Another try

Here is another try at doing the Oxidised Metal technique for CAS Mix Up Challenge. I didn't get quite as messy with this one as with previous efforts. I used both an embossing folder to give texture to the piece and a die  over the top. The sentiment was stamped and embossed onto a piece of mirri card too.

I haven't made my mind up whether or not I like this one! It looks better at certain angles but I can't quite capture a good one on camera!

The DT gals over at CAS MixUp have come up with some amazing examples, I take my hat off to them! Gorgeous, inspiring work!

Thanks to you all!

Thank you!

I think it's rather nice if the sign of appreciation, in some way, matches the deed for which the recipient is being thanked.

The choir with which I have been singing for some 36 years, puts on concerts 3 or 4 times a year. At most of these concerts we have wine and soft drinks served in the interval... (often makes for a jolly second half) and the person who has been serving these drinks for many years, has decided that he needs a break. We are so grateful for all his hard work and this is the card I made to accompany our thanks!

I chose a burgundy backdrop and inlaid the die with plain white card and some of the deep red. We sang a concert of Mozart and Haydn last night, which was really enjoyable... I must say the wine in the interval was really welcome and its server much appreciated.

CASology - Appreciate

Christmas Joy

The theme at Perfectly CAS this month is Christmas... how appropriate!

My card this time does not consist of a geometric third, but the design does take up about one third of the surface areas of the front of the card.

I simply die cut three snowflakes, two white and one in gold, heat embossed a simple sentiment from Hero Arts and stuck them onto the card front. The sentiment panel is popped up onto dimensional pads. This could be a good design for mass production methinks!

I hope that you are well on the way to getting your Christmas cards ready, but if not here is the perfect opportunity to add to your stockpile!

DO join us!

Home sweet home

Having had a few problems with getting my head around the updated Silhouette software for my Portrait cutting machine, I thought I would try again. When I loaded up the program, I was aghast to see that another update was necessary! Fortunately I think it must have been just a tweak rather than a completely new set up, so I was able to go ahead and make this 'home' word  for this card. I cut it about 4 four times and stacked them to give some dimension then coloured with Copic pens. The dry embossing is from Cuttlebug and the house I think was a little cheapie die from Hobbycraft. I wrote the 'sweet home' using the computer with the same font as the cut word, in a size to fit under the 'm'.

Time out - Home Sweet Home

Here is another try at a Stencil Monoprint. I used a stencil from Tando Creative. I inked it with various shades of green Distress Ink and spritzed liberally with water before pressing onto some cardstock. I covered it with a piece of paper to press down all over the  stencil and in fact as the stencil was really wet, I got a good impression on the paper too. I'll use that for something else.

I die cut the W&W hello from the image and also three more times from white card which I added underneath in order to give the dimension necessary to be able to actually read the word! I mounted the palin card onto a base of textured card to give a little contrast. IRL the colour of the two types of cardstock is much closer in shade than it appears on the picture.

CAS Stencil - Stencil Monoprint

Pine Cones

Having seen the fab card made by Bobby here I was reminded of a Penny Black stamp I bought some time ago, which I thought would look great for this technique.

Having dug it out, I popped it into my MISTI and reached for every shade of brown Distress Ink in my racks.

The challenge I first had in mind was CAS Watercolour where a Monochrome palette is required.

After numerous stampings, with just about every shade used on different parts of the stamp, I spritzed a little shimmer over it and then stamped some splodges in Antique linen ink over all.

I found the sentiment is a box of previously unused stamps, bought as a Grab Bag from a craft show... I believe they are from Rubbernecker. It had different sized spots either side of the words, which I didn't really care for, so after cutting them off, I embossed it in gold. Having distressed the edges to tie in with the main panel,  it was added it to the card.

Penny Black - Christmas

Here is another card containing shades of brown, although not watercolour this time. This was a fairly quick card... or at least it should have been if I hadn't pfaffed around with different tree line dies and trying to decide which tag die to use. Anyway the reindeer is a little digi which I gave up on trying to cut out with my Portrait and hand cut instead. I did an upgrade to my Silhouette as I hadn't used my machine for some time... it was like trying to learn a completely new piece of software!

For some reason yet to be discovered, I couldn't get the machine to read the registration lines, I'll try again some time, but frustration got the better of me this time!

I took my inspiration from Just Add Ink

...although the only ink on this one is from the Versamark for the sentiment!

Lots of leftovers

I saw that the challenge at ABC Christmas was W - Wreath and I thought I would ty to use up a few leftovers. Probably a strange choice was to use some tartan paper for the twigs on the wreath. I had printed some for a commission card and had a piece left and I rather liked the colours although they are not really traditional for Christmas.I cut the front panel with a circle aperture just the right size the edge it with a wreath die, which was free with a mag. I embossed the panel with a plaid EF and the die cut lots of sprigs to add to the edge of the opening.

The sentiment is part of the basic wreath die which is under all the tartan sprigs.

I added a few holly leaves coloured to tie in with the Tartan (Lamont) colours.

Inside the opening is a basic hillside and deer.

Not sure if I really like this one maybe it will grow on me!

Getting messy

I treated myself to a few new Sizzix sets of dies recently when they were on sale, of which the background die here is one. I used it because of the absolute pickle I got myself into trying a new technique (to me)!  Oxidised Metal!

I watched the video suggested on the CAS MIX Up Challenge and got into the most awful inky mess. I think I must have used to much reinker, and although I really liked the look of the effect I'd achieved, I couldn't stop the ink coming off. I tried wiping with a baby wipe, (as suggested in the video) and clear heat embossing, but the ink kept coming off. Maybe if I'd had a little more patience it may have dried in time, but sadly I'm not very patient. My solution with all this inkiness was to place it behind a die cut  screen so that it could be seen, but wouldn't be rubbing of on anything it touched.

