BIG, BOLD & Beautiful

Hey!

When I saw that the Colorado Craft Company Big & Bold - Winter Wishes Snowflake was back in-stock over HERE on the website, I had to share a trio of colourful cards that I had whipped up. I was in need of three cards for my twin boys to write & give to their reception teacher and teaching assistants. This stamp set was perfect, quick to use and makes my snowflake loving heart happy! 

With the snowflake being so large, I do recommend using a stamping tool when stamping with it. This will ensure that you can repeat stamp to get a perfect stamped image.

I was running low on precious white card, so I decided to reach for my colourful Hero Hues card instead. I used Azalea, Paradise and Amethyst and the colours look stunning with Lawn Fawn Gold Embossing Powder.

I created a 12.5 cm square card base from each of the colours of card. I decided to keep the layout the same for quickness, but switched up where I placed the sentiment. The sentiment also from the stamp set is embossed onto a small strip of card and adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

I love how these turned out and how quick they came together too, so I'll be definitely making a few more as I am a few Christmas cards short and time is running out! 

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to sharing more crafty inspiration with you all in the New Year! 

Crafty Hugs

Bev

Other Products Used:

Hero Hues Card, Azalea, Paradise and Amethyst

Lawn Fawn Gold Embossing Powder

VersaMark Ink

Faux Cloisonné

I've been having fun this weekend playing with different techniques to make stamped images look like cloissoné enamel.

The new Wavy Roses stamp set form Altenew just screamed at me that it needed a cloissoné finish as it reminded me of the art nouveau period when that technique was popular.

I started with the easiest technique and made a card.   For this one, I stamped the double flower image onto 300gsm cardstock and stamped and embossed it 3 times in silver to get a raised silver outline.

I then used kuretake paints - white from the Starry Colours set and Pink, Purple, Green and Gold from the new Gem set but didn't add much water as I wanted a thick paste like consistancy to imitate enamel.   You could clear emboss over the top once dry to get it even more enamel like but I decided I liked my finish as it was so left it.

To turn it into a card, I fussy cut it (there are dies but I wanted it without a white border to make it look more like an enamel brooch) and placed it on top of a cluster of frames from the Altenew Fine Frames Die cut from silver mirri card.   The sentiment comes from a Lovely Legs Set - the Hugging Elves set but I just wanted something that means I can decide later what sentiment I'm sending by stamping it on the inside - so sending you  hugs, thanks, birthday wishes etc.

Then I decided I wanted to try and make an actual faux enamel brooch so had a play with the single rose in the same set in a few different methods.   Let's start with the one I messed up......

I thought that nuvo drops could give me the enamel look so I stamped the image onto craft board which is a thick flexible board (I got mine on Amazon) that you can cut with steel rule dies (thinlets aren't deep enough but will get you 50% through and then you can finish with scissors) but is ideal for 3D projects and wearable things.  Once stamped, I traced over the image with silver drops and then let that dry and filled in with colours - that's where it went a bit wrong as it didn't flow to "fill" the areas as much as I wanted so it got a bit streaky.   I'm told it flows better if you warm it up a bit so I'll try popping the bottles in warm water next time before I use them.

So I decided to experiment again and tried painting with the kuretake paints onto shrink plastic, I favour the frosted variety.  I've only every used alcohol inks before and will only be doing that in the future!   The paints did dry on the plastic but when the plastic shrinks so does the paint so you end up with thick flaky bits on the back which will easy scratch off.   So I did a second one with copics - add a pin badge back to it and you've got your very own on-trend pin badge.

I wanted to have another go at a large pin so went back to the craft board, and this time stamp and embossed with platinum powder twice and then went to work filling in the areas with embossing ink.  I used the versamark refill bottle and just added a couple of drops onto my acrylic block and painted it with a thin brush section by section so I could add different coloured powders in different areas.  I cut with large scissors to finish - you need a decent pair to get through craft board (check out our Fiskars section that will be added to store this week!)

I had a few frames left over so decided to make another card using a similar design.  This time I used the new Rosie Posy Mini Stamp from Altenew and just coloured it with pencils this time.

I added the Mid Century Frame die and fussy cut the image out to pop on top and added a few enamel like accents into the frame using Rhubarb Stickles.

 NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will be adding to our basics section this week with the items we got last week but didn't have time to finish processing.   Our shrink plastic will also be here.

We should hopefully get our Concord and 9th delivery towards the end of the week if they ship it tomorrow as we hope they will.

We also have some Sugar Pea Designs restocks in transit.

Otherwise it will be a quieter week whilst we gear up for the massive Christmas releases from Avery Elle and Lawn Fawn on the Thursday the week after (22nd August)

Catch you later

Tara

Stencil Striped Embossing

For my card today, I used a great stencil from Echo Park called Best Summer Ever Good Vibes stencil. I love the irregular lines, which I always think helps so you don’t have to be too perfect.

