WOYWW 422–Infusions, Gesso and Socks

Well, here’s some amazing news from Shoshi – managed to spend some time in the studio this week and actually start creating again!! It felt good, good, good.

My desk on Tuesday evening:

Over on the other side of the room it’s pretty chaotic as well, because I’ve got a lot of knitting stuff out – no point putting it away while I’m still looking for colours for my socks!

I needed to make a card quickly for someone but as it turned out, I knew I wouldn’t get it finished in time, so I found one I’d made some time ago and gave her that one instead, but continued with what I’d started. Unfortunately the Infusions Mini-Album is still on the back burner but I have been working with Infusions again.

Remember this technique using gesso from my mini-album?

I really loved the effect you can get by applying gesso to the surface, sprinkling on Infusions and then brayering over it. It gives a gorgeous subtle streaked effect.

In the four samples above, I did the first one (top left) in the standard way, and the rest were the result of mopping up the mess on the craft sheet, and adding more gesso and infusions. The Infusions subtly colour the gesso the more they are mixed.

I made a selection of die-cut circles from these samples. I’ve started making some card bases with gesso and inked backgrounds to put these on, and they will then be embellished in various ways. This is a stash-busting exercise as much as anything – covering up some over-bright card I couldn’t see myself using, and turning it into something useful!

The outer two pieces in the above photo were done with gesso and some stamping with Distress Inks, and the centre one just with Distress Inks and Infusions. You can see full details of these here.

Toe-vember

The project from our church to provide socks for the homeless is ongoing. I’ve finished the blue pair and am very pleased with the result. They are great fun to do.

I’ve now started on a really bright pair, using rainbow colours with black. Why knit boring colours when you can go a bit wild and make something that not only keeps people’s feet warm but can help brighten their lives a bit too, with a bit of fun and colour?

I am hoping to complete at least one more pair after this, and hopefully if the appeal goes on, I can continue – but even if it doesn’t, there’s an initiative from the local churches to help the homeless in lots of different ways, so there will be an open channel to continue to use.

Kitties

The kittens are still in their little suits.

We are taking them back to the vet’s this week so that Lily’s stitches can be removed, and they can both have a good check-up to make sure they have done OK since their operations. Lily has been on antibiotics since her operation because they found an ulcer in her mouth, and this needs to be checked too. The poor little thing has had diarrhoea since being on the antibiotics and I think we are all keen for her to finish them asap so she can get back to normal! She’s been a bit subdued, which isn’t surprising. Ruby has been her usual bumptious self – that kitty is so full of enthusiasm for life and has the exuberant character of Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh stories! It’s very flattering how much she loves me and how she gazes up at me when I’m giving her a cuddle, and she instantly turns on her little purr engine! After years of two kitties who hardly gave me the time of day if my hubby was around, this is such a joy!

I shall miss it when her little suit comes off. She looks so like a little baby in a babygro! That is one dinky kitty.

Lily is definitely more bonded to my hubby than she is to me. I am so glad about that, and the fact that we now have “one each” as it were!

Health Update

Still no appointment from the hospital for me to see my surgeon. The hernia is causing me intermittent problems (slight pain and discomfort, and Kermit, my stoma, is definitely not as settled or easy to manage as he was last year) and it’s now visible. I am most anxious to avoid a repeat of what happened at the beginning of the year – it was exactly in this state when I had the blockage that put me in hospital for 2 1/2 weeks… I really hope my surgeon can be persuaded to get this sorted once and for all.

I had a blood test at the surgery on Monday in advance of my oncology appointment next week. This will be the final 6-monthly check-up, as it is now two years since I got my all-clear; thereafter they will see me once a year for three years, and then, all being well, I will be discharged. I’m not a bit concerned about next week’s appointment as I am convinced the cancer was all dealt with at the time, with surgery and chemo, and also, my latest CT scan in September to check on the hernia also revealed no evidence of cancer.

Backgrounds with Infusions, Inks and Gesso

Returning to my Card Factory for this year, over the last couple of days I have made some backgrounds using gesso with infusions, and distress inks, and have die cut circles from some of these backgrounds.

The materials used to create the gesso backgrounds.

I spread gesso onto a piece of A6 card with a palette knife, and immediately sprinkled on a mixture of Slime and Rusty Car Infusions from set 2, and spritzed it lightly with water, and brayered over it, which spreads the infusions into parallel streaks. This is the sample at top left. There was quite a mess on the desk so I brayered this on to the subsequent cards, adding Infusions as I went. The colour gradually got more blended with the gesso with each subsequent sample and all are useable and slightly different.

The finished samples.

