Clean and simple this week – a couple of quick makes showing off Creative Expressions’ featured background stamps for this month’s design team makes. The A6 size makes them ideal for card making, and I’ve combined them with pearlised embossing powder, spray and ribbon for a classy (and classic) white-on-white finish. Continue reading
Day Two of my online class ‘Stenciled’ – guess it’s American… Three more techniques suitable for all stencils. Todays are Tim Holtz’s Splatter, That Special Touch Distressed Checkers and Dreamweaver Trees Silhouette. And todays techniques included stamping, watercolour and coloured pencils.
And todays most important learning point – always mask areas outside the stencil as it’s amazing how far the back edge of a distress ink applicator tool can actually reach…
I’m doing another Online Card Class – this time reviewing the different ways of using stencils. None of it is rocket science for me so far, but it’s always good to see what others are doing and to share creative tips, tricks and which mediums work with which.
These four cards are my take on Day One tutorials – using a stencil as a patterned background, spritzing though, using for emboss resist techniques and layering with colour. I think all the stencils above are from The Crafters Workshop and are the 6×6″ variety. The cards are 12x12cm. The black text has been cut out as a bespoke design on the Silhouette Cameo.
Back to the bags this week – specifically the Creative Expressions Bijou Bag Singles pack, containing the bag and the sentiment stamps. I decided to quilt the bag just to give a bit of a different appearance and texture. The principle is simple enough to make the card, though it’s not a quick make due to all the fussy cutting! This would also work well to frame some home decor pieces too.
Thank you to Cathi who was lucky enough to actually to be at the Craft & Hobby Association exhibition (big big trade show) in Anaheim, California, this week – she took this photo of my ‘Time Flies’ cards on the CHA UK highlights stand in the Craftworks Cards section. Exciting 🙂
And another pic, courtesy of Julie Hickey, of the Craftworks Cards stand showing off the rest…
The other stamp pack I have been sent to work with this month for the Creative Expressions Design Team projects is their unmounted ‘Antique Dressforms’ set. This card features a decoupaged background which I hope is reminiscent of tissue paper dress patterns, and is a relatively quick and easy make.
It’s 12th night, all the decorations are down, and the Christmas cards are destined for the recycling bin. But wait… what else could you do with them? Here are three ideas I came up with for making next Christmas’ cards with last Christmas’.
Welcome to another year on my blog, and we kick off with a card featuring the latest Creative Expressions Singles stamp – Rose Blossom Purse. The Singles range are rubber stamps pre-mounted on cling foam and cut out ready for slapping onto acrylic plates for stamping. I’ve done a simple card, concentrating on using lots of different colouring techniques for my tutorial…
I fell in love with the ‘Time Flies Collection’ from Craftwork Cards at a recent Woodware Retailers’ Day. I got hold of the 8×8″ paper pack and the elements pack and set to work to create as many individual cards as I could using the elements and as little additional kit as I could. Using mainly Pumice Stone Distress Ink and double sided tape or glue, I made 30 cards and decorated a left-over chocolate box to make a gift box. Additional materials include foam pads; Onyx, Majestic Purple and Pewter Liquid Pearls and a bit of ribbon. A really fun project for the bits in between all the Christmas festivities, and a super collection of papers and die cuts. Several of the cog background cards are suitable for the ever elusive ‘man card’ as well. Clickable gallery follows…
UPDATE 02-JAN-14: Anyone attending CHA 2014 may just see some of these 🙂
Happy Christmas! Hope you’re having a great day 🙂
For my final Creative Expressions DT post this month, I’ve used the fabulous ‘Rangoli’ singles stamp from their Henna range of mounted rubber stamps. The image is printed onto acetate using the Cosmic Shimmer Flake & Glitter glue before being ‘painted’ with the Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk Glitters. Each image is mounted either side of a cardboard circle so that you can change your colour scheme each year to match that of the rest of your decorations. A quick make while everyone else is having a post-turkey snooze 😉