Playing with paper.

Sir Tims Tags

2011-12-03T12:47:00.004Z

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas started a couple of days ago.. wooohooo. Time for me to make do, bodge, get inky and burn myself time ;o)

This is my version of the Sir Tims first tag and I've taken more than a few liberties lol. I dont have his noel, banner & foliage dies so I've had to make my own noel in scal, use punches and hand cut the banner from brown wrapping paper then use the SU music wheel to add some pattern, not that you can really see anything of the banner lol.

Tim used silver glitter over his noel but I wanted to do something with a bit less bling so double cut the word, distressed one with walnut stain and covered the other with tombow mono and some gold leaf from indigo-blu before offsetting them to get a slight drop shadow.

Tag was cut from green textured card which was then embossed, partially heat embossed as per Tims instructions. I don't have those pretty pearls or the ribbons so I used 2 different sorts of ribbons and attacked em with a heat gun to get them to crinkle.

I did use the tattered pinecones die (and burnt my fingers on the hot glue gun) but I had to use Cansons Mi-Tientes art paper and distress it up a bit with walnut stain. There are some bits rescued from the year befores' crackers, couple of hat pins and various punched & diecut leaves.

It might be a real bodge job but I really like my tag.

New card on test.

2011-11-08T18:14:00.002Z

Going back a couple of weeks I was asked to test some cardstock which Joanna Sheen was considering stocking. Now a lot of folk know I like to test things to see if it "does what it says on the tin" so I jumped at the chance to have a play. Oops, adding in it's called Elegance Satin and it's available in 300gsm and 160gsm.

One massive ink & paint testing day later I'm making a start of a review. I'm writing this over a few days and a good week or so before posting to the blog so if you notice any time jumps it's because I'll add in as I go rather than edit to make it look like I sat and typed all in one go.

If you're not particularly finniky about your colouring and are happy with your current card which you buy because it's cheap you might just as well skip the next couple of paragraphs where I'm having my normal rant about card ;o)

From the outset I have to make my feelings clear about paper & card quality. For me the quality of the paper is paramount, if I'm going to spend my time making a card I want it to be as good as I can possibly make it. When hubby first started painting many moons ago I really couldnt see the point in him buying artist quality mediums or quality watercolour paper because in all honesty he wasn't very good at painting. Roll on a fair few years when I've finally taught myself to like rubber stamping and I have a need to "paint"... I finally see the point.

Best quality mediums and papers actually make it easier to blend and give a better result. If I don't get a good result I know it's not the paper or pen that's at fault, it's me needing to improve! Yes the mediums & paper are slightly more expensive but I see no point in saving a few pennies on a sheet of card if it's noticeably cheaper or I don't get as good a result. You will get a better result with best paper & cheaper mediums than you will expensive mediums and cheaper/unsuitable paper.

Back to the review, it's a long one so I hope you're sitting comfortably.

I'm going to take this in a few sections focusing mainly on alchohol markers but I'll also test them with: 2. watercolour techniques (pencils, crayons, inkpads & markers) 3 polycrhomo & pastel pencils, 4 timholtz type techniques, 5 a few other oddsies.

1) alchie markers, I tried copics, promarkers, flexmarkers and spectrum noir pens on an image stamped with memento.

I switched to neenah from staples text and graphics a while back because I wasn't happy with how e0000 & e000 were turning a weird orangey colour but while the neenah is ok for keeping a true colour I found it prone to bleed across the lines. Using Joannas 300gsm card and the copics, wow just doesn't do the card any favours. I prefer a very blended look rather than a quick light dark quick blend method so I really scrubbed in a lot of layers in very small areas and allowed no drying time in between. Where I would have expected to get a huge bloom because I'd saturated the card there was none, nada, zip, not even a sniff of bleed. I had to have another go just to make sure it wasnt a fluke but my memento was hiding out of sight in amongst the chaos... so I tried a walnut stain distress ink and coloured in with a 000 pen literally straight away... a few people are going to be reading this and thinking smudgy mucky mess... nope, no smudge at all, the walnut ink stayed in perfect position. I was Impressed with a capital I about that one! Taking more care colouring the images I found I didnt need to blend quite as much as I normally do and looking back on the images a couple of days later I can't see where I changed pens. Not often that's happened before as I can nearly always see an echo of the blending area. I have to be honest I did then try the 160gsm and I had the tiniest of bleed along a hairband on an image, it could have been me going over the lines but until I've done a few more images I'm not going to swear to it being one or the other.

I'm not as comfortable with promarkers & flexmarkers as I am copics but I quite surprised myself and found they blended easier than normal. As with the copics not the slightest sign of bleed and I used a pink lavender flexxie straight over walnut distress ink, again no smudging. I do have my suspicion that the lighter flexmarkers were bleaching out the darker colours more than I'm used to on neenah but it could have been my imagination so this weekend the playday girls are going to be inadvertent testers lol Ok, consensus is in from several of the playday ladies and it's a huge thumbs up with questions on where can they buy and how much. Like me Tracy managed a little bleed but just like me she thinks it might have been her fault rather than the cards. No one reported colours being bleached out so it must just have been me having a rather long day.

Finally I tried the few spectrum noir pens I have with it. If you've read my review of spectrums you'll know I'm not a fan, I don't like how they blend and I don't like the nib marks they can leave behind. Sorry Joanna, the card hasnt made me like the speccies but they did react better to the card than they did on neenah. Nuff said about spectrums otherwise I'll be having more hate mail for not liking them.

2) watercolour techniques.

Umm, odd one this one as I wasnt expecting the results I got. If you're used to watercolouring over the back of linen/hammered cardstock or whatever you happen to dap your hands on first you'll be fine. If you're used to best quality hot pressed watercolour paper you wont be impressed. Using pencils, inks & markers with a damp brush I found I needed more wet than I'm used to which makes it harder to control the shading. I also found the pigment didnt really want to move around which made graduated blends very difficult. Oddly though I found a much better result with my SU watercolour crayons and they felt nice when applying to the card as they glided rather than stuttered over the surface iykwim. I would still prefer to use my langton watercolour paper.

3) polychromos & prismas. If I'm using my polys as a colouring pencil I prefer a paper with a bit of key to it so I can use the lighter pencil to pull the dark colour through. No chance with this card, it's far too smooth and I can't lay down enough layers. Colouring all over then softening & evening it all out with stumps and sansador worked really well. I'm not a big poly user tho and sent some paper off to one of the ladies I class as an expert prisma colourer iner and as soon as she gets back to me I'll add in her response.

4) Timholtzy type techniques. For those who haven't got on with cutndry and blending over the edges of card.. best try this and think again!! We've been told good alchie pen card isnt good with dye inks but this card is fab! It's silky smooth and the cutndry (I was using the tool) just glided over the surface and even deliberate edge lines blended away really easily. I covered a whole a5 sheet with no problems taking the tool into the centre and the ink reacted beautifully when I sprinkled it with water. From there I tried the wrinkly free technique.. wiping a few pads across the craft mat, misting with water and dunking a piece of card in to pick up the colour. First one not so great as I was penny pinching and used the back of an image I'd tried to watercolour... the versafine was pulled through the card and over the top of the distress inks. New card, same test... great result, I'd have to say the best I've had as there was no muddying of the colours except the edges but that was down to me leaving it to airdry because I was too impatient to get to the next test lol. Next I tried stamping with distress ink and pulling the colour out with a damp paint brush.. the ink didnt move in the slightest.. tried again.. new stamped image and a soaking wet brush.. still the same and not a smidge of colour movement. I'm stumped at this.. the ink reacted so well to raindrops that I was fully expecting it the colour to drag out and leave a soft line, weird!

5) oddsies, bet everyone is wondering about this lol. Will keep it short and sweet as it's just a collection of little tryme's.

Folding, the 300gsm is so heavily pressed it feels more like 250gsm so I wouldn't use it for a postage box but for a hand delivered box it's ideal. It scored and folded beautifully without any cracking, creasing, puckering or scuffing along the fold line. Very neat, precise and professional fold. I found it also embossed in a folder well and again with no tiny rips in the embossed areas, makes a nice surface to then ink over. While the bigshot was out I tried the 300gsm with my very intricate snowflake edge memory box die that's as finnicky as I am about card. It cut beautifully, popped straight out of the die and I had next to no bother seperating the diecut from the waste.

Brayering, now I'm not a Barbara but I get by as a rule. Even if I say it myself I had a good result with a brayer, a kaleidacolour inkpad and the 300gsm card. Very even tones, with no stripes (I'm prone to stripes if I haven't brayered for a while and I haven't had the brayer out for months). The card isn't glossy so I didn't get that polished look but it was nice to have a soft sheen rather than a gloss. I'll certainly be using this card with brayers again.

Paint Fusion/Onestroke. For those who've tried paint fusion you'll know what I mean by sticky dry brush... for those who don't it's when you're halfway along with a brush stroke and the brush feels as though there's no paint left or that it's sticking to the paper. This is one of the worst feelings as you need the brush to move smoothly as you twist & wiggle and as soon as it gets sticky you don't get quite as good a result, well I dont. Normally if I'm doing a long variagated leaf I get to the end of the stroke and the brush is sticky and I can't get a nice lift & slide to finish the leaf. I've often been tempted (and have occasionally) added an artists flow medium to the paint to try and avoid sticky brush. On a stroke of genius I tried with Joannas card and the brush just slid so smoothly not only did I get to the end of the stroke but I turned the card and managed the otherside AND I got the lift that I rarely manage. Woohoo, I might just be brave and onestroke all of my christmas cards this year.. In reality I won't tho as I have the attention span of a gnat and will be hankering after rubber and copics and distress inks before they're all done.

Now if you've skim read because it's such a long review in short,

A maazing for alchie pens, not great for watercolour painting, fantastic with distressing inks & techniques, great for brayers, good for folding but not postage boxes, works well in diecut machines & embossing folders, good for sansador & pencils, must have for paintfusion/onestroke cards. My personal opinion is that this is a fantastic card which more than deserves a home in any playroom.

more dodgy photos lol

2011-10-28T18:46:00.003+01:00

Well at least this one is around the right way even if the colours are as murky as the local "stream"

This is a late edition to Sundays playday projects but fits in nicely with the handkerchief card.

I found the project in this months Papercraft Inspiration but Kay found a rather nice project on a blog. Jackies is much nicer than mine though.

Not much to it really, first edition papers, crumb cake 12" card, crumb cake & pretty in pink taffeta ribbon, spray of flowers, retired su sentiment and lots of frayed burlap ink. In real life it's much paler than the pic and the burlap isnt as grungy.

3rd card in 2 days

2011-10-27T20:14:00.002+01:00

I've got no idea why this one is posting sideways. It was taken the right way up, is the right way up on my pc then I upload it! Perhaps it's taken offence at the way the camera flash has affected the colours lol.

This is the 3rd card made in just over 24 hours and if anyone is wondering who lit a fire underneath my rather large rear... Kay did when she reminded me we have 3 birthdays this month! lol

This one is using a Miss Anya stamp, first edition papers, SU card (pool party and calypso coral), a marianne flourish die, memory box flourish die, leone em punch & flowers.

Third card also coloured with copics! I can't say who but someone else is to blame for that as she asked me to try a new card that she's thinking of stocking. Well what could I do but give it a good testing. I'll post in a few weeks with a review and let on who it was but I will let on that the card was enough to reignite my interest in copics and cause me to go spend a fair few pennies on the new ciao shades.... and a few more sketch. Kay spent ages at playday sorting all my pens into numerical order and marking the charts as to which of the storage cases they were in... oops Sorry Kay... not only have I had about 60 of them out without putting them back yet.. when the new ones arrive the system will need doing again ;o)

Anya bday card

2011-10-27T20:05:00.003+01:00

Taking photos mid evening in winter is never a good idea but the weather has been foul here today and if I wait for decent light this one would never have seen a camera. In real life it's a very pale mint blue with mink & soft pink papers and I've used a sketch from sketchnstash

Very neglected miss anya stamp with new papers from firstedition. Pool party cardstock, crumb cake taffeta ribbon and a sentiment from SU.

Coloured with copics, predominently g000, 00, 02, R00, 02, 20 & e40s.

ott or what lol

2011-10-27T19:56:00.003+01:00

It's one of my bestest mates birthdays next month and I'm always pulling her leg that she puts too much stuff on a card. So in honour of her 80s disco dancing days I had to go ott (for me) with the flowers and glitter lol.

Layout from Sketch Saturday.

Tickled pink image coloured with loads of copics, mainly 0xx ones, (g000, b00, bo2, rv02, rv04 etc).

Papers are retired SU ones, with retired barely banana embossed in a folder and a weeny amount of stickles added to each dot. Tempting turquoise card & the curly cute sentiment are from the current catty. Bling & loads of flowers to finish. She'll prolly say it needs something down the left side and she'll prolly be right lol.

No stamping

2011-10-19T17:02:00.002+01:00

This one is sort of a mix of an idea I had when I saw this snowflake border die and one of Sue Wilsons samples cards on c&c today. Surprisingly it doesnt have a single stamped image! Now that's a phrase I thought I'd never say.. it took me best part of 14 years to teach myself to like stamping, now I have I can't remember not using a stamp of some sort even if it is just a sentiment!!

Photo doesnt show it but I've used a pale cream pearlescent card stock with some gold pearl card. Swiss dots embossing folder on the base layer then top & bottom is diecut with a memory box snowflake border die. The die is truly beautiful, unlike some dies the card pops out as easy as anything and soo delicate (it's a bit of a pain to stick 3d) but, and it's a big but, it was an absolute nightmare to seperate the ends of the flourishy/snowflakey pattern from the waste and the end of the die left a shadow crease which I've hidden with the ribbon. The die preferred to run longways down my bigshot plate and right up against the side. It cut white 300gsm card ok but it didnt go near to cutting some thick (and tough) white double side pearl even with a couple of shims and rolling it back and forwards a few times. Not so sure many people are special enough to warrant me using this die for their card and if they are can I face it again? lol.

The (2) bauble dies are also memory box and they went throught the bigshot beautifully and I'm really chuffed with how they've came out.

Ribbon is one I picked up years ago from one of the ribbon stands at a show.

yeovil playday

2011-09-27T20:01:00.002+01:00

This is a sneaky peek of my project for the playday we're holding in Yeovil on Oct 30th. Pics arent great thanks to dodgy weather in bristol yesterday so my daylight bulb is glaring on the image.

Card, ink, floral punched strip & script stamp all from SU. whiff of joy image watercoloured, marta stewart patp around the edges.

I do still need to stamp and distress another 4 triangles for the inside but the ink's put away for now and I'll finish off before playday.. prolly the night before lol.

flexmarkers 2nd impression

2011-09-14T21:51:00.002+01:00

Havent had chance for much more than a small play blending a few of the colours and I have to admit to being sort of impressed. The brush tip is really soft and flexible and was lovely to brush over the paper.

