London is the place to be

Today the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka William and Kate) are hoping to give birth to a healthy baby and the world is wishing them well.   Although I have yet to make a new baby card I have created a little patriotic tag.

 

Made with Stamps away flower montage stamps through the Special touch geometric mask.  Stamps away vintage travel stamps - London bus.

Flutterby Butterfly

This card was a result of using my previous project as inspiration and adding in a couple of summer challenges.

The first challenge was to add layers.  I used stamps away stamp n colour card which is semi glossy.  The archival resist technique used in the previous project involves at least two layers, first the stamped archival ink, then the distress.  I used the summer colours, picked raspberry and salty ocean.  I added a third layer by stamping butterflies with clear ink and clear embossing.  I then added a fourth layer using mowed lawn distress ink.  The black swirl is stamped onto the distressed cardstock and embossed with WOW ebony embossing powder. 

I added another dimension by making an acetate wrap onto which I stamped and embossed the sentiment.  Finally I stamped some butterflies and embossed them using WOW white pearl.  I then took some cosmic shimmer mica powders in colours matching the inks and dusted that over the embossing before reheating.  I cut out the butterflies and adhered them to the acetate front.

All stamps used were by Sheena Douglass

I would like to enter this project into Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stamper Build your layers challenge  , the Country View Crafts Summer Sizzler challenge and the WOW embossing powder summer and sunshine challenges

Archival resist - Be Happy

Archival ink is used on this tag to resist distress inks added later.  I love the Brilliance inks especially the metallic ones.  They need heat setting to dry them. 

The tag was cut from very thick chipboard packaging that had a semi glossy coating. I used Sheena Douglass A little bit sketchy - Ageing Beautifully stamps to put the layers and texture in the background with Archival ink.  After heat setting I distressed with various Tim Holtz Distress inks and dusted with talc.  I then used distress ink through the detailed part of the Splodgeaway face mask and added embossing powder to that section and heat set.  I then took the corresponding shadow and applied a lighter distress ink.  the Be Happy stamp is also from Sheena Douglass.  The flowers were die cut from Graphic 45 papers using Tim Holtz Tattered Pinecone sizzix bigz die dipped in utee and layered with utee dribbles.

Yin Yang tree

This simple tree card was made by cutting two identical sized pieces of card, one in black and one in white.  I placed them next to each other using temporary adhesive on the back before stamping the Sheena Douglass little bit sketchy tree with versamark.  I then embossed each side individually, using WOW ebony and WOW white embossing powders.  I'd like to enter this into the WOW nature themed June challenge

Fathers day with G45

Inspired by projects on todays G45 blog I have made this little fathers day tag card using Graphic 45 papers on a tag cut from kraft card using a Tim Holtz sizzix bigx die.  The tractor is from the Pilkington Transport set two from Ali Reeve.  Entered into the http://craftcreatoins.blogspot.co.uk/p/transpot-challenge.html?spref=fb and the Simon Says anything goes fathers day Challenges

Making distress paint and Paper Artsy stamps

I have been playing with distress reinkers and made my own paints by adding them to white acrylic (or ordinary emulsion paint today!).  I haven't achieved quite the same defined marbled effects you can get with the real thing yet but was very happy with some of the results.  I just put small blobs of paint onto my craft sheet, added 2 or 3 drops of reinker and mixed them in.  I spritzed with water because the paint was very thick and also spritzed the tag with water before dabbing and swiping it into the ink to give me more time before the paint dried.  Once the card was covered in paint to my satisfaction I spritzed again with water and watched the colours blend into each other.  I treated both the tag and background the same way although I added a little more distress to the tag and then stamped with water to lift some ink in places.  the stamps are all old ones from Paper Artsy and the little 'buttons' are the clock part of the wing stamped onto shrink plastic.

Sympathy card

I'm not really keen on making or sending religious sympathy cards especially if I don't know the person it's going to very well.  The sentiment on this card was a Sheena Douglas stamp with the word always masked out, the daisy fitted perfectly into the space left.  Daisy stamps also Sheena's little bit sketchy.  I wasn't sure if this is a bit bright for a sympathy card but as it to two males didn't want soft pastels.