More ways to use the alcohol ink backgrounds

Whilst making the alcohol ink background for the Simon Says Stamp card I recently posted about, also made a couple of sheets more or less the same - so had some left over to play with using some Memory Box dies. Came up with two cards shown below - and AI stands for Alcohol Ink:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style

- piece of AI made using Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' alcohol ink card stock and a mix of Flamingo Pink, Amethyst and Aqua alcohol inks plus some blending solution

- used Stick-It backed 200gsm white card to die cut the Memory Box 'Starflower Frame' die then popped it onto a rectangle of the background card, adding the white panel from the die cut back into the centre as well and ran the panel through the Cuttlebug using just the cutting plates to press it firmly down

- then stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Penny Black 'Special Thoughts' sentiment set - plus the Misti of course

- die cut the frame using the biggest Avery Elle's 'Postage Stamp' frame die and more white card, a bit heavier weight than 200gsm this time, possibly 250gsm

- backed the frame with very narrow red line tape and then added the image panel face downwards onto the red line tape. The image panel had been carefully trimmed a teensy bit at a time to be just a tad bigger than the aperture

- backed the whole panel with white fun foam and glued it in place onto the card front, finished!

This is a lovely die, a first outing for it although I bought it with possible Christmas cards (poinsettias) in mind  and certainly before I got into sparkly alcohol ink backgrounds. Will have a play again and show what my original idea was - having said that, it's really great for using as I just did! Another example of existing dies in your possession being useful for trying out Jennifer McGuire's Tim Holtz Sparkly AI card stock ideas.

At the same time, I made this card - didn't catch the light as much, should have taken the photo sideways on :

I used:

- 5.75" x 4" white card blank, side opening again, a non-standard size to suit the panel and sentiment placement

- piece of alcohol ink background made using Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' alcohol ink card stock and a mix of Flamingo Pink, Amethyst and Aqua alcohol inks plus some blending solution ( I know, more of the same - for now!)

- the butterfly frame took a bit of thinking through. When I ordered it a few weeks ago, the image shows what you see on my card front (if you reach into your screen and lift the butterfly's wings up!) - a frame of card with a big flat butterfly sitting just above the centre - attached on either side. However, the die itself doesn't come with a frame, it's more of a panel to just cut a solid butterfly into a background I guess. My way round this was just to measure the 'panel' die and add quarter of an inch to the top and to one side, then use the trimmer to cut a white panel of Stick-It backed card(200gsm)

- and at that point you can go ahead and die cut the Memory Box 'Vivienne Butterfly Silhouette' from said rectangle and end up with exactly what the packet shows - but, it did puzzle me for a while I freely admit, and I bet my explanation wasn't very clear either! Sadly MB didn't even have any examples (even though it's been out for sale since 2017) when I searched, I'm sure there must be some other way of using this lovely die - watch this space kids!

- I'd bought the 'Vivienne Butterfly Silhouette' die as I already had the two 'free flying' matching butterfly dies (bought years ago) and could see that it would expand and possibly update the versatility of them as they've been little used I'm afraid

- so next I trimmed the piece of AI background to a teensy bit smaller than my 'self' made' butterfly frame and popped the frame onto the background then ran the panel through the Cuttlebug using just the cutting plates to press it firmly down

- then die cut a solid butterfly using the Memory Box solid 'Darla Butterfly' die from the last scrap of AI background

- die cut a lacy 'Vivienne Butterfly' die from 200gsm Stick-It backed white card and adhered it to the 'Darla' butterfly - and ran it through the Cuttlebug to make sure it was pressed firmly into place

- backed the whole panel with white fun foam and glued it in place onto the card front - just above the sentiment, which had been carefully placed in readiness when I stamped it (darned OCD - no, make that CDO!!)

- and then added the 'butterfly of two layers' with a little piece of red line tape in the centre so that the wings can be flipped up 

- and only at that late point in the whole proceedings did I spot that there was a wee dark blob of AI which drew the eye and spoiled the whole 'flow' of the card. So, out came the sequins and I added five (card makes like to work in odd numbers apparently) using Glossy Accents

- and that was it - end of story!