I didnt find they blended quite as quick or as easily as they did on tv but using light dark light method I managed to get aniseed & chartreuse to blend in together very quickly and easily. The blending seems to take a few seconds after the colour has been applied rather than as you're going. Admittedly it wasnt the super smooth transition you get with 4 or 5 different copics, it was a sort of bleed in together more akin to 2 watercolour paint meeting together than a soft gradient, but for quite a light yellowy green and a more bright leaf green it was impressive.

Greens arent a colour I have a lot of in promarkers but the flexmarkers worked well with the grass promarker. It wasnt soo happy with a dark bg96 or g99 copic and I did need to work a bit harder to blend the 2 brands together. I'm more likely to use one or the other brand rather than try to blend the 2 together again but at a pinch it wouldnt bother me if I needed a colour in one that I didnt have in the other and I'd happily use the 2 different brands on the same image.

If I had to make a conclusion on such a short play I would say that diehard expert copic users might find the blending a bit clumsy. For those who arent looking for artist quality colouring or are just starting out you'll love them as they are definitely easier to pick up and start colouring.

What wasnt so impressive was the bleed across the lines but I was using staples 160gsm colour laser printer paper rather than a posh alchi pen specific paper. Up until this new batch of staples paper I had been pleased with it but I have noticed that the very pale skin tone copics are developing an orangey glow. Not good so I've gone over to neenah which I wasnt impressed with before compared to my old favourite mondi brand laser paper. Oh well, will try the flexmarkers on neenah and bristol board tomorrow and report back.

Being honest even though I love alchie pens I think I'll always find watercolouring, either from pencils, crayons, inkpads or my SU markers, a lot quicker and easier. It's not going to stop me buying more copics and flexmarkers. Perhaps if I win the lottery I'll try some shinhans as well lol.

New Flexmarkers have arrived

2011-09-14T17:26:00.002+01:00

Ok I'll admit I'm a colour junkie, I'm totally addicted to inkpads, inks, pencils, paints & markers. The newest addition has just arrived, 4 sets of flexmarkers. Now I'm not a huge fan of promarkers, love the colours but not the nibs, but the new pens have got a brush marker tip so I couldn't resist.

First thoughts are that I like how the colours have been selected as they seem to each have a natural shading match. I'm also quite impressed with the plastic packaging.. normally it's grab the scissors and fight to get in to the goodies but these are in a clamshell packaging which just popped open and can be closed again. Pens are held in their own nicely fitting chanel so the pens don't *need* their own special storage. Please note I said *need*, that's different to want and chances are if I like them I'll be storing them in a wallet similar to the ones I keep my copics in. For the moment my purse has to remain closed tho.. sneaky peak SU order has more or less wiped me out but it was sooo worth it lol.

Anyways enough about storage & packaging and let's get to the good stuff.. the pens! Unlike normal promarkers these have got a wee coloured circle on both lids so seeing which is which is going to be dead easy no matter which storage is used. On the downside though the lids are the same both end so there's no quick easy way to tell which end is which. Going to be a little bit of an annoyance but hey ho copics get on my nerves when I get them round the wrong way but it hasnt stopped my buying or using them lol.

Crikey these lids are bloomin hard to pull off, can see this being a problem for those who havent a lot of strength in their hands. Ah first problem, colour on the brush end of tea rose is decidedly different to the chunky end and is coming out as more solvent and little pigment. Water melon is ok though, so going to try the rest. Back, tea rose has dried to the same shade but lemon chiffon, honey dew and aquamarine havent. I have read about this problem and the solution seems to be to keep using them and it will sort itself out. I have found another problem (I've read about it happening to other people as well) and that's a duplication of soft mauve and I'm missing a pink lavender. Oh well, will email Joanna Sheen and let her know it's not just the c&c packs that have duplication problems. Will ring letraset in the morning as apparently they're sending out single pens, unfortunately the 2nd soft mauve has a cracked barrel so it's not even worth hoping they'll let me keep it lol.

My palms are now hurting from taking 48 caps off! So I'm going to give it a break while I have a cuppa then I'll have a go at colouring with them and see if I can get the lemon chiffon, aquamarine & honey dew to play nicely.

BTW I've already made a colour chart for them, it's split into 4 boxes just a tad under 15 * 10 cms ready to fit a tag in my flipflop album and has all the set 1 - 4 colours as well as the flexmarker shades that arent available in promarkers. If anyone wants the pdf just email me and I'll send one over. Please don't leave your email addy in the comment section as although I'm sure I only get nice visitors you never know. bbl

Next months project

2011-08-15T17:25:00.002+01:00

For those who didnt see it this is the project for Septembers playday, an advent calender. It's roughly 6" cubed and when finished will have an easel card on the top.

Takes a whopping amount of card to make, at least 20 a4 sheets of base card and some scraps to decorate. I've used the waste from last years xmas cards (marina mist card stock, see it pays to save the bits lol).

Images are from the delightful decorations and contempo xmas stamp sets and stamped with marina mist on to whisper white before using the coordinating bauble punch. Numbers are from a retired spellbinders die and before anyone asks no I'm not bloomin diecutting any more... you can all do your own :op There were times when I was cutting all the 1s that I thought I was loosing the will to live!! For one time only peeloffs will be permitted at playday ;o)

I was right lol

2011-08-12T18:36:00.002+01:00

I knew I'd end up cannabalising the card I wasnt happy with a few days ago and I was right to do so, well I think so.

I very carefully took the card apart and cut the castle & pots away using a sharp scalpel. The mermaid thankfully came away without any damage. The base is a stair card which I cut with scal from lilac and white card. The white was distressed with bundled sage and tumbled glass ink before stamping the lavinia fronds randomly around the edges. LOTV sentiment punched out with a SU circle punch and matted with the scalloped circle punch. The lil fish charm has had a thread sewn with some crystal beads before being attached to a sparkly ribbon bow. The card is for our youngest (and best behaved) member at the monthly playday who celebrates her birthday later this month.

Fun in the sun

2011-08-12T18:26:00.002+01:00

The theme this week on Kenny K's Krafty Girlz challenge in fun in the sun and this was just the nudge I needed into using this fabby icecream girl image.

I've used copics to colour her and she's matted on to one of my shapes cut with scal. Background papers are from dcwv, either dressed up or rockstar. The pic doesnt show it but there's loads of silver & glitter in the paper. The narrow trellis band is a deep lattice punch from martha stewart which has had the scallops sliced off. Sentiment & matching scallop square punch from SU. Wild orchid flowers, 2 crystal hat pins from creative expressions although I have pinflair glue gelled some beads to the bottom of the pins to hide the point.

One of those cards

2011-08-10T18:55:00.002+01:00

After having one of those cards that just comes together sooo well I should have known the next one would be a total disaster.

I bought some new stamps from chocolate baroque and decided I wanted to make an aperature and back it with some caught in crystal acetate. Acetate made, check looked good. Stamped and aperature cut, add a watercolour wash.. check. So far so good and everything was working well... so stuck it all down and in a moments madness decided I wanted to darken the wash. Just one of those moments that you wish you'd stuck to the knowing it was enough, wash was too dark for the caught in crystal so off comes the acetate, grrrrrrrrrr. Next bright idea... stick some of the black pearl underneath instead but add a wavy embossed pattern. Looked ok so I stuck it down well with tombow. Then realised the oval is too big to carry a dark inner and the wash is looking a bit plain. Add in some starfish and shells... still needs something.. I know weeds hanging down.. now where did I put those stamps?? Havent got the foggiest where the weed stamps went to so I was left having to use Lavinia hanging vines.. too late to stamp directly on the card so I had to stamp them on seperate watercolour paper and cut them with a scalpel! Add in some peeloff borders and it's STILL missing something lol. Hopefully someone at playday will have some tiny fish stamps ;o) I'm not happy with it so don't be surprised if it gets butchered and appears as something else lol.

Wash, background, shells & starfish painted with distress & su inks. Mermaid painted with cosmic shimmer drawing ink although used tattered rose distress ink for skin. Hints of daler & rowney shimmery blueacrylic artists ink (interference rather than solid colour) with bubbles made with crystal effects.

playing with browns

2011-07-29T19:31:00.002+01:00

Bit of a hodgepodge of reasons for this one.. hubby had a clear out a few days ago and there were 3 fabby cream brocade buttons that just had to be snipped off before the waistcoat went to the recycling. Those ribbons got me thinking.. I've never done an image card in nothing but my favourite brown tones so there was 2 things I wanted to do with it. Then on KennyKs challenge blog the theme is pocket cards and I havent really done one of those either. Next came a thread on one of the forums about feeling guilty about buying stash.. well I'd just sorted out my markers and had a pang of guilt of having a full set of polychromos that have been used so rarely I've not even needed to sharpen the flesh tones. So here we have it.

Kenny K image coloured with just about every brown, yellow ochres and orange polychromo there is. My own nested shape cut with scal, vanilla grosgrain ribbon and ornament stamp & retired papers from SU. MS & SU punches, and flowers from wild orchid.

I'm entering this one in to

Kenny K Crafty Girlz - pocket card
Truly Scrumptious - buttons and bows
Totally Gorjuss - punches or dies
DYSU Challenge - yellow, orange and brown
PixiedustChallenge - monochromatic card in favourite colour.
paperpretties - no markers

pinkink 2

2011-07-29T13:59:00.003+01:00

I thought I was cutting it dead fine or a tad too late with this one for the pinkink sketch challenge. Then I looked again and they're a fortnightly challenge so I could have spent a few minutes longer getting it just right (d'oh lol)

Rockstar papers, su & ms punches, su sentiment and music note wheel, perfect pearls, wild orchid flowers and the tilda I started to colour on my copics versus spectrum noir pens post.

She's coloured with copics, with bg & yg shades.

spectrum noir versus copics

2011-07-27T16:56:00.007+01:00

I decided in the fairness of testing the spectrum noirs against the copics I'd weight things in favour of the spectrum noirs just in case my dislike of crafters companion was influencing me. To weight things I restricted myself to bg01, bg05 and bg09, all in the same blending family but the 3 most extreme to blend together. I already know that bg01 is going to be a lot darker than the spectrum noir 171 or 178 and I'll get less of a highlight. In normal usage (and if I had them all lol) I'd have used a bg000, bg02, bg05, bg07 & bg09 to get maximum shading.

This time I'm using stampinups whisper white paper and because I coloured side by side it allowed the ink to totally dry between shades. Not a single bit of bloom so I'm a lot happier with the results.

Technique wise I went with more of a flick motion and along the lines of the flick hair video on colour me copic blog.

On the left is the spectrum noir in 178 and the right is the copic bg01

The pic hasnt shown it very well but I added some 171 to get a more graduated effect before adding some 68 midtones then some 65 for the darkest shadow. I've used bg05 for the copic midtone and bg09 for the darkest. I havent attempted any blending, just laying down the colour.

I've used the midtones to blend the darker shades, both images show just how large a difference there is between the mid & lighter colours.

This time I've gone back over with the lighter colours to blend mid to light.

In real life there is still more blending to do and it needs more dark on both images.

The spectrum image has been gone over twice more with dark, medium & light and I had to use a lot more ink/blending strokes whereas the copic only needed a few more light touches.

It could be my imagination but the lighter spectrum colours seem to bleach out the darker colours more than copics do.

I'd probably use either image if I'd paid more attention to proper highlight placements.

Will I buy more spectrum noirs? Nope, not unless I've had a chance to play with other colours and find the colours blend more naturally.

Spectrum noir 2nd impressions

2011-07-27T13:12:00.008+01:00

First testing finished. I did try using light medium, light, dark, medium, light method but that was sooo bad I have up and went to dark medium light blending.

Photo is better than the real life image where the difference between the light and medium shade is extremely harsh, specially on the arm and hat. I wouldnt use this image even if the ink hadnt have bloomed.

Using 65

Adding in 65 and blending over about 1/3rd of the darker shade.

Added in 171 , again blending over about 1/3rd before adding some more 65 and blending that in to the 68 again. You can really see the harsh lines between the 171 & 65.

I've gone back over again and tried harder to blend the 3 shades together. The ink seems a lot juicier than my copics and promarkers and even on neenah and leaving a minute or 2 between colours you can see where the colour is blooming across the edges.

2nd impression... not impressed. These pens are being marketed as easier to blend as they've been put in to blending families but if I had to make a recommendation I would say to add a shade in between 171 and 65 as there's just far too big a difference between light and medium. It's probably the same as using a bg11 copic with a bg15. With a lot of practise they're probably going to be ok but these arent pens for those with the attention span of a gnat (me sometimes lol) and those that expect to pick up a pen and turn instantly into a virtuoso artist.

Will practise some more... back later lol.

spectrum noir first impressions

2011-07-27T11:20:00.004+01:00

First thought was ooh these are chunkier than I thought they'd be. They're even chunkier than the promarkers and feel quite uncomfortable in my small but really pudgy hand, not just because they're larger but being square they dont sit as well. Pen thickness is a personal thing though so I'm not going to mark them down for that.

Nice to have a pen that doesnt roll off the desk though. Nib wise the nibs are not far different in size to the promarkers.

The colours on the pen lids don't appear to go together. I did a first test swatch and it could be my eyes but I would say there are 2 distinct colour tones, one being more of a greeny sea turquoise the other a petrol blue turquoise.

There are light, mid and dark tones in each trio although at first glance it's hard to see which light shade goes with which colour way, looks very much as though you could get away with both as 178 is decidely lighter than 171.

I've got no gripes or whinges about the coverage and once the ink is down I don't think anyone would ever know which brand of pen had been used.

For those used to copics way of numbering (letter denotes colour family, first number the tone and the next numbers the strength of colour with 0 being the lightest) the numbering system on the spectrum noirs is going to drive you loopy. There seens to be no obvious pattern to the numbering. Like copic sketch the number being onthe lid will be handy when hunting in a case but not so great for those who want to keep them in a drawer.

Off now to do a real test with a couple of stamped images.. now which stamp shall I chose lol.

crafters companion spectrum noir pens

2011-07-27T09:45:00.004+01:00

There's been a slight buzz in a couple of uk forums about the launch of new alchie pens from crafters companion. Same sort of pens as copics and promarkers but a lot cheaper and they will be refillable although at the time of writing this there's no idea about how much or when the refills will be available. As we speak I've got a set of turquoise pens winging their way to me. As soon as they're in my grubby mitts I'll do a side by side test.

Now I'll admit to being dubious about them, not because I'm a copic girl at heart but because everything I've ever bought with crafters companion logos has been poor quality or badly thought out. Just a few bad buys have been

ultimate embossing gizmo, flimsy cheap construction that's had issues with hinges and the ruler. The cutter is worse than an old rusty stanley knife. The embossing channels are too chunky which leaves misaligned gatefolds and leading edges.