I blended on some distress oxide inks over the stencil, to add lines to part of my card. I used Blueprint Sketch, Wilted Violet, Evergreen Bough and Cracked Pistachio.

I dried the ink on the panel with a heat tool, as I need all the ink to be dry before I do the next step - heat embossing.

With an embossing pen, I drew lines along the edge of the stencilled lines. I then heat embossed them with metallic silver embossing powder.

To finish, I stamped a sentiment from the Mama Elephant Scripty Bday stamp set and added a few enamel dots.

Have a lovely day,

Gemma

Floral Embossing

After months of making Christmas cards, I’m back making birthday cards again. Today I have a floral card to share, with a touch of embossing.

On a white card panel, I first stamped my greeting from the Avery Elle Loads of Wishes stamp set.

Above the sentiment, I stamped a cluster of flowers from the Altenew Wildflower Garden stamp set, using MFT cube inks in the colours Persimmon, Sunshine, and Cornflower.

I gave the panel a quick blast with my heat tool, to make sure the ink was dry. I then stamped some leaves around the flowers, using an embossing ink, before heat embossing with silver embossing powder.

I adhered the panel to a white card base, then finished with some sparkling clear jewels around the flowers.

Have a lovely day,
Gemma

Altenew Wildflower Garden

Avery Elle Loads of Wishes

Wildflower Sympathy

Today I'm sharing a card featuring the beautiful Wildflower Garden stamp set from Altenew. This set includes some sentiments for sympathy cards, which are always difficult to make, so I appreciate sets like this.

I decided to try some simple white embossing on patterned paper. I chose a piece of watercolour patterned paper from MFT, and cut it down to the same size as my white A6 card base.

I treated the paper with an anti-static powder bag, then stamped the images with Versamark ink before covering with white embossing powder. I heat set the images, then added a sentiment from the set in the same way.

I adhered the paper to my card base, then added some simple embellishments to finish.

The white embossing is tricky to capture on camera but it’s very pretty in real life. With a different sentiment, this design would work well for a elegant wedding card.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

Altenew Wildflower Garden

MFT Watercolor Wash Paper Pack

White embossing powder

Geode Art

I was really inspired by the video I shared to our Facebook page earlier this week showing the American lady who makes amazing geode art work and tables from resin and glitter.  I'd love one of the tables, but as I am unlikely to get one I thought I'd crank out a little mini art work myself using Concord and 9th's Geode stamp set from their latest release.

As I was going to use a lot of thick layers, I started with a canvas hardboard as card stock wouldn't take the weight.  You can pick these up in art stores or the Works quite inexpensively.   I stamped the geode stamp at the bottom and across the top left corner, then added the heart across the the top right and embossed them all with gold powder.   Because I wanted a super deep embossed line, I then drew over all the embossed lines with my Lawn Fawn glue pen and covered that with more powder and CAREFULLY heated that making sure not to stick the heat in any one spot for too long to avoid the glue bubbling through the powder (please take care with the fumes too - do it in a well ventilated room)  I wanted to make the bottom geode a little larger so free-handed an extra layer around the stamped image so it fell off the canvas.

Once all the embossing was set I went to work with glitter!   I pulled out all my old stickles bottles in golds, clear, greens and teals and added pearl and peacock liquid pearls too.  It's basically a case of filling up each ring as you go and adding a few dots of a second colour and swirling with a pin.  I used glossy accents as a clear medium to aid the mixing.   For the central areas I crushed some old glass beads and dropped them into glossy accents.  [Again, if you try these - word of caution - be careful crushing the glass beads.  I popped mine into a thick plastic bag and tapped gently with a hammer and used a little scoop to tip each where I wanted them - be careful you don't end up with sharp bits of broken glass on your craft table]   This layer gives you some real geode dimension.  As stickles dries quite matt, I covered those layers with more glossy accents once it had dried so the whole piece has a super shiny finish. 

I'm really pleased with the finish piece - not quite the impact of the originals that inspired me, but it will still add some fun and colour to our bathroom wall!

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• As we sold out of some Lawn Fawn items super fast - we got another order in quick and Lawn Fawn were amazing in turning it around so quickly for us, so there is a good chance we will have all the new release back in stock by Friday!

• The Neat and Tangled May release will be in store tomorrow (Monday 21st)

• The Hero Arts Summer Catalogue arrived late on Friday.  There are 8 large boxes!  We'll get it opened, processed and added to store as quickly as we can this week.

• AlteNew have a new release this week - our order is in but it hasn't shipped yet - we'll get it online as quickly as we can after release.

That's all for this week - hope you're getting some lovely sunshine where ever you are as it's glorious in Sheffield today.  Catch you next weekend.
Tara