Thursday 28 May 2015

Steam Punk Card Bonanza

Steam Punk!
Well, I think it speaks for itself. 
 Normally I stay away from pre-printed images but as you can see once other elements are added they actually look OK.
A few die cut cogs, a touch of twine, embossing here and there,
a stamped verse/sentiment, a bit of distress ink and a touch of treasure gold waxes in several colours complete the cards.
 

 
As you can see just a quick entry today as the girls are off school this week, again!
 
Hope you like them.
 
Sue X


Friday 15 May 2015

Happy Day Journal Page

FRIDAY

I dedicated today as a crafting day, although in reality my crafting started about 11.30am.
Boooo!
I decided to do a journal page. It was a dry, warmish day and I was happy perfect title for someone of few words, "happy day".

I began the page by first roughly drawing  three hearts.

 

  
Papers cut into squares of various sizes were used to fill in the heart shapes then glued into position with soft mat medium, torn book text was also added then the page was coated all over to seal the papers.

 
Plasterers mesh tape was also added to the page and white gesso was  applied over the page to prep it for inks for colour to be added, some areas were knocked back to reveal the papers underneath with a baby wipe.


Texture was added through a mask to add detail.


I used a variety of ink/mica sprays to add a touch of colour (Lindy's Spray Gang/Prima Colour Bloom and Dylusions).



The heart shapes were draw over the top with and archival pen and Random stamping was added around the hearts.

 
Silks paints were used to outline the hearts.

 
Using gel medium I applied micro beads around the heart shapes, followed by a touch of inking to the edges of the page with distress ink. A bar code was stamped onto card and words were added  then sprayed in matching colours. This was mounted onto orange basil card and the edges were distressed and inked. 
 
A touch of off white fabric/threads were added, all was layered up and stuck down.
 
"Happy Day"
 
 
Here is a close up.


Hope you like it.

Sue x

Thursday 14 May 2015

Mini Album

Today my task was to make something from an A3 Crafters Companion Opulent card pack and set of Phil Martin Dragonfly/Butterfly stamps for my Sunday Workshops.

Ummmmmmm!!!!!!!

Ummmmmmm!!!!!!!

My first reaction was OMG what an earth can I do with that, followed by OK I can do this.
Sometimes it's good to be out of your comfort zone. I decided on a mini album as the card is lovely and thick, it also has a coating on it which if you are stamping in embossing ink the stamp slides over the card (I tried it). When scoring you really need to do it gently and flip it to score both sides to stretch the fibres on both sides or you may risk breaking the fold line.
To start,  the A3 card was cut in half lengthwise, this was then scored every 2.5cm then folded back and forth. As an after thought I inked the edges in a matching colour as the core of the card is very white.

 
A5 pages were made from other card in the pack so that the pages would co-ordinate, the edges were inked as before. These pages were then scored once 3cm from the edge on one side to make the pages easier to turn.
A piece of ribbon was attached to the inside of the back cover with double sided tape it was centred to be able to reach around to the front of the album.

 
The pages were arranged and then using tape and glue for extra strength were stuck into the album starting from the back working forward.

 

 
Before sticking in the front page it was time to stamp and embellish as once stuck down it wouldn't lie flat and that would make life difficult. This was done using StazOn ink (no sliding) using the Poppy stamp from the previous weeks project to add layers to front page.
 
Next the poppy stamp and dragonflies were stamped onto plain blue card with embossing ink, then adding sticky embossing powder. This was heated to release the stickiness and flakes were added.
The stamped images were fussy cut out and adhered to the front page.
At this point the whole project looked boring and needed a little something.
Using a die, a tag border was created for each page then mixed and matched to create interest edges were inked again. Lace was added along each of the sides. The page was stuck into position and the ribbon bought to the front and tied in a knot.
 
 
Tah Dah!



Project complete.

 Hope you like it.


Sue X





Times Three

The other day as I was walking through the Range I came across some rather nice sized box canvas's 6"x12"so I bought 3.
Bearing that in mind I had an idea to create a row of canvas's with a topic or piece of art to stretch across all three.
Low and behold a few days later one of the blogs I follow released a blog post of a workshop they had done using the very same 3 canvas's base.  
Have a little look at what they made  http://tworzysko.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/sharing-teaching-oversizing-and-collage Mixed-media  by Anna Dabrowska also known as Finnabair. One very talented Mixed Media artist.
Meant to be I told myself, here is my version.

Day 1.
I began by layering lace and resist canvas across the 3 canvas's and sticking them down with gel medium. next I raided the buttons stash.

 
Whilst at the range I also bought a packet of chunky fern leaves in different sizes, the pack was only £1 bargain (may have to get more) love how chunky they are.
I started to assemble the metal bits and shop bought paper flowers, fern leave, etc etc.

 
Once satisfied that it looked ok ( after several attempts that is) I glued it all down with 3d gel medium and painted it all white ready to be coloured.
Now then because the metal embellishments were left to dry with wet gesso on, the metal reacted and formed lovely rusty patches, another meant to be moment so I went with the warm rusty orange colour and hoped for the best.


Day 2.

Colouring.
Well hubby not working from home in my craft space AKA the dining room today, girls at school for a good few hours, washing done and drying, sofa plumped hoovering done.
Time to craft.

And so to the fun bit, colouring and embellishment enhancement.
As suggested at the end of day one I really wanted to use rusty colours and then I had to decide what colour to put with it, after a moment or three I made my mind up to use purples.
I have many varieties of spray inks my latest acquisition a couple of  Lindy's Stamp Gang in purple (love them), those combined with a couple of Prima Bloom made up my colours.
These were sprayed and applied with a paint brush in areas to create different coverages and splatters. Micro beads were applied  using gel medium and just to finish off a touch of treasure gold wax to add a tiny touch of bling.


Mission complete!

Here are a few close ups.






 
Sue x