Alcohol Inks & Lavinia

 

Hi there all, glad to know you've popped by today.  Very busy week for me this week, travelling to Blackpool for a work event on Monday and Tuesday, two very long days.  The rest of the week in the office catching up and facilitating an Apprentice event at Rochester, all good stuff.

 

 

So, like Martina, this was the first time I had used Alcohol inks with gloss card but was looking forward to seeing the effect as  I had looked on YouTube to see some demonstrations and found some good ones' with Tim Holtz and also Tracey from Lavinia, I found them both very helpful.

 

 

I took a 6" x 6" blank white card and cut a piece of white gloss card 5" x 5". 

 

So for my first attempt I thought I'd use one of the Tim Holtz techniques of laying down the ink onto a craft mat and swiping my card over going from right to left.  I wanted to get a sort of grass and sky effect.

 

 

 

 

(Sorry I forgot to take a photo of just the background before stamping)

I then used my blending tool with a felt applicator and a little of the Blending Solution and done some 'pouncing' (love that word) over the sky to make it look a little cloudy.

 

I used the Lavinia Willow stamp (* sorry but this was on the web when I made the card last week, but was obviously popular at the class) and Archival Ink stamped various lengths of the willow both initial and double stamping for definition.  I then stamped the Lavinia Grass Stamp* using the same method.  I wanted to stamp just one of the Woodland Hare's* from the new range looking up at the little Lavinia Fairy Couple.

 

 

I decided to draw in  few lines to ground the hare in the grasses and also add a bit of sparkle by using Silver Stickles.

 

I then matted the image onto some black card before adding it to the card blank, here's the card again.

 

 

 

I think a very quick card but with lots of effect from the inks and the silhouettes of the stamps.

 

Thanks again for dropping by the blog and see you again soon

Love Jan -x-

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Card-io Tutorial

Hello crafters, This is my first full tutorial for you so I hope you like it.

Card-io Combinations Christmas Scenery 2

First I took the inside acetate with the images and cut around each one so I could use them as templates to place and design the card before permanently stamping.

Then I chose a 7" x 7" card and placed the images where I thought they looked best. (I sometimes change my mind and you'll see on the finished card that I moved the rabbit and drew in an additional branch on the tree using a fine line pen)

The next thing was to decide where the skyline was going and went about drawing a wavy line and cut along to create my horizon.

I placed the card on a craft mat with the opening facing me so the card was side on.  Placed a piece of paper under the top of the card and taped it in place, I laid the skyline vertically on the card and taped that using masking tape.

I got all the tools I needed to create my skyline, which consisted of Blending Mat, Speedball Brayer, Salty Ocean and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Inks and Mini Blending Tool.

I wanted to have a little moon, so cut a small circle using my Spellbinders dies and the Mask-it to create my moon.  Placed that in the position then using the brayer and Salty Ocean I blended it on my craft mat to the desired colour and transferred the colour to the card until I reached a nice shade of darkish blue.  (Sorry forgot to take a picture at this point, but you will get my drift later)

I removed the mask and the tape to reveal the skyline, then cut the moon again using copy paper and used the cut out section as a mask to create the yellow moon using the Squeezed Lemonade and a blending tool.

Next came the stamping, using the Card-io Combinations Christmas Scenery 2, Stampeaze and Versafine Black Onyx, stamped the Santa and Sleigh across the moon.

Then stamped the remaining images where I previously decided.

So to give the card some perspective, I used Cosmic Shimmer Glue along the skyline, under the houses and on the roofs, tree, rabbits and snowman, then covered the whole lot with Glamour Dust.

I left the glue to dry for a while before tapping off the excess, and brushing off where the glitter had stuck to the black images.

I finished off with a little Card-io Christmas Sentiment here's a close up and the finished card again.



Very simple little card but I hope you've enjoyed it and see you again next Friday.

Love Jan -x-





Stencil Tutorial, twice embossed.......

Morning all,

 

Happy Saturday, how are we all?....

 

Well as promised I said that I would bring you a stencil tutorial today so that's what I have done......

 

I started by choosing the Bouquet stencil from That Special Touch.  

I love this stencil as it has a bold flower pattern on it and when you dry emboss stencils, I find the bigger the pattern the better emboss you get to start with. The other stencil I used was Diamonds by Imagination Crafts......I also chose Stonewashed and Lettuce  Adirondak ink pads......

 

So the first thing that I did was to cut a piece of 300gsm super smooth card 6" square and using the bouquet stencil I run it through my die cut machine using an embossing matt to get a raised impression on the card, like below........

 

 

I then placed the stencil back over the raised areas and taped it down on to my craft mat using stencil tape.......

 

 

 

Using a white tile, my chosen inks and small pieces of cut'n'dry foam I started to build up the colour through the stencil and on to the card starting with a lighter layer first and then building the colour up to add shading, hopefully you can see in these pictures.......

 

 

First the lighter shading........

 

 

 

Then start to add some depth of colour by shading the edges deeper......

 

 

 

 

Once I was happy with the colours I wiped away all the excess ink from the front of the stencil and then I took a Clear Emboss ink pad and caked it through the stencil straight from the pad on to the raised areas making sure that there was plenty on there.

 

See how wet it looks......

 

( NOW you know when you have lots of embossing powders out and you are working away busily and then you realise that you have just put the excess powder from one pot in to another....yes I hear you say we have all done it!!!

Well I did this about six months ago with Wow clear powder and Wow clear sparkle so I now have Wow clear with a hint of sparkle powder and I have to say I love it and use it all the time now and when the sparkle starts getting low, I add a bit more.....See mistakes are good and yes believe me I make many!!!)

 

Anyway back to the tutorial........

I added the embossing powder on to the stencilled inked area, knocked off the excess and then heated and as you can see it look lovely and glossy with a hint of sparkle......

 

The stencil removed and embossing powder added.......

 

 

The look once I had heat embossed it........

 

  

The next stage was to add some background, so I took the diamond stencil and some Antique Linen Distress ink......

 

I placed the stencil on to the bottom of the card so that I had two rows of the diamonds on there and then inked through the stencil this time using a blending tool.......

 

 

I repeated the same at the top this time using one row of diamonds......

 

 

 

I finished off by adding more Antique Linen around the edge of the card with the blending tool.

 

 

 

I matted and layered the art work first on to blue card and then cream and then on to a white card.....

 

See what you think of the finished card.........

 

 

Now I know you will notice one huge difference and if you don't you are not observant enough

lol :-).......

I made the card first and then decided to do a tutorial on it!!.......however it is best to use the stencil around the same way when you do!!

Any how it also shows you that you can reverse stencils and this is great when you are building a picture and want to have flowers coming in from both sides framing a central theme.......phew I think that I got away with it eh?.........

 

 

I hope you can see the raised effect enough.......

 

 



 

 

A closer look at that hint of sparkle.......

 

 

 

Well that is all from me for now, I will be back tomorrow with a little more inspiration following on from this theme......

 

Until then, have a great day......

Big hugs Lisa.B.xx