Sticknspray, marketed for coating the back of ums and claims made that it could be enough to hold the stamp up to 60 times... I was lucky if it held a 2nd. Claims were also made that it would hold posters.. nope doesnt do that for me either.

watercolour paper.. claims on tv about how good is was for blending watercolours. Came last when I tested it against other watercolour papers. Even the cheapest of the cheap from whsmiths was better.

cds, first flower fairy cd was horrendous, pictures printed pixellated and the fairys all looked as though they needed a razor up and down their legs. Later cds have had misaligned images and missing files. As we speak several months on and a patch for the fairyopolis cd still hasnt been sent to people waiting.

There have also been complaints about their trimmer not being very accurate or easy to use but I havent tried it myself.

Anyways I'm off to stalk the postbox.. hopefully the postie will be here soon and I'll post back what I think of them.

blue green xmas

2011-07-22T15:11:00.003+01:00

Not sure about this one, I've combined paper salon papers with SU baja breeze card stock stamped with a snowflake and embossed in white.

Baja breeze seam binding, sentiment from perfect punches set and wild orchid flowers mixed with branches from the SU bird punch and some stickles. All of the papers have been distressed along edges and matted on some deep brown pearl card which again has been distressed.

The sugar nellie (after getting Clint the Cowboy as a whimsy stamp last week when in fact he's a kraftin kimmie leads me to believe my memory isn't what it was lol) which I've had for yonks is stamped on neenah and coloured with bv0's & bg10's with touches of e30's and e0's.

Layout is from sketchnstash challenge blog
and the theme is winter blues from Sweetstamps Blog

New challenge blog

2011-07-15T18:47:00.002+01:00

Not sure how I found it but Pink(ink) Sketch Challenges started off this week and I had to have a play with their first ever challenge.

Sadly the card is a bit too blingy to get a decent photo but in real life it's quite subtle even though there's lots of metallic silver and glitter.

Image is from CC designs and it's her first inking. I've used wow silver tinsel ep and watercoloured her with pretty in pink, bashful blue and so saffron markers from SU with a medium flesh watercolour pencil. There is a hint of perfect pearls painted on to the showflake skirt.

Backing papers are a mixture, the snowflake rows is from a dcwv pad but the other 2 are using stamps, powders, bashful blue & pretty in pink ink & cutndry pads on white card.

Diecut snowflakes from glitter card, some pastel glitter mizhuhiki cords, sentiment & punch from SU. Everything is backed with elegant eggplant card stock.

Is my mojo back?

2011-07-14T14:04:00.002+01:00

Not sure if my mojo is back for good but while it's visiting I'm making full advantage of it lol. Good timing tho as I have a list of cards I need to make this week.

This one is a thankyou card for one of hubbies friends. Not your typical thankyou image but Trevor hosted a cowboy & indians camping weekend party for about 150 people. It coiincided with the Newbury show... beer or stamps?? bit of a no brainer for me stamps won hands down lol. Shame though as everyone had a fantastic time.

Back to the card, I've used a new whimsy stamp on neenah card and coloured with copics. b93,95,97 b39 c3, 5, 7 e000, 00, 02, 43, 47, 49yg11, 63, r46, bv29 & y17 Layout is from Truly Scrumptious although I've taken liberties with it.

Papers are predominently from SU Elegant Soiree (my most favourite papers of all time) with a strip from dcwv rockstar. Very vanilla & soft suede cardstock, su lattice embossing folder, nesties and a sentiment from SU.

New card

2011-07-14T00:59:00.003+01:00

Monday is my sons girlfriends birthday and she's pretty much a rockchick so another new Kenny K stamp was just perfect for the occasion.

I've used sketch 147 from cupcake challenge blog with what else but rockstar papers which have been grunged up a bit with weathered wood distress ink. The nestie is my own cut with scal and again grunged with weathered wood and a hint of bundled sage. Sentiment from SU and cut with one of their punches. Black pearls to create a flourish and a bow tied from some material I had in the cupboard.

The image is coloured with copics and cased from the header of Kenny K challenge blog which was coloured there by Cheryl Valader. She's cut out by hand and I've tipped the edges with bv29 before lifting her with some 3d tabs.

Must admit I'm chuffed to bits and over the moon with the image as it's my first non binned attempt using deep reds and greys. Huge long list of colours, sorry. r32, 35, 37, 46, 59. C0, 1, 3, 5, 7. B00, 02, 05, 63. yg11, 91, 95. Skin is e000 & e00. Hair, e08, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37

Anniversary card

2011-07-11T11:04:00.002+01:00

It was our wedding anniversary on Sat, gulp 23 years..

This is the card I made for hubby.

Quite aptly the papers are from a pad called Love Letters and I teamed it with a wonderful stamp from Mo Manning. She's coloured predominently with rose carmine watercolour pencil with naples ochre for her hair, stickles to her skirt & scarlet & juniper wc pencil for the flowers. White card ran through a papermania embossing folder and coloured with blushing bride ink. The sentiment is one that came with the stamp and is mounted on bravo burgundy card & cut with a punch from SU. Wild orchid roses and sections from a marianne die to finish. I was quite pleased with how it came out, specially her hair because when I first met hubby I had bleached blonde hair which was in a very wild 80s curly bob.

Kenny K bday card

2011-07-11T08:35:00.003+01:00

I love having new stamps and my good friend Noreens birthday gave me a good excuse to ink up 2 of my newest purchases. Couldnt have been timed better as as KennyK challenge blog is having an anything goes challenge and celebrating it's 1yr bday with a blog hop.

The girl is one of Kenny Ks fab images and she's coloured with watercolour pencils. The blue background is a new 6*6 backing stamp from impression obsession which resist embossed on white card then grunged up with several blue distress inks, predominently faded jeans.

Wild orchid roses and SU seam binding tinted with faded jeans ink, 2 whimsy stamps to make the sentiment, scrap of basic grey paper, label 4(?) nestie and a guitar charm to finish.

Daughters bday card

2011-06-27T18:14:00.002+01:00

My mojo is still on walkabouts but with the help of a layout from truly scrumptious I did manage to come up with this one for my daughters birthday.

Shape is my own design & cut with scal. Distress inks bundled sage, tumbled glass and dusty concord. Elusive Images flower heat embossed with silver wow sparkle ep & coloured with wild wasabi & elegant eggplant markers. Some very old paper adventure papers with silk card embossed in a bug folder. Border of baja breeze card punched with the SU decorative border punch, misc sentiment stamp and numerous pearls all mounted on some elegant eggplant cs.

July Playday

2011-06-06T14:33:00.003+01:00

Get me being all organised lol.

Next Bristol playday will be July 10th and everyone is welcome to join in. Just email me for details.

In honour of that great crafters tradition of Christmas in July guess what the projects are going to be all about at next months playday??

Yep.. xmas lol.

In the main we're going to be focusing on building scenes using inks, sponges and scrap paper masks. If anyone is brave and wants to risk a brayer they're more than welcome to, personally I prefer my daubers and blusher brushes.

These are 2 samples I made using Lovely As A Tree and Welcome Christmas. I brushed perfect plum and pacific point ink across the top of some a4 white card which I'd masked with some torn paper. The trees were all stamped over the edge of the mask.

Mounted on basic black then white ran through a dot embossing folder. Very simple and quick card.

I didnt actually intend to make 2 cards but once I'd stamped the children & sleigh from welcome christmas on the last card I realised I had a good 3 inches that were too good to waste. I added another sleigh image and got my trusty knife and ruler out to hack it into 4 squares.

Mounted on perfect plum card with white card ran through an inked snowflake embossing folder. Strip of whisper white satin ribbon and a dangly sentiment made with the word window punch and a few jump rings.

All of the other samples I took with me can be found on my SU blog but I will add a few here over then next couple of weeks.

If it werent for 2 craft shows coming up I'd be wishing it was the 10th already ;o)

Playday yesterday

2011-06-06T14:22:00.004+01:00

Hopefully everyone had a fun time at playday yesterday. The main project of the day was milk cartons from a5 card and a holder to fit 4 of them. Got to say there were some beauties made by the end of the day, with Sandra being the first to finish. Must admit to being gobsmaked at Sandra finishing first as she normally lags at the back with Kay. Could it be that Kay sitting on a different table had something to do with that???? lol.

This is my original sample and used gold pearl card very lightly embossed in the SU lattice folder with cream & soft suede cardstock. I've used a border punch to decorate the carton & holder with a SU wheel & crumbcake ink. Crumb cake taffeta ribbon (I'm hoping we get it back in the catty in Oct) and a triple embossed "button" from the new button embosslit folder. Nesties for the handle and 4 baby wooden pegs to finish.

This rather bashed about sample was made using the same measurements but with increasingly longer pieces of card. Stamped with a few colours with one of the hostess sets and windows from the label punch. I didnt really go to town with the decoration on this one as it was just to show you can make them any height using the same template. It's now destined for the bin but I'm going to be rescuing the lil SU paperclips first. They're one of those embellies that I find too nice to use lol.

Paint fusion sweet peas

2011-05-24T21:10:00.003+01:00

This is one I made just over a week ago for a friends birthday. Nothing more than Sheenas paint fusion sweet pea stamps with the rose leaves. Painted with system 3 & go green acrylic paints. Card has been brushed with distress inks and mounted on marina mist card with a sentiment from SU. Must admit I was chuffed with this one.

I'm still about

2011-05-16T22:04:00.002+01:00

I think the fallout from hubbies accident took a bit longer to arrive than he did... I tend to go a bit quiet when I'm stressed and my mojo goes flying out the window.

Still he's back at work now and hopefully we'll be back to normal footings soon and hopefully my mojo will return as well.

In the last 2 months apart from playday projects I've barely looked at my stash let alone made anything much. This was made a few weeks ago for my buddy Angies birthday. My favourite stamp set Just Believe with very vintage wheel on cream & soft suede cardstock. Huge amounts of tearing and inking with softsuede ink, some splodges from the spritzer tool, crumb cake ribbon and get me... a quilled rose!! Not often I do distressed but Angie loves distress techniques.

April Playday

2011-03-15T12:23:00.002Z

What a fab time we all had at the first of the big Bristol playdays on Sunday. Huge thanks for coming ladies, you've got no idea how chuffed I am that you all came and that everyone enjoyed themselves. Be great if everyone that wants to could email me a pic of the bookcard they made & I can add them all on here to see what a bunch of talented crafters we all became that day.

General consensus seems to be that playday should be a regular event so I've booked the community centre again for next month and as long as it's popular it's going to be the 2nd Sunday of every month.

So next playday is April 10th, 10am til 4pm at the Filwood Community Centre, Knowle Bristol. Cost will be £3 to help cover the cost of hiring the room and you'll need to bring a basic cardmaking kit, cutting mat, scissors, sticky stuff and card/pretty papers. I'll make a more precise list but please don't be worried if you havent all the tools needed as between us there's always plenty to share.

There are tea & coffee facilities in the room and lunch wise if everyone can bring a plate of something for a pot luck buffet. This time tho.. not quite as much ladies.. there were only 19 of us but I bet we could have fed 60 lol.

All are welcome, you don't need to be a stamper and you don't need to have any experience of card making or scrap booking. The ladies are very friendly and of mixed experience so there's always someone willing to lend a hand and help newcomers.

This is the main project we'll be making. It might look difficult but it's quite quick & easy to make. The most difficult part is deciding what colours and embellies to use lol.

Also on the menu is a technique "class" making and using paper masks (not the facial variety lol) and hopefully we'll all be going home with a stamped scene card.

Baby Book Card

2011-03-09T09:54:00.003Z

Here's another sample of one of the projects for Sundays Bristol Playday.

Quite timely as hubbies niece is holding her babys Christening party in the same building and I'll be able to pop in with the card afterwards.

Image is from LOTV and has been water coloured with SU markers.

Papers are all from Nanas Nursery paperstack and I was dead chuffed to finally find a use for the giraffe. I've cut away along the pattern and used it to make a flap for a tag which has a lovely poem.

Cardstock is retired SU colours and I've used a couple of MS border punches and crushed velvet distress ink.

Big thanks to Tracy for having the patience to make the booties.. they're only an inch long.

These flowers are the vintage beaded roses from Joanna Sheen and I've used scal to cut some flourishes which I drew in inkscape.

I'm entering this into the challenges at

Dream Valley Challenges - New Beginnings
Everbody Art Challenge - Baby
Oldie But A Goodie - For A Baby
IncyWincy Designs - Pastel Colours

Blog Candy

2011-03-06T11:59:00.001Z

I've just realised that the wedding card I posted last night is the 300th project in my gallery at the docraft forum so to celebrate I'm offering some blog candy

On offer is a two step stampin set from StampinUp, Good Neighbours. A pad of 6*6 designer series paper 3 and a bottle of my all time favourite glue, Tombow multiuse.

If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning the candy you need to do a few things...

Post a link to this post on your blog, become a follower and leave a comment.
Afraid this is only open to peeps in Great Britain.

The draw is now closed. Thanks to everyone that's entered, left comments or became a follower.

Blog candy winner

2011-03-06T07:53:00.002Z

Thanks to all who entered

hubby has just stuck his hand in the pot and picked out a winner...

Congratulations Mad Moose.

If you'd like to get in touch I can arrange getting the goodies to you.

that will teach me

2011-03-04T08:49:00.003Z

Ooops, hubbys birthday today and I'd forgot all about it until late last night. That's teach me for crowing yesterday about how I was sooo organised having Dads fathers day card ready lol.

Quick card for hubby thanks to a very timely sketch on Truly Scrumptious.

Current SU papers & card. Image from flippin men range watercoloured with SU markers. Foam on beer created with WOW white high puff embossing powder and a double stamped sentiment from papermania.

Get me... all organised lol

2011-03-03T14:08:00.002Z

How's this then.. Fathers Day isnt for a few months and Dads card is all ready to go. Normally I struggle like the dickens to come up with something for him but this image just reminds me so much of when my sister & I were small.

Layout is from this weeks Friday Sketchers blog.

Coloured with a mixture of watercolour pencils & SU markers. The lolly sticks have been painted with some antique linen distress crackle paint (thanks Teresa) and I've used some shells and coral (my last bit from Grand Caymen, sob.. hubby take me back there please). Papers are retired SU and I've added some crumb cake ribbon. Computer sentiment and everything has been distressed with my SU gadget and inked with antique linen & frayed burlap.

I would say I hope Dad likes it but.. he'll either have the wrong glasses on and wont see a thing or if he does have the right ones he won't see the point of the distressed look. Either way he'll say it's nice then dap it to one side.

Mothersday Book card

2011-02-21T12:11:00.006Z

We're making bookcards at the Bristol March Playday so I thought I'd better make a few otherwise I might look like a twit if things go horribly wrong on the day.

