Triple-Embossed Get Well Card

The second of two posts for today.

Feeling much better today, I was able to spend some time in the studio (two sessions!) and I made a get well card for our neighbour who had a serious accident some weeks ago.

I am making up a little basket of goodies for her, to cheer her up as she goes through a long recovery period. So far I have completed the little purple box which will contain a lavender sachet.

I had several sheets of boring printed paper in my stash which I gave the Dylusions spray ink treatment and I am using these for this project.

I have recently been re-exploring die cutting, something I have done very little of since I first started, and decided to make a double-embossed card front, using an embossing folder and an oval scalloped die to make a plain panel on which I could stamp the sentiment. This is a very effective technique and fun to do.

You begin by cutting two sheets of chipboard (I like using those card envelopes you get sent by Amazon) – it mustn’t be corrugated – to the size of the card you are going to emboss. You use a die to cut a window in them – if you run both pieces through, the die will cut the top one and leave an impression on the bottom one, which is the guide for placing the die to cut it. The window on each piece is then exactly lined up, and you can stick the two layers together. Hang onto the “positive” pieces because they are used later to help with the embossing. I used a Spellbinders Nestabilities scalloped oval die.

You then put your card in the embossing folder, and put the chipboard with the window in it on top, and run it through your die cutting machine (with the appropriate plates). The chipboard piece acts as a sort of mask – it presses down on the embossing folder and the card comes out embossed, except where the window was.

You can leave it like that if you want, but it looks much better with a bit more definition, so you run it through again, this time without the embossing folder, with the die with the cutting side away from the card, and using the tan embossing mat, and with the “positive” shape lined up on top to help give a good embossed impression.

There are lots of Youtube videos and tutorials giving details for individual machines so you can find out the sandwich you need for your own particular machine. I used my Cuttlebug.

That’s the “double embossing” bit completed. I then did the “triple embossing” – the third embossing is heat embossing. I rubbed my Versamark pad over the raised embossed surface of the card and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder to give a shiny, more defined surface, and also to act as a resist for further inking.

I used Dusty Concord distress ink with an Inkylicious Ink Duster, all over the embossed surface. I held the “positive” shape cut from the chipboard over the plain window to stop any ink getting there. Once this was done, I went around the edge with Chipped Sapphire distress ink, using a home-made blending pad.

Then it was time to stamp the sentiment. I chose “Get Well” from the “Perfectly Penned” stamp set by Stampin’ Up, using my stamp guiding tool to place it exactly in the centre of the plain, unembossed oval. I used Chipped Sapphire distress ink to do this.

Next came the matting and layering. The purple shiny paper is something I’ve had in my stash for ages, and it was a bit dog-eared – I think it may have come from a box of chocolates or something – it’s not great quality but a nice shiny metallic purple which I chose to go with this project. I matted and layered the card front using this, and some gold mirror card, each with a 1/16 in overlap.

I inked the card base with a combination of Seedless Preserves and Picked Raspberry distress inks, using the Inkylicious Ink Duster, and finished it off with a narrow inking with Dusty Concord distress ink, using the home-made blending tool for a bit more definition, before sticking the card front down onto it..

Now for the embellishments. I punched out a butterfly using part of the paper-glued-to-card that I’d used for the box, and some of the shiny purple paper – I put these two together and punched, because the paper would have been too thin to punch properly. I chose my Stampin’ Up butterfly punch for this.

I stuck the shiny purple butterfly down onto the card and then took the other butterfly, and inked the back with Chipped Sapphire distress ink using the ink blender, and then wrapped some gold coloured wire around the centre, twisting the ends together to anchor them, and cutting them to the correct length for the antennae, and then bending the ends into small circles with my round nosed pliers. I used the stamp from the Tim Holtz “Bitty Grunge” background stamp set that I used for the box, to heat emboss some texture in gold. I bent up the wings, and attached the butterfly over the shiny purple one, using hot glue. Once the card was finished, a put a little Pinflair gel glue under the wings to stop them getting flattened.

