Birthday Card Using Gold Seahorses Masterboard and Acetate

THE BIG REVEAL, PART 2.

This is the second of two posts today.

Many of my regular visitors have been justifiably very frustrated and impatient with me lately because I’ve been working hard on several secret projects that I wasn’t at liberty to reveal until now. With her permission, I can now reveal that I have been making stuff for Shaz. As many of you will know, she is about to undergo major surgery and has been through so much over the past year. She and her lovely hubby share the same birthday and I have made cards for them both, a get well card for her (still under wraps) and a selection of bits and pieces for her to play with once she feels up to being creative again. She opened the parcel on her birthday (14th Aug.) and now that she has received them I can share the making of them with you. Until now, I didn’t want to spoil her surprise as she visits my blog regularly. Throughout my own cancer journey, this wonderful friend has been such an encouragement and support to me, and this is one way I can thank her, and show my own appreciation and support. I know that she would love a visit from you to wish her well for her surgery on 2nd Sept.

I shall be uploading a couple of posts each day over the next few days until all is revealed. Please scroll down for earlier posts.

Birthday Card Using Gold Seahorses Masterboard and Acetate

My gold seahorses masterboard is diminishing in size rapidly! I don’t mind, because this is what I created it for. I have made a birthday card for Shaz, using this masterboard, this time cutting three strips of masterboard of varying lengths, and arranging them vertically on the card.

This card is quite three-dimensional and has plenty of varied texture.

The pieces of masterboard laid onto the base card to show the positioning.

I matted and layered the masterboard strips with some slightly textured gold card. I did not want this layer to be too dominant but I needed it to be visibly gold, so I chose a card which was not highly reflective.

On the middle one, you can see I made a boo-boo when trimming the gold card, but this will be covered up later so it didn’t matter.

I rummaged in my stash and found some scraps of acetate which would suit my purpose.

Using my alcohol ink blending tool, I applied three shades of alcohol inks to the acetate pieces (Adirondac Stream and Clover, and Piñata Sapphire Blue) and dropped a few drops of alcohol blending solution to create the lighter patches, with the size of the patches diminishing with each layer.

On the third one, I added the alcohol blending solution onto the applicator instead, which produced the smaller circles.

Here is a mock-up showing the layers of acetate in place. At this stage only the upper edge of each strip has been cut in undulating curves to represent the waves of the sea.

I then cut the bottom edge of each strip into curves like the upper edges, as these would show through the layers above.

I toyed with the idea of adding some of the narrow offcuts of acetate to the top of the card, because the top is rather devoid of interest and I do not want to create an unbalanced card, but I soon abandoned this idea and put these pieces in my stash to be used on something else.

Beginning to ink the background of the card base. The other night I watched a brilliant video on how to create a random-looking mixed colour background, using the corner-corner-side method. I had never heard of this before, but basically you take your first colour and blend it into two corners on one side of the card, and in the middle of the opposite side. I began this with Broken China distress ink.

I then chose Evergreen Bough distress ink and proceeded to blend this into the opposite corners and side of the card, more or less filling the gaps.

The final step was to blend in some Peacock Feathers distress ink to fill any gaps, and a light brushing over the whole surface to integrate the background. I am thrilled to have discovered this technique as it gives very good results.

Unfortunately the photos don’t really show up the subtleties of the colours or of the blending.

Here is a mock-up of the card, duly inked, with the three strips of masterboard and the three pieces of inked acetate. Being transparent, you can see the wavy outline of the bottom of each piece through the layers on top.

I stuck down the masterboard strips with double sided tape, and then the top layer of acetate using a little tacky glue at the sides.

Laying down the second layer, I wanted there to be a gap between the layers, so I used Pinflair gel glue to lift the piece proud of the background. You can see the glue very clearly in the photos, but in reality it is not so obvious.

Here is a detail, you can see the blobs of gel glue on the right.

