WOYWW #201

Well its show & tell with Auntie Julia again, over at The Stamping Ground.
I  haven't been up to a lot this week, so this is how my desk has been looking since Saturday. Those glittered medallions finally getting used. As they were so fancy, I decided just to use plain white base cards, square ones, and to emboss around them.
All laying on my Hougie Board.

A close up here so you can see what I mean. I will just stamp a simple Happy Birthday onto them later this week. I used blobs of silicone glue on the backs, as I find that, or Pinflair glue gel, holds onto the glitter surface best.
 I like these a lot, and have a feeling that I will be doing some more of these. I did find the putting down the glue part very relaxing, a bit Zen-like, lol. There is still plenty of glitter around the house- I spotted Ambrose sparkling a little last night. Shows up really well on a black cat! Which made me think that a black & white version of these would be cool. He's not just a pretty, furry face.

This one was made for a work colleague who wanted  a card for a friends birthday soon. I get some mileage out of those Tattered Florals, you know. To be fair, those dies have been a good investment. I like the way you can mix them all together. The background is an MBossabilities folder, Asian. Also Nestabilites, Labels 8 for the sentiment.  Just a bit of proof I can do Pink, if I really have to!
 We popped in to see Maggie ( Silvercrafter) tonight (Tuesday), on the way home, she is well. As you know, my eldest Son is married to her Daughter. We  spent Sunday afternoon looking after Merlin & Mortimer- well Mort looked after himself, to be fair. Another gamer in the family, *sighs*- a COD fan, so Beloved Hubby approves!
Beloved Hubby also spent the afternoon turning Merlin into a nerd- teaching her all about customising her laptop, shortcuts etc.  I'm on earlies- I LOATHE them with a passion, have I ever said? Five o'clock in the morning is when you should be GOING to bed, not getting out of it. Its nice coming home at 2 o'clock, but it doesn't compensate for getting out of bed in the middle of the night! I'd never have made a farmers wife, thats for sure. So I will be speaking with you all later, have a great WOYWW.


I'm adding this part a little later in the week-  many of you know Silvercrafter, Maggie.This picture is from our wedding, and shows Ant, Geoff, Becky & Marg, with Merlin & Mortimer in front.

Tragically, Margs husband  Geoff died suddenly on Sunday morning. We are fortunate in having Marg & Geoff as co-inlaws. We have been friends for 20 odd years, which is not always the case with in-laws, is it? I know Marg has contacted some people to let them know, and just wanted to let those who she frequently gets around to, that she will probably be missing for a few weeks. We see her quite regularly, so I will let you know how she is.

Playing with Punches

As I have been having fun with the Tim dies for the Tattered Florals, it reminded me that I used to use my punches to do similar things.




 As you can see, I punched loads of different flower shapes out of various papers, even mulberry paper.

  This works best if you 'sandwich' the mulberry paper between ordinary copier paper, the mulberry is too flimsy on its own and just tears rather than punches.

I'm using a large ball embossing tool and an old mouse mat to give the flowers a little shape.

 
 


 Then its just a matter of layering them up together
 in various combinations. I use a little Glossy
 Accents, or silicone glue for this bit.






 Final touch is the centres, I use either Glitter Glue, Stickles or Glossy Accents with either seed beads or loose glitter.



Last but not least are the leaves- again these are mainly punched from mulberry and handmade paper for effect. This fern leaf punch is by Woodware.

 Here's a card I used a small selection on- a better size for this project than the Tattered Florals.

WOYWW #107

Good Morning WOYWW'ers, and I am posting early this week. My work hours have been changed slightly, I don't start till 7.00am, so I have time to post this before I go. It means I don't finish till 4.30pm, which I don't like, but then again, I REALLY don't do early mornings either! No pleasing some people is there?To anyone who doesn't know what this is all about, pop over to the Awesome Julia Dunnits at The Stamping Ground, 

                                                                 and come join the fun.

. 

You will probably remember seeing this card before, but in blue. I was asked to make another, for a girl, so I had to go pink. Really NOT my favourite colour, I think I have told you that before too- I am getting very repetitive, aren't I?
 I made it the same way, using Stix-2 double sided adhesive film on acetate, much quicker for glitter than waiting for glue to dry.
       The stamps are by Elusive Images( now Chocolate Baroque) but I think it may be retired.

The punched border of mulberry paper was done by attaching the mulberry paper to some cheap printer paper with a couple of bits of tape, then punching it, with the copy paper on top. You can get a nice relatively clean cut this way.

 The vellum was stuck down with a glue tape roller, which doesn't show on pale colours. The only problem can be getting 'sticky edges'- where some of the tape goes over the edges.
However, I have the perfect thing for this: an adhesive eraser.