Thought I'd make one for Mothers Day using an old elusive images plate that I bought years ago as it's Mums favourite flower but have yet to really do anything with.

Everything came together quite nicely for the front cover, I had a single sheet left of an old (Brenda Walton or dcwv?) pad in just the right pastel shades to not detract from the daff. Stamped with versafine and watercoloured with quite fittingly daffodil yellow, pumkin pie, peach parfait, real red, cherry cobbler, certainly celery, pear pizazz and wild wasabi markers from SU. I've used daffodil yellow, peach parfait & certainly celery cardstock throughout.

Got the book page in the hit a brick wall about how I was going to decorate the inside cover.

I decided to make a tag/bookmark so folded some retired su papers and edged with a MS punch. Couple of nesties and I stamped the daffs from one of the other stamps on the EI plate and cut & curled them. Then spent ages online looking for a mothering sunday poem that wasnt slushy or sentimental. Couldnt find a thing so was totally stumped as I didnt want to colour in any more daffs.

It wasnt until I really looked at the front stamp I realised the writing wasnt the normal writing like scribble that we often see on stamps, it was the full version of William Wordsworths I wandered Lonely as a Cloud poem. Brainwave time lol.

I went online and found the poem, changed to bradley hand script and printed on to whisper white. Edged with daffodil delight and overstamped the sentiment with peach parfait.

xmas card number 2

2011-02-18T12:11:00.003Z

I'm quite enjoying making 8*8 cards but think this one needs something more to fill up the corner.

Layout is from Friday Sketchers challenge and I've used SU papers, card, ribbon, sentiment and co-ordinating scalloped punch.

Evie is coloured with watercolour pencils and has a stickles fur collar & hem. Paper roses and personal impressions holly punch to finish.

Latest card and a couple of flowers

2011-02-16T17:28:00.006Z

I've had great fun playing with ink & hubbies camera today.

I bottled it without the light and took this pic with my trusty (and cheap) camera under my rnib task lamp lol.

Layout is courtesy of friday sketch challenge blog and I've mixed up basic grey & dcwv papers, bazzill and co'redinations card stock.. Creeper crew image from the greetings farm watercoloured with pencils then a light wash with distress ink. Sentiment from Whimsy stamps and finally a Spellbinder pendant.

Blue satin bow from SU, cheapie gem flourish and my newest yummies.. the flowers.

The daisy from Joanna Sheen was white but I've attacked it with old paper distress ink. I left the rest of the flowers alone as they fitted my colour scheme quite nicely. Rosebuds are also from Joanna but the blue roses are from wildorchid.

Just a couple of pics taken of some of my new flowers from Joanna. Her website pics don't really do them justice so I played about with hubbies all singing camera so I could show them to my buddies. The first one is of the vintage beaded roses, if you look closely you'll seem some really tiny beads glued to the edge of the petals. In real life it looks just like a sugar crust.

These are just some of the daisies, I havent let loose with the distress ink tho lol.

Chalk

2011-02-15T17:16:00.003Z

If you've arrived from a challenge blog link the title wont make sense until you read the next post and see the other card I made today.

Back to this one.. I had some of my buddies here for playday yesterday and we had a go at making double twisted easel cards. As usual our gobs went in to overdrive and no one finished before home time so I finished off today.

The theme on cupcake craft challenge is I heart u, so I thought what better for a double twisted easel than tilda blowing kisses to edwin.

Watercoloured with SU markers, dcwv papers, spellbinders fleur de lys pendant, scalloped circle and scalloped heart dies, MS border punch, LOTV sentiment and some heart shaped gems.

I like it but I've overdosed on sickly sweet and pastel....

and cheese

2011-02-15T17:04:00.004Z

If you've arrived here from inlinkz at SketchNStash challenge blog the post title won't make sense but I'm going to add another post in a minute that will make things a bit clearer lol.

This anti valentine (or is it a well done for getting shot of the pig?) is made using one of my new tickled pink stamps. Poor old postie must have had a heck of a fright when I was waiting at the door ready to grab the envie as it came through the letter box this morning lol.

I didnt realise it but she's a bit of a tall girl is Lilith, this is a 5*7 card!! Think I'm going to have to buy some 8*8 card blanks for her. The layout is from a sketch on this weeks SketchNStash challenge blog and I've used rockstar papers. I used watercolour pencils to colour, added SU very vanilla grosgrain ribbon and choc chip cardstock. Few pearls and a sentiment from flippin women (I think)

Playday invitation

2011-02-11T12:09:00.002Z

I've been hosting playdays at my house in Bristol for my docraft buddies for quite a while now. The sunday playdays has outgrown my kitchen table so I'm planning the next playday for Sun March 13th, 10 til 4ish but will be holding it at a local community centre.

It's all very very informal and we're going to have a good laugh making the book card that's a dozen or so posts down. It's nothing to do with SU and there wont be anyone there trying to sell any stash, just some mates all crafting together.

There's plenty of room there and I know I'm not alone in saying that it would be great to see some new faces joining us. Costwise we're all chipping in £3 each for the room hire but if there's a lot of new faces it should work out a bit less.

Stashwise you'll only need basic cardmaking kit, cutting mat, scissors/trimmer, dst & glue, card etc and whatever embellies you want to use. You might also want to bring some spare stamping card as several of us tend to bring plenty of stamps...

For those travelling distance it's just a couple of minutes drive from a premier travel inn that if anyone wanted to stay over or drive down the day before it works out at about £60 for a twin bedded room.

If anyone wants any info my email addy is playingwithpaper@googlemail.com

valentine cake card

2011-02-10T13:59:00.002Z

My buddies came over to play on Tuesday and Angie showed us all how to make a cake easel card. Can't say as it's my favourite card to make but then I've got no littlies to give it to.

Well valentines day is less than a week away so the blog challenges are full of hearts and love themes this week so I decided to use a new WOJ stamp. She's coloured with a mix of SU markers and watercolour pencils. Havent got the foggiest who's papers they are as I pinched them from Tracy lol.

Some heart paper lace, real lace hoards of round and heart gems that I've had knocking about the playroom for ages a round nestie, several paper roses and my own flourishes cut with scal to finish.

I'm entering it in to Saturday Challenge, Valentine
cutecardthursdays, hearts and flowers
and stamptacularsundaychallenge, hearts gone wild

Sketch Saturday

2011-02-09T15:37:00.003Z

Todays card is using a layout from Sketch Saturday and my new whiff of joy stamp.

As with my wedding card I've used Lap Of Luxury papers from StampinUp. Water coloured with coordinating pretty in pink, regal rose & concord crush markers and various yellow & browns for the hair & birds.

Tabs are made from 1/2" strips of concord crush card and punched with the scallop trim corner punch. A couple of small gems and a paper doily I've had floating around the playroom for years. Not quite as fussy as the cards I've made lately but I'm quite liking it.

Wedding card

2011-02-05T22:25:00.004Z

It's been a looooong time since I got my cutting & embossing stencils out but I felt like playing with a knife today... Maybe my subconscious is trying to say something about hubby lol.

Anyways this weeks friday sketchers has a fab sketch that fitted my needs perfectly as I could use one of my old Marianne Designs stencils to emboss then cut the pattern into the corners. Well that was the plan then I realised I was going to have to freehand cut the central panel out as well. Lots of cutwork.. yummy I love my knife just as much as I do rubber.

Once the outer frame was embossed and cut I mounted it on some concord crush cardstock and cut away the central area.

Mounted on to Lap of Luxury papers with a wedding Tilda & Edwin. They've been water coloured with SU markers in pretty in pink, basic grey, concord crush, more mustard, so saffron, chocolate chip & cajun craze. Tildas crown is coloured with a silver tiara pen and I've added diamond stickles to her veil. Tilda and Edwin have been cut out and mounted on cream pearl card with has been run through a heart embossing folder. Plenty of paper roses, a few gems, a ribbon bow to finish.

More me

2011-02-04T15:33:00.002Z

After this mornings bright and so not me colours I fancied going back to my favourite combo.. blue & browns together with a nice simple layout from Sketch Saturday.

This afternoons card combines SU markers in pacific point, baja breeze, marina mist & not quite navy with daffodil delight, crumb cake and early espresso. I've used a mix of retired and current SU papers to match Miss Anya. Add in matching satin ribbon and a the scallop trim border punch from SU, some paper flowes, photo holder thingies and a couple of teeny tiny nail art gems. I'm reasonably happy with it but think I might add something to the top & bottom right corners.

On a roll

2011-02-04T12:50:00.003Z

Despite having hubby home and *needing* (wanting) constant attention I've been on a roll the last couple of days. Mind you it could be because of sick of having him home and have barricaded myself in the playroom lol.

This one is quite an old Tilda that's been rather neglected. I've coloured her with 6 red & orange polychromos, medium flesh and about 3 browns. Cherry cobbler cardstock & retired SU papers (I'm on a stash diet so trying to use up my older papers) A few paper roses and punch leaves. The nested shape is my own design and cut with scal.

The layout is from this weeks Sketch n Stash blog and I've teamed it with A Spoon Full of Sugar blogs challenge of pink, red & orange. Not colours I normally use but I enjoyed making this one.

Truly scrumptious

2011-02-03T22:01:00.001Z

Day of 1sts today for me, this is my first ever Hanglar card. I've had the image stamped on wc paper for well over a year but havent had the nerve to colour her lol.

Layout from this weeks Truly Scrumptious challenge blog although I've taken a liberty by adding a bow behind the brad. watercoloured hanglar image with regal rose, crumb cake, early expresso, choc chip & rose red SU markers, retired SU papers, atd brad, prima & wildorchid flowers, woodware punch leaves, my own flourishes cut with scal.

1st Xmas card of the year

2011-02-03T12:49:00.003Z

I loathe Christmas as soon as Boxing Day is over but by Feb I've generally got over it lol.

My first xmas card of the year is using a lovely layout from Friday Sketchers

Tilda & Edwin are water coloured using cherry cobbler, old olive, nearly navy, basic grey and various brown & yellow shades of StampinUp markers.

To make life extremely easy I teamed the image with Jolly Holiday papers & the matching old olive & cherry cobbler card stock SU ribbon & sentiment and some flowers from WildOrchid. The smaller roses were cream but I rolled them in the cherry cobbler inkpad then spritzed with water. Small amount of stardust stickles on Tildas coat and I've just realised I missed a bit of edwins top.. oops good job I water coloured and it's easy enough to go back and add some more colour.

New Kenny K image

2011-01-22T12:45:00.003Z

Todays card is one of those that just fell in together without an awful lot of hmming and hahing about colours & papers. Not often I get that happen lol.

The layout is from Sketch Saturday and lent itself beautifully to my new KennyK stamp. I used c1, y21, e53, b93,95 97, rv000 & 95 copics and ivory & blush promarkers to colour her.

Papers are from SU and happen to be my favourite set of all time, Elegant Soiree. I've not got hubbies camera set up right to see the colours properly but I've combined them with Night of Navy & Soft Suede cardstock. SU sentiment and coordinating punch. Wildorchid roses with SU bird & branch punch. And the nesties are my own design with scal.

As much as I'd planned on being a better blogger this year it's going to be difficult for the next couple of months as my selfish idiot of a husband has broke his leg skiing and my time is going to be taken up driving him around so he can at least work to fund my rubber addiction ;o)

Birthday card

2011-01-21T18:07:00.003Z

A bit different colourwise for me today. This one is for my friends soon to be 11yo daughter so I went for brighter colours than I normally use.

Layout is from Friday Sketchers and I've used retired papers & card from SU and the gorgeous Ketto image is coloured with the matching watercolour wonder crayons in retired colours to match the papers. Tempting turquoise, pink pixie, summer sun and only orange. Pretty in Pink ribbon is still a current item though.

Blast from the past

2011-01-20T23:32:00.002Z

When I saw this Fashionette Lil Lolita 80s Sookie stamp I just had to get her. Leg warmers, ra-ra skirts and big hair.. oh yes that's definitely my era.. bopping about to Human League & Culture Club at discos that strictly speaking I shouldnt have been in ;o)

For her first inking I've gone with a sketch from Dutch Dare challenge blog, a colour scheme (pink, green & brown) from Truly Scrumptious and 1,2,3 recipe from Cute Card Thursday, 3 flowers, 2 papers & one ticket.

I've used f&c ad watercolour pencils in grass green, chromium green opaque, rose carmine, fushia, permanent carmine, indianthrene blue, walnut, burnt umber, medium flesh, and dark naples ochre. Retired stampin up papers, always artichoke, pretty in pink & crumb cake cs. Wild orchid flowers, the small roses are really white but I rolled the edges in artichoke ink before dunking them in water. Whimsy sentiment stamp and a few brads.

The nested shape is one of my own designs and cut with scal on the cricut.

Another kimmie card

2011-01-19T08:28:00.002Z

I'm loving these Kimmie images and this one was made for the Spoon Full Of Sugar challenge to make a card in green & blue and Papertake Weeklys challenge to use pearls & ribbons.

Kimmie is coloured with albrecht drurer water colour pencils in juniper, cobalt turquoise, earth green yellowish, chromium green opaque, indianthrene blue, terracotta, walnut brown, cream, gold & medium skintone. To get more depth to the hair I've added walnut distress ink.

Papers are from a retired SU set and I've added a double ribbon bow using variagated green and a narrower pale blue ribbons. A couple of diy hatpins (needles with 2 pearls glued to them) and a few flatback pearls. I'll be adding a sentiment to the bottom left corner as and when I need to use her.

New stamps

2011-01-18T14:13:00.003Z

I love my postie when he brings parcels and todays contained 2 Kraftin Kimmie stamps I ordered Sun evening.

Not sure who I'll ever use this Kimmie for but I fell in love with the expression on her face.

I used this weeks sketch from Friday Sketchers and this weeks theme on Cute Card Thursday, monochrome. Thought it might be fun to see if I could use just one colour range of copics then decided to justify her look by using rv10, 12, 14 & 16 with y21 & e37 for her hair, ivory & blush promarkers for skin. C1 adds just a hint of a shadow which I took into the base of the nestie. Sentiment came with the stamp and suits the image perfectly.

Papers are from DCWV rockstar pad and a new eastern Dovecraft pack. Prima flowers, crocheted lace and some cheapie gem flourishes to finish.

Sketch & Stash challenge

2011-01-17T17:55:00.003Z

This is the result from one of the images I coloured today and I was so chuffed with her I decided to use her with the new sketch from Sketch & Stash Challenge blog.

Quite surprisingly this isnt coloured with promarkers of copics, it's water coloured! The hair and dress were first coloured with water colour pencils before adding some depth with distress inks. Delft blue with concord distress ink and burnt umber & walnut with walnut distress ink. The bow and apron are coloured with leaf & apple green pencils.