Most people use their Pinflair glue in a syringe. However, I no longer do this, because I can go several weeks or months without using Pinflair glue and if you don’t use up the contents of the syringe pretty quickly, it sets in the syringe. I find one has a lot more control if one squeezes a little glue out of the tube and catches it with a cocktail stick, which is a useful implement for applying the glue and for getting the blob the right thickness. This glue takes a long time to dry, but when it is dry, it remains crystal clear and has a rubbery texture, so it is very useful for dimensional pieces and I usually use it instead of self-adhesive foam squares. I also use it to prop up flower petals and the wings of butterflies to prevent them from getting flattened, especially on cards that have to survive the ravages of the post; being transparent, it really doesn’t show.

Here are all three pieces of acetate, stuck down with Pinflair. Both edges of the second layer are supported by a blob of Pinflair on the bottom layer in the middle, and the top layer is supported on the middle layer, at the one-third and two-thirds mark, to allow the tag to go between them and sit in the centre of the card.

I added some stickles (glitter glue) in three colours: turquoise, green, and star dust, following the curves of the waves and adding some spirals in the turquoise and green. I used the star dust to go along the edges of the waves. I placed the spirals over the blobs of pinflair glue and they disguise them very well. As usual, the camera has failed to pick up the blinginess of this!

That was the front of the card pretty well finished. I now moved on to work on the tag, and found this happy birthday sentiment in my box of small things cut using Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine. I have not had this up and running for a long time, and am glad that I still have some pieces in reserve.

I heat embossed the background pieces with gold.

I inked the sentiment words with Peackcock Feathers distress ink.

I glued them onto their backing pieces using Crafter’s Companion Stick & Stay spray adhesive which allows a bit of repositioning before setting in place. You can see my home-made spray booth in this picture!

The completed sentiment pieces.

The tag was inked in the same manner as the card base, using Broken China, Evergreen Bough and Peacock Feathers distress inks, as before.

Here is the back of the tag, inked as the front, with some water droplets having been spattered onto it.

The finished tag, showing the different yarns and ribbons that I used to complete the top. I wanted to capture the essence of seaweed and I think the selection works well. I stuck the sentiment down onto the tag using tacky glue, paying particular attention to where the word “Birthday” has to dip down and make contact with the surface of the tag between the two vertical strips. I added a few spots of Stickles to the sentiment, and a small charm to the top.

The completed back of the tag with its water spatters. I love how one spatter has run down and made a trail across the tag.

I also made an ATC to celebrate the 6th anniversary of WOYWW which happened this year – our weekly blog hop when we visit each other’s work desks. I did not take part in the ATC swap but thought I’d add one to this card.

I wrote the text with my embossing pen and heat-embossed it in gold to match the seahorse, and rubbed my Versamark pad around the edge of the ATC and heat-embossed that in the same way, resulting in a nice distressed-looking border. This ATC was made from a fragment of the seahorses masterboard which I’d cut off when doing another project, and it was fractionally too small, so I mounted it with double sided tape onto one of my ATC backing pieces with the details on it – before sticking the two pieces together I inked the edge of the backing piece with Milled Lavender distress ink which echoes the colour of the water droplets on the background. The face of the backing piece was inked with Peacock Feathers distress ink to match the front.

This is the completed card front without the tag. Originally I was going to put the sentiment at the top right of the card but then remembered it was going on the tag, and there was rather a blank patch in that area, and all the interest at the bottom made the card look a little unbalanced, so with a dark blue marker pen I drew some flying birds.

Here is the finished card with the tag, and the ATC tucked in behind.

I spritzed inside the card with water and sprayed some Dylusions spray ink along the top in three patches: London Blue, Fresh Lime and Vivid Turquoise. I spritzed it again with water and held the card up to let the ink run down, and then I blotted it with kitchen paper.

I was rather proud of myself that I didn’t get this ink all over the front of the card!! I am such a messy worker that I knew I was taking a huge risk by spraying all this liquid on the inside!

The sentiment was from my stash. It was cut with my Cougar cutting machine ages ago from American Crafts cardstock and I stuck down with Crafter’s Companion Stick & Stay spray adhesive. I wrote the message inside with a green marker pen.

I repeated the spray inking on the front of the envelope.

Happy birthday my dear friend! – and to your lovely hubby too.

