Snippet Sunday Card ... and in my garden today

Hello Everyone

Good morning to you all. I hope you are having a very happy weekend.

As you can see I've given my blog a bit of a makeover. The header, created using Serif Craft Artist, is a collage of some of my favourite things, including a photo of The Boss, and it's in shades of purple ... it's the colour associated with my zodiac sign so seemed a good choice. I see now I've forgotten to create shadows around the butterflies and title so more practice needed there! Do you like it? Do tell me what you think ... even if you hate it!

Today's share is yet another card I made earlier ... this time for a friend, Cass, whose favourite colours are pink and blue. This one gave me the opportunity to play with some recently acquired goodies and still use up a snippet or two ... this time it's the blue pearlescent card used for matting and layering.

The topper was created on white card using the Seed Head stencil, from Clarity Stamp, and Pinflair products that I brought back from the craft show in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago ... you can see a photo on this post here.

To make it I followed Pinflair's Antony's instructions for combining two shades of Buff-it paste, in this case Dark Green and Dark Blue, and sponged the mix through the stencil and then buffed it up - the resulting pattern has a lovely sheen. There's a series of demonstrations on how to use the paste on YouTube - click here for the first.

After applying the Buff-it the next step was to sponge on the Gentle Blends - colours used were Denim and Hot Magenta. Note: the pots of colour look quite a lot richer/darker than the actual soft shades once they are sponged on to card/paper! And they blend beautifully when using the sponge applicators.

That done, I trimmed the card down and matted it on to the pale blue pearlescent card and tied blue organza ribbon round it ready to attach it to the front of the card.

The front of the base card has been sponged with the same two shades of Gentle Blends too.

To finish the front I attached the topper, added a gem swirl cut from Merryweather Swirl Adhesive Gems from K & Company and some purple card candi ... from Craftworks Vintage Berries mix. This mix includes deep shades of blue, red, green, grey and the purple and has to be one of the most useful in my collection of card candi ... I'll be sad when it's done.

The trimmings from the topper were matted on to some strips of blue pearlescent card and used to finish off the inside and back of the card.

As it is Sunday, it's the start of a new week over at Pixie's Snippets Playground where, as usual, Di has posted a fabulous showcase of the snippeteers beautiful projects ... their ingenuity in finding ways of using up snippets and leftover scraps of paper and card never ceases to amaze and delight.

It's a bright and sunny day here with just a bit of a breeze keeping the temperature down and stopping me from doing too much in the garden. However, I recently nipped out with the camera and took this photo.

Not much to see you might think, just a lovely blue sky through bare branches! Not so!! This is one of the two flowering cherry trees (Prunus) that form an arch over our front gate. Ever since we moved in I've been looking forward to seeing them in bloom. So when I spotted the tiny flower buds appearing I just had to take a photo - just for the record.

The EM is very much better today and my shoulder is responding well to the anti-inflammatory medication so all-in-all we're doing just fine. Hope you are too :)

Take care and happy crafting,

September Tag

Morning Folks,

I hope life is treating you well wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

I have a tag, made for a swap, to share with you today and it's my homage to the great man himself, Tim Holtz.

Needless to say, I had almost nothing from the supplies required for this month's tag but nothing ventured, nothing gained :)  I simply followed his instructions, improvising, adapting and substituting as I went.

For example, where TH used a manila label, I cut a scrap of white card to size and shape, and where he used a star patterned stencil, I substituted star-shaped sequin waste. Embossing paste, I had none ... so I made some up, a vaguely remembered recipe Ali Reeves mentioned during a TV demo some time ago, mixing PVA (white/Elmers) glue with cornflour (cornstarch) ... it worked perfectly :)  And that is pretty much how I continued ... I got pretty stumped on a few of the steps but, after cogitating and deliberating over the instructions, usually thought of a suitable substitute for almost everything needed to complete the tag.

One of Tim's mantra's is that we should 'embrace imperfection'. Well, I have, quite literally by including it on the tag ... seemed appropriate somehow given how imperfect the tag is :))

I won't say there wasn't times when the little grey cells felt defeated but it was a very satisfying exercise and a great way to use a few snippets of card. And at the mention of snippets, I am reminded that I can submit my tag to Pixie's Crafty Snippets Playground - any excuse to visit the duck pond and feed the ducks :))

Materials used:

• scraps of white card from the snippet box
• Tim Holtz distress inks - Festive Berries, Peacock Feathers; Dried Marigold, Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo and Black Soot
• dimensional paste made with PVA glue and cornflour
• sequin waste, masks from Special Touch and Crafter's Workshop and a plastic stencil for numbers
• white acrylic paint
• stamps - Craft Stamper butterflies, Denami Design dragonfly and the ruler from a sewing set that was free with a magazine, Artemio key, alpha set for letters - maker unknown
• gold embossing powder
• punches - circles in two sizes
• Archival Jet Black ink, VersaMark
• Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chitchats and black marker
• white American seam binding - coloured with distress ink

Edit Note: having been ordered by BJ to enter this on Tim Holtz' blog NOW ... how do I dare to disobey :) 
Thus, I'm submitting this tag to Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - September 

It's dental check-up day, again :( Two appointments, one for the hygienist and the other for the dentist himself, groan ... I know it's essential but that doesn't make it any easier. Ah well, it will be soon over.

