A leafy card

Hi all,

In my last post I talked about gelli prints, and how some of the most appealing prints are the ones from cleaning the plate. The same goes for the paper I use to clean off my brayer during a gelli printing session - lots of lovely layers of colour and bits of pattern where I cleaned paint off stencils too.

Yesterday, I needed to make a birthday card for my father-in-law. While searching for inspiration I found one of these clean up sheets and it was just what I needed to get the creative juices flowing.

I picked a few coordinating colours of Paperartsy infusions and enlisted my son to help. We sprinkled them onto scraps of dictionary pages and sprayed with water. Once they were dry we used a leaf die to cut some lovely leaf shapes.

I decided to keep things simple with a bit of stitching and a little outlining I  black to make define the leaves a bit more.

This was a great way to use up a clean up sheet and some scraps from previous work, and good fun as well!

Sarah
X

A few cards

Here are a couple of cards I've made recently for family and friends. They are fairly experimental so I hope their recipients liked them. 

First 1: brayered fresco finish paints, stencilled grunge paste and stitched layers. Stitching seems to be making its way onto almost everything I do now I've finally got the hang of threading my sewing machine (it didn't stop me doing making the stupid mistake of sewing the front and back of the card together though, oops!).

Second one: music paper, stamped and distressed, stencilled fabric and a stamped and stitched teabag.

Sorry for the poor quality photos - my mobile actually takes better pictures than my camera, but neither are fantastic.

 

Thanks for looking, hope you are having a good week,

Sarah x

Christmas cards at last

Inspiration had deserted me for a while, but last weekend I finally got my christmas cards finished. I had a go at playing with some kraft glassine paper and some reindeer die cuts I bought ages ago and I loved the results. I think I was at least a little inspired by Tim's Twelve Tags of Christmas  and I really am going to have to get the Tim Holtz reindeer die for myself for next year!


Here are a few samples:

The kraft glassine on this one was coloured with forest moss distress inks and gold perfect pearls. The camera hasn't picked up the shimmer too well, but it is gorgeous in real life. The patterned background paper is from Basic Grey.

For the next two cards I used some gorgeous deep purple card and aged mahogany DI which is just perfect with the glassine paper. This time I tried stamping on the glassine. I particularly like the effect with the torn strip at the bottom.

For this one I embossed the glassine as well as colouring it with perfect pearls and distress ink - such a stunning effect. 

One thing I wasn't sure of with the glassine paper was how to attach it since I'd read that glue doesn't work well due to the coating on the paper. I attached it to the card with brads then realised I still had to work out how to attach the reindeer to the glassine. Amazingly, my trusty double-sided tape seemed to work quite well.

I was really pleased with the little bell/baubly things I used on each of the reindeer - I think they were originally on some indian style trim I've had for years.

The stamps I used on all these cards were from Basic Grey (Winterland), Autumn leaves (?) and Debbi Moore.

Anniversary card

Just a quick post to share an anniversary card I made for my in-laws, and some tags I made to go on the bottles of wine we got them as a present.

Firstly, the card...

It's mostly Tim Holtz products (no surprise there). The background was inspired by this tutorial on the Gingersnap creations blog showing how to make your own kraft resist style paper. I used the Papillon stamp set  - stamped the background in archival ink, then clear embossed the butterflies, then coloured over the top with distress stains and inks.

I cut the flowers from book pages using the tattered florals die and stained with distress ink and added the skeleton leaves (I've had these for soo long and not really found good ways to use them, but I really like this).

On to the tags:

These were again inspired by a tutorial on Gingersnap creations. The tutorial was on an alcohol resist technique on glass. I didn't have any glass so I did something similar on acetate.
For each tag I cut two pieces of acetate. I coloured one of them with alcohol inks, then stamped the Papillon background stamp onto the alcohol inked surface using archival ink. I dabbed the archival ink off and it takes away the alcohol inks below leaving the image as a resist.
On the second piece of acetate, I simply stamped my other images in Black Stazon.
Finally I layered the acetate pieces up with a piece of white paper to show the background clearer and fastened the layers together with some mini brads.