I chose two small hibiscus flowers from my stash that I’d made ages ago, and attached them to the card, on the opposite side of the oval from the butterfly, again using hot glue.

Here is the completed card.

Here is a detail shot of the embellishments.

On the inside of the card I inked the edges with Seedless Preserves distress ink and an Inkylicious Ink Duster, stamped the sentiment again, this time with Seedless Preserves distress ink, and added a bit of extra text with a dark blue Marvy le Plume marker pen.

I cut an envelope to fit this 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in square card, using my Envelope Punch Board. I used a piece of 80 gsm A3 printer paper which is unfortunately not very good quality. I inked the corner which would become the envelope flap, using a mixture of Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire distress inks, and then used two butterfly stamps from the Stampin’ Up set “Butterfly Potpourri” which I stamped with Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire distress inks.

Here is the envelope assembled, showing the lining with the stamped butterflies.

I then turned it over and realised my mistake in using such grotty paper! The stamping had come through to the other side! It didn’t actually look too bad and I thought I’d just leave it. Here’s the flap closed. I inked it with Seedless Preserves and Dusty Concord distress inks as before.

The stamping showed through on the front as well, but I thought it looked quite cool, so I continued with the inking, and added some Chipped Sapphire distress ink with the ink blender to finish off the edges.

Next time I shall remember I need to make a separate lining for the envelope if this isn’t going to happen again! I have to use this paper for envelopes because it’s the only paper I’ve got that’s big enough, unless I raid my 12 x 12 in stash, and this paper is rather thick.

Watch this space for more purple goodies to cheer up our poor neighbour! Here’s what I’ve done so far.

Art Journal Page–Music and Flowers

Having completed the front page of my new leather art journal, I have now created a double-page spread in mixed media.

Music means a great deal to me; it has great emotional impact, and I have been privileged in the past to take part in group music activities, especially choir singing, which is an incomparable experience, adding something that merely listening cannot provide. Music is a gift from God and it is like being given a gift of flowers – fragrant, full of variety and colour, bountiful, beautiful, and ephemeral – but the memory lives on. Music is flowers for the ears and for the heart. This is what I wanted to express in my page.

I glued a sheet of music onto the left-hand page and trimmed it down to size. For this I used Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive as it’s the strongest wet glue in my possession and it dries quickly. I then sprayed the open page with some DIY glimmer mist (a little Wild Honey Distress Re-Inker and some Perfect Pearls mixed with water in a small spray bottle). I sprayed a small amount in another colour (Chipped Sapphire) and immediately blotted it so the dark colour didn’t dominate. After drying it with my heat gun, I applied some Salty Ocean Distress Ink (from the Summer seasonal set) with an Inkylicious Ink Duster through my Increasing Circles stencil. Over the yellow of the background, this blue distress ink turned a good shade of green, which was the effect I wanted.

You can also see some of the embedded petals in the hand-made paper of the right-hand page. This detail shot shows the shimmering effect of the glimmer mist nicely.

I sketched the outline of the text, and the border, in pencil, and started to paint the text with titanium white acrylic paint.

This is not brilliant quality paint, and needed three coats to give decent coverage.

To finish the text, I outlined it with a black Zig pen (08 size) from my zentangle set.

The next step was to start painting the border, for which I again used the titanium white acrylic paint (3 coats). While doing this, I also painted some flowers in white over some of the stencilled circles.

To finish the border, I filled the gaps with black acrylic paint (this went on a lot better and needed only a single coat), and outlined the border with the black Zig pen. I added a row of white dots in acrylic paint just inside the border, and again outlined them with the Zig pen.

To complete the page, I added a butterfly from my stash. This was cut with Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine, and had been sprayed with Dylusions ink sprays. I hand-embossed the wings from behind to make them slightly convex, and added some spots of white acrylic paint, and then attached it to the page with Pinflair gel glue to prevent the wings from becoming flattened.

