Wednesday 25 April 2012

Telescopic Molly.

What fun we had this week! I had a look on the Molly Blooms blogspot and saw this design idea although I didn't use as many layers. I love these images and how the card folds up.

This one used the technique 'faux patina' from split coast stampers. We started with wild honey on the embossing folder then built up the colour with chipped sapphire, crushed olive and finally rusty hinge. While the inks were still damp we sprinkled on the gold embossing powder and if it was too heavy in places rubbed it off before heating. I love the aged metal effect which results. The background is a Woodware stamp called grasses. We used wild honey and scattered straw distress inks.

More for the show.

Show samples

I demonstrated the Crafty Edger from Woodware at the show. These are some of the samples. This card is 8" square.

I think this "mad" cake was a result of desperation. I had so much sample space to fill!!! Lol

Fairies

These are the cards we made in class last week. I've got some samples I made for the show to upload later too. I really hadn't time to put them on sooner. What a busy few days, but great fun too.

On to the fairies! I just love how the background colours glow through behind the silhouettes. We rubbed different coloured distress inks onto an embossing folder, spritzed it with water then laid the pearlised paper on top and pressed it down with our hands. This means the design remains and the whole piece is flat. It does try to curl up quite a lot but will flatten as it dries. The hero arts image was stamped on using archival ink once the background had dried. The edges were very gently tinted with black soot distress ink. Due to the nature of the pearlised paper it takes very little to do the job!! The black pearls finish it off. I don't know why but when I had the sample made I decided I wanted to tatter the edges.


This card uses the same stamp we used last time but we used chalk inks to ink it up. I went back to a favourite design, the waterfall card. I honestly thought the ladies would have done this before but it turns out they hadn't and were really pleased. The background is a blended spritz and flick technique from Tim Holtz.We also made a tassel for the end by knotting and fraying grosgrain ribbon.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Next weeks advanced project!

Hello everyone I just wanted to take a minute to show you the upcoming project for Cleo Crafts advanced class on Thursday 3rd May. This is designed to store clear stamps, in this case my Woodware ones. It's going to get a wee bit more decoration and maybe a tie closure.the class is booking up fast so if you're in the area and are interested please book soon!!

Friday 13 April 2012

Butterflies and flowers

I finally got caught up. These are the cards we made in class this week!!! Hurray!! And even better next weeks are all prepared and ready! Wow I can hardly believe it!! It's unheard of! I'm usually finishing up on a Monday evening for the next day, lol.

This first card is my take on an idea from Papercraft Inspirations magazine. A bit butterfly mad but a good lesson in using pva glue sparingly.


This second card is also magazine inspired, this time Craft Stamper! Instead of masking as they had done we created a distressed background then stamped the image 5 times with archival ink. These were then cut out and layered up. the music was stamped with tea dye ink to give a subtle background.


I always think the blended distress inks seem to glow with colour. I loved this card even before I had it finished and the ladies seemed to like it too!

A bag inside a bag

First off on this post I have to say a BIG thank you to my lovely friend Sarah who kindly allowed me to use her gift bag tutorial idea with my Tuesday night class. You can find it on sarahslittlesnippetts.blogspot.com. Now I have to tell you that one of my lovely ladies told me she would have trouble sleeping that night as she was so excited :) how good is that!!


The little bag we used for the gift inside was adapted from one seen on jantink.com. Well I think I put the ladies through their paces and maybe was a bit over optimistic about how quickly we'd get things done because it was close to 10pm before we got away home!! ( we're supposed to finish at 9). Sorry folks. On the plus side everyone was pleased with their bags and I was buzzing with excitement too and already thinking about what to do next month.


P.S. It's a pity I stamped the border the wrong way up on my pull out tag!!

Tea and "pop"

Well Woodware stamps are really ticking my boxes at the moment. This tea pot is another from them and at first I thought it seemed very long and kinda out of proportion. I had been surfing the net for ideas and saw the "outside the frame" tutorial on you tube. This x-cut die seemed to balance out the design nicely. Also for the first time in ages I was happy with the first colours I chose. I remembered I had the cherry blossom stamp, used in the background, in an oriental set from Papermania which ties in really well too.

The "pop" part of the title refers to the bottle cap used in the centre of my flower in this design. I got the card idea from inkingidaho.blogspot.com and it has been hanging around for some time but I couldn't work out how to get the 'bite' out of the card. I had been trying to use the tattered florals die but having no success. Brainwave, I used the daisy die again this week. The centre of the popped bottle cap is 1" in diameter so it was easy to punch the patterned piece. we used the budding vine folder from craft concepts to emboss and fired brick distress into highlight the design. The wing from the stampin up build a bird punch was used as leaves.

Scrap happy

The class on this week focused again on using up some scrap pieces of card and paper generated from recent projects. Both the circle and the patterned piece on this card were leftovers, as we're the strips we cut the flowers from. We used the x-cut daisy dies and coloured a gem for the centre. I have been trying to incorporate a doiley into my designs for a while too so this design allowed me to do so. The bare card base was stamped with a little star using distress ink which was water-brushed.

The second card uses a Woodware stamp very similar to that used in the previous class so I wanted a different technique. The letter "b" and the flowers were flat coloured picking out colours from the scrap papers we stamped on to create the remaining letters.

Pop-through birdhouse

I loved this little bird house image from Woodware immediately I saw it but was at a loss about how to present it to make it stand out.After all I don't just want to flat stamp, colour and layer up all the time. I then attended a class with Norma and she used this pop through idea. It was just the inspiration I needed!!


The tricky bit was making sure that the image was in the correct place so that it would pop out of the aperture in the card front smoothly. Of course I had to add a little bit of bling to finish it off!

It's a gift

I enjoyed working with acetate and the floating effect so decided to play with it again. I struggled for a while to work out what was going on the "other" side but once I chose the embossing folder it all seemed to fall into place.


I've also used much brighter colours than I would usually choose but am really pleased how it turned out.

Friendship

This is a card similar but not exactly the same as the second card Rhonda taught. The acetate makes the topper look as if it is floating.I have used a different shape and greeting and tinted the topper while it was still in the die.

Well, Hello again

Ok so I've been missing for a while and I really have no excuse. Well I do have one small one! I forgot the password to get onto my blog and lost the book I had it written in.... Not so good but I'm back and have got soooo much to update so please forgive me. I'll try to get it all done today!!
Now I can't really take credit for this card. My lovely friend Rhonda taught this class when I was away in Cardiff. I suppose you could say it was a joint effort. I cut out the kit pieces and Rhonda did the rest. She used a kissing technique on the stamped flower which left an almost marbled effect.


I love how this card opens out!