Two New Baby Easel Cards + Yesterday's Haul

Morning All,

And it is a lovely morning too - well, in Ayr it is and I hope it is wherever you are.

Recently my lovely niece, Louise, let us know that she is pregnant, and to say we are delighted is putting it mildly. You see, Louise has had diabetes since she was a wee girl and this has caused her no end of medical problems over the years - so having a family seemed to be just a dream to her. However, despite all this, she has remained a cheerful and happy girl who has taken the blows life has brought her on the chin and has even happily become the primary carer for her mother, my sister Margaret, who has MS.  All in all, a great girl, so you can see why I am so pleased I couldn't wait to make a card for the event even though the baby is not due until the new year! As you can see, I've made two - well, boy or girl? -  we don't know yet.

I was able to use a single sheet of 12"x12" scrapbook paper from Daisy Bucket Designs, appropriately entitled 'Perfect Harmony', because as you can see the colours cover both blue and pink shades.

I liked the combination of the singing birds with the sleeping babies. I also found a use for the card I  brayered and bleached recently, using pieces for the matting of the images.

Materials used for the boy card:
Stampin' Up smooth card, blue; smooth white card; Glossy white card; Big & Juicy, Hydrangea, Household bleach, Spritzer; Daisy Bucket 12"x12" design paper, Perfect Harmony; Stamps: Magnolia Sleeping Baby coloured with Promarkers, Pastel Blue, Blush, Ivory & Soft Peach; A Baby Boy stamped with VersaMark & embossed in white; Ribbon, pale green; Prima flower in turquoise; button, blue tied with cream twine

Materials used for the girl card:
Stampin' Up smooth card, pink; smooth white card; Glossy white card; Big & Juicy, Hydrangea, Household bleach, Spritzer; Daisy Bucket 12"x12" design paper, Perfect Harmony; Stamps: Magnolia Sleeping Baby coloured with Promarkers, Blossom, Pale Pink, Blush, Ivory & Soft Peach; A Baby Girl stamped with VersaMark & embossed in pink; Velvet ribbon, pink; Paper string, pink; Wild Orchid Crafts, rose & cherry blossoms, white (petals tipped with ProMarkers)

These cards are being submitted to Passion for Promarkers - Week 106 - babies

Friday was a bad day - I had to go to the dentist because I'd lost an old filling - oh, the pain! So as consolation we took a trip to Glasgow yesterday, to IKEA and to Craft World - the biggest craft shop I have ever been in - it was heaven :)  Of course, there was so much I wanted needed and quite a lot that I simply wanted. Here's the reason for the latest hole in my bank account.

Can't wait to play!

Happy crafting to you all,

More Bleaching - using different card + two completed cards

Good Evening Everyone,

Sample 1

Wet and blustery weather over the last couple of days has forced me into the craft room - yes, I know, not exactly a tragedy :) So, I wasted quite a few enjoyable hours trying out bleaching, with a dilute solution of bleach & water, on off-cuts of different types/quality/colours of card to see how it reacted.  And I had varying degrees of success. In the Sample 1 above all the card used is from Stampin' Up. This was the best result I got from all my experimenting as, after several applications, the bleach stripped a goodly percentage of colour out leaving pink on the red, lilac on the blue and green on the black.

Sample 2

The cards in Sample 2 were totally unsuccessful after the same number of applications of the solution. The green card (top) is from HOTP and the turquoise card is a pearlescent from Create & Craft TV. The HOTP card is textured and, unlike the SU card, the colour is only on one side, as it is on the pearlescent too. I suspect that it is the method of producing the colour and how it is applied, it is coated on top, to the cardstock that has stopped the bleach from stripping colour from it.

Sample 3

For Sample 3 I spritzed the card with the dilute bleach solution and again with varying success. The problem with spritzing is that you can't repeat the application in exactly the same place - it's all a bit hit and miss really. The solution had a very subtle effect on the red and green card, and that is after repeating the spritzing. However, the brayered sample on the left took only one application to get quite a good result.

Brayered Sample

You might recognise this sample as one of the pieces of Claritystamp card I brayered with a Big and Juicy ink pad earlier this week - for those who missed it and are interested you can find the post is here. And here's a close up of the card.

Brayered Sample close-up

 I think it makes a very passable snow scene so will probably use it on a Christmas card.