I mopped up the rest of the mess onto an A4 sheet and added more gesso and Infusions as required. For this sample, I brayered over the top of the right-hand side of the sheet and left the other side to dry naturally.

This is the final mop-up sheet, with further Infusions added, but no additional gesso.

These two A4 sheets can be used in other projects.

From the four small A6 samples, I die cut two different sizes of circles and also some larger circles from some printed card I had in my stash.

I am keen to use up quite a bit of stuff that’s been hanging around for years – much of this card is far too brightly coloured for my taste now, or not of a pattern or design that I am that keen on, being part of sets I bought many years ago. With a bit of treatment they can look perfectly reasonable.

I cut a piece of orange card 5 inches by 10 inches and folded it in half. You can see the original colour on the scrap underneath the background piece.

I applied gesso all over, using a foam brush. This left a lot of unsightly brush marks, so I spritzed it with water and then blotted it with a crumpled up piece of kitchen paper. I applied more gesso and repeated the process until I was happy with the result.

I heat dried it, and then stamped it using the Artistic Stamper Harlequin stamp (C349) without an acrylic block, stamping fairly randomly and taking care not to press the whole thing down each time. I stamped using Iced Spruce Distress Ink, and then distressed the edges with Aged Mahogany, using a home-made ink blender.

In the above photo, you can see the matted die-cut circles laid on top. This circle will be stuck down in the centre and the card base folded in half, and I will stamp something on the die cut circle and/or add some form of embellishment.

Moving on to the next piece, I took a piece of yellow A4 card and folded it to A5, In the following photos you can see its original colour, and the results of toning it down with gesso and inks, giving a much softer and more subtle effect.

I applied the gesso, again using a foam brush, but taking care to use only vertical and horizontal brush stokes, and then spritzed it lightly with water. Once I’d heat dried it, I used the same harlequin stamp, this time with Tattered Rose Distress Ink. Using an ink duster I added a bit of Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink randomly, and finally distressed the edges with some Aged Mahogany Distress Ink (visible on the photo above). Again, you can see the die cut circles chosen to go with this particular sample.

I decided to create a different background without gesso on another piece of the yellow card. For this one, I blotted off the Iced Spruce on the harlequin stamp, over most of the surface of the card until the stamp was clean. Then I added a small amount of Slime Infusions (from set 2) and repeated the stamping process, this time using another Artistic Stamper stamp: Calligraphic Mat #12, us9ing Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.

I applied a little Hickory Smoke Distress Ink with an ink duster, and also some Milled Lavender, both with an ink duster and with a home-made blending pad to distress the edges somewhat. Finally I added a small amount of Blackcurrant Infusions from set 1, randomly here and there.

Here are the three backgrounds so far, with the die-cut circles not yet glued down. I am not sure how I am going to embellish these yet, but they will all need the heavy book treatment to flatten them out properly before then.

Infusions Mini-Album–Miscellaneous Techniques

Over the past couple of days I have discovered some further techniques you can do with Infusions.

Kissing

This name always amuses me! It refers to applying a medium on one surface and then pressing another surface onto it while still wet, and then pulling it off so you get a mirror image mono print. Not only is it fun, but it saves on paint etc. too! Here it is with Infusions.

The colours I used were Royal Blood and Golden Sands from set 1, and Olive Tree from set 2, sprinkled onto the card and then spritzed with water.

Dripping

Self-explanatory.

I used Are You Cerise from set 1 as a background, sprinkling the Infusions onto the card and then spritzing it with water fairly liberally to get full coverage, and then heat set it. Then I applied plenty of water along the top edge with a brush, and sprinkled on Black Knight, also from set 1, and held the card vertically so that it ran down. To encourage it to drip where I wanted, I touched the wet edge with the brush. The drips will otherwise tend to follow the course of previous ones and you need to break the surface tension of the water in different places to make new drips flow. Working with the brush, you get more control. I kept applying more water along the top edge with the brush, and tapped the card’s bottom edge on my work surface, which encouraged it to continue flowing.

Infusions with Glimmer Mist

I haven’t used my glimmer mists for ages. When I first started, I made up some home-made ones with distress ink re-inkers and Perfect Pearls in little spray bottles, and was pleased to find that they still worked and hadn’t dried up.

I sprinkled the Infusions onto dry paper as normal – in this case Lemoncello from set 1, and the instead of spritzing with plain water to activate them, I used my spray bottle with a mixture of water, Chipped Sapphire re-inker and Perfect Pearls (the “Perfect Pearl” colour which is a silvery-pearl). I sprayed it on fairly liberally and the blue has mixed with the yellow of the Infusions to create a soft green colour.