Paper is Posh Posies from Daisybucket, whitewash co'ordination card put through a bug folder and sanded back with a piece of crocheted lace behind. Rish razelberry cs cut with a scallop nestie and white paper airbrushed (my first try with my new airbrush, woohoo but it's not as easy as it looks on youtube lol) with copic yg11. Leone Em leaf punch and new flowers from wildorchid.

I've got to say I've had a really great day practising water colouring today with my mate Angie. We had a few different types of watercolour paper, distress inks, my SU markers and watercolour crayons and some Albrecht Drurer water colour pencils. I've mentioned a few posts ago about the difference between card and paper but today we trialed watercolour papers. Even knowing how different card and paper react I was really surprised at the differences between the papers. First off we tried the watercolour paper being promoted by Sheena Douglas for Crafters Companion. I'll hold my hands up and admit to always being suspicious of Crafters Companion products as I've never been happy with anything they've put their name to. The watercolour paper didnt change my opinion of them. Fair enough it was reasonably cheap and took a versafine stamped image ok but it was awful to blend with. 2nd paper trialled was a pad of smooth watercolour paper from WHSmiths, much nicer to work with but although easier to blend it was next to impossible to blend away lines after the paint had dried. Not something I've been used to as my bockingford always let me blend away any bloom lines.

Finally I let Angie loose with my Langton grain satine. The image wasnt even totally dry before we were putting on coats and hopping in the car to visit the local art supply shop so she could buy a pad (or 2) lol.

I knew the grain satine was good so I didnt learn anything new about card/paper today but I did find out that distress inks seem to react with the albrecht drurer pencils and leave a depth of colour more reminiscent of copics than watercolours. I'm sure I'll be using the 2 together a lot more in the future.

sickly sweet

2011-01-16T19:24:00.003Z

Going back a few cards one of my buddies commented that it wasnt like me to do sweet so for Saturdays Challenges theme of With Love I decided to go sickly sweet lol.

For the layout I've used this weeks sketch from Sketch Saturday

Papers from a freebie set of My Minds Eye and DCWV butterfly stack. Baja breeze and cherry cobbler SU cardstock

Whiff of Joy image watercoloured with distress & SU inks and a dash of diamond stickles. Nestie hearts, a few cheap pearls & ribbon.

Can't say as I'm that chuffed with the final card but my youngest loves the candyfloss type colours.

Book card

2011-01-12T14:20:00.004Z

After seeing a fabby card in Kozmiks fabby docrafts gallery I decided that it would make a really great project for March playday and could double up as a valentines card for hubby.

I sort of followed a tutorial on Tinas blog but accidentally used the discard pieces rather than the right ones so the book ended up being smaller than it should. That will teach me not to craft late at night when I'm tired but I was just itching to get started lol.

Surprisingly I found it easier to make the inner than I did to decide on how I wanted to decorate it. Papers were easy as I just love using Elegant Soiree from SU and I'd already decided to use the sketch from Friday Sketchers and Saturday Challenges theme of tons of texture.

I water coloured the Magnolia swan using tea dye distress ink on Langton hp water colour paper before adding a small amount of diamond stickles to the feathers. The beak is coloured with scattered straw and dried marigold.

Prima flowers, leone em punched leaves, crocheted lace and a sentiment from papermania. Baza breeze card half embossed with a cuttlebug folder.

The inside is a mixture of the leone emand woodcraft punched leaves, and flowers from wildorchidcrafts. More crocheted lace around the inner box woven with some gold edged cream ribbon. The sentiment was printed before being distressed withold paper. It's from a Clarity stamp but unfortunately the stamp was the wrong size for the oval.

The blue & brown section does open up to reveal my message to hubby and a couple more swans but I'll keep that just between us.

what a difference card makes

2011-01-08T13:07:00.009Z

This week saw another thread on docrafts forum about stamping & colouring ability or more to the point lack of. So having a pad of my new smooth wc paper (I used to use hubbys bockingford but it's a bit too textured for highly detailed stamps) at hand I thought it might be interesting to show the difference between a really good quality watercolour paper and a really good quality white cardstock.

In the interest of fairness I used the same image, same brush & coloured each image simultaneously. TH distress inks in tumbled glass, walnut stain, tattered rose, victorian velvet & milled lavender. I'll freely admit I'm not that great when it comes to where shadows and highlights belong and I'm just about average at colouring in so if anyone's thinking I can colour better than that I'd probably agree with you lol.

This one is using Annamarie designs 300gsm white card. Pricewise it isnt bad, about £10 for 100 sheets although I got mine on a bogof at a show last year. I use it for most of my base cards and tags. It's my preferred card when using distress inks with blending foam as it really takes ink well.

Watercolouring with it was a different story though. As the brush hit the paper the majority of the paint stuck in one tiny dot and it was incredibly difficult to blend the colour outwards. You can really see this around the arm area where in real life it's quite blotchy. The cheeks were next to impossible to blend in and if you look closely you can see where the card has started to bobble. It does suit how I colour hair (tiny flicks of the brush) but in the main the only way I could blend was to use quite a watered down wash then add in layers of darker colour while still wet. That's not easy if you want to add detail to small areas though.

This is using Langton hot pressed extra smooth graine satine watercolour paper by Daler & Rowney bought from a local artists supply shop. It wasnt cheap, about £7 for 12 sheets of 10*7

Blending with it was a dream and the colour flowed out with the brush. Admittedly I wasnt colouring for long but I was able to go back in and blend over dried areas. This was really noticeable around the cheek area, under normal circumstances I'd have dropped in the velvet while the rose was still wet and blending would have occured pretty much without any help.

This is one of the occasions where my camera has taken a better pic than real life as it's hiding quite a lot of the blotches on the card tilda. Both images side by side which makes it a bit easier to see the difference. The difference of depth of colour is quite striking, the langton is more of an milk white than the pure white of the annamarie. Not sure if that's why there's a difference or not but the annamarie one is quite flat and dull looking around the hair.

I hope if anyone's got to the end of this post that it's going to leave them realising that just buying expensive pens, pencils & markers isnt the only way to get better colouring.. it's changing the paper or card you're colouring on. I'm sat here wishing I'd found the langton paper some 14 years ago when I decided hubbys "cheap" Derwent watercolour pencils were "rubbish" and disliked stamping for another 12 years before spending a fortune on copics, albrecht drurer pencils & polychromos and pinching hubbies bockingford wc paper.

Practising colouring again

2011-01-07T11:28:00.003Z

This time I've been practising colouring with distress inks. Huge enormous thanks to Alex for recommending Daler & Rowneys Langton smooth watercolour paper. Fabby stuff.

I went with a sketch from Truly Scrumptious and their theme of Thinking of Summer. Cute Card Thursday has a challenge to only used old papers. The blue paper is from Paper Salon which I've had for yonks and over stamped with SU Baroque Motifs in Early Espresso. Hard to see with the overstamping but I punched the edge with my SU scallop trim edge punch.

Tilda is coloured with tattered rose, victorian velvet, faded jeans, bundled sage, brushed corduroy, pumice stone and scattered straw.

Sketch and stash 52

2011-01-04T17:46:00.003Z

This one is for sketch and stash challenge 52.

I sort of cheated a bit as I wanted to practise my colouring so felt this old sugar nellie stamp would be perfect but I did use some new Old Olive cardstock and some very old k&co papers.

Quite happy with the main image but not so sure that I used the right colours for the cat.

Blame my friend Alex for the long list of copic numbers used, she was showing us blending 3 shades together yesterday so I had a go lol

Promarker ivory & blush for skin.

Copics
bv00, 02, 04, o8, b93, 95, 97, o2, 05, bg01, 05, 10, 15, 23, 35
yg00, 03, 91, 95, y00
e31, 33, 35, 43, 53, 57 w3, 5

Oriental cards

2011-01-03T23:06:00.005Z

First card today is from a sketch on Truly Scrumptious and I've taken the theme from Cute Card Thursday & Papertake Weekly challenge blogs which happens to be ThankYou.

Tilda has been coloured with copics (eek sorry forgot to make a note of which numbers) before being mounted on dovecraft paper. Red & gold background papers are from a docraft set. PB sentiment on white paper sponged with pear pizazz ink. The green background card was shadow stamped with a docrafts oriental flower stamp. Finished off with a mizuhiki knot.

If you're wondering why I've suddenly got a few oriental cards on my blog it isnt because I've suddenly bought new stash more that today was playday and one of my bestest buds Angie luuuurves oriental style so that was the theme for today.

Sort of killed 2 birds with 1 stone as it was my youngests birthday a few days ago and instead of a party/trip to the pictures/meal out she chose for me to cook a Chinese feast. Last one of those I did was for my 21st birthday and it's taken me 22 years to forget just how much prep work is involved!! Anyways back to the card... a fair few years ago one of my all time craft heros Janet Wilson wrote a beautiful book on teabag folding which had a pagoda card that I fell in love with. I decided to recreate the template from memory (sorry if it isnt as nice as the one I remember Janet, Imust get in the loft to find my old craft books) and created a scal pattern. I cut one each for all of my buddies for today but made this card for Tyrias b'day. I went totally ott with silk flowers and added a sentiment in the form of a scroll.

Christmas nearly mojod me out and after a lot of thought (and panic) and many many visits to various galleries and blogs I finally found a quick 2nd project for today at MelStampz The templates are quite a way back and you might find it easier to search for takeout box at scs.

This was the quickie mock up I made late last night. Nowt but a bit of silver pearl card, a few beads, dovecraft papers and a small length of wire. Mine might not be the prettiest of samples but I hope the girls enjoyed making Mels teapot.

Sketch & Stash 51

2011-01-01T18:51:00.002Z

I don't normally do new year resolutions but this year I'm going to try to be a better blogger.

This one is for Sketch & Stash challenge 51 which let's us chose which of the previous 50 sketches we follow.

I've chosen to use sketch 44 as this suited my new tilda stamp and let me practise tying mizuhiki knots.

Blogger is once again playing silly sods and has decided to rotate the card, grrrrrrrrrrr.

Tilda is coloured with promarker ivory & blush for the skin, copics r32, 37, v12, 15, g00, 02, 28 and c 5, 7. I've used very old washi paper with gold and red pearl card. Black paper with gold oriental script, red organza ribbon. Craft concept bark embossing folder and some metallic green mizuhiki cords. The ovals and signboard shape were cut with scal & cricut.

12 Tags of Christmas, day 12

2010-12-12T16:29:00.003Z

I'm gutted that today is the last day of Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas, will have to start on last years 12 tags tomorrow otherwise I might not want to get out of bed.

As with previous tags I've had to heavily improvise. I drew the bauble in psp and cut with scal. Triple embossed with some really old red twinkle ep. Twisted wire handle and old olive taffeta ribbon.

SU dsp, heavily distressed and inked with old paper, vintage photo and walnut stain. Same colours applied to an Anitas calender page.

Tims tag used a couple of small pinecones, I braved a wander to the local shopping centre via the park but couldnt find any, not even on a cheap ornament. I ended up breaking a piece of prickly hawthorny type something or other (can't you tell I'm not a gardener lol) and rubbed in some stickles.

FAO Mary

2010-12-12T13:06:00.002Z

Mary you didnt leave an email for me to get back to you :o(

I use a cricut expressions soley with SureCutsALot. It's stupidly easy to use, just a few clicks and you can be cutting any jpg, svg, font & dingbat as well as shadow, black out, blackout shadow and weld them.

If I'm using a manual diecutter I use a wizard, with hindsight I'd have bought a bigshot as the wizard isnt the easiest of machines to use with chunky dies. For the little I use it it does me though.

12 tags of Christmas, day 11

2010-12-11T22:31:00.002Z

Can't believe that it's the last but 1 tag. I've thoroughly enjoyed Tims 12 tags challenge and am dreading getting up on Monday knowing that there's nowt to do bar try to find my missing mojo.

As with all of the previous tags I've had to heavily improvise.

Stormy sky, aged wood, faded jeans, crushed olive, forest moss, shabby shutters, chipped saphire, dusty concord & walnut stain inks.

Tree and bookplate cut with scal & cricut. Both triple embossed. White puffy wow powder added to tree, silver & pepper to bookplate.

Hero arts (?) snowflake flourish ep'd in clear on SU designer paper, SU linen thread and scrap of retired paper under fragment. SU old olive taffeta ribbon distressed with inks then heated to crinkle.

Butterfly kisses sentiment. Old necklace sacrificied to hide that I'd put the tree too high up the tag lol.

12 tags of Christmas, day 10

2010-12-10T13:43:00.002Z

Todays tag was really quick and easy to make although a total pig to photo.

stormy sky, faded jeans, walnut stain & pumice stone distress inks.

Butterfly kisses sentiment, black SU ep, acetate, cuttlebug folder,

scal'd snowman, snowcap paint dauber, some pearls & fixings, ribbon shrivelled with heat gun.

Only 2 days left, going to be awful getting out of bed not having that anticipation for when the new tag is posted at 8am. Looking on the positive though.. at least I'll be getting dressed while it's still am and the brekkie dishes might be put in the dishwasher before the lunch plates lol.

12 tags of Christmas day 9

2010-12-10T08:38:00.002Z

I absolutely adored day 9s tag from Tim Holtz. If anything, elegant is the look I prefer and his tag fit the bill for me.

My attempt not so good lol but I still like it.

Warm honey, walnut stain & brushed corduroy distress inks. I prolly over dosed with Perfect gold perfect medium but at least it's really glittery!!

SU map ds paper & scallop edge punch for rosette. Dim4th music background, brass charm which I added foil to the centre and heavily embossed with a large ball tool. Misc brass flowers pinched from cheap brads, glass rainbow drops. Letters cut with scal (boister black font) covered with SU glaze. Tinsel pinched from daughters OTT xmassy decorate room, had to give it a drastic haircut tho lol.

It does need some doodahs on the ribbon but I'm too tight to buy Tims let alone use them. So seeing as hubby wants me to get some large crystal pendants (for the blind pulls in the front room) I have a really good excuse to pop in to a local bead shop where a few pearls, end caps & pins might just fall off the shelves into my basket. Time to go get dressed then dash off to the bead shop ;o)

12 tags Challenge day 8

2010-12-08T13:44:00.003Z

I'm only uploading todays tag because it would be a shame to miss out one of a series.

Paper masks just don't work well enough for this challenge, I'll get the proper masks and will redo at some point.

12 tags, day 7

2010-12-07T17:15:00.002Z

I loathe and detest artificial poinsettias of all descriptions that my heart sank when I saw todays tag.

Surprisingly I enjoyed making it though, think making the faux wood tag had more to do with it than the flower lol.

Photoed at a funny angle to catch the glitter and shine. Fiskars woodgrain texture plate, prima poinsettias, diamond stickles, clear ep, HOTP text border stamp.