Anyway, hopefully my in-laws will like them - if not I'm sure they'll still enjoy the wine.
xx

Don't panic

It was my husbands birthday today so that means I can finally show you the card I made for him. He's been  moaning about getting old (despite the fact he's slightly younger than me!) so I could help gently teasing - thus the 'don't panic' on the front of the card.

I used:
Tim Holtz papers to make the base of the card and the letters for don't panic.
Lots of distress inks (mostly vintage photo, forest moss and crushed olive) - I used the faux enamel technique (see here) for the inner panels and the key and keyhole.
Tim holtz dies  - cogs and gears, steampunk on the edge, and hardware findings
A mixture of clock themed stamps from Tim Holtz, PaperArtsy and Stampattack (free stamp with Craft Stamper magazine).

I borrowed the idea for the style of card from someone's blog, but I can't for the life of me find the link or remember who it was, so apologies to whoever it was and thanks so much for the inspiration.

Thanks for reading

xx

Dark dreams

Just a quick post tonight to share a card I've made for Sunday Stampers at Hels Sheridans fabulous blog. The theme is 'back to black' in tribute to Amy Winehouse and also seems very fitting with the tragic events in Norway.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this card is that if things seem dark right now,  you have to keep dreaming of a brighter tomorrow.

The main panel on the card is three strips of grunge paper embossed with Tim Holtz texture fades, coloured with distress inks (broken china, victorian velvet and dusty concord), and swiped over with black soot distress ink to cover the raised bits. The colour scheme was chosen to match the variegated thread I used to stitch the three pieces together. I then sprayed with some heirloom gold perfect pearls mist.

The book plate was cut from black card using the Tim Holtz tag die and painted with rock candy crackle paint which seems to have given it a bit of a leathery look. The white card in the centre was coloured lightly with the same three distress inks then stamped with 'Dream' in black archival. The finished book plate was fixed to the main panel with foam pads and some more of the pretty thread.
The butterfly and bird were cut using Tim Holtz movers and shapers dies and again painted with the rock candy crackle glaze. This time I added a little bit of colour with some metallic rub-ons.

Not sure if there is enough rock candy to really qualify this for this weeks Grungy Monday ('rock candy stickles or paint'), and it'snot come out very glossy, but I'll enter it in anyway. Would have been better for last weeks theme of grungepaper/board :-( but nevermind. Check out Tim Holtz's rock candy how to  here.

That's enough for now, thanks for visiting.

Sarah
xx

Tim, Tags and Flying Time!

This week has gone past in a flash, so time flies seems a fitting theme for the first tag I want to share.

This was my first attempt at this weeks chosen technique for the Grungy Monday challenge  - Tim Holtz's rusty /faux enamel effect - see the details on his website here.

I used walnut stain distress stain over the tag and stamped a PaperArtsy image in vintage photo distress ink. I then covered the tag with clear embossing ink to do a slight variation on the rusty enamel technique. I used vintage photo over the top of the embossing. The butterflies were stamped from the TH Papillon set in stormy sky distress ink and clear embossed again with vintage photo over the top (same colours were used for the little Time Flies tag and the scrollwork at the bottom).  The butterflies and the sentiment were stitched onto the tag. I love the little metal leaf which actually came from a pair of earrings from Tesco.

I like the finished result, but I didn't think it really came out as a rusty enamel look... So now for number 2, again using a feast of Tim Holtz distress inks, alteration dies, texture fade embossing folder,  stamps and the rusty enamel technique.

This time I used crushed olive and forest moss distress inks to colour the tag, then clear embossed and went over the top with vintage photo. Then I stamped the birds in black archival. I stamped the Tim Holtz sentiment on white card, edged with crushed olive ink and matted onto black card. The little flourishy bits were cut from the on the edge scrollwork die I also used for the first tag. The flowers were cut with the tattered florals die, embossed with a flourish texture fade folder and coloured with the same distress inks as the tag, with a little additional black soot around the edges. I then attached the whole thing to a piece of white card, also edged with crushed olive, and finally onto black card. I love the colour combination of the crushed olive and black - it really zings in real life (is that even a word?)