Here’s a detail shot in an attempt to show the shimmeriness of this effect.

Painting as watercolours

I tapped out a little of the Infusions on my non-stick craft sheet and made a puddle with water, using a fine brush, and then painted with this onto a stamped image.

I used a couple of stamps from the StampAttack “Fanciful Fans” set using black archival ink. The Infusions I used were Violet Storms, Lemoncello and Emerald Isle from set 1, and Rusty Car and Violetta from set 2. When I had finished, the images looked rather stark against the white card, so I used an Inkylicious Ink Duster to apply Fossilised Amber distress ink around the edges of the card, blending the ink towards the middle.

Infusions on wet paper

Applying the Infusions to wet paper, rather than to dry and then spritzing with water, gives a different effect.

For this sample, I made the paper good and wet and sprinkled on Royal Blood from set 1 and Green Man from set 2. I heat set this and then decided it needed a bit more colour, so I added a small amount of A Bit Jaded from set 1. This method is a lot more difficult to control. You get a wonderful burst of colour but on the wet card this soon disperses and you have to dry it fairly rapidly to keep the radiating pattern. I have been using my old heat gun lately, as it dries things a lot faster than the Tim Holtz Heat Tool, but in this case it would probably be better to use the latter because the blast of hot air is much more gentle and doesn’t move the wet colour around so much.

Brayered Gesso

For my final sample today, I combined Infusions with gesso applied with a brayer.

I used Rusty Car and Slime from set 2, sprinkling the Infusions onto dry card. I put some gesso onto my non-stick craft sheet with a palette knife and spread it out a bit, and then ran my brayer through it so that the roller was covered, and then I rolled it over the Infusions on the card. I spritzed it with water and watched the Infusions begin to activate.

The effect is quite subtle and chalky, with a slight grain to it, indicating the direction of the brayer.

I have a couple more miscellaneous techniques to cover but at this point I ran out of energy and had to stop! I will do these at the beginning of the next session, in which I shall be concentrating on the effect you can get combining Infusions with acrylic paint.

Card Factory 2015–Two Bee Cards

My next collection of cards for the Card Factory is on the theme of bees. I have made two so far.

I began by inking up some backgrounds cut from offcuts of card from other projects in the Card Factory, using my new Fossilised Amber distress ink, smooshing and spritzing it on my craft sheet and dragging the card pieces through the wet ink. I always keep my offcuts in case I want to make something smaller with them – waste not, want not!!

First Card

The first card has a die-cut window with a bee in it, with its wings embellished with Glossy Accents.

I embossed one of the inked backround pieces, using a Fiskar’s texture plate in a honeycomb pattern, using my Cuttlebug.

It didn’t show up very much, so I inked over the top, using my brayer to apply Vintage Photo distress ink to the raised pattern, and then I distressed the edges with the same ink, using a home-made ink blending tool.

I cut a window in the top, using one of my new Dorice circle dies. It was really funny about these dies. I ordered them some time ago on Ebay, and was told there was a fairly long delivery date on them. I was convinced I had received them, and couldn’t find them anywhere, and got very frustrated looking for them, turning the place upside down and wasting lots of energy in the effort! Then I got an email last week saying they’d been dispatched, and a few days ago, they arrived! Did I dream them? Anyway, I am glad they did eventually turn up, and I hadn’t lost them after all!

After cutting the window, I stamped my medium bee from Stampotique Originals onto another offcut of card, using sepia archival ink.

I inked the background with more Fossilised Amber distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

Here is the window with the bee in it. I embellished its wings with Glossy Accents.

I matted and layered the honeycomb piece onto some thin brown card with a slightly marbled effect, and then mounted it onto a white A5-folded-to-A6 sized piece of card which I had previously distressed around the edges with Fossilised Amber distress ink. Here is the card completed card.

The sentiment was stamped on another offcut of card, using one of my clear sentiment stamps that I got when I first started, and I’m afraid I don’t know the name of the set or the manufacturer. This small strip was matted onto the same brown card as the main part of the card, after I’d inked it with a little Fossilised Amber and distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress inks.

Second Card

For the second card, I wanted to make a grid background, stamping with the tiny bee that came with the medium bee stamp I used for the first card. I worked out a suitable spacing for alternately spaced rows of bees and I’ve kept a note of this in the packet with the stamps so I can refer to it again. It took quite a while to work out, and then a little while longer to draw out on the background piece, but at least this way I get a nice even result, and it’s worth the trouble, I think.

I stamped the small bees using sepia archival ink, stamping right over the edges of the background piece to give a nice overall effect. You can see the grid lines I have drawn.