SU taffeta ribbon distressed with a burning cigarette. Bead from a cheap kiddies set.

Aged mahogany, fired brick, crushed olive, walnut stain, frayed burlap, vintage photo distress inks. Versafine black.

Flourishes and letters cut with scal & cricut.

12 tags challenge Day 6

2010-12-06T11:53:00.002Z

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas.

It's the end of the first half today and I should rename myself bodgingpaper lol.

Weathered wood, tumbled glass, forest moss, frayed burlap & walnut stain distress inks.

Reindeer, googled clip art, cut with scal & cricut. Stained crumb cake, painted with mix of pintura blue paint & white frost SU shimmer paint. Embossed with snowflake bug folder, sanded back & tinted with frayed burlap. My long suffering floral decoration is missing yet more twigs as they got sacrificed for the antlers. *polo" shape hand cut and triple embossed with a dodgy old glitter ep.

Trees, my own drawn version of TH embossing folder, cut with scal & cricut.

PTI flourish, retired SU splatter stamp daubed with Champagne shimmer paint.

SU satin ribbon, trimmed at sides and fluffed up with metal owl charm.

The remains from yesterdays SU music note wheel, stamped in black versafine, roughly pleated.

Gawd knows what sentiment stamp that is I've lost the plot lol. Was double stamped with SU real red & cherry cobbler ink.

Tims tags day 4 and 5

2010-12-05T13:12:00.005Z

Day 5

Wasnt too keen when I saw Tims blog this morning. Nowt much but a bit of distress ink and utee but have to say I enjoyed making this one more than all the others.

Barn door, fired brick, aged mahogany, walnut stain, forest moss, pine needles, pumice stone & frayed burlap inks. Label and numbers cut with scal & cricut on white card. Numbers uteed with clear then a pepper, really heated with the heat gun to create a white ripple through the pepper.

SU music note wheel, katzelkraft holly flourish, Uk craft mag freebie santa & sentiment stamps. Green sparkles glitter glue and white flowersoft. Really shocked as that's twice I've used flowersoft this week... I hate the bloomin stuff as a rule!!

This is day 4s tag and it was a huuuuge challenge as I the only things Tim used that I have are the inks.

I used a victorian image in psp, fiddled with the colour, saturation and added a mask before printing onto 160gsm mondi laser printer paper. Distressed edges with broken china, faded jeans & dusty concord. I have now found that the mondi doesnt really like distress ink and I'll have to chose in future between printing an image on mondi or stamping something on to my favourite annamarie 300gsm white card.

Single gems and shimmer dots were applied freehand and a ticket using a sentiment held on with a mini paperclip from SU.

After several failed experiments I finally managed a faux facet by alchie inking some shrink plastic (pool and purple twilight) then stamping my partridge in a pear tree with white Brilliance ink, heated til shrunk then added lots of utee.

This is my favourite to look at but I hated having to use the computer to make backing paper. I'm def more of a get inky crafter than a pc one.

Tims tags day 3

2010-12-03T11:07:00.003Z

Not happy with todays tag, the SU bird (stamped with punch pot pourri hostess set then punched) is a wee bit too small but that could just be because the mirielle image used is too large. Will make a ticket later and swap them then see how I feel about the bird.

Tag inked with forest moss, bundled sage & walnut stain, splattered with water before distressing the edges.

Overstamped with SUs En Francais background (hate to say how often I've used this stamp, love it) branch and white splatters from a retired set.

Cherry cobbler 3d flower distressed with walnut. Then a scrunched up wire edged lime green ribbon, was worried about attaching this as it's sooo springy I thought I'd have to staple it but a nice line of my trusty tombow then held the ribbon in place for 5 mins with an acrylic block and it's stuck tight.

Happier with it now.. the "ticket" is a butterfly kisses sentiment and an inkadinkadoo holly stamped in olympia green versafine (like them too much to risk stazon and the inkadink hates anything other than versa) Red tiara sakura berries and added to the edges of the petals. The bird is now warming his bum in a nest of flowersoft. I loathe flowersoft but on this occasion it works.

BTW this pic was taken with my light from the RNIB and the colours are much more true to life even if my triple embossed bird does look a bit manky.

Tims tags, day 2

2010-12-02T11:31:00.003Z

Most odd, this is another of bloggers weird and wonderful ways of rotating images.. this one was photoed in landscape orientation!!

Much more my sort of look to todays tag from Tim Holtz and using one of my favourite techniques.. diy custom inkpads. I don't have any cutndry felt so used a dried babywipe.

aged mahogany, frayed burlap, chipped saphire, pumice stone, fired brick, walnut stain, crushed velvet distress inks.

Close to cocoa, glorious green reinker, SU pinecone stamp from Autumn Days, docrafts sentiment, katzelcraft swirl, dim4th music sheet, bottle top and papermania metal snowflake.

Now this was a perfect opportunity to try something I've heard about but not tried...

Docrafts clear stamps are one of the worst there is for not liking ink and they bead terribly with distress inks. Now I always used to just sand them back and hope as it wasnt always sucessful, but I had heard that if you ink them up with stazon, leave to dry and never clean off it will take dye inks better. Soooo seeing as I don't know why I bought these sentiments it didnt really matter if I killed them ;o)

Ok, so inked with timber brown stazon, wafted dry with the heat tool from a distance and.. it worked.. took the distress inks really well. I've wiped the excess distress ink off the stamp and will store it for a few weeks to see if there's been any damaged caused and report back. Word of warning... don't use stazon cleaner with clear stamps.. not all clear stamps are the same, some will rot with just one use of the cleaner.

chalk and cheese

2010-12-01T14:55:00.002Z

Two totally different styles of projects for today.

This is inspired by Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas and just happens to be a challenge I've started over on the docrafts blog.

Sorry Tim, I just havent got the flair let alone half the tools for the layered grungy looks.

House cut with scal from a google clip art, fence and brick mask drawn in psp cut with scal.

Base tag cut with scal, broken china, dusty concord & weathered wood, su snowflake stamps, silver cosmic shimmer mist.

Memory frame, mica tile, katzelcraft stamp & stickles. SU ribbon

House & fence, frayed burlap, walnut stain, white puffy white embossing powder, stickles. And a bit of twig cut pinched from a dried flower arrangement.

All in all makes a dogs dinner lol.

This is definitely more my normal sort of papercrafting.

Inspired by a tealight holder in the current Tilda magazine.

Tealight holder is my own design created in PSP for scal and was cut on white pearl card before being lightly inked with my favourite combo, antique linen, frayed burlap & walnut stain.

Crafty Individuals partridge in a pear tree stamped with brilliance ink on to white laser printer paper. Coloured with copics before being sponged over with antique linen distress ink. Can't say as it liked the brilliance ink very much as it went a bit smudgy around the branches. This was cut close to the edges and mounted onto my tealight holder. Copics used, E00, 21, 35, 43, 45, 47, 53, bg93, g99, r32, 59

I know I've got the tealight lit for the photo but please make sure you use a battery operated tealight. Card & naked flames arent a good idea.

Birthday card

2010-11-02T15:57:00.004Z

This is for one of my buddies birthdays, she doesnt read my blog so it's safe to post it a few days early.

Layout is from Truly Scrumptious challenge blog and I've combined it with papertake weeklys challenge of Sparkly & Bright and Cute Card Thursdays challenge of using something transparent.

Long recipe list, sorry.

Miss Anya image coloured with copics r32, 35, 59, yr23, 31, e50, 53, b60, c1 & bg72 Promarkers in ivory & blush.

StampinUp supplies, Baja breeze & soft suede cardstock, Elegant Soiree dsp, soft suede ink, early espresso ribbon, boho blossom punch, and the branch from the bird punch.

Nellie Snellen flower punch and embosser duo, craftynotions Rainbow drops and stickles glue in icicle. I used the same stickles for the branch and the daisy, just goes to show how different they look on different backgrounds.

Hope she likes it, those flowers have taken me hours lol.

SU meets Sheena

2010-10-24T18:49:00.002+01:00

Real mixup of things for this one.

Layout comes from Friday Sketchers challenge blog.

Main image is from Sheena Douglass and is coloured with various R20 copic shades going up to r27. Edges were scuffed with the SU distressing tool before adding pumice, frayed burlap and walnut stain distress ink. 2 brown shades of copic were sprayed using the spritzer tool from SU. Flourishes from Sheena stamped in versamark before being dusted with a pearl toned pearlex.

Papers by K&Co and dcwv before they were heavily distressed with walnut stain and stamped with en francais background by StampinUp and SU gold ep. To keep with the distressed theme I deliberately only tipped the embossing powder over the middle and on card that was slightly damp. The sentiment is from Sheena Douglass and stamped on Chocolate Chip cs before being punched with one of the new SU punches. Matching choc chip grosgrain ribbon and twine from SU. Shhhh don't tell hubby but the button is the spare from my best coat. Well it had a lovely pearly sheen and with a few splatters from red & brown copics throu the spritzer it just had to be put to paper ;o)

3 kings box

2010-10-22T12:26:00.004+01:00

Inspired by Claudias 3 kings favour box in edition 5 of the Magnolia mag this is a fab shaped box and perfect as a gift holder for a small bottle of perfume/ pair of knickers. Having 2 girls and a maybe one day dil to buy for at xmas I can see me making several of these.

Template from scs, (search the download forum for 3 kings) I cheated and converted to scal and cut with the cricut.

Sugar Nellie coloured with copics, b00, bg10,15 y00, 28, yr20, g21, e71 & r27 and promarker ivory & blush.

Basic grey paper, prima flowers, leone em frond punch, cream lace from ribbon box, organza ribbon, copic spica glitter pen and a few gems.

Challenge card

2010-10-17T16:36:00.004+01:00

I havent made a Tilda card for months so it was nice to be able to grab the copics and have a go with this one.

The sketch is from Friday Sketchers and the theme of Oriental from Saturday Challenge

Long copic list, sorry. bv02, 13 b00, 02, bg 10, 15, 23, v12, e71, c1,3, 5. Promarker black, ivory & blush. My first attempt at black hair and I'm not very happy with it, the promarker just didnt want to blend nicely with the copics.

Paper is a thin tissue stamped with a very old um in taken with teal and mounted on taken with teal cs. I'm still gutted that SU discontinued this colour but I've got a few packs stashed away safely lol . Ovals were cut with a creative memories system, tag with scal and edged with twt ink before a few ribbons were threaded through. All mounted on a pale variagated card I've had for years. Not colours you'd normally think of for oriental but I wanted them to go with a few mizhuhiki cords I've had for even longer than I can think. The knot was looking quite tidy until I used some pinflair glue gel to attach. While it's still not quite set I think I'll take it off and tie again. I'll use some tombow to stick it on, not much that wont hold tight.

Ink pad racks for pennies

2010-10-02T22:23:00.021+01:00

Thanks to a mishap on a quad bike I've spent the last 8 weeks with my right hand in a cast, oops lol. Wasn't fun really as I could barely brush my teeth left handed let alone stamp. so I decided to tackle a job that I've been sort of tempted to do for a while but had kept putting off.. Sort my ink pads out.

Ok I'll admit I've got rather a few (stop laughing Angie) and my SU inks are all beautifully displayed in a nice wooden rack (not that cheap) but thanks to the new colour renovation I wasnt going to have enough slots to house the inks I'd intended ordering.

Brainwave time, make my own but I havent got the tools let alone ability to make one out of wood so I decided to see if cardstock would be strong enough. Armed with my mates hougie board (she hates it so I have it on a permanent loan, cheers Sara)I did work out that if I shoved an embossing tool into the cast and held it between my index & middle finger I could at least use a scoring board. Out came the rulers, quite a few sheets of strong card and a whopping great roll of strong dst.

It took a few goes but I managed to make my first rack. Woohoo, 1 down another 5 to go!

This is how my desk looks now with my new ink pad racks, it won't stay this tidy for very long.

Here's how I made them.

Take some time, read through and see if you can work out the pics before attempting as there are a few small things that make a massive difference to the end result. You might want to grab a cuppa first as the instructions have seemed to resemble a novel, sorry. Each rack has taken less than an hour to make so please don't be put off. Once you get going it's quite easy.

This is the basic folding & cutting pattern for the shelves. The dashed lines are scores and the solid lines cut. If you look closely you'll see on lines a & b there are cuts both sides with just the section below the letters being scored.

If you've ever made a 3*3 memory book from a single sheet of 12*12 you might recognise the general principle.

I havent added sizes just yet, with there being more than a few common sizes it would get just a wee bit confusing. There are size diagrams at the very end of this post.

Worth pointing out that if you are making sleeves for supersized ink pads like SU you'll only fit 2 sleeves to a sheet of a4.

Here's the first sheet scored, pic is using the 2 panel sleeve for SU inks.

I've cut and folded the card. Doesnt matter which way you go but the horizontal folds have to be in the opposite direction of the vertical ones. Sorry if that doesnt make sense, it will in a minute.

Here's the first tip I found out the hard way. The dst needs to go the full length of the card, not just those two tiddly bits. You'll get a tidier rack if you get the dst as close to the edges as possible.

Sorry, the next step isn't something that worked in the pictures I took so I had to redo them.

I'm using a sheet cut and scored for the versamark size pads as this bit is the one that gets people flustered.

Ignore for now where the sticky is, this is all about how we fold them.

BTW I used a nestie circle in this one to make a finger grove. Bad idea as it really weakens the sleeve.

Bring A & B up and stick B to C. Try and make sure they're straight as you stick them.

Tuck C (along with a & b) underneath d

Bring D up and stick to E.

Now the bases are stuck together it's just a case of sticking all the sides together. If you feel that you're handling a live octopus, first one is the worst. Now that you're sticking them together you'll notice that one side is very slightly shorter than the other. The shorter side is the one that goes on the inside. Be very careful and make sure the top of the longer side is lined up with the top of the fold on the longer side. You'll get a very lopsided tower if you dont!

That's the first of the stacks made. Now you need to make a couple/few more if you're as bad an inkpadholic as me. I wouldn't have more than 12 sleeves together though as they've surprisingly heavy when filled. That's not a problem when they're on the desk but you don't want to struggle carrying them to crops etc.

For stability it helps if you cut some card into the same height and depth and stick them to each side.

Now you've stabilised the stacks use the trusty dst and stick them together.

I used a1 centura pearl cardstock and made an outer shell with double fold sides. Not fun working with the hougie on my lap and the card dangling all over the place lol Pointless me giving sizes for the outer box as each depends on the thickness of cardstock used. If in doubt you're more than welcome to email me the size of your completed inner and I'll work it out for you.

Total cost of my rack, £1.50 tops and £1 of that was the a1 card stock.

It wasnt until I'd battled with the sheet of a1 card and finished the first rack that I had a 2nd brainwave.... washing (laundry) tablet boxes. They're often sort of the right size.