Birthday Card for my Hubby

My hubby’s birthday is on Tuesday, and I am so glad that Mr. Mojo and Mrs. Muse have decided to return from their unexpected long holiday and come to my rescue, so that I could make him a mixed media card! He has been so brilliant over the past months and I want to show my appreciation for him in every way that I can.

I am still taking baby steps creatively, and didn’t want to take on a huge project, so I thought it would be good to use some of the things in my stash to make his card. Here is the finished card.

Last year I had a session making alcohol ink backgrounds on the backs of some A5 fliers we’d picked up at the county show (I love recycling!) – they were on shiny paper.

I also embossed some co-ordinating pieces of card to go with each background.

For this card I chose the background using gold, silver, copper and pearl mixatives. This one had a nice co-ordinating card which I’d embossed with the Cuttlebug folder “Diamond Plate,” which is good and manly!

Rummaging through my stash, I found the Friendly Plastic gear wheels and other hardware that I’d made some time ago. These were painted with black gesso which makes a good base for adding gilding wax.

Also in my stash I found a few tissue paper hearts that somebody sent me once in a collection of die-cuts, and I chose one in a colour appropriate for this card, to lay down as a background under the embellishments, adding some gilding wax lightly applied with my finger.

Finally I made a faux porcelain sentiment for the card. You use UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) for this technique, building up the layers – I had several printed oval shapes  with “Happy Birthday” printed on them in a suitable font in my stash from a previous project. I used Versamark and my heat gun for this, and unfortunately it made the card curl a bit; I think it would probably distort less if one immersed the whole thing in UTEE in the meltpot, so I must remember this next time I use this technique. (Last time I started with a thicker piece made from several layers laminated together, and I think that distorted less.)

Here are some detail shots of the card.

For the “metal” hardware, I used a mixture of silver, gold and copper gilding wax. Of course, the metallic appearance doesn’t pick up too well on the photos.

On the above picture you can see that I have also applied some glass bead gel medium using a palette knife, and lightly applied some gold gilding wax with my finger, for a bit of added texture and to tie the design together.

I have had the large “blue steel” gear wheel in my stash for ages – I think it was a die-cut, and I cut it from a piece of card from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate box! It has a lovely metallic shimmer to it. Across the bottom I added some glass bead gel medium with a palette knife and lightly rubbed this with gold gilding wax.

The inside of the card. I can’t remember where I got this sentiment stamp – it is part of a set of clear stamps I bought when I first started, and I didn’t keep the packaging. I don’t like clear stamps as much as rubber ones, and have only a few.

I inked the inside of the card, and the edge of the card base on the front, using Gathered Twigs distress ink and an Inkylicious Ink Duster. The card front was matted and layered with some brown cardstock. The Friendly Plastic embellishments were stuck down with Pinflair gel glue; the heart was attached with regular matt gel medium, and the large gearwheel with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive, and the remainder of the elements with my ATG glue gun. The faux porcelain sentiment was attached with two small brads through the matting and layering before I stuck that down onto the card base.

There is a lot of texture and thickness on this card! It’s a good thing I have a large supply of very heavy white cardstock for card bases or they’d never hold up, the amount of stuff I always put on my cards!

WOYWW 294

For details of how to join in, please click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s blog, where all will be revealed.

My first WOYWW of 2015! Sorry not to have been around, but despite my hopes to the contrary, 2015 has kicked off with a whole raft of problems, starting with difficulties with my very elderly mum, and there’s been a lot of stress in the house. My hubby has managed to set up a care package for her now, and we have a team of simply wonderful carers coming in each morning to help her get up, and they are such a great support to us, too. We have had the doctor and the district nurse, and at last the pressure is somewhat off, but in his own wonderful way of trying to shield me from stress, my hubby has taken on much more of the caring role, and now that Mum is more vulnerable, is finding it hard to find sufficient time away from home to enjoy his own pursuits.

As if we haven’t had quite enough going on over the past year, to cap it all, I had my regular two-yearly colonoscopy yesterday (part of the management of my ulcerative colitis) and we were presented with the devastating news that it is almost definite that I have bowel cancer. They have sent the biopsies they took during the examination for pathological analysis, and ordered a CT scan to take place in the next fortnight, and these tests will confirm by science what they know to be true by experience.