This is a spare, the package says it removes all Xyron adhesives, but I have not yet found a glue it does not remove, even liquid glues once they have dried, of course. Its a really useful bit of kit, and I am probably going to show my age here, but do any of you remember the sandals we used to wear in the summer,when we were kids, usually Burgundy or Dark blue? Do you remember the soles of them? Well this adhesive eraser is just like the stuff that the soles were made from.

 You can trim it down once it starts to get mucky, you can see I have cut the corners off this one.


This is the 'before' pic, and if you click it to enlarge, you will see little patches of adhesive down the edge of the vellum.

This is after its been cleaned up with the eraser.
 Cool, huh? This is the front view, but it was actually the back where the vellum was folded over the spine that I wanted to clean up, as that would be on show- this front bit will be covered.I just photographed the wrong side, I admit it.

I added some sticky backed ribbon over the seam between the vellum& the mulberry paper.Then mounted the glittered squares with silicone glue.

                                         Then the letters were added, also with silicone glue.
                                                  And here's how I make the folded bow.

First wrap a length of ribbon around the card, and secure with glue dots. Now cut another length to make the first folded bow. Add a couple of glue dots to the centre, and fold each end to the middle & press onto the glue dots.

Cut a slightly shorter piece and repeat the process.




Now add a couple of glue dots to the front centre of the larger bow, and press the smaller one on top.

Now stick a glue dot onto the back of the larger bow, then take the rest of the ribbon and stick one end to the glue dot and wind it a couple of times around the centre of the two bows.Trim off the ribbon, and secure with a couple of glue dots on the back.

        Now I just stick it over the join in the ribbon on the card, and I usually use silicone glue for this bit.

                              I shall be back to visit everyone tonight, meanwhile have a fab WOYWW!

Easel card 3

This card uses a stamp called Flying Stars, Penny Black 3636K. I stamped in black Versafine twice  onto card that had been brayered with Adirondack Shell Pink, just using one colour to build up over the card. I added an acrylic gem to the centre of each flower, and a small padded butterfly to the top of the image.This was then matted onto black card and trimmed. The actual card was cut to the width of the stamped panel and scored & folded. For the base of the card, I cut a panel of pink flowery vellum, and edged it with a pink peel-off border.To make up the base 'stopper', I cut a small panel from the offcut of the base card, and added a punched border  made from white paper using a Dovecraft border punch.I wrapped a length of pink organza ribbon around this then added  a stamped sentiment using an offcut from the brayered pink card. Two Nesties from the Long Classic Scalloped Rectangles Small set were used to cut this out & matt onto black card .Silicone glue was used to adhere this over the ribbon, then three acrylic heart gems added to the panel, also with silicone glue.Once the base was complete, I stuck the image to the easel with DST.

Pink Birthday

Made for our niece, who is very into pink! Its also a version of the monochrome card further down. All the stamp credits are the same, with the exception of the Happy Birthday, which is from Butterfly Kisses,Art Collage clear 2 you sheet. Stamped it twice, on one I just coloured in the letter with an embossing pen, added embossing powder & heated, then coloured the surround in pink marvy marker, went over it with the embossing pen then with pink embossing powder.The embossing folder is Cuttlebug Birds & Swirls, and this I put through the Cuttlebug upside down, so the image is debossed, rather than embossed. This is a useful way to get some variety from your embossing folders, and works with anything that does not contain words.
The tartan panel was stamped with Distress ink, Worn Lipstick.

Whispers in the Wind.

Two more cards made using the crafty Individuals Treeline stamp, again on oil pastel backgrounds.I love this technique, as you never get the same effect twice, and the streakiness gives wonderful 'Evening sky' backgrounds.

Rose collage

Used A4 cream linen card as the base. Stamped the main image ( Graphicus) using Sepia Versafine on a spare piece of linen card. Scored folded & trimmed the base card, then stamped with some flourish stamps in the lower left & upper right corner, again using sepia Versafine. Used mica powders to add some colour to the background of the main image, and also for the Rose & leaves. Added Sentiment in Pink Flamingo Ancient Page ink.Mounted image on pink then dark brown matt. Mounted inside the stamped corners. Added insert, then pink organza ribbon bow. Stuck down an acrylic heart with silicone glue to finish.

Christening

This is an Elusive Images stamp onto an Alcohol Ink background, then mounted onto gold, pink then gold again card. I used a white leather effect A4  piece of card folded, vellum with a Christening theme and peeloffs. Some pink eyelash wool and narrow pink ribbon wrapped around the spine, and a small cross charm added.

I've cropped the image to try & show the stamp better.