my desk on WOYW Wednesday - see here. I took the piece of card I'd dabbed with alcohol inks, gold mixative and blender solution, with which I wasn't all that happy, and stamped it with three of the Tim Holtz stamps. Still not that happy I decided to create an edge with gold embossing powder and decided it didn't look so bad after all : )

I'd also had a bash at the method for re-cycling plastic shown on The Crafty Cuttings of Wiccababe using Promarkers and blender solution. The plastic had to be trimmed before putting it through the Cuttlebug to emboss it. I used the Sun Rays folder from Craft Concept and the problem I found with this, which might just be down to my choice of embossing folder, was that the plastic bevelled alarmingly from the centre of the sun ray : (  However, it's not noticeable in the finished card because I used brads to fix first the small topper to the plastic, then that was attached, again with brads, to a layer of red card which picked up the colours of the Promarkers. As you can see I then matted it on to turquoise blue card and the whole lot went on to a black base card.

The insert was made by stamping the same stamps used on the topper on to white card immediately after the first stamping without inking up - this is the same as the ink, blot, stamp technique that Barbara Gray often demos. The more faded image was then scanned as a JPG image which I was then able to set out, using MS Publisher, on the upper left and bottom right of a page before printing out and trimming down for the insert.

Although I'm still not altogether happy with the end result, the EM really likes it (of course I pass everything to him for a quality control inspection)  and thinks it's a great man's card - so what do I know, huh!! : )

A bit of housekeeping here - a list of materials used:

• Cardstock: Black (C26) for base; Pale Turquoise (C11) & Ruby Red (C21) for matting and layering; all from Papermilldirect.co.uk
• Topper 1: Matt-coated Double-sided A6 Postcard (only half used) from Clarity Stamp; Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks, Red Pepper & Sail Boat Blue; TH Gold Mixative; TH Blending Solution; Archival ink pad, Jet Black, Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Stamp Collection; Versamark, Heat It Up gold embossing powder
• Topper 2: Piece of re-cycled plastic, Promarkers, Indigo Blue & Plum; TH Blending Solution; Craft Concepts Sun Rays embossing folder
• Embellishments: Gold coloured brads

Because of my jaunts out this week I am way behind schedule and my 'to do' list is looking somewhat unloved - so much to do and so little time!! However I'm off to try and catch up with visits to my fellow WOYWWers workspaces and I just have to finish the Christmas card for this week today.

Happy crafting to you all,