On your Special Day

CAS Mix Up has been taking a break for a while but we are back again with a new fun challenge, which this time is to use pastes or gels.

Some time ago I discovered how to make embossing paste after being faced with a solid lump of the stuff when I wanted to make a card. Being a creature of impulse I wanted to do it straight away, so after tossing the dried up pot of the stuff, I made my own. Here is a video I made, demonstrating how I made it.

For this card I used two stencils, the Paisley type one, and a circle one over the top. I spread the embossing paste through it using a palette knife and sprinkled it with Gold Glamour Dust when still wet.

The twiggy die cut is stacked a few times to add dimension, the heat embossed sentiment is by Personal Impressions.

 

Happy Birthday

I have been making homemade stencils for quite some time. Often, my dies are just the right dimensions to make a stencil background and I have used a variety of things to create the stencil. These often comprised paper, card, vellum or acetate. However, recently I came across Mylar sheets. I don't know what took me so long to find them, but together with dies or my Silhouette Portrait, one can make simply terrific re-usable stencils. For this card I used a Sizzix corner die. and once the Mylar sheet was cut, I used Distress Oxide Inks, applied through the stencil, using blending brushes.

I made the card for the challenge at CAS Mix Up

I bought a set of cheap brushes from eBay, I think they were described as make up brushes, but they work so well with the inks, to create beautifully smooth colour and blend them perfectly.

The 'Dreamy Butterfly' die is from Memory Box and the tiny sentiment from Avery Elle. The stitched frames were cut with dies from SSS, although I have to elongate the cut slightly to fit with British dimension cards. The width works beautifully but I just have to add around 1cm to the length. For these cards I use a sheet of A4 cut in half down the length and folded to make a tall tent fold card.

AAA Birthday has a birthday celebration so many congrats to them.

These days we have to make appointments to make a visit to the local dump, and we have one this morning, so I need to start loading up the car with some of the detritus from the garage and garden.

Wish me luck!

 

Many Thanks

Here is a one layer card made with the challenges at AAA cards  in mind.

One layers are quite daunting to many, but with the advent of stamping platforms, lots of problems with poor impressions from stamps have been eradicated. Previously if a stamp had failed to give a complete image, the card had to be re-thought, re-vamped or even tossed. But now that there are second chances to stamp in exactly the same place, many first time poor impressions can be remedied.... as here! The flower heads (from Darkroom Door) were not cleanly stamped on the first try. The card, from Paper Mill Direct, has a linen texture and so there were tiny gaps in the ink impression. These were easily covered by second or third attempts. The same was the case for the sentiment. It's from a little set I got in Michael's on one our trips to the US some time ago. It says Art then a C in a circle. The set came with a little tag die too!.

For the background I made a stencil from Vellum, using a Sizzix die and brushed some Shabby Shutters Distress Oxide ink through it.

I am due to have my Covid vaccine tomorrow, Let's hope they have the supplies!

Stay safe everyone!

 

Gilding Flakes

It's a while since I used gilding Flakes and I don't believe that I have ever used them with a stencil before, I think that I have mainly used them with stamps. So to begin this project I cut a stencil from vellum using a Sizzix die. This is actually a die which normally leaves an aperture so it is perfect for using to make a stencil.

I inked through the stencil with Versamark, sprinkled on some Stamp 'N' Bond and heated it. I tipped on some Gilding Flakes and pressed them down firmly, before brushing away and then burnishing with a scoochie thingy. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I wanted to do a sentiment in embossing powder rather than flakes but neither the gold nor the copper were a good match for the flakes so I mixed some of each together. It's not a bad match IRL.

CAS Stencil Challenge

I really love how the girls at CAS Stencil make me think outside the box.

Thank you SO much!

AAA Cards