This was a 48tablet sized box. It didn't really fit 2 pads longwise iykwim but they worked quite nicely being put in sideways. Using the same principle I managed to make a set of really deep sleeves & drawers, perfect size for holding my tim holtz cutndry foam applicator and spare bits of foam.

Since taking the original pics I've turned a 24 tablet size box into a holder for my alchie inks. I did have to trim the sides down but I'm dead chuffed with it. It should be possible to adapt the sleeves to fit lots of craft toys, promarkers, embossing powders, cosmic shimmer mists.. I'd love to see what you can all come up with.

As promised these are the sizes

First one holds the pads with the narrow side showing, the 2nd with the long front showing. Reinkers/Alchie inks need scoring on 1, 2, 3, 4 & 4.74" and to be 2" deep for the shorter alchie inks, 2 .5 for distress reinkers.

One of my lovely docraft buddies Noreen came for monthly playday earlier this week and you can see the ones she's made on her blog Hers are posher than mine as she's taken the time to decorate them.

Making a rosette

2010-07-22T17:37:00.017+01:00

There are probably easier ways to make a rosette but this is how I make them.

Apologies for the horrid papers used but daughters bf is staying with us for a few weeks until his new flat is ready and as a consequence I'm having to share my playroom and all of my decent stash hidden away. (Took me over 8 hours to tidy it up yesterday, oops) Like most of the cardweight capable punches my SU border punches don't like thin nasty paper and I would have had a better result if I'd used something thicker than cheap loo paper ;o)

Punch the entire length of 12*12 or a4 card stock and trim to the required width to create a band. In this case I used the SU lacey border and cut the black to 3" wide and the pink & white ( the photo shows the white back) to 2". Using a score board score evenly all the way across at about 1cm apart, for mine I scored at the beginning & middle of the pattern. It's worth pointing out that the entire rosette will be more than twice as large as the width you've chosen and the wider the band the more card you'll need. A 1" wide strip will only require 1 length of 12*12 whereas mine took 2 lengths of 12*12 for each layer.

Once scored fold to create concertinas taking care to fold in the same places of patterns for all the pieces.

Punch or nestie a circle of card, doesnt matter what card you use as it's going to be covered. I used a 1 3/8" SU punch which I then folded in half and marked across the centre with a pencil. If you are making a small rosette you don't need to mark the centre, this is just to help so that I get an even splay of folds. Use a very strong and quick drying glue over the edges of one half. I've gone overboard with my trusty tombow glue, not because I need to but so you can see the glue on the photo.

Start with one of the concertinas and tease into place around half of the circle. This is the time you'll wish you had a dozen fingers on each hand ;o) Hold it firmly in place until the glue dries, it should only be a minute or so if you've used a good strong glue and didnt apply too much. Mine took about 3 minutes! If you're making a small rosette and only need one strip you just need to bend the end to meet the start.

Repeat the glue on the bottom half and add the 2nd concertina, hold in place until dry again. If when you let go it starts to rise in the middle don't panic, this is quite normal and will be sorted out in a while.

If adding a second layer of folds lightly apply some glue to the top of the folds on the base layer. Don't go up to the centre or the edges, a band around the middle is sufficient. Gently ease the folds into place and push down. It can be a bit fiddly if you try to get the centre edges lined up so if need be trim away the centre edge a bit before putting into place. It doesnt matter if the top layers arent the same width because we're going to cover it. Once finished if necessary glue the ends together to neaten.

This is me teasing the folds into place, for once I've managed to hide how ink stained my fat lil puds are lol.

If you want to add a ribbon dangler glue it into place now.

Next step is to cover the centre, I'm looking for a more traditional rosette look so I've used the 2nd largest large circle nestie (black) and the next size down (pink) which has been embossed with a bug folder but any size would have worked provided it was large enough to cover the edge where the 2 layers of rosette meet. Add a strong glue to the back and position on the rosette and press down quite firmly.

As you can see from the pic it's still trying to lift up in the middle. You can hold it down for a while if you want, I prefer to just plonk one of my heavier punches on top and clear off to make a cuppa lol. By the time the tea is made and drunk the rosette will be perfectly flat and ready to decorate or use as an embellie.

Not sure what I'm going to do with this whopper as it measures nearly 6" across but the lil one I made (on the first picture and made from a single inch strip) will no doubt end up on a card at some point.

Happy Birthday Alex

2010-07-17T13:32:00.005+01:00

It's my sons girlfriends birthday tomorrow and she loves bathtime and lots of bling so I made this whopper for her using stamps from the Flippin Women series. Made from 2 sheets of acetate it's 8 1/2" by 6 3/4". Going to have to make a box later as it's such an unusual size.

Pale lilac card, dcwv glitter card, prima flowers, MS punch around the page, SU bird punch (branch), crystal stickles & gems

promarker, ivory & blush

copic, r27, rv000, rv21, rv23, rv34, v12 v15, v09, b00, yr23, yr31g02, g05, c1

The greeting is a 3" sqre piece of whisper white and punched around with the greetings stamped with elegant eggplant, rich razzleberry & melon mambo.

Another 3d rose easel card

2010-07-01T16:56:00.002+01:00

For those who don't know me in real life tomorrow is one of those mile stone events I never thought I'd see.

My niece was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at age 5 then again at 11. Thanks to the Anthony Nolan trust a bone marrow donor was found just in the nick of time and although she didnt have an easy time with the transplant tomorrow she's going to be 21. NB, for all the ladies at an old egroup called papercrafts, she still has all the cards and mementoes you all kindly sent her. Thanks once again for keeping her spirits up.

Like my last easel card I've used a MS punch around the page set and have made a super sized easel card. The roses were cut with scal before having some stickles applied to the edge of a few petals and a Leone Em branch with leaves punch. I've used a Clarity flourish stamp to add a border to the base and behind the central panel. I mistakenly used a pearlised card which doesnt like ink so the elegant eggplant ink isnt a true dark purple any more but I liked the effect so I didnt start again as I often do lol. Underneath the ribbon I've added a key and padlock charm, these were made with a spellbinders die on clear shrink plastic which had been inked over with some silver alchie ink and stamped with the same clarity flourish in elegant eggplant. The detail doesnt show on the pic but I'm really pleased with them. Finally the sentiment was stamped before being punched with 2 SU oval punches then 3d'd to give a lip for the easel to sit on. I might have a go later at cutting a 21 charm on some shrink plastic with the cricut but then again I might not lol. If I do I'll let you all know how the cricut liked it.

Card box

2010-07-01T16:25:00.008+01:00

I'm having fun making boxes at the mo. This is one made to fit 5 5" sqr cards.

I've used co'rdinations white card to make the box (not great card as it's quite thin) with SU snowflakes stamped in brocade blue (I'm seriously gutted that this colour will no longer be available after Sep 30th) with matching card stock punched with a MS around the page punch set before having a snowflake stamped and embossed with white SU EP.

The lid has some brocade blue ribbon threaded through a white cardstock buckle cut on my cricut with scal before being stickied with a zig 2 way glue pen then dipped into a pot of dazzling diamonds. A few sticky gems have been added.

Here's a very basic guide to making the box. It's suprisingly quick and easy to make and can be made from 1 sheet of 12*12 card. I'm assuming everyone knows how to make a box so I'm not going to waffle, just show the scores and where to stick.

This is the size and scoring lines for the lid. If you're using a decent weight cardstock I'd add an extra 1/8th inch to allow extra room for the base to fit. Because of the irregular size it's easiest to score at 1.5" on a hougie/ms board or normal trimmer with scoring blade before rotating 90 degrees, score again at 1.5" and repeat until the 4 sides are scored otherwise you'd have to score at odd measurements and not all boards are capable of scoring at 2 5/8ths.

Under normal circumstances I'd use my fabby tombow glue to stick the sides together but rather than showing a dozen boring pics showing each flap being glued I've just used some dst and photoed it in place.

For the box it's far easier to decorate before assembling. Don't forget the lid is going to hide the top 1.5" so make allowances while placing any central panels. When assembling tuck the small inner panel in first.

I've added a black & white jpg for the buckle, SCAL users please feel free to copy and use scal to auto trace.

If you're a novice at making boxes or my loose instructions don't make sense please feel free to email me. Please note the folding template is not to scale.

2 birds with 1 stone

2010-06-23T18:20:00.005+01:00

I'm sure I'm not the only person that buys cardmaking mags only to put the freebies to one side never to be seen again while the mag is in the recycling box within minutes. After buying the craftstamper this month (only cuz the craftshop was sooo poor

there was nowt else to buy and it's rude to not buy a thing lol) I decided that perhaps I ought to use the freebie stamp. It just so happens that I've got several of my docraft buddies coming up to play on Sunday and I needed to find a project similar to a photobox but not using chipboard. I found a sweet atc case in the mag sooo here's my atc case using the freebie seashell stamp with some seaweed from Lavinia stamps. I used several blue & green distress inks for the background but the seaweed was stamped with taken with teal and garden green inks from SU. The seashell is stamped with versamark before being dusted with perfect pearls. MS punched corners, a brad and some sparkly elastic for the fastener. If I'd used pretty card for the base rather than getting inky it would have been a really quick project.

This is one took a lot of teeth gnashing as you have to be so spot on with measurements when using MS punch around the page punches. 2 sides were out by a teeny amount which gave me a wee bit of bother when it came to lining up the centres. Still I got there :o)

3d rose cut with scal stamped with a clarity flourish & perfect pearls before being assembled. Flourish from accent essentials (2nd time I've used a cart in over 2 years) Raffia bow with white pearls tinted with yr31 copic. Docrafts (I think) sentiment.

Dads Birthday card

2010-05-02T15:04:00.003+01:00

It's Dads 65th birthday in a few days time and he's worse than most blokes to make cards for!!

This is the one I made for Tracys challenge, christening those unused stamps we all have lying about in the cupboards. he base card was using about 6 different distress inks in various browns and greens before being stamped with a Rhonna Farr (will double check and amend later if I'm wrong) 2 step flourish stamp. I've used a coppery gold for the outline part of the stamp and SU handsome hunter green for the filled in part of the flourish. The central image is from Clarity stamps and is using sepia versafine with a Penny Black sentiment.

I doubt Dad will get the distressed look or appreciate the work it takes to make a card from nothing but white card & ink but I'm happy enough with it.

NB. Guess who was right lol. Dad held it up portrait style and said yeh that's all right. Then proceeded to read the blank page of the insert hehe I should have said "Should have gone to spec savers" but I wasnt that quick lol just told him I thought he ought to put his specs on. Mum wasnt quite as bad but she preferred the quick cards I'd made as part of a stationary set for her. last birthday. Next year they'll both get dufex diecut decoupage (yuck yuck, blueghhhhh) ;o)

Not paper this time

2010-04-10T16:57:00.003+01:00

While in that large Swedish store I found some plain wooden photo frames that were begging to be tarted up. They're dirt cheap (1.49 for 3) and I thought they'd be fun for when my docraft buddies come over to play.

Seeing as they're coming this Mon I thought it might be best to have a trial run, just in case I had the wrong end of the stick when catching the last 2 mins of a demo on C&C lol.

Sorry for the colours, I had to use the flash then fiddle with the settings in psp otherwise you'd just be looking at a dark mass.

I started by roughly wiping an ink pad (elegant eggplant) over the frame just to give a bit of colour incase I ended up with a clear patch.

Using versamark and some clear utee I triple embossed the frame, not be too worried about a perfect coverage.

Once the clear utee was dry I dabbed the versamark pad small section by section each time using a different colour normal ep. (fab technique as you can use up all your old and horrible powders) Once I had a pretty random colouring I went back over with some cosmic shimmer utee and ep. They arent a truly solid colour when over normal utee so some of the colours from the naff powders came through, which is the effect I was looking for.

Once I was semi happy with the colouring I used the heat tool to melt the top layers before stamping with a clarity flourish and some gold brilliance ink.

The frame's not finished yet, once the girls get here I'll be adding more powders as well as adding some embellies made by pouring liquid utee onto some stamps. So far I'm quite chuffed with how it's looking but we'll see what Mon brings. Either way even if I mess up it can just be melted and more powders added.

Playday

2010-03-12T13:19:00.005Z

Some of my docraft buddies came up for a playday this week. We were supposed to be making 3d flowers but I'd cut a few tags each so we had something to put them on. Thankfully I'd kept the tags out of sight until a couple of flowers had been made because once the tags were out all thoughts of floral went out the window as the sponges got to work with some inks.

Fab day as always but made especially fun with Kay & Tanya joining us for the first time. Even though it meant taking a day off of work and a really long way to come. Hope we havent put you off coming again ladies.

This is how messy we got after just a couple of tags.

As per normal on a playday I was up & down like a jack rabbit getting more & more stash to play with. Combined with pleas for more tags to decorate I didnt get a single tag made on Mon so I made these last night.

A sneaky peek with this one, woohooo Bird on a Branch from Stampin Up. Up until next month (hint hint) this was a US set only. I've needed this set for yonks after repeatedly seeing it on Michelle Zindorfs blog.

A couple of brown distress inks & en francais for the background before being stripped back with a mist of water and some heavy duty blotting.

Bird & tree from the new set, pocket silhouettes foreground folage & lavinia leaves stamped in close to cocoa & choc chip SU ink before sponging close to cocoa and a distress ink around the base.

This is one of those times where the colours arent a patch on real life. Thanks to perfect pearls this tag shimmers in real life and the colours really catch the mood of a violent sunset.

Nick Bantock, Distress & SU inks blended with enfrancais stamped in close to cocoa. PTI flourish with gold perfect pearls. Elusive Images floral stamp embossed with gold ep, coloured with hunter green & real red ink. It's supposed to be for a topper for a mothers day card but I don't think I'll be letting it go.

Docrafts GG Challenge

2010-02-26T15:10:00.004Z

I can't remember the last time I had chance to make a card just for fun and not as a sample for my stampin up or surecutsalot blog but I decided to make time today albeit using my scalloped circle easel card template.

This one is for the gorgeous girls challenge on the Docrafts forum.

Base card, "nesties" & flowers cut on my cricut.

GG coloured with Copics, bv00, 02, v95, g21, e71 41 47 Ivory & blush promarker

En Francais background stamp from SU in lavender lace ink.

Either a hero arts or pennyblack sentiment in elegant eggplant.

Flowers have been sponged with certain celery ink before the central one was stamped with a flourish from Season of Joy and brushed with purple pearl ex.

Leone em frond punch.

Angie and Sandras Box, framed card/book to fit inside

2009-09-28T14:02:00.019+01:00

We're on the final leg now and I can recharge the poor batteries in my camera.