I took the circular piece of honeycomb that I saved from the first card after I’d cut the window, and inked the edges, and those of the background piece, with Fossilised Amber distress ink, using my home-made ink blending tool.

I stamped the circular piece using the medium bee stamp, and heat-embossed it in gold. I made another sentiment strip the same as for the first card.

As before, I distressed the edges of the A5-folded-to-A6 white card base with Fossilised Amber distress ink, and assembled the card.

I have got several more background pieces inked and ready to be made up into more bee cards for this set.

Diamond Wedding Anniversary Card

My hubby reminded me we were invited to a diamond wedding tea party today. When we were invited some time ago I wasn’t sure I’d be well enough to go, because it would be less than a week after a chemo treatment, but because I am doing so much better on the reduced dose, I felt just about able to go.

I had forgotten about it in the meantime, and suddenly realised I needed to make a card! This is one of the reasons for wanting to start my card factory – to avoid having to make cards at such short notice as this.

Even though I am feeling better than usual at this stage in a cycle, I am far from 100 percent, and this morning I was suffering badly from chemo brain and made soooo many mistakes, it was driving me nuts! I did succeed in making a card, but managed to leave out one bit which I found after I’d finished! Also, recently I bought some circle dies which I simply cannot find, and I thought I had a music embossing folder, which I didn’t, so I had to rethink the thing on the fly! It was rather a frustrating morning all round, but I got there in the end.

It was rather difficult to photograph because it is white and sparkly. The glitter and silver don’t show up as much as in real life.

This card is not my usual style, but I wanted to do something silvery and sparkly for a diamond wedding. The couple are retired musicians, so I decided to add something to give a musical theme. The wife later said, when she opened the card, “Oh! It’s a record!” I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it does look a bit like a CD!

I began by creating some mat layers, using silver mirror card and some white card which I inked around the edges with Hickory Smoke distress ink, using a home-made ink blending tool. I got this distress ink quite recently (one of the new ones for this year) and am surprised how much I am using it already – it’s a lovely soft grey, and a very useful colour.

Not being able to find my circle dies, I had to resort to my Martha Stewart circle cutter, a tool I really don’t much like. The die would have produced a nice embossed edge, which of course this does not.

I cut a 4-inch circle and stamped and heat-embossed it using the “Music Background” stamp from the Artistic Stamper, using Cosmic Shimmer glitter embossing powder, which came out slightly pink from one direction, and a shimmery green the other way – very pretty! I haven’t used this for ages and had forgotten how nice it was.

Here is the circle mount. Rather difficult to see but you can just see the pinkness of it!

I made a circle with “60” in it to go in the centre. I used stamps from the Stampin’ Up set “Memorable Moments” – a very useful set because it has separate words for the sentiments, and numbers, and “rd,” “nd” etc. so that you can mix and match, and a nice little scalloped oval shape to stamp them in as well. I chose the number 60 for the front of the card, stamped it on white card and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I then went over it with a glue pen and added some Hunkydory Diamond Sparkles Angel Whispers fine glitter. I cut out the circle using a plain 2-inch circle punch.

I find the best way to make sure that glitter is well stuck down is to put a piece of paper over the top, and then run a brayer over it several times. I find very little loose glitter falls off that way.

Here is the completed “60” layered onto a slightly larger piece of silver mirror card punched out with a scalloped circle punch.

Turning back to the background again, I found some ice sparkly silver and organza ribbon in my stash and stuck this down vertically across the mat with double sided tape.

Using two sizes of butterfly stamps from the Stamping’ Up “Papillon Potpourri” set, I heat-embossed two of each, using the same glitter embossing powder as before, and silver embossing powder respectively, and then fussy-cut them out with fine scissors.

I added the Diamond Sparkles glitter with the glue pen as before, to the silver-embossed butterflies.

To stamp the inside of the card, I used stamps from the Stampin’ Up “Memorable Moments” set, using Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink in Watering Can, which tones very well with Hickory Smoke distress ink.

I stuck down the two glitter-embossed butterflies using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive in the centres so that the wings were loose, and attached the antennae using the glue pen.

The finished card, showing the glittered silver-embossed butterflies, attached in the same way.

We got to the party OK and it was great. I was so glad I went – the couple were surprised and delighted to see me as they didn’t think I’d be able to come. It was lovely seeing lots of other old friends too, and catching up. A very happy time. The card went down well, too!

I felt a lot better when we got home, and spent the evening relaxing on the recliner. We’d had plenty of gorgeous canapes at the party so we just had some stewed apple and cream later in the evening. I’m hoping to feel better again tomorrow, but I am not pushing it. I intend to rest and get over the busy day I had today.