Hope you have something much more pleasant in your diary for today.

Take care and happy crafting,

Experiments with Gelli Plate Printing

Afternoon Folks,

First, an apology to Julia over at the Stamping Ground and all my fellow WOYWWers for not participating this week. I won't be here for the weekend and, as I am the slowest blog hopper on the planet ... I'm usually still visiting desks as late as Monday in an attempt to catch up ... better that I don't.

However, after watching a Barbara Gray (BG), ClarityStamps, masterclass on Create and Craft TV (recorded last weekend) I finally plucked up the courage to try gelli plate printing and I thought you might like to see the results. Of course, I didn't think, until after I was well into the experiment, to take photographs so what follows isn't a step-by-step documentary but it should give you some idea of the process.

To begin, I collected all the items BG recommended - tubes of acrylic paint, brayer, masks and items for creating pattern and texture, including a few stamps, copy paper, various types of cardstock - smooth, textured, watercolour - cut to measure 6.5" square, plus various smaller pieces to try out too, and, of course, the gelli plate ... mine is the 6" square size.

Just a few of the masks, stamps and other items I used for texture, e.g. the netting that oranges come wrapped in, sequin waste, bubble wrap and even a strip of trellis border punched with an EK Success punch. Note, this photo was taken after I'd covered everything with paint :)

Here you can see how the masks, etc., can be laid on the inked plate to create the patterns. With this one, the sequin waste didn't lie flat so I had to adopt a surprise attack mode, hover with a sheet of copy paper above and quickly but gently press down on it ... this method worked remarkably well :)

After starting slowing with just one colour of paint, I got bold and started to mix it up a bit. This has to be done with a light brayer ... go in heavy handed and mix it too much and you get mud ... the contents of my wastepaper bin is a testament to this! This mix is pretty. The following photos show a selection of results.

Pretty :)

By not cleaning the gelli plate, the results can be quite interesting too. You can see some black has merged with the yellows in one piece and orange in another.

By placing a small rectangle of card on the paint first and then the full 6.5" square on top you get this effect. The blank area is perfect for stamping on and the smaller piece is patterned too so can be used in different projects.

This piece has been decorated with the Butterfly Meadow by Crafter's Workshop ... I think I should have turned it upside down for this colour mix but it is still lovely.

 Stamping works well too, these are a selection from Docrafts and Sheena Douglass.

And it is possible to lift paint from stamps after stamping on the gelli plate ... a spritz of water gave this impression.

Even the build up on copy paper, after pressing on top of the templates/masks, etc., and cleaning the brayer, developed a nice pattern.

And after all that, I now have a pile of patterned card just waiting to be used to make projects ... I just have to think about exactly how.

As I said at the top, I'm away for the weekend ... to Aberdeenshire. It's my son's birthday on Friday so we are going to help celebrate. It's raining up there today so I hope it cheers up and the sun comes out for our visit.

In the meantime, I have some packing to do and I might even find some time to sneak into the craft room and do something with one or two bits of those gelli prints :)

Hope you have all had a lovely day, whether WOYWWing or not, and happy crafting,

Star Spangled Birthday Greetings

Hi Everyone,

And a fabulous Thursday to you all too. Here it's bright and sunny, with fluffy white clouds in a blue, blue sky - quite cheering looking from inside out - but, in truth, it's still icy cold out there and I'm still going nowhere!

I've a quick share for you right now, though I may be back later with more on the layout that can be seen on yesterday's photo of my workdesk.

Some of you might remember an earlier post - a couple of weeks ago - where I showed my testers of two new items - a chevron patterned mask and a white ink pad. I wasn't too sure at the time what I'd do with the result but here's the first completed card.

I think it would be great for either a male of female recipient ... well, as long as the female isn't too girly and into all things pink. The pennants are made from bits from the scrap box and just topped off with a bit of brown striped washi tape looped over a length of natural twine. Teeny sticker letters spell out the greeting and some punched gold stars are sprinkled here and there too.