For each page you'll need a sheet of paper the same size as the paper you used for your box, a photo or piece of card 7.5cms sqr for 6*6 papers, 10cms sqr for 8*8 paper as well as 1 less piece if card 5cms sqr or 7cms square for the hinges. I made 6 pages so only needed 5 hinges. If each page is going to be heavily embellished or you use a thick paper 6 would be the maximum pages that would fit the smaller box. Thin paper with photos and rubdowns you would probably get about 10 pages and you can fit more pages if using 8*8 papers.

Start off by bringing the sides into the middle and folding, unfold, turn and repeat. If you have difficulty finding the centre line you can fold the paper in half first either across or diagonally but this will leave you with extra creases showing on the finished frame. I havent worried about it for the step by step but if I was making this as an extra special gift I would probably measure and score the lines with an embossing tool. Ignore all the extra creases on the pic, I'd forgot to photo it so had to go back in at the end, oops.

With the right side showing fold the corner into the middle, repeat for all 4 corners before opening out.

Turn the paper over and fold the corners to the diagonal crease line. Do not open back out.

This is the part of origami I call squidging ;o) Very carefully pinch the sides of one corner into each other while making sure that tiny folded over corner stays flat.

As the corner comes into itself you'll get a triangle popping up. Keeping a finger or thumb holding the base down use your other hand to push it flat.

Use the bone folder to make sure the edges are nice and crisp.

Once the 4 corners are done you'll have a shape like these. They will want to keep popping up but don't worry.

Very carefully slid the four corners of your photo/card into the four corner pockets. If you're using a very thick card it's a good idea to have shaved off 1mm of 2 sides of the card. I didn't bother even though I was using 300gsm ribbled card. You might find the page is now bowing, I like to turn them over and use the side of the bone folder to gently iron them flat.

Your page should now look like this and you can either decorate or skip straight to joining 2 pages together with a hinge.

Take the hinge square and fold in half diagonally, open out and fold back the other way along the same fold line. This is so the pages will fold in both directions.

Add a small strip of dst just along the side of the crease and carefull place in the side gap of one of your pages. Once the side of the page is next to the crease of the hinge squeeze so the dst sticks in the right place.

Add dst to the other side of the crease on the hinge and insert into the gap of the next page. Not sure if you can see the detail or not but the page on the right has creases across the corner. This is what happens if you found the middle of the paper by folding the paper diagonally. The page on the left has no crease because I found the middle by folding length wise.

I made 6 pages for my card and carefully inserted a piece of ribbon to the inside gaps at the back of the final page. It isnt essential but I wanted to secure the book and give something to help ease it from the box.

Finished but undecorated book/card inside the box.

Now if you don't want to make a box to hold you're book in you don't have to and you don't even have to use these pages in the same way as I have. By making 6 pages and 6 hinges you can turn the pages into sides of a cube simply by adding the hinges on all of the sides.

Huge thanks to Angie and Sandra for the day & demo. I know they'd love to see any of the boxes or books you make using this tutorial, so please leave a link. You're also more than welcome to shout if I've confused things with the step by step.

hugs

Angie and Sandras Box, base

2009-09-28T11:02:00.019+01:00

If I'm taking photos that my fat fingers are going to be in I would normally take the time to make sure my nails were nice and clean, possibly with a bit of polish but I promised Kay I'd do the pictures complete with grubby nails and ink stains. The ink's worn off Kay but the nails are pretty bad ;o)

Anyway enough of that here's the step by step for the box. BTW the papers used are from a pretty old Branda Walton, K&Copad, Dolls House and trimmed down to 6*6.

Again remember your pattern match.

Step 1 fold the paper in half lengthways as you would to make a regular card, open out turn and repeat so you have a nice cross fold line.

Step 2 Bring the sides in to meet the middle as you would for a gatefold card, fold and open.
Step 3 You have a choice now of easy or tricky. Easy is folding the paper diagonally bottom left to top right corner and unfolding. I've shown the trickier version, fold diagonally but only crease from the bottom to the mid point before unfolding.

Step 4 Bring the bottom left corner to the middle and fold. This corner does not have a crease on the diagonal. Do not open back out.

Step 4 Bring the top 1/4 down to the middle and fold. The score line will already be there.

Hold the top fold and the diagonal fold with your left hand and with your right gently pull the bottom right corner down and underneath towards the left.

You will now have a completed corner.

Once you have the 4 corners made again carefully tuck one inside the other but only by a small amount and gently turn the box upside down

If you can see any points you need to tuck these to the inside.

Once all the points are tucked in gently pat each of the corners into each other until you have a tight fit.

Flip the box over and gently ease down the triangular flaps.

The box is finished now bar any decoration you want to add.

My next post will be making the framey card which will fit inside. I havent started it yet so it won't be until this evening. If you're in a rush there is a very basic step by step in my gallery at docrafts.

Angie and Sandras Box, lid

2009-09-28T10:38:00.019+01:00

Ooops, I've been a really really bad blogger lately. No excuses other than I've been so busy designing svgs for the cricut and scal then opening my new webshop.

I had an absolute ball yesterday meeting up with a load of my docraft buddies after Sandra graciously offered to host the day. Cheers Sandra.

Angie decided to demo a modular origami box and was supposed to be assisted by Sandra wearing her sparkly tights... no sparkly tights but she did assist most beautifully by keeping the kettle piping hot ;o)

Before I left I did promise to put Angies instructions into a step by step pdf, not sure if it's the pdf programme I use or the sheer volume of photos but the size was a bit hefty so I decided to use blogger instead.

This is the first of the step by steps, making the lid. Sorry it's further down the page but I'd already uploaded the pics before I thought of the viewing order.

You'll need to make the box.

4 sheets of 8*8 or 6*6 for the lid
4 sheets of the same size paper for the base.

Best not to use the really thin paper but really heavy or textured paper can be trickier to fold accurately.

framey card inside

up to 8 sheets of the same size paper, 1 sheet makes 1 page
1 piece of card per page cut to 7.5cms sqr if using a 6*6 paper, or 10cms sqr if using an 8*8
1 less than the total number of pages pieces of card cut to 5cms sqr if using 6*6 or 7cms square if using 8*8. These create the hinges.

After each fold use a bone folder or cocktail stick to sharpen the fold line. This will make for a neater box and help with the assembly.

Easier start

1 Fold the paper diagonally, open out, turn around and fold along the other diagonal.

2 Open out and fold one of the corners to meet the middle. Fold the paper diagonally so that the folded in corner gets tucked in and hidden. If using a patterned paper that has a directional pattern it's a good idea to fold all the papers in exactly the same place OR the exact opposite before moving on to the next stage.

Trickier start but keeps the sides and top crease free, not photoed.

1 Fold the paper diagonally, open out, turn around and fold along the other diagonal but only to the half way point. Again think of any pattern match.
2 Open out and fold one of the corners that has a crease line along the complete diagonal up to the middle. Fold the paper along the complete diagonal so that the corner is tucked in.

Turn the paper so that the folded in corner is on your left.

It doesnt matter now whether you do step 3 or step 4 next.

3 Carefully bring the right hand point over to the left hand corner and fold, unfold.

4 Fold the top down so that the right angled corner on the left meets the bottom of the folded in corner. Unfold.

5, last fold, bring the bottom point up and across so that it meets the bottom of the folded in corner and score only until you get to the 2nd crease if using the easier start OR the first crease if using the trickier start. Just in case that confuses anyone it's the crease line created in step 4.

Keep the fold in place and hold the point where you folded it to the tucked in corner with your left hand and gently pull the point on the right hand side down

Repeat for the remaining 3 pieces of paper.

To assemble gently tuck the pointed edge inside the straight edge of the next piece. Do not push them in all the way, just enough that the base starts to slip into the base of the next piece.

Once you have all 4 corners tucked inside each other gently flip the box over and gradually pat in each corner until they are fully tucked in.

Flip the box back over and gently ease down the inner folds. You will have a small hole in the centre, the thinner the paper and the more accurate the folding the smaller it will be.

playing with scal

2009-07-18T14:47:00.004+01:00

I've been having fun designing templates with scal this week. This is one has a wreath from inkadinkadoo and a bauble from butterfly kisses. Not sure who makes the snowflake but I wouldnt be surprised if it was another inkadinkadoo set. The template for the base card and others are available to buy from my SCAL blog

Friday sketchers 59

2009-07-08T16:17:00.004+01:00

I wanted to make a thankyou card and the sketch on this weeks Friday Sketchers was perfect for what I had in mind.

Anya is stamped on pti cs coloured with e00, e31, e35, e47

Clothes, yg03 yg11 g21 g000 bv00 & bv02

The umbrella is bv02 and yg11 and has many layers flicked into each other.

She's cut close then mounted on an ivory bazzill bling cut with the largest Labels 4 Nestie die with the edge coloured with copic yg41

Posh Posies paper by Daisy Bucket.

Border punch from Martha Stewart with a green polka dot ribbon.

Sentiment from StampinUp!.

Happy coincidence

2009-07-03T13:43:00.004+01:00

It doesnt happen very often but this is one of those cards that came together with a series of coincidences.

To make the money up on an order last week I bought a Caribbean Sea ink pad and when it arrived I had to try it out. I happened to have a stampinup wheel to hand and didn't even look to see which one it was... so bit of versamark, some glossy card and a brayer later I had a sea themed bit of card.

Then I happened to be blog hopping and found it's summer theme on a Spoon Full of Sugar so put the card to oneside while I hunted for a suitable stamp, time and a bit of inspiration.

Then my summer tilda club arrived today and what pops out but a tilda dipping her toes in water!! Just right for a sketch on Sketch & Stash.

Mounted on SU Taken With Teal cs and some matt silver pearl. An ek success photo corner punch and a couple of charms which I used meat scissors to snip off the hole bits. Ribbon from an old Brenda Pinnick TSV.

Tilda's stamped with memento on to papertrey inc cardstock coloured in

skin: ivory & blush promarkers.

Clothes, bg10, bg15 & y11 copics

Hair e35, e47 both tipped onto e31

Ring, b00, b02, yg11, yg03

shadow w1, w3

Normally I wouldnt scrub in as much colour on the hair because of bleed but must admit there was next to nothing on the pti cardstock. If I'd added in as many layers with laser paper I'd have had an huge mess.

Friday Sketchers 57

2009-06-20T17:00:00.003+01:00

It's been a couple of months since I had the chance to play with challenges and seeing as I had so much fun revisiting old techniques a few days back I thought I'd use some neglected stash with this weeks Friday Sketcher.

Sort of polished stone technique using a stipple brush and 4 SU ink pads with pearl & copper alchie inks then a Lavinia stamp in versamark and clear ep. It looks like a mushroom colour face on but once the light hits it you can see all the shades of pinks, copper, pearl and chocolate.

DCWV papers with cream copy paper punched with a CraftsToo border punch. Freehand gem doodle with a pewter charm tinted with a brown copic. Uknown sentiment stamp using Chocolate Chip ink.

Fathers day

2009-06-17T15:11:00.003+01:00

I'd forgot how much fun some of the old background techniques were so when I saw a GinaK tutorial on stampintv I had to dig out the reinkers and have a play.

Archival cobalt & plum reinker with some silver alchie ink on clarity white gloss card. Katzelcraft tree stamp from the Craftbarn stamped with versafine and clear ep. With a few leaves bleached out. Note, archival inks are hard to bleach, have got some SU ones on order will do a write up on them when they arrive.

Purple co'rdinations card embossed with swiss dots before sanding back. I'm still hunting the perfect fathers day sentiment stamp so will probably end up using a peel off.

The big experiment

2009-05-09T11:33:00.007+01:00

It has always surprised my that crafters spend so much money buying lots of different sparkly paints when there are artist mediums that cost a few pound and will mix with felt tip ink, stamp pad ink, watercolour paints etc. After a bit of discussion on ILWS about twinkly paints I decided to put this up to show the 2 mediums together as well as experiment a bit.

Using a stamp from Stampin'Up!s Seaside Fun set I stamped with stazon on to 300gsm bockingford watercolour paper. The dress is coloured with ink taken from the Lovely Lilac SU marker which was scribbled onto acetate. Before I picked the ink up I dipped the tip of the (old and tatty) water brush into the lid of the iridescent medium. The hat is using the same marker ink but this time I mixed it with a teeny bit of the pearlescent medium. You might be able to see how the colour has slightly lightened. In real life it looks like I've stamped onto pearl paper when it's tilted in the light which is how this photo was taken.

I've used the iridescent on the back area of the grass and the pearlescent on the front grass. Now when using either medium the water doesnt flow from the waterbrush as much as normal so it's "stiffer" when painting and the paint doesnt spread as far. You don't want to be using your best brush with the iridescant as the glitter is a nightmare to remove fully. With both mediums you'll need to wash your brush as soon as possible.

This picture is taken straight on and although you can see the sparkle in real life my camera wont pick it up.

I did have a eureka moment a while back and thought it might be fun to fill my water brush with iridescent medium. Doesnt work :( the glitter is too large to go through the valve, even the cheapie waterbrushes that normally leak like sieves don't like it. Spray bottles wont work either.

However it is possible to mix the pearlescent medium with water and use it through a spray bottle. You need more medium than normal, I used about 5 pea sized blobs and mixed with 1fl oz of water. Now this is where the experiment came into being.. could you make faux glimmer mists by adding a drop or 2 of reinker? Not having seen them in person I don't know how close the effect it but I added a couple of drops of a blue archival ink to the mix and gave it a quick squirt over some black card. Might not be perfect match but for those who very very occasionally want this sort of effect without having to spend lots of something they might never use again perhaps it's a good enough compromise.

Sketch and stash challenge

2009-05-03T11:21:00.006+01:00

I was so pleased with Dads card I decided to carry on the theme for this weeks sketch & stash challenge. This time I've used the little girl image from the Summer by the Sea Su set. SU papers in bashful blue, brocade blue cs and an organza ribbon from stash. She's coloured with rich regal watercolor wonders.

Nothing to do with the challenge, I promised mum I'd make her a tissue box in peach & cream. Watered silk paper over card to give stability, peach bazzill punched with my MS edge punch. Cream pearl and and organza ribbon. The poppy image is from Bloomin with Beauty stamp set and coloured with dark chrome yellow, cadmium orange, light cadmium red & juniper green F&C pencils. Took 5 12" pieces of card to make & decorate so she's better not bin it in 6 months.

Dads birthday

2009-05-02T16:11:00.003+01:00

This is for Dads birthday on Mon. He's not into any hobby as such unless you count Boddington beer, but he is a lucky s*d and lives just by the sea on a caravan site. I've kept it very very simple, Summer by the Sea stamped image from Stampin'Up! coloured with their rich regals watercolor wonders. Now why didn't someone tell me how good they are??? I've spent an awful lot of money on my f&c pencils but these are a lot quicker to use and blend really well. Flourish is from the Season of Joy set and sentiment from cheer & wishes set both using bashful blue ink, brocade blue & cream linen cs.