Word Dies and Heat Shrink Craft Foam.

I am currently taking part in the Online Card Class "Stretch Your Dies" which is run by Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner. The lessons are spread over seven days and there are loads of useful tips and galleries full of inspiration. I was late to the party, due to ongoing problems with our broadband connection and not being able to view the video classes until recently - but I plan to work my way through all of them and post my cards here as I get time.

The very first lesson was a video by the very talented Jennifer McGuire, showing how to use word dies to create a tone on tone background and how to make fun little embellishments out of die cut Craft Foam. Here is my finished card. It was very time consuming to make (I was fiddling with it for about three days), but I am so pleased with the finished result!
I started with a black C6 card blank and used WOW opaque white embossing powder to heat emboss the long border stamp from Waltzingmouse Stamps "My Heart" set down the left hand side. The white background panel was made using several die cuts from a Papertrey Ink Birthday die (I used Stick It on the back of my card before cutting each word out, so that they would be easier to adhere to my card). I added a strip of gold foil and mounted the panel onto a rectangle of white craft foam, before adding it to the card.

Then I got rather carried away die cutting all these individual small flowers and leaves from Craft Foam! I used a selection of dies from Papertrey Ink, Waltzingmouse, Impression Obsession, Magnolia, Poppystamps, X-cut and Simon Says Stamp.

Next came the fun part! I used my heat gun to heat shrink the flowers and leaves until they were much smaller. The Birthday word was cut from black foam and shrunk in the same way. The photo below shows the foam before it was shrunk on the top row, with the smaller heat shrunk versions below.

I stuck everything to the card front using Ranger's multi - medium matte and added pearls as a finishing touch. 

Thanks for looking!

Lynn

Sunday Stamper - week 300 - Dream Lover

This week is rather a special one over at the very talented Hels Sheridan's blog http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sunday-stamper-week-300-dream-lover.html  - it is the 300th week for the Sunday Stamper challenge! For each of the last 300 weeks Hels has come up with a theme, loosely based on a song title, and has created a gorgeous example of her stamped art to inspire us all to join in. As it's the 300th anniversary of the Sunday Stamper challenge, this week there are several companies sponsoring it and a very generous prize up for grabs for one lucky entrant.

All week I have been deliberating as to what to use to make my entry for the "Dream Lover" theme. I knew straight away that I wanted to use the Catslife Press quote stamp that I acquired recently (thanks Kaz)! But it wasn't until I was able to get into my craftroom yesterday afternoon that I was able to find the perfect image to go with it. This romantic couple from Paper Artsy's Urban Snapshots range - Young Love 4 - fitted the bill perfectly!

Apologies for the poor quality photograph - as per usual I was stamping and taking photos at night! The flash has made the copper areas look more orangey, but in real life they are a bright metallic copper. You can click onto any of the photos for a clearer view if desired.

I gathered together some more supplies - a white card blank, some shiny copper mirror card, thick white card which had been previously sprayed with various pink / purple / copper ink sprays (from Sticky Fingers), some pearlescent pink card, double sided tape, foam pads, some pink gems and everything shown in the photo below. Hels is a great fan of all of Wendy Vecchi's products so I thought it would be appropriate to use the "Art Colours Life" stamp set (which happens to be the only one of Wendy Vecchi's that I own), together with the Large Heart from her Stencils for Art collection.  



I started by trimming a layer of copper mirror card slightly smaller than the front of my card blank, then I cut a smaller panel from the colourful ink sprayed card. I used the central heart shape from the stencil as a mask and inked up the large flower panel stamp below with Victorian Velvet Distress ink before stamping it all over the background to give it a subtle texture. When I removed the mask there was a feint outline of where the heart was, but it needed more definition, so I laid the outer stencil over the flower stamped portion of the card and christened my new Ranger mini ink blending tool with the Victorian Velvet Distress ink to add more depth of colour to the heart. I really like the new little circular ink blending tool as it's ideal to use with stencils and it's easy to control the ink without getting any harsh lines.