The glimmer mist gives a gorgeous silky feel to the page, and the acrylic paint can be felt as a slightly raised texture. When embellishing the page, I tried to avoid the petals embedded in the hand-made paper, so that they became part of the design.

WOYWW 176

It’s simply aaaages since I’ve been on WOYWW – thank you everyone who has contacted me recently to see how I was, and I’m grateful that I was missed! I was going to give it a miss for yet another week, but feeling well enough to be creative this afternoon, I thought I could sneak one in quickly – very near the end of the WOYWW list this time, but better late than never!

My hubby bought me a gorgeous little hand-made leather book full of blank pages made of hand-made paper the other day, and I’m making it into an art journal. You can see it here.

Today I started working on the first double-page spread. I had glued a piece of music onto the left-hand page and this afternoon I sprayed it all with some DIY glimmer mist and then stencilled some circles with distress ink. I have started doing the text, painting with white acrylic paint – I want to add a border and some flowers.

On the right-hand side of the photo you can see a little green butterfly – this was one that I’d sprayed with my Dylusions inks a while back and thought the colour went pretty well, and then I must make up some flattish flowers to embellish the page.

I shall be dedicating a blog post to this page once it’s finished, so watch this space!

The book is sitting on a sheet of heavy white card. I’ve decided to take a leaf out of Jennibellie’s book and start working on a white card background rather than directly onto my craft sheet, because the mess you make gradually builds up into a unique background – I may use different sheets for different colour schemes. (Jennibellie is one of my favourite artists online and one day I may do a post featuring this wonderful, enthusiastic young lady who never fails to inspire me – she is the Recycling Queen of Planet Earth lol!!)

I’ve missed you all. The past few weeks have been very tough for me, and will probably continue to be so for a while, as we deal with the problems of my elderly parents, which takes its toll on my health, but hey, I’d actually got something on my desk worth sharing with you this week, rather than it being the dumping ground it’s been of late!

Hope you have all had a great WOYWW, and that most of you won’t have completely forgotten me!!

New Blog Background–Work in Progress!

Thanks to my friends Wendy and Rachel, I have now been able to get my newly designed blog background and header to work. It’s still a work in progress and I apologise if some of the headings aren’t yet that easy to read – for some reason the background is coming out much darker than my original design – it’s as if a dark semi-transparent layer comes down over it immediately after you open the blog. Hopefully we will iron out this small difficulty and you will soon see it as it should be.

Details of the Design

The header consists of a montage of photos (from left to right) of some knitting I did ages ago (now awaiting unravelling and knitting up again) – Kaffe Fasset style in yellows and purples. I love that tunic top, but unfortunately it is now too small for me, but one day it will be knitted again in all its former glory!

In the middle is a snippet of an interesting rock formation at the Bullring in Oban.

On the right is my first piece of hand-made paper made from recycled paper towels (kitchen roll), distress inks, DIY glimmer mist and gilding flakes.

The butterfly is an image I had on my computer, and the flowers are photos I took of several hibiscus flowers I made last year according to Penny Duncan’s cut file of the hibiscus flower – I extracted them from the background and they are now useful as digital elements in my projects.

I did the design of the whole blog background in a combination of Serif CraftArtist Platinum and Serif PhotoPlus, and the faux embroidered border along the bottom of the header was an element from CraftArtist. The montages were done by using different blending modes and transparency settings.

The main body of the blog consists of photographs I took last year of some ancient parish records dating back to the 1600s, from which I have created some vintage backgrounds. You can see some of them on this project – the book-style card I made for my mother’s 90th birthday last year.

Top left is a photo I took of some honeycomb, with a bee on it, and underneath this, and on the right as well, are some photos of a wonderful old cracked pot I photographed years ago when I got my first digital camera.

At the bottom on the left is a photograph of a beautiful wall that I photographed at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire when we were on holiday there several years ago.

I have also made a texture overlay of this.