I decided to enter the first tag into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge ('show some stitching') and Sundays Stampers ('flying').

The second tag will be entered into Dragons Dream Tag It On ('Project Tim Holtz') and Grungy monday ' Tims faux rusty enamel technique')

Going out for dinner tonight so I better go and scrub the ink off my fingers.

Hope you're all having a good weekend :0)

Sarah 

xx

Blooming gorgeous!

I'd put aside sunday afternoon for crafting time, but my mojo appeared to have slunk off into a corner, so I ended up watching most of the Grand Prix with my husband instead. What a cataloge of pit stop errors it was - I feel really sorry for Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta.

Anyway, eventually I put my mind to making a flower card for the Try it on Tuesday challenge and this is what I came up with:

Lots of wild honey, fired brick and vintage photo distress ink, Tim Holtz Papillon background stamp (and butterflies on acetate) and a big grungepaper flower. I like the contrast of the orange shades and the black background. Having nicely red and orange stained finger-tips for the rest of the day was quite cheering too.

I do like the finished card, but it's less original than I'd like. It's definitely been strongly inspired by all the gorgeous things I've seen other people doing - guess that can't be a bad thing really.

xx

Smile!

After being away since last wednesday I got home yesterday and it didn't take me long to get back to some crafty time.

I was having a play with a new Tim Holtz embossing folder and this card was the result. The tag was coloured with broken china and stormy sky distress inks before embossing, then I inked the raised areas of the embossed design with brushed corduroy ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I then got a bit stuck... until I found a bit of card that I'd used to test the on the edge steampunk die, which seemed to work quite well layered onto the tag. I finished off the card with the smile stamp panel coloured and heat embossed in the same colours as the tag - sort of inspired by Tim Holtz's rusted enamel technique from his compendium of curiosities book.

I'm not sure about the overall card but I love the texture and colour combination on the tag. Like quite a few things recently I did the background then found it really hard to bring myself to do anything with it because I found it so appealing on its own. I just love the effects I can get with combinations of embossing in the Big Shot, inking and heat embossing. It's so much fun just playing with different colours and textures - it really makes me smile :0)

Weekly wishlist: Lets get anatomical!

In my day job I'm a psychologist working on the neuroscience of visual perception. I guess it's no surprise then that I find myself fascinated by images of eyes and brains and anything psychological, especially old textbook illustrations and diagrams which can be incredibly beautiful.  So... I thought I'd share a few cool crafty bits I've found on this theme.

First up on my wishlist is the oddities stamp set from Tim Holtz (and, while not strictly eye or brain related, the fab skeleton in the Haunted Mansion set must get a mention)

Etsy looks like it's a fantastic source for all sorts of anatomy related crafty ephemera:
Vision stamp from stampers anonymous - I love this one!
brain stamp
Blossom stamps has a few anatomical stamps including eyes and brains

Searching for phrenology also came up with some fab stuff, especially this amazing collage sheet

I could spend a fortune on digital collage sheets. There are so many wonderful vintage images available. Including these ones below from the magicpug and orangeclipart shops:

Thats enough for now. Remember your brain is beautiful! xx

Welcome! ...and Some fun with distressing inks

Hi everyone,
I'm really excited to be writing the first post on my blog. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, so here goes...

I see so much really amazing stuff out there on the web from so many really talented people sometimes I just want to say 'Wow! you've got to see this!' So now I can inflict this on someone other than my long-suffering husband.
I also wanted to share some of my card making, scrapbooking and ATC ideas as I start to, hopefully, get better at it.

Recently I've got slightly obsessed with distressing inks and everything Tim Holtz. I wish I could afford more of the beautiful stamp rubber stamp sets from his range. These are my first attempts at some ATCs (artist trading cards) using the Urban Grunge stamp set:




I loved the way these turned out even if they are just very simple.

I also did this valentines day card with the same stamp set. The backgrounds a bit messy, but I sort of think that adds to the distressed look of the card:



Enough from me for now, Many thanks for reading :0)