I have written a full blog post about this, giving all the details, so I won’t repeat it all again here.

I feel very, very sorry for my wonderful hubby. He could do without this extra burden – will he never be able fully to enjoy his retirement after so many years of hard work in the service of others? He has been thrown willy-nilly into a full-time carer’s role and it seems so unfair – especially after this latest news.

However, no point moaning – together we have to face this, and get through all the various things they throw at us, and I am determined to be a Good Girl and do as I am told, and take all the treatments and examinations and surgeries they deem necessary, and above all to try not to get ratty and difficult with my hubby when the going gets tough – he has enough of that from Mum!! I pray for a thankful heart at all times.

As a result of all this, my mojo has taken a bit of a bashing. Here is my desk this week.

Nothing very exciting on it, is there! You can see the alcohol ink and embossed backgrounds I made a while ago, ready to make into cards for my stash (still not made up) and a doyley and some paper napkins ready to be put away, and the rest is general detritus and my usual regular-use inks and other materials. I simply must organise a better system for the heaps of partially used pieces of kitchen paper on the left (mostly just out of shot – I wouldn’t inflict it on you!) – it’s a horrible mess that irritates me every time I work in there!

Just so you don’t feel totally deprived, I have managed to do a bit more on my embroidered pieces for the bed decorations, which I’ve already posted about, but here’s an example:

Hopefully I’ll feel like working on these a bit more this week.

I have also acquired some more RUBs (Really Useful Boxes) and have been having fun doing some reorganisation of storage in my ARTHaven. It’s a great improvement on the messy piles of workshop tools, where I’d never be able to find anything.

Not too much time or inclination to be in my ARTHaven over the past few days. Over the weekend I was going through the dreadful preparation for the colonoscopy, and I have been very busy on the computer since yesterday afternoon, contacting various people to tell them my news, and filling in my various forum friends. I am overwhelmed by the amazing and wonderful support I am already receiving from so many lovely friends around the world.

With your prayers and support, I am sure my hubby and I will beat this. Today I am in fighting mood, but am realistic enough to know that this won’t necessarily last. I have decided to clamp down on my imagination to prevent it running riot and leading me into worst-case-scenario situations – that way leads to despair, and that is NOT Shoshi’s way!!

I have been in contact with our own wonderful Shaz, and she agrees that it will help me a lot, as it has helped her on her ongoing journey, to create a diary of my experiences, not just to help others going through the same thing, but also to help keep my own thoughts in order, and keep abreast of the various events which will take place. With my M.E. brainfog, this is a very good idea because I’m quite likely to get totally confused by it all! I have therefore begun a new page (see tabs along the top of my blog) entitled “My Cancer Diary.”

Today my hubby took me out for lunch, as a special treat after my colonoscopy, planned in advance. To see where we went, have a look at this blog post from the summer, when we went with friends, and I took loads of photos – it’s such a fascinating, quirky old place, full of intriguing things, with fine old beams and crooked walls. We had a lovely meal – a real treat, especially as I haven’t been out of the house properly for several weeks, except to visit the hospital.

Have a great week, everybody, and may our mojos never die or go on holiday.

WOYWW 288

To find out how you can leap in and experience the fun of What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, and you will miraculously arrive at our hostess Julia’s blog, where you will find full details.

Again, my apologies for having visited so few desks last week, but when I got the opportunity I was working flat out on my recycled mini-album in order to get it finished before Thursday when my sister (and hopefully my niece) are coming, and I can give it to my niece then. Success! It is finished!!

My desk this week.

As you can see, it is remarkably tidy. After finishing the album, I had to make a card, and then I had a massive clear up and put loads of stuff away, ready for whatever I am going to tackle next. Not sure what that will be yet, because with the dreaded C just over the horizon I have to do some other things. Also, I am pretty exhausted now, having pulled all the stops out to finish the album, but I’m so glad I did!