Bottom right (but not really visible, I’m afraid, as it seems to be a bit cut off!) is a photo of a glorious Norfolk split flint wall. (I also made a texture overlay of this one.)

I love taking photos of walls, tiles, textures…

On both sides, I have added to the montage some of my recent digital backgrounds created from a still-life painting in oils.

Unfortunately, while the dark layer is still over the background, these are not visible.

I think this new blog background expresses far better the sort of person I am than the previous one, which I chose when I first started my blog. The new background incorporates my love of colour and texture, and photographing such things, and also some of the creativity I enjoy. It’s been a long hard slog to get it up and running, and hopefully over the next few days we’ll iron out the final niggles and you’ll see it in all its glory!

3-D Silver Butterflies Completed

After sharing my cut files on the Black Cat Forum, someone cut them (very successfully in silver mirror card – I was very impressed, and also very chuffed!) but she said that it might be better if the smallest holes were a bit bigger, to enable it to cut better. I expect it would cut OK with the detail blade, but I took her advice, and I have now altered the design slightly. The following picture shows the two variations (complete and partial cut), before and after editing.

As well as making some of the peripheral holes slightly larger, I have also thickened some of the outlines a fraction, which should help small-sized cuts survive a bit better! Superficially they look very much the same, so I don’t think the design has suffered at all by being somewhat simplified. (It’s a bit like those “Spot the Difference” pictures we used to enjoy as children!)

There was also some discussion about mirror card and how well (or otherwise) it cuts. Until recently I thought mirror card was mirror card was mirror card, but not so! It is quite variable in quality and price, and some cut better than others. The general consensus on the forum was that Anita’s Mirri Board was very good and cut well, although it is fairly thin. I don’t mind about that because for my purposes it doesn’t need to support the weight of a whole card; I’d only be using it for toppers, so I ordered some.

I was then able to do some test cuts, and try to cut my revised butterfly design. Setting the force at 50, I have now got Sheba to cut my butterfly piece for the 3-D project. These are the small sized butterflies, at 2 1/2 inches across, from wingtip to wingtip. I am pleased that I have achieved this, because I prefer the delicate look of the smaller butterflies. I did not want to use the 3 1/2 in ones for this project, and was determined to succeed!

The tube of photo glue is there for a reason! This afternoon, I stripped all the glue off Sheba’s mat, using Crafter’s Companion Stick Away, and turned the mat over, and sprayed it with Crafter’s Companion Stick and Spray, a repositionable adhesive. Dawn, on the Black Cat Forum, says that 3M Spray Mount is better, but I’ve almost run out, so thought I’d use the Stick and Spray instead; I can always re-do it when I get some more 3M. It is like having a new mat! All the deeply engraved lines which I did when I first started, and blunted the blade through using too much force (a common mistake for newbies!), are now on the reverse. The grid marks are still visible and it works just as well.

However, the mirror card has a slightly shiny reverse surface, and it tended to pick up some of the glue off the mat. I was able gently to rub this away, but in places it left dirty streaks which really spoilt the look of my project – normally this wouldn’t matter because it would be on the back, but in this case I am using the reverse of the mirror card on the front. Photo glue is amazing stuff because when it is dry, any excess rubs away completely, and I also sometimes use it to clean off bits of mess on my table or off my hands, and I thought it might do the same with the surface of this card, and it did – beautifully!

This is the reverse side of the mirror card, which will now be the front, with the wings of the butterflies flipped up.

On this picture, you can also see some satisfactory cuts I have made of the complete butterfly, i.e. which cuts out of the background piece completely, and has a body and antennae. The first two of the three were done with Force 25 and 30 respectively on Sheba, and although they were OK in the end, I had to push out quite a few of the holes which hadn’t cut properly. The final one, at F 40, was fine.

You can also see the embossed bodies and antennae, done from the silver side, using a hand-embossing tool. When I flipped the wings up, I folded them along the edge of a ruler to get a nice straight crease.