I stamped the lovers' image onto white card with Jet Black Archival ink and cut around it leaving a narrow white border. I used the mini ink blending tool and the Victorian Velvet Distress ink again to gently add a little shading to the couple, but I made sure to leave the man's shirt white - if he was anything like my husband he wouldn't be seen dead wearing pink!

This photo and the one below were both taken without flash, but have come out a bit dark. In reality the pink is more of a bright rose pink and what looks like gold is actually a warm copper colour.

The brilliant Catslife Press quote was stamped onto white card using the jet black Archival ink and the corners were rounded with a corner chomper. I then layered this onto a slightly larger rectangle of pearlescent pink card, also with rounded corners, and stuck it to the card with foam pads.

I used a pretty Magnolia Doohickey heart lace border die to trim either side of a strip of pearlescent pink card and added a narrower strip of card, which had been sprayed with slightly darker shades of pink and purple with copper. I used JustRite alphabet stamps (Times New Roman font - 50 pt) to make up the words "Dream Lover" which I then stamped onto the strip of card using the jet black Archival ink again. I trimmed the right-hand side to a fishtail shape and mounted it on the card with foam pads, to help ground the image of the pair of lovers (which I had stuck inside the heart using double sided tape). The final touch was the addition of three sparkly pink gemstones .

I was really happy with the finished card and am now considering making something similar in a cream and duck - egg blue colourway that I can use as a hanging in our bedroom. Watch this space!

Happy Birthday Little Man ...

Our first grandson, Max, had his second birthday today and by all accounts he has enjoyed himself all day! We bought him a Lego airport set as he loves watching aeroplanes and his Mum and Dad took him to Legoland at the Trafford Centre for a birthday treat.

Here is the card I made him for his second birthday.

I started with an eight inch white card blank and added a layer of gingham patterned paper from the Petal Fresh collection by NitWit Collections for Lili of the Valley. Then I added a large square of pale blue card to represent the sky. I used Memory Box dies to cut the clouds from white card stock and the letters and numbers from blue card stock. I used a Zig 2 way glue pen to stick the sentiment onto the clouds, which I then stuck to the blue card base using double sided tape for two of the clouds and sticky foam pads to raise up the other two clouds.

Little Max is always asking to be taken to the airport so that he can watch the aeroplanes taking off and landing, so I was delighted when I found the "Little Man" mini clear stamp set from Kaisercraft http://www.thecraftbarn.co.uk/product.php/34741/kaisercraft-mini-clear-stamps-little-man . I stamped the cute aeroplane onto blue card stock four times, using Memento Danube Blue dye ink. Then I fussy cut each layer out and decoupaged them together using clear silicone, so that I could angle the wings etc. Whilst the silicone was drying I stamped the vapour trail using Papertrey Fresh Snow ink. Next I added a strip of double sided tape to the back of a piece of bright green card stock before using a Magnolia Doohickey die to cut out the strip of grass. Adding the tape before I cut the card made it so much easier when I came to stick the grass to the bottom of the picture!

Max also likes being held up to look out of the window so that he can spot the birds outside. For that reason hubby is known as "Birdy Grandad" so I just knew that he had to have some birds on his card too! These two are separate dies from Marianne design and I cut them both out of brown card stock. I then used a Versamark pen to colour the leaves on the branches and the wings and eyes of the two birds. Whilst the ink was still wet I applied some pearly pigment powders (I used Blonde Moments pigments powders, which I bought from Dyan Reavely at Art from the Heart some years ago) using a fine paintbrush. I brushed off the excess powder and polished with some tissue before adding the bird and branch die cuts to the card using my Zig 2 way glue pen. Finally I added the plane with a dab of silicone and angled it so that it looked like it was banking round. All done!

You do have to imagine that the birds are in the foreground - otherwise they are far too big and out of proportion to the plane - but hubby pointed out that as Max is only two he isn't likely to complain about the perspective just yet (although he is very clever)!