Male birthday card

I was asked to make a birthday card so I created this card this evening

The stamp is from Wild Rose Studio's and water coloured with papermania pencils and metallic promarker pens. A touch of yellow was added to the lights and wheels for impact. I also painted sakura clear star pen onto the windows

The other stamps and masks are from Oak House Studio's, Clever Cut & Visible Image.

Hope you like it and thank you for stopping by my blog today 

Recipes for 2 cards I made this weekend .....

This weekend I have made 2 cards for orders and whilst I have already posted the pictures, I know some of you like to know how I made it, so coming up are the recipes & methods for each card. This will probably be one of the longest posts I have ever done - so sorry about that folks. 

So, here we go with the first card - a birthday card for a lady's sister

For this card, the brief was that the recipient loved penguins so I found this digistamp from DigiDarla Designs and printed it out on water colour paper. I coloured the image with Aquamarkers by laying some ink onto a plate and using a paintbrush. To get more tips on water colouring, I suggest you look at Jenny Mays blog and watch out for her whenever you can on Create & Craft TV and at shows. 

To finish, I matted & layered the dry topper onto some cardstock that I bought from Lidl's. Don't under estimate the craft items sometimes available from Lidl's - some of them are really useful and this particular card stock is really nice for matting, layering and also embossing. I know this as I used the same card stock through my e-bosser for the background.

The leaves are a marianne die (I do believe) and I went over the whole thing with clear star pen from Sakura. Of course, you could spray the whole thing with Crafters Companion glitter spray, but I don't have any, so I didn't. use what you have around you - that's my motto. 

The sentiment was created in Serif Craft Artist Pro 2 and simply mat & layered into the same colour card stock. I added a simple starfish to the leaves that I drew myself to tie in with the starfish on the beach.

Still awake? Well here comes the recipe / method for the 2nd card I made this weekend

This card is for a father to give to his son. He asked for 'one of my classic cards' as he calls them. 

I started with a 5x5 piece of crafters companion pearl card, the reverse side and inked over with 3 distress inks. Now I used 'old paper' 'frayed burlap' and 'brushed corduroy'. No thought behind them, they just happened to be close to hand. Then I took a dotty mask (many people make them, take your pick). and a very very VERY light stencilling with black soot added some texture. I then laid a brickword stencil over the whole thing and randomly pressed clear perfect medium through it. Now - I made an error. I didn't rub the antistatic bag over the surface before I inked through, so when I applied the clear embossing powder over it, the effect wasn't as clean as I had thought I wanted it to be. HOWEVER,  once I rubbed over with some distress ink, I really liked the aged effect it gave to the whole thing and the speckled embossing gave it a much better look than I had intended. So, if something doesn't turn out as you intended, so be it. It's a piece of card at the end of the day. I felt the topper needed something 'extra' so I took a piece of tissue paper, laid it on a piece of copy paper  ripped the centre to make the opening. I rolled back the edges and then sprayed it with sepia ink, and some chocolate ink. I was more than happy with the splats from the spray bottles as it all adds to the texture. I left it to dry naturally which gave it a 'crackly' texture. Attached it to the topper and trimmed it to size. Once it was all dry, I attached it to a piece of kraft card that I had distressed with a scissor blade and inked with some blacksoot distress ink. 

I used a sheet of 16 x 16 centura pearl card to make the 8 x 8 card blank and used similar techniques and direct onto the card blank for the backing. The sentiment and '40' were done in Serif Craft Artist Pro2 again onto 120gsm super smooth paper so that it took the distress inks afterwards. The name was stamped direct onto the backing using the distressed Alphabet stamp set from Ali Reeve 

So, there you go. How I did the 2 cards from this weekend.

Thank you for staying away long enough to read my blogpost x

Door Hanger or USB storage station ???

Are you, like me, forever mislaying USB sticks? Even as I type this blogpost up, I am looking about the craft area as I know there is a 4th one about somewhere. When it does turn up, and it will, I'll have to add another hanger for it so it doesn't go wandering again :-) 

So, for the recipe................

Take an MDF door hanger. I get mine from Dreamees  but you may have your own preference (that's the beauty of craft - plenty of choice lol)

I started with a cog mask from 'That Special Touch' and applied Tesco Value filler through it. Lifted it carefully then dried it with a heat tool. I have the small heat tool so it's not such a blast of heat.

Once dry, I coated the whole hanger with purple Radiant Rain paint from Clevercuts

After that, I just threw whatever was close at hand at it. 

