Chess Card

A simple card using same stamp for background as main image distress inks again antique linen for background and walnut stain for main image and stamped letters. Used clear embossing powder on both main image and letters. Used walnut stain and vintage photo on white card to tone in the matted and layered bit. Used a small sqare punch to cut out letters and foam pads to raise it all.

A simple but hopefully effective card.

Butterfly Napkin Cards

The butterflies on these cards are actually napkins.

I know most people use spray adhesive with napkins but with my asthma i am very carefull about using sprays so i used an acid free glue stick instead. You only need one layer of napkin and card or paper to back it onto. I used different colours of pearlescent paper and card as i have loads of offcuts to use up. With the napkin being so sheer the colour it is backed onto does change the shades of colours. I roughly cut out the butterflies and thoroughly covered my card/paper with glue stick then carefully smoothed the napkin on top and left to dry.

Once i had cut out the butterflies i made some antennae from wire. I used double depth foam pads on the wings to raise them above the body and give more depth to the card.

Not sure i like all the finished cards, finding card making a bit hit and miss just now would rather be altering something.

Stamping with pearly watercolours

Inspied by a post on Trimcraft asking if you could apply watercolours to stamps for stamping, i decided to try the tinfoil method i used below with the Works cheap version of H2Os.
I made the paints quite thick but only applied a little of each colour to the tinfoil so didn't use a lot. I then pressed my stamp into the paint and cos i only had a small amount of each colour i turned the stamp round several times to make sure image was all covered. After i had stamped the image i took a piece of card and put that on the tinfoil and used it to make the border.
Top pic shows the card in its true colours, the bottom one i darkened so you can see how the fine detail has been picked up by the paint.
Think i will be using this method again.

More stamping experiments

I have been experimenting with my inks on tinfoil, i know that you can use distress inks this way and it works great but i don't yet have all the colours i would like of this range i only have 7 distress inkpads so far so i decided to see if i could use other brands in this way. I chose versamagic chalk inkpads and brilliance as the colours i have complement my distress pads. I applied a variety of ink to the tinfoil and sprayed with water (sometimes too much water oooooooops). Then pressed my stamp into the inks sometimes just once othertimes i moved it about. Got a wide variety of results from the disasterous to the good. When i had finished stamping i added more water then rubbed card over the top to get some interesting backgrounds.
These atcs use up some of these experiments the one with vellum over half the image hides the fact that there was too much water on that part of the stamp and the image smudged but i liked the mix of colours on the rest of image so found a way round it.
Some of these work better than others and one or 2 may end up in the bin. I need more practice using this technique.

Stamping experiments

3 atcs using up some of my stamping experiments.
Top one is stamped background and i put crackle glaze finely over lady and wings to give a very fine crackle effect and to age the image.
Middle and bottom one are a mix of cut up pieces of stamping experiments, i think they look ok bearing in mind they were not specifically stamped to match.

Cardboard Box to Display Case

I needed somewhere to display the stunning altered jigsaw pieces and bottle caps i recieved from Trudy's Swaps on Do Crafts. So i took a plain shallow cardboard box and made 2 shelves from corrugated card. I then used tissue paper, pva and gesso to create texture and a base for painting. I then took more bits of card and part of a polystyrene pizza base that i covered in metal, to create the shape of the unit. I took some aluminium tape and opened up my scroll cuttlebug folder and used an embossing tool to emboss the pattern the i kept moving the tape till i had enough embossed tape to cover both sides and top of my little unit. I did this instead of using my bug as i wanted a continuous line and i couldn't do that with my bug.Once i was happy with the shape of the unit, i used my cropadile to punch holes under the shelves. I then painted the unit black. Then and i lots of messy fun here, i squeezed 7 different colours of paints metallics and enamel onto a pallette then took some make up sponges and splodged the paint all over the unit.

When it was dry. I threaded wire through the holes and threaded the lovely jigsaw pieces and bottle caps onto the wires.

The wires are tied at the back, i did it this way so that if i swap any more i can add them to the display.

I might not have succeeded in keeping this neutral but i hope it shows of the pieces well and that those that made them like what i have done with them, they are way toooooooooo gorgeous to be kept in an envelope.

Black and white exploding box

This is an exploding box i made in a black and white theme.

Amazingly for me it is mostly using docraft products, i mix and match things but this is mostly docrafts lol. The punches, papers as well as the frilly flower stamp the flower stamp on lid (foam stamp) are docraft products. The daisy flower stamp is hampton arts and the small flower is a foam stamp from a pack from poundlad, it has a silly foot shape in the middle but i just double embossed over it. Embossing powder is a mix of black, white and sparkly clear.

The flowers in the centre i made by punching out lots of funky hearts (another do craft product lol) Then i joined the edges together so i had layers from 2 hearts joined together up to 7 for the main flower and just 2, 3 and 4 hearts for the bottom flowers. Quite fiddly joining them all and curving them but i do like the effect.