The next frustration with this card was trying to make the sentiment strip. I used a Clearly Besotted stamp which I wanted to emboss in Copper, to tie in with the 'metal' panel. I kept getting stray EP 

around the words despite copious use of an antistatic bag. The stamp looked clean to me, but I thought I would give it a clean with my new Lawn Fawn Shammy. What a difference... a piece of lint appeared from off the stamp, (which hadn't been apparent earlier) probably from the baby wipe with which it was originally cleaned and the image from my next attempt at embossing came out perfectly! So the Shammy is something I would recommend! 

I like this one more

Here I have some more pieces from the stencil monoprint which I made for the previous card. It seemed such a waste as there was quite a bit left. I simply cut two little squares and added a sentiment from Inkadinkadoo., topped by a triple stacked, foliage diecut from Sizzix. This time I took a deep charcoal for the backdrop.

I must say that when the challenge at CAS Stencil was created, initially, I was less than enthused, but with all the suggested techniques and ideas, for me stencilling has had a complete renaissance. Thank you ladies!

Just Us Girls - Thanks

Monoprint

Those gals at CAS Stencil have done it again... introduced me to yet another technique whose title was new for me. I had done something similar when using up splodges of ink from stencils so as not to waste it, but didn't realise that it was a technique in itself.

Here I used a stencil from Memory Box and 3 shades of blue Distress Inks. The complete image was too large for my card base so I decided to use just a portion of it. (Also I hadn't managed to get the stencil square on my watercolour paper, so I was careful to arrange my die squarely on the paper when cutting out!)It was difficult to find any white cardstock amongst my supplies which went with the watercolour paper, hence the use of blue as a background colour.

The die-cut snowflake and the sentiment were dropped into the inkiness on my craft mat, before being embossed with clear glitter embossing powder.

I did emboss a few splodges onto the stencilling but it's not too clear in the pics.

This is something that I will probably be trying many times in the future.

Christmas kickstart - Snow
Shopping our Stash - Here comes Susie Snowflake

Warm woollen mittens

 

A line from 'The Sound of Music' came to my mind with this card.... warm woollen mittens... some of  my favourite things!!

The wreath die was free with a mag and in fact the sentiment forms the centre of the die, but I decided to separate it and add it below. The mittens were part of the same freebie set. I cut them out and replaced the Memory Box mittens from the die cut string and added the stamped ones instead.

I did another card with the same set and sent it into the magazine and they were kind enough to publish it!

This is a spinner card.

It's a really nice set!

CAS Christmas Challenge -  Warm and Cosy

Stella Christmas

The images from Bugaboo always bring a smile to my face. For this one I simply coloured with Copics and added a little Fun Flock to the edges of her dress and cap. Although this sentiment was part of the download, I decided to write it myself rather than use the one provided as I didn't think think that the weight of the type or the font itself matched the image too well. I used DJB Baby Bump instead and split the sentence into two parts to arrange around the figure.

It's my DT card for Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge

I'm not sure if it's actually Bah Humbug, but she looks a little grumpy!

DO join in the fun!

Gnome

I downloaded this digi image from a craft magazine's website... I thought he looked really cute. This one was called a DIY image as it was a separate gnome and two different sets of hands. This one holding a gingerbread man and another holding a bauble. The  problem arose in trying to put the hands in a credible place on the gnome. I worked in Word and had to use a text box to place the hands appropriately. I made the box transparent and when I had the size and position as good as I could get them, I removed the lines  from the text box and printed him. I think it looks as though the hands are emerging through his beard.

He's coloured with alcohol pens and after cutting out, popped onto dimensional pads.

The 'merry' is stacked and the lower gold layers just slightly offset, to give a little more dimension.

A snowy sky (Sheena Douglass) and (Memory Box) tree lined hillside completed the scene.

Merry Little Christmas  - Anything Goes

Dies R Us Challenge - Trees or Leaves

CAS Christmas - Warm and Cosy (That beard looks kinda cosy)

'Tis the season

Here is  my DT card for the CAS Challenge at Happy Little Stampers!

For this I dug out my Penny Black die which begins with the prompt words from the challenge. In fact there are a few fa la las  on the end of the die cut but I didn't think that the whole thing fitted so well into my SSS 'Bough of Holly', so I cut them off.

I added a little dry embossed panel of snow from Sheena Douglass ,behind the aperture and popped just the edges of the die cut onto the front panel so that it appears to float.

I have done quite well with making Christmas cards throughout the year this time and hopefully there won't be such a frantic scramble to make more at the last moment... fingers crossed.

Tarnished metal

The girls over at CAS Mix Up have challenged me to try something new yet again. I had never heard of this technique and today got into quite a pickle trying out some of the ways of achieving this effect.

 

This was one of the easier methods from the videos linked on the challenge blog, but I have tried some of the other techniques... as my inky fingers are testament to... I will be blogging some of those when I have decided what to do with the treated card!

For this one I began by embossing a piece of dark cardstock in a Craft Concepts embossing folder. I then dragged a Versamark Ink pad across the raised surface, and sprinkled embossing powders in Gold, Copper and Silver  randomly over it and heat setting. I then dragged a little black Stazon over the top.

I did a similar process for the Alexandra Renke die cut, which I thought complemented the EF really well. I simply added a few black dots for the centre of the flower.

I used some of the same dark cardstock for the sentiment panel, and embossed the Clearly Besotted phrase in gold.