Orange Radiant Rain paint,

Cosmic shimmer gilding wax,

liquid leaf copper metallic paint,

Pinflair buff it

to name but a few.

Each addition gave it extra 'life' and added texture.

Even some shimmer sprays over the top for even more depth

The hooks don't go right the way through - the screw shafts are too think for the depth of the hanger - but galloping horses ain't gonna stop to look at the backside that closely :-) 

I painted up some wooded hearts for the USB sticks and added a bit of ribbon

All in all, a job well done I think :-) 

Hope you like it and thank you for stopping by my blog today xx

Work colleagues birthday card

I needed to create a card for a work colleague so this is what I have done this evening 

To start, I ran a piece of Centura Pearl card stock through the ebosser with the free embossing folder.

I then inked the embossed card (the pearl side) with tattered rose, Victorian velvet, fired brick & barn door distress inks starting with the lightest. Then layered this onto a mat of matt gold card stock.

I cut a 6cm wide strip of the same gold card stock to fit and a 5cm wide strip of centura pearl card stock. I ran this through the ebosser again with the same folder and inked as above. I layered this piece onto the gold card stock. I then tied on the bow. One day, I will get around to showing how I do mine like this, I was shown the method at a craft class a few years back by a lady called Dawn Inskip so she gets all the credit.

The sentiment is by Dreamees - I have them all and they are lovely.

I used X-cut dies to cut out both the sentiment and the mat and attached them with foam pads to the backing. The butterflies are Marianne dies (I think - may be wrong though).

The BIGGEST surprise of all though is that after 4 YEARS - I unpacked my melt pot. Well, in truth, I unpacked it 3 weeks ago. But TONIGHT, I actually used it :-) I have a silicon mould that I got from eBay with the idea of using the flowers with paper clay so decided to use this for my first attempt. I poured 6 in total. was happy with 5 of them and threw the other one back in the melt pot. I only ended up using 1 but I have 4 for other projects :-) I rubbed over the embellishment with some gilding wax 

Now that I have broken the duck of using it, I shall definitely be using it again.

Hope you like it and thank you for stopping by my blog today x

Card inspired by @paperartsy 's recent YouTube video

I was asked to make a card for a lovely lady's uncle who shares his birthday with my own mums next week on the 15th January. 

Earlier today, I watched Leandra's YouTube video on 'Painted Clusters' so when I got around to making this card this evening, I still had some of the idea's in my head.

When I watch a video, from any demonstrator, I prefer to make my project using the idea's and inspiration, rather than just try and do the exact same project. This gives a whole new scope for boo-boo's :-) 

And then go ahead and use what you have in your stash already and not go off shopping and loose the plot.

So, what did I do.....................

I took a papermania kraft card blank, cut it in half to make a mat and a papermania tri-boss embossing folder and ran it through the ebosser. (I clubbed my xmas bonus's together from my lovely cleaning clients and invested in one).

I then stuck some mesh tape over the blank edge and painted over with Cinnamon Fresco paint, dried it, then a light coat of Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint, knocking back with a baby wipe. Then a layer of Pumpkin Soup Fresco paint. 

Fresco paints from paperartsy come in 3 'flavours' - Opaque, Semi-opaque & translucent. I don't have many but am liking the effects you can create with them. Leandra has some excellent technique video's on her YouTube Channel.

I then dry brushed some Treasure Gold - Copper over the embossed area's and dried it all off.

Then I use some DoCrafts Artiste Vanilla bean paint in a very diluted state all over the top and again knocked it back with a baby wipe. Having the treasure gold underneath gave a nice effect through the dilute acrylic paint. 

The wooden cogs and letters were painted with the vanilla bean acrylic paint to start then I used a dry stencil brush to dab on chocolate pudding fresco paint and pumpkin soup fresco paint.

Using a small foam dabber I added some Treasure Gold copper very lightly.

At this point I tried some crackle glaze over the cogs  but as I'd never tried it before, the technique failed. But hey ho, leave and learn. I rubbed it back with a sanding block the picked up some versamark ink on a piece of cut & dry foam and brushed on Copper Metallic Pan Pastel (does it show that I love copper)

The cogs show up more of the distress effect than the wooden letters, but then they have more surface area (now that sounded like I knew what I was on about didn't it) 

The whole layer was then matted and layered onto a Kraft blank to finish 

Hope you like it and thank you for dropping by my blog today xx