I have been card making this last week, well, I've made two cards to be precise but, as I was just not pleased with them when completed, I'm only posting them as a record for myself as to how I'm doing - not so good : (  The proportions are all wrong and I'm not sure about the ribbon embellishment in the birthday card, although it is there to hide the edges of the punched lace trim, it looks a bit odd. And the dark blue design paper, from the same pack as the pink one, on the Christmas card strikes me as somewhat discordant - hearken to me, like I know what I'm talking about! I've clearly still got a lot to learn about card composition - but, what the heck, I'm enjoying the challenge : )

So here's the Christmas card for Week 21.

The fairy and presents are Anita's Decorative Toppers, the white scalloped die-cut is sponged with Memento Angel Pink, as is the greeting stamp from Lily of the Valley (done in VersaMark and Heat it Up silver embossing powder). The matting is Claritystamp Matt-coated postcard brayered with Big and Juicy Hydrangea - one of the other samples seen in a previous post. The design papers are from Penelope & Percy A5 paper pack. Flower hand made. The binding is Paradise Aqua from The Ribbon Girl. The blue base card is recycled and the edges distressed with scissor and adhered to white card base.  

And here's the birthday card made for my granddaughter.

The stamp is from House Mouse Spring Dip and coloured with the following Promarkers:Ice Grey 1, Warm Grey 2 & 3, Putty, Satin, Blush, Pastel Beige, Caramel, Blossom, Pale Pink, Rose Pink, Pastel Yellow, Lilac, Powder Blue, Cobalt Blue.

Other materials used: Yellow card base; white cardstock; House Mouse Inserts CD Rom; Letters and Numbers computer generated; Whispers Ink Pad, Rio Purple; Anita's 3D Gloss (for jar & eyes); punched lace trim, polka dot card candy and yellow ribbon from stash.

Fortunately, Jolene was a lot more pleased with her card than I was - it had her name on it!

That's me for this evening - I'm off to play for a while with more paper and inks. I've discovered over the last year or so that one of the things I most enjoy doing is trying out different techniques. I can spend hours in the craft space happily pottering around but not actually making anything, just accumulating lots of samples which may, or more likely not, get used some day. Is it a disease, I wonder?

Hope you are all enjoying the holiday weekend and perhaps even getting better weather than we've had here.

Take care all,

Tomorrow Holds Many Wonderful Things - bleaching technique on the topper

Good Afternoon,

A few of you wanted to see what I did with my first attempt at bleaching - mentioned in this post here. Now, I usually consign my experiments to a box never to be seen again. However, your interest has made me do something about it this time and here's the result.

For the topper I first stamped docrafts Whispers flower stamp with VersaMark onto dark navy card and embossed with Heat it Up Silver powder. I then painted bleach onto the petals and leaves  to remove colour from the card.

Because I went on to paint the petals with Summer Shimmer paints you can't really see the effect of the bleach but it did strip most of the colour from the scrap of card I chose to try this technique on. You might be able to see it on the leaves if you get up real close. You are advised to use the cheapest of cheap bleaches but I only had thick bleach so I watered it down a wee bit before applying. I actually painted the bleach on several times and with this particular card the colour changed to a turquoise colour. I imagine other cards would produce different results so will be trying out other makes/colours/thicknesses to see what results I obtain - I'll make a record of this and post it for those who are interested.

When dry I painted the petals with Summer Shimmer paints - a freebie with this month's Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. After stamping and embossing the sentiment I matted and layered using holographic card and turquoise pearlescent card onto a white base card partially covered in design paper taken from Papermania's Birdsong 6" x 6" pack. The edges of the base card are sponged with Studio G ink pad, turquoise. Silver peel-offs, striped ribbon and white brad embellishment from stash. The DP was wrapped round to the back and the inside was decorated with off-cuts from the DP.

The 'Tomorrow' sentiment is from Lili of the Valley.

I don't know, I don't seem to be getting much done this week - going away for a long weekend seems to affect my output.  I haven't even started on this week's Christmas card yet - now there's no surprise! This is partly caused by the antics of the birds - it's like Spring Watch from my window and I get a grandstand view of fledglings begging for food from their parents and of them learning to fly - very distracting. A young starling even landed on my windowsill yesterday, all pooped out, panicking like crazy and looking for dad. A little rest and it was off again, flying over to the nearest branch.

Now, it doesn't make a great deal of difference to me, I'm retired after all, but we have a long weekend ahead of us in the UK so I hope the weather is good for those of you who are not retired. Right now it is not looking promising for us here in Scotland so fingers crossed.

Better get that Christmas card started.

Happy crafting,