There's a pennant and stars on the inside and the back for the finishing touch.

Materials used: Kanban white A6 card base; Papermania Kraftstax 6x6 square; Creative Expressions Special Touch Chevrons mask; Colorbox Frosty White ink pad; scraps of paper for pennants; BoBunny mini alphas; natural twine; brown striped washi tape; stars punched from gold textured paper

Right, it's time for lunch then the plan is to photograph the completed layout - well, it's almost complete, just got to write the journaling and I can call it done.

Oh, and the postie has just delivered more record cards so I can get back to working on the stamp catalogue.

Thanks for looking and if you can find time to comment I'll be delighted but, if not, that's fine too ... I know you all have busy lives, probably busier than mine ... I get to rest a lot nowadays :))

Take care everyone and happy crafting,

Butterfly Meadow on an Inky Background

Evening Folks

As usual, I hope you are all in fine fettle after the weekend and that you've had a good Monday.

I managed to catch up on a recorded programme this afternoon  - Barbara Gray's afternoon hour and the second of Ali Reeves - forgot to set the TV to record her earlier one :(

Ali made a background with the inking a stamp block technique and, as it looked easy and effective, I have had a go ... here's the result.

For the background I've used three shades of TH's distress inks - green, yellow and blue. The stamp block was inked up and then spritzed with water before stamping it all on some white card.

The foreground is made using a mask and black ink. Once fully dried the piece was simply trimmed and matted on to black card before attaching it to a white card base. Nothing fancy - I think any embellishments would be too fussy for a note-card and I like it as it is.

Materials used:
Kanban white card base
Card - square of Docrafts Papermania white card; a snippet black cardstock for matting
Inks - Tim Holtz DI, Shabby Shutters, Scattered Straw and Stormy Skies and Black Soot
Crafter's Workshop 6x6 Template, Butterfly Meadow

The only snippet used is the black cardstock used for matting so not made a great deal of difference to the snippet mountain. However, it does mean that I can pop over to the playground, that's Pixie's Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 62, and see what's going on there.

I'd also like to submit this to Quirky Crafts Challenge Blog - where the requirement is to Make a Quirky Mess with Paints, Inks, etc.

The technique is fun to do - I think I'll do a bit more experimenting with colours, inks and, maybe some silhouette stamps instead of the mask ... well, I only have the one scenic mask so it could get repetitive :) The possibilities are endless.

Still plodding away at cataloguing the stamps ... this is a job that could run and run :)

Thanks for dropping by and take care everyone.

Happy Crafting,

Canvas with Four Pretty Little Maids

Good Morning All

Yesterday I worked on my August Mojo Monthly project hosted by Sarah at La De Dah - link here ... talk about skidding in at the last moment! Really I've been planning what to make for some time but other things, life, etc., have just got in the way. Anyway, I finally got to it yesterday and this is the result.

Sarah's suggestion this month was that we did something with envelopes and her examples, using window style envelopes, are terrific ... but I didn't have any of those in my stationery box. So, as usual, I improvised - I made paper roses, and leaves, from the windowless, shiny, manila type that were to hand. And, because I didn't have enough of the right sized circle punches, I cut them out using my Marianne die. I then distressed the roses, before curling, with a Vintage Photo ink pad and rubbed a white ink pad over the tips and also the leaves - you can just about see this in the photo.

The canvas got two coats of white gesso - these canvases do come  already gessoed but I just like to give them a couple of more coats - before dabbing with a salmon dabber over one of Tim Holtz mini masks, Florets, for the background. The salmon was a bit brighter than I anticipated so I rubbed Vintage Photo around the edges to tone it down some. Then I added embellishments roughly based on Sarah's example, using what I had to hand in the way of ribbons and lace, but with the addition of one of my family photographs, scanned and printed down to a size that fitted. These lovely little girls are my greats - three great-aunts, Wilhelmina, Henrietta & Janet, and my grandmother, Martha (bottom right). Aren't their bonnets amazing - I think they must be wearing their 'Sunday best' for this photo.

Here's a close up of the trim detail, some peach organza ribbon, cream tape, a leaf and a flat-backed pearl. The trim under the photo has some cotton lace and a very fancy beige trim added. The title, 'Family', was computer generated using Ancestry SF font.

So, that's it - another Elizabeth work of art destined to be hung in the gallery we now have established in the downstairs cloakroom, where it will be gazed upon by all our visitors, no doubt :)

Tomorrow Sarah will post yet more inspiration and an interview with a featured artist so if your mojo has deserted you, or even if you just want to see some truly wonderful creations, take a peek at her blog - La De Dah - and join in the fun if you will.

In the meantime, happy crafting to you all,