Or is it? Probably far from it! I have to admit to buying three dies recently from China - it's against many of my principles but I think I certainly do more than my bit to support UK and other Western craft manufacturers and suppliers so I figured I would just dip my toe in the water. In truth, it still doesn't sit easily with me - but I'm amazed to be honest. Price, quality and speed - phew! ANYHOW, one new die from China has led me to need more AI colours from the UK, costing several times more than the die did - so it's a knock on effect. And that, is what I meant when I said 'far from it'!!

Using that Simon Says Stamp die with alcohol ink background

Remember the palaver when I didn't know whether to risk ordering a Simon Says Stamp die from the USA for fear of extra charges at this end? Well, it arrived in double quick time with nothing extra to pay so one rainy day last week I made some more Tim Holtz sparkly alcohol ink backgrounds and set to.

And this is the first card I produced:

I used:

- 5.25" x 4" white card blank  - not a traditional size but it suited the die cut panel better

- piece of alcohol ink background made using Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' alcohol ink card stock and a mix of straight forward Flamingo Pink, Amethyst and Aqua alcohol inks plus some blending solution. It's the card stock that works the 'sparkle' magic

- used Stick-It backed 200gsm white card to die cut the Simon Says Stamp 'Dahlia Corner Frame' die

- trimmed the background to just a little bit smaller than the die cut and then pressed the die cut in place - ran it through the Cuttlebug just using the layered cutting plates to flatten it into place

- then stamped the sentiment onto a snippet of white card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the MFT 'Essential Sentiments' set - plus the Misti of course

- hand trimmed the sentiment and popped it in place using a strip of very narrow red line tape

- backed the whole panel with white fun foam and glued it in place onto the card front

I promised to let you see the result - and here it is! Love making these alcohol ink backgrounds, even more so with the 'sparkle' card stock by Tim Holtz - as Forrest Gump would say 'You never know what you're gonna get' :)

Edit: Val asked where I got the Tim Holtz Silver Sparkle card from - here's the link just in case any others of you want to have a play :)

Remember these alcohol ink backgrounds?

Last week I posted about some sparkly alcohol ink background pieces I'd made (this is the post HERE) and promised to come back and show what I did with them. These were the pieces, just to remind you:

At the time I didn't have the die I was really craving from Simon Says Stamp, one of those used by Jennifer Mcguire. After asking your opinions (huge thanks for all your lovely comments and emails!) I bit the bullet and ordered just the one die that was my favourite - then waited to see what would happen with the likes of our UK Customs and the possibility of being charged VAT - plus a fee of £8 for Royal Mail to collect the VAT if that was the case. This is the die in question, which works well either in portrait or landscape:

Well, it arrived here yesterday (Thursday) in super-fast time with nothing further to pay. But it was pretty well under the £15 UK VAT limit. Was it worth it? I think probably yes, if you really, really want something  - so long as you watch the prices - and of course the postage was astronomical. Interestingly, the dies are designed in conjunction with Memory Box - just wait, they'll perhaps pop up with similar dies before too long.

However, I was too impatient to wait for the package to arrive (I expected it to take much longer to be honest) so I'd already set to and made a set of four cards over the weekend. All fairly similar, yet different, if that makes sense:

For each one I used:

- white card blanks, cut to sizes which suited the 'frames' I was using

- frames all from one die cut using the Impression Obsession 'Rectangle 6 in 1 frames' and one piece of Stick It backed white card

- various pretty die cuts, again cut from Stick It backed white card

- pieces of the sparkly alcohol ink pieces, trimmed to suit whichever frame I wanted to use and then the white frame added without pressing it down too firmly at first if I wanted to tuck a stem underneath

- then I added the white die cuts and where the frame covered a stem I carefully snipped the stem to size before firmly pressing the frame back down on top of it

- backed each framed image with a smaller panel of white fun foam to add dimension

- stamped the sentiments using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- and finally glued the framed panels onto each card

Underneath each of the cards I've added a little bit to say what size the card is, which dies I used and also which sentiment sets (again, mostly for my own future reference). Other than that, the process was the same for each card:

6" x 4" card blank, Memory Box 'Dragonfly Stems - Left Corner' die and a sentiment stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Sentiment Sampler' set

5.5" x 4" card blank, Memory Box 'Prim Poppy' die and a sentiment stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Sentiment Sampler' set

5.5" x 4.25" card blank, Memory Box 'Geneva Vine' die, Memory Box 'Mini Butterflies' die and a sentiment stamp from Uniko's 'Simply Said' set, hand snipped and stuck onto the image using red line tape (and many thanks to Sue M who sent me this lovely sentiment set some while ago)

4" x 4" card blank, MFT's 'Hello There' set of dies, Memory Box 'Mini Butterflies' die and a sentiment stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Sentiment Sampler' set

I thoroughly enjoyed making these cards, even though it was almost impossible to pick up the sparkle when the time came to photograph them. And there was very little wastage of the backgrounds as well, which made me happy.

It's a total joy to see a background suddenly take on a whole new life with the addition of some white contrast. Thanks to Jennifer McGuire this is my new favourite style of card :)

Going back to my new Simon Says Stamp 'Dahlia Corner Frame' die - that's waiting here to be used when I make a new batch of sparkly alcohol ink cards. It will mean less fiddling about when you can just add one single die cut - but in truth you can easily look through your own dies and come up with very similar results without having to go for the 'all in one' frame and flower dies.

Having a play with alcohol inks

I cleared the desk, put on an apron and disposable gloves, had kitchen roll on standby in case, got Len to entertain Dudley and out came the alcohol inks yesterday when it was raining 'Dudleys and Kittys'.

And this was the result:

I ditched one as it came out like mud - my fault entirely. But this is a heads up that if you've seen Jennifer McGuire's recent video on creating backgrounds using alcohol inks and Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' card I can confirm that it's huge fun! I added some silver mixative to the torquoise piece BTW, although it wasn't really needed as the sparkle on its own is so lovely. The array of colours that Jennifer has to choose from is much wider than mine needless to say. And, as ever, pieces like this don't look really finished until they're tweaked/trimmed and popped in a frame or such. And there are three pieces there, a pink one in the middle at the back which has more colour variations than really shows in the photo.

Jennifer used some gorgeous 'frame' dies by Simon Says Stamp that I'm too scared to order for fear of being stung by UK Customs. So, I'm going to attempt to use some pretty frames and some floral dies I have already. There's going to be a join where the floral die cut inside the frame will touch the frame itself but it's worth a try!

I've searched most companies that we stock here in the UK for similar dies and found just one die that almost fits the bill but nothing as pretty and delicate as the SSS ones. No doubt it will only be a matter of time though :)

Just out of interest - has anyone here had experience of SSS goodies being sent to the UK? I'm sure I bought some years ago and not only was I stung for import duty but our Customs had the temerity to even include the cost of postage from the US in their calculations. So I've not fallen into that trap again, although it's a real shame that SSS doesn't have an outlet or franchise in the UK - they would make a fortune!

I'm still trying to catch up on Playground commenting so please bear with me!

A first play with alcohol inks and Yupo - Part 2

The other day I posted about my first play on Easter Sunday with alcohol inks and Yupo paper. I showed the two cards I made with the darker colours - and here are the two lighter ones:

At first glance they might look identical - but in fact I used the positive and negative pieces of the inked Yupo sheet and a snippet of white card:

I used:

- one sheet of Tim Holtz white Yupo paper, just the small size (5" x 7")

- two white card blanks,  5.25" x 4" (tent style)

- three different alcohol inks (Aqua, Mountain Rose and Eggplant)

- as with the darker piece I just added drops of the inks plus some blending solution onto the sheet of Yupo paper then blew through a straw onto them, for as long as it took to add more coverage and spread the inks around a bit and repeated the process until I felt it was time to stop

- then die cut the Yupo sheet using the MFT 'Bold Stripes Cover-Up' die and kept the waste as well as the frame

- did the same using a snippet of white card

- backed both pieces with Stick-It adhesive sheet and added in the contrasting strips

- stuck the completed front panels to the card fronts

- die cut ovals for the sentiments using snippets of white card and a Spellbinders oval die (I glued two oval layers together for dimension for each card and added definition by running a ball tool around the oval die cut whilst it was still in the die)

- stuck the ovals to the card fronts using red line tape (mostly as I wasn't sure of just how Collall glue would react against the alcohol ink) - I found out with the darker cards that fun foam and Yupo slither about a lot before they dry properly. Fine if you leave them alone but it made me aware of possible reactions with a medium I'm only just getting to know

- die cut the sentiments from two layers of white card (snippets) and a top layer of the inked Yupo. The word I used is 'hi', from the MFT 'Hello There' set of dies

- glued the words 'hi' to the ovals

- two cards from one piece of inked background!

