LOVE is forever and a new (to me) technique

Almost a year ago I bought yet another a stamp set, whilst out causing trouble with Mrs A at the ArtStamps show at Newbury. In fact, as so often, we bought the same one each - this is the first outing for mine and I have a sneaky feeling that Mrs A might not have used hers yet either:

I wanted to use a technique that Sheena Douglass showed on Create and Craft TV quite a while back and thought this set was good for a first try.

I used:

- white DL card blank

- black card stock for the frame

- white card stock to stamp onto (in fact I generally cut a matching card blank up to get exactly the right shade of white - whoever knew there where so many shades of white huh?!). And of course I keep the other half with the rest of the same card blanks for another time

- a snippet of white card for the rose head to try out this 'ere technique. The stamp set I used is called 'Immortal Love' by Visible Image and I also used 'Ruby Red' from my Twinkling H2O's. What you do is to spray the H2O paint and let the pot stand for a while until it goes creamy, as you would normally. Then, using a flat headed bristle brush carefully paint all over the stamp, much as you would if you inked it up. Then stamp onto the snippet of white card - I found I needed to press really firmly for a good image. Then, take a water brush (or you could use water and an ordinary paint brush) and just pull the colour in from the stamped outline, following the natural shading

- then I allowed the rose head to dry thoroughly before fussy cutting round it

- the barbed wire stem was stamped using Brilliance 'Starlite Black - looks more like a greyish silver to me, just the colour I wanted, and the wording was stamped using Brilliance 'Graphite Black'

- after the card was all trimmed and assembled I just popped the rose head on using Collall glue

And much to my 'well knock me over with a feather' surprise, the in-house critic really liked the result! I thought he might think the barbed wire was a bit weird but it got the thumbs up :)

I know the technique probably isn't new to lots of you, and we do use other mediums such as Distress Inks in a similar way, but this really has made me look at those sad little neglected H2O's and several other stamps in a new light. Certainly worth a try if you also haven't tried it yet :) Just be prepared for the watered down H2O to be quite a lot paler than the outline of course, something to think of when picking colours to use.

Been busy here doing other things besides crafting so I'll be playing catch up on Playground commenting today, if I haven't already done so!

Di
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Paper roses, paper roses

Paper roses, paper roses, oh how real those roses seem to be
But they're only imitation like your imitation love for me

Anyone remember those lyrics then? Gotcha singing now?

Soooo, out of the blue I received a lovely gift voucher from Joanna Sheen, sent by a special friend. And THAT kicked me off into playing with 'air drying' paper clay. It's fun and quite therapeutic, but it does smell a bit odd until it dries properly - Len always says I've got a sense of smell like a blood-hound but even he agreed (and ran away shouting 'Yeuch') when I stuck a freshly moulded shape right under his nose.

I played quite happily with coloured paper clay (you need the teeniest bit of coloured clay to mix in with a LOT more white, ask me how I know). Then I moved onto playing with pure white paper clay. This is the first card I made:

I used:

- 4" x 5.5" cream card blank, tent style

- copper coloured brushed satin mirri card for the backing

- cream card embossed/die cut using a Marianne Designables 'Swirls' folder (my favourite in that particular range), and then popped onto the copper card backing
 
- 'the rose' - made using white Martha Stewart Paper Clay and the large rose from the 'Romantic' moulds set, left to dry thoroughly and then painted using shades of gold and copper Twinkling H2O's. The fern - made using more white clay and the fern leaf from the 'Garden' moulds set, again left to dry and painted with green Twinkling H2O's

- I'd already popped a strip of Hobbycraft self adhesive ribbon across the card where I wanted the rose to sit and then the fun began -- how to stick paper clay embellishments to card?

- I tried ultra sticky tape - nope, not playing. Then E-6000 really strong glue - nope, also not playing. Then, the glue gun - yay, victory dance here! This is just in case you have a play - my guess is that something in the paper clay (which wasn't painted 'cos it's the back of the moulded embellishment) means the ultra sticky tape won't adhere properly, the really strong glue just sits there and sulks, but the glue gun works like a dream!
 
Di
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Pixies Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 80

Sorry about the Playground gates slamming shut 12 hours early yesterday - my fault entirely :( If you got caught out, please feel free to back link.

Here's today's snippets card:

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card stock

- green backing card from the snippets folder and white snippets for stamping onto

- patterned paper is a recent 'freebie' 'Lilly Bimble' acquisition from Quick Cards Made Easy magazine

- stamped image by Little Clair Designs 'Butterfly Blossom' coloured with Pro Markers and then tickled with Twinkling H2Os from the Iridescent set. Although I have most of the H2O pots, this set is so versatile for adding shimmer to already coloured images. An extra couple of butterflies were stamped and coloured to pop on top with little snippets of sticky pads and pearls were added to the flower centres

- die cut the image and backed it with another snippet of green card, cut after drawing round the outside of the same die and hand cutting it

- sentiment is from Whimsy Stamps' 'Friendship Ticket Sentiments' set, stamped in Brilliance 'Pearlescent Blue' and mounted onto green backing - which truly is centred in real life!

This is a closer view so you can see the H2O shimmer - maybe:

Not a lot of snippets used really - and I think the image would have looked better on a white embossed background rather than patterned paper, sigh. 

So, this week in the Playground - lots of lovely makes as always, and I've just picked a few to show you:

Lynn (Linby) brought this stunning lavender and lace card to show - and wahoo, it also won a place in the top five over at 'Allsorts' challenge, well done and totally deserved Lynn!

A perfect card for someone who is just about to become a 'school inspector' - made by Sarah of Sazzle Dazzle. The inside is great too - Sarah does some brilliant work and is a loyal little Playmate so it would be lovely if you could hop over to say 'Hello'.

Irene stepped out of her comfort zone to make this beautiful collage card - isn't it pretty? As always, beautifully made - I should know 'cos I have had cards from Irene and they really are perfection.

 

Cathy R made this wonderful 'sand and shells' card - I love it, the background is amaaaaazing!

Annie (Wipso) stunned lots of people by venturing into paper craft - her first love is sewing. She made an album to hold ATCs - flipping brilliant Annie!

Sue brought this really clever card to show - great use of snippets and I love how the one pair of specs stands out from the others - genius!

A quick whip through this week girls, but to check out what great snippets makes everyone else brought to the Playground just go here.

Last week's prize of the two sets of dies, 'Chevron Stripes' and 'Cloud Trio' by MFT, was won by:

CATHY R

Well done Cathy, can you please send me your snail mail address (di_wray@hotmail.com) and they'll be in the post to you ASAP. This did make me smile 'cos Cathy and Maureen (Maudieroff) are sisters - and I did spot that Maureen wanted the dies too. I can see some 'sisterly sharing' going on - play nicely girls!

And this week's prize is, as often is the case, connected to my snippets card:

It's a stamp the same as I used (which has tons of possibilities - I followed the same colour scheme as shown on the packaging, being a bit lazy) plus a set of six of the Petite Pots of Iridescent Twinkling H2Os in the following colours: Iridescent Violet, Iridescent Gold, Iridescent Blue, Iridescent Red, Iridescent Green and Oyster. I know that a few of you already use H2Os, but this set is a great starting point for H2O 'virgins' - and you might even want to replenish your stocks :)

Remember that it's the second week of the draw for the 'Lattice' folder - just enter three cards in total over the two week period to be in the draw, there are three to be won.

The Playground will run as usual this week with the gates closing at noon UK time on Saturday 13th July. Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be a winner of this week's prize, shown above.

The Playground should be a bit safer today - Mrs A is off on a day trip to Newbury (Artstamps Craft Show), and I'm going along ........... just to make sure she doesn't wreck the place!

Mr Linky is below - hope you can come and play this week. The paddling pool is out and has warmed up nicely in the sunshine (but please get out if you need the rest room)! The diving board into the duck pond has been removed until the baby ducklings are bigger and can paddle/fly smartly out of the way :) The goat has been divested of my (now ruined) best party dress, the donkey is recovering from the shock of being used for show jumping trials and all is well - for now!

Di
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WOYWW 196

Incredible - the sun shone here yesterday! This was my desk before I reluctantly tootled off to do some ironing yesterday afternoon, it's so lovely to be able to craft in decent light for a change:

Ha! It looks suspiciously tidy dontcha think? Good job you couldn't see the piles of stuff heaped on our bed - but at least the coffee cup had already been taken into the kitchen.The rationale behind piling stuff onto our bed BTW is that it forces me to clear it all away at the end of the day so we can sleep - and in the process do a little more tidying as well.

This is what I was playing with:

Twinkling H2Os just to tickle a second layer of butterfly wings for the image I'd been colouring with Pro Markers.

OCD to the fore again - before ruining touching the butterflies with H2Os I was trying a little patch to the bottom right on the card I'd stamped on and scribbled some Pro Marker on. The stamp is Penny Black's 'Butterfly Suite' BTW.

The Pro Marker storage rack has been in residence here for ages. Sadly, it was a prototype, and production of a new line never happened due to manufacturing problems. But, of course Crafter's Companion now have their super stackable marker pen storage - which is versatile for all shapes and sizes. But, me still loves my rack and it's just such a shame it never materialised as a viable product for big manufacturing runs.

That's my WOYWW for this week - and we did have a bed to sleep in :)

To see what everyone else is playing with on their desks this week just hop over to Julia's (The Queen of WOYWW) and join in the fun and frolics. See you there!

Quick edit: Julia is totally right, the storage rack is mahoosive large. It lives on a shelf behind the desk and, as it's in effect one piece of cleverly shaped and drilled perspex, just lifts to where I need it. Either in front of me, or to the side - depending on surrounding mess :)

Di
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WOYWW - 149

Rather than show the same wedding invitations from last week progressing (now decamped onto the dining room table), this is my desk when I ran away yesterday afternoon to do some baking, followed by working on the invitations:

As a break from the dining table I had crept up here to play for half an hour with Twinkling H20s - bad girl! The papers I want to use are to the right of the image, so I could match in the colouring of a cute dragon. All that's needed is a lot of 'schparkle' added and then a card making up whenever some light relief is called for :)

And, last week on WOYWW I was asked about little Fergus the screen duster, lurking in the background - so here he is:

'Woof - which side is my best then, the one with the bow?' or

'The other side, as I'm custodian of Madam's WOYWW badge lest it gets lost amongst all the dross, rubbish, craft stuff on her desk? Woof, I think so too'

For more nosing around, do hop over to Julia's - Our WOYWW Queen - here. From there, after recovering from whatever Julia is up to today, you can hop round and see lots of fun craft goings-on!

Happy WOYWW!

Di
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WOYWW 109

Silly me, I cleared a lot of bits and pieces away yesterday afternoon so the 'work area' of my desk is visible again! It was driving me crazy not being able to find anything....ever had a super fast drying blob of glue from a hot-gun in place and not been able to find either the flower you want to stick down or your tweezers? Don't answer that one - I just know I'm not alone :) You would have been really proud of the mess :) But, the baskets remain lurking to the right hand side:

Plus piles of paper work to sort out. As always, the basket at the back (green one) is stuffed full of new stamps etc. yet to be used. However, showing that I'm not totally disorganised, here's how I store my little pots of Twinkling H2O's:



Yup, it's another Really Useful Box with one of those wonderful divided plastic tray inserts. As they're solid cakes of paint in those cute little pots, it's fine to store them on their sides and so easy to see what's what. And, there's space on top for storing a paint mixing palette, brushes, my travel set of ordinary water colours plus a Mini Mister. For ages I used brushes to moisten the H2O's but finally a light bulb went on and the answer is to spritz with a small spray of water then leave it for a minute or two before diving in to begin painting - perfect!

This has been a great week for surprises - a couple of packages of wonderful stash arrived from Dee (aka Peggy). Dee doesn't have a blog as yet but it's only a matter of time I hope and I'll happily set one up for her - although I know she's a bit of an IT whizz anyhow. She sent loads of gorgeous embellies, stamped backgrounds, raffia, flowers, charms and goodness knows what. It never ceases to amaze me just how kind crafty folk are when it comes to sharing - what a fabulous bunch you are! Watch this space tomorrow to see what I made using some of the goodies :) I think this post is already a bit long and you all have some hopping around to do.

So, sit back, get comfy and hop over to Julia's to see what everyone else's desk is like today. Have fun!

Di

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