At the back of the craft sheet you can see the pile of embossed card and alcohol ink backgrounds I did a while back. I think I should work on these and get some cards made up for my stash before I do anything else, but I do want to make some more soap before Christmas. On the pull-out unit on the right is my felt making box (still in utter disarray since the final felt class – no time to do anything about that!) – the box is just dumped there to be out of the way because I had to alter some more bedding on my sewing machine this p.m. You can also see (on the right) my new kitty squad stamp, still not unmounted from its wood block.

I haven’t forgotten that I have not yet posted photos of the last 2 soap making classes – too much else going on! I’ll try and do a post soon. The last class is tomorrow. Here’s the card I have made for the teacher, which I hope they will all sign:

It’s got 2 printed images (the soap an internet download and the duck a photo of one of my hubby’s ducks from his bathroom lol!) cut out and stuck down, and Ryn’s wonderful water droplets stamp, and some glass bead gel medium to make it more sudsy. I photographed it against one of the scratch papers I created while making the album. I also made a custom sized envelope for it, using my recently acquired envelope punch board.

My hubby broke his wrist a few weeks ago and is in a cast, and has been told definitely that he is not allowed to drive, which is presenting us with some problems – we have got to take a taxi to our friend’s on Christmas day but it’s not quite as frighteningly expensive as I’d feared, but bad enough! My hubby has arranged transport with a neighbour for my class tomorrow, and he’s got to take Mum on the bus to the surgery on Friday – what fun and games that will be! I can’t remember when she last travelled by bus. (Lady Muck.)

Here’s the final page of my album, after which I also did a page giving details of how it was made, and some blank pages (with just the signature black and white borders) for notes. You can read the final post about it here.

I am hoping to make a video slideshow of the completed pages, and how the book was constructed.

Have a great week everybody, and I hope in the midst of the usual seasonal busyness that you will all find time to be creative and feed the inner man/woman!

Recycled Mini-Album–Early Family Life

I have completed the first two pages in the Early Family Life section of the recycled mini-album.

The first photo shows the photos for this section, and the materials for the first page. The stamp set is Darkroom Door Alphabet Medley, and I used the larger set. You can see that I have stamped the letters onto scrap card using sepia archival ink.

The photos and letters in place, and the border started. Each letter has been embellished with black and white pens.

The finished title page of the section, with the black border on the right being extended into the photo, and more embellishment added.

Moving on to the next pages, for the background I chose one of the alcohol ink backgrounds I made the other day – this is the black and white one, using black, white and silver mixative alcohol inks on the reverse side of a shiny A5 flier relating to solar panels – an appropriate background for this project as it is using recycled paper!  After cutting the sheet into two, cut down to size, I stuck them down, using regular matt gel medium. I chose three photos for this page,and stuck them down at different angles, using the gel medium as before. In the picture you can also see the glass bead gel medium which I used for texture on this page. I love this stuff!

Here is the completed page. I added the white squares of the border using a white marker pen, and the shading was done with a wet brush and some very dilute black acrylic paint. It made the white marker pen run, but I didn’t mind this, as I blotted it off, and then went over the black squares with a permanent black marker pen.

I wrote the title words with a permanent black marker and cut them out, and then distressed the edges with Black Soot distress ink. These were stuck down with regular matt gel medium. The other text was written with a combination of the white and black marker pens.

I applied the glass bead gel medium fairly sparingly around the edges of the photos to mute the edges somewhat, and a little on the background, using a palette knife. When it was dry, I added some silver gilding wax with my finger on the parts over the photo edges, leaving the medium on the background unchanged, so that the background showed through. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t pick this up very well, but when dry, the glass bead gel medium dries crystal clear and the glass micro-beads sparkle.

If you look carefully at the photos, the smallest child in the canoe and in the car, and the small child in the foreground in the group photo beside the baby, is Shoshi!! (I haven’t changed much, have I…) The Ford Consul was new when this photo was taken, and I can just remember this car, which was lime green with a bench seat in the front. Before that we had a Riley but I don’t remember that.

I am making reasonable progress with this album but there are still an awful lot of pages to embellish!! With this double page spread I have begun the second of five signatures. I am determined to finish the project by the end of the year because I am anxious to start on some new work, majoring on textiles, and getting my new sewing machine going, and developing my teabag art.