Jennifer McGuire used a fabulous 'Starburst' die for this technique but I just used the dies I already had. Thinking back, I have other cover-up dies such as the MFT 'Stitched Diagonal' which may work better. It's all trial and error, as they say! Half the fun of crafting :)

A first play with alcohol inks and Yupo - Part 1

Crumbs, quite a few bloggers that I follow have used the Easter holiday to play with alcohol inks and Yupo paper - me included!

The previous week I really wanted to enter the Mixed Media challenge run by Loll and Bonnie, where the theme was acetate. I got my heart set on using a poor man's version of alcohol inks and bought some blending solution, which I then dropped onto scribbled Pro markers on acetate - but the colours hardly moved so I gave up. Sigh.

Then, too late for the challenge, I spotted that Clarity Stamps had a really great offer of 8 Tim Holtz Adirondack alcohol inks for £20 - wahoo!! That's £2.50 per bottle with free postage and seems hard to beat?! The slight catch is that you get what colours Clarity choose from available stock, but I figured it was good enough for a first try and also might form the basis of a few more to be added later on. I think the offer is still on folks! I got three colours in the brown spectrum but in fairness they're varied enough (Caramel, Teakwood and Pebble) to work really well together, whilst being different enough - and thanks to Clarity I'm set up with a pretty decent variety of colours to build on.

I spent Easter Sunday having a first try - my results most certainly aren't any more than very basic - but I was left with two pieces of inked up Yupo paper and made two cards from each of them. These are two from the darker sheet:

I used:

- one sheet of Tim Holtz white Yupo paper, just the small size (5" x 7")

- two white card blanks, one is 5.25" x 4" (side opening) and the second one is 4" x 4" square

- three different alcohol inks (Currant, Bottle and Caramel - and possibly a little drop or two of Teakwood right at the end). I was so excited I didn't keep a note - was also trying not to get the stuff over myself/desk/floor despite having protected what I could. However, I learned that disposable gloves are a must, I have them by the boxful here, just got carried away :)

- in true amateur fashion, I added drops of the inks plus some blending solution onto the sheet of Yupo paper then blew through a straw onto them, for as long as it took to add more coverage and spread the inks around a bit and repeated the process until I felt it was time to stop

- other crafters use an air 'puffer' or hairdryer apparently to move the inks around - as well as rubbing alcohol (on order) and various other wonderful techniques such as adding gold foiling. I have the silver and gold mixatives on order but, from what I've seen, the foiling would be stunning if I can get the spread of inks more subtle! And I yes, might very well still have some thin sheets of the very fine foil - dating back to the year 'dot'!

- then die cut two sets of frames using the Impression Obsession 'Rectangle 6 in 1 Frames' die

- selected two frames to suit what I wanted and also the duplicated ones from the other die cut sheet - glued ttwo frames together for more stability

- then trimmed the piece of Yupo, picking out which pieces I wanted to use and adhered them to the back of the frames by running very narrow red line tape around the back of the inner edge of each frame

- backed each framed piece of Yupo with fun foam for dimension then glued them onto each card - centrally for the first card and then leaving space for a die cut sentiment on the second card

- die cut the sentiment (hello) for the first card three times from white card, using a die from the MFT 'Hello There' set of dies, and glued the layers together before gluing the 'hello' in place

- die cut the 'smile' sentiment twice from white card and once from a snippet of the inked Yupo using a die from the Penny Black 'Hooray' set of dies, then glued the layers together before gluing the 'smile' in place underneath the framed piece of inked Yupo

- two cards - finished!

I've since taken the time and trouble to read a lot more about using Yupo and alcohol inks - Loll has some really great videos on YouTube. I love the softer look that folk manage to achieve - my next aim, providing the weather is good enough to have the craft room well ventilated! I didn't even know about ventilation being important when I was playing on Sunday, thankfully not in full rubbing alcohol mode, else it could have been dodgy to say the least. Will I ever learn to always do some research before launching headlong into something :) Doubtful.