I then cut the back piece. My idea was to “engrave” the butterfly shapes onto silver mirror card, and I reduced the force right down to 1 (minimum) to prevent the blade cutting through, but with the blade height set to a distance of 2 CDs’ thickness above the surface, the force was still too much, and some of the pieces did cut right through. I reduced the blade height to 1 CD’s thickness, which was satisfactory; I got a nice clear line but nowhere did it cut through.

Finally, I put the Force back up to 40, raised the blade to 2 CDs’ thickness again, and cut out the back piece.

In addition to engraving the butterfly shapes, I also engraved a rectangle 1/4 in larger than the butterfly piece, to make a nice mount effect, and the back piece was cut out a further 1/2 in beyond this.

The next picture shows the 3-D piece stuck down onto the engraved piece.

The final touch was to add a tiny blob of Pinflair gel adhesive underneath each raised wing, to prevent them being flattened. This is crystal clear, and really doesn’t show from the front.

The following pictures show the detail of the underside of the wings with their mirrored surface, and the engraved detail of the layer beneath. I am fascinated by the interplay of multiple reflective surfaces, which give so much interest and movement according to the angle of view and the direction of the light source.

The engraved detail of the butterfly wing underneath the raised wings gives added definition.

This is visible from the sides, and also through the pierced holes in the raised wings.

To mount the card, I folded a piece of A4 card in half to A5, and then trimmed off 9/16 in through both thicknesses of the open edge of the card to reduce the finished width to 5 1/4 in. The finished proportions of this card are more pleasing than A5, I think, being 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in.

With the butterfly piece glued silver side down onto the back piece with photo glue, when the wings are flipped up, their silver undersides reflect in the mirror card of the back piece, giving a subtle effect against the white card, and causing some interesting plays of light and shade, depending on the lighting, and the angle of view. The white background card thus becomes full of movement and dimension, and is no longer the boring flat surface it was at the beginning.

WOYWW 125

Thanks again, Julia, for hosting our wonderful blog hop where we all go round spying out each other’s workdesks to see how messy and creative we are being! For anyone new to this, click on the WOYWW icon in my sidebar which will take you to Julia’s blog where you can join in the fun.

I haven’t done too much this week as I haven’t felt up to it – away from my workdesk I’ve been learning loads on Youtube about mixed media techniques and am itching to start again! Also, a friend has asked me to convert some cut files she bought, into pdfs – she hadn’t realised what they were when she bought them and doesn’t have a cutting machine. They are alphabet letters to create a word book that her mum wants to make. After getting some excellent advice from Penny Duncan (thanks Penny!!) on the software to use, I have now started on these, so she should be getting them soon. This is something I can do on the laptop with my feet up. It’s given me the idea of designing my own word book pages, but that’s on the back burner for now.

So… to my workdesk. I have made a start on the stash of birthday cards I’ve decided to give my mum for Christmas. She is 90, and doesn’t really want any more “things” as presents, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to think of anything to give her! Earlier this year she asked me if I’d make some birthday cards for her to give people, and I balked at the idea because I’m not keen to get too stuck into card making, preferring to branch out into more adventurous areas these days!! Anyway, thinking about it, I thought it would be a good Christmas present for her – I am making them all the same size, and I will make a nice box to put them in. I’m making her a dozen, and while I’m at it, I’ve decided to replenish my own somewhat depleted stash – after all, nearly all the birthdays in our family and friends occur in the first half of the year, starting on 1st January, so I’d like to make a start!

It’s a bit of a mess, but on the brown table on the left, you can see a stack of papers that I’m using – there are Core’dinations of various colours and sizes, a couple of Tim Holtz paper stashes, and various different scrapbooking papers. On my workdesk itself you can see my Cuttlebug, and some cards in progress. The dark brown one I am quite pleased with so far – I’ve chosen various bits of Tim Holtz papers to do with vintage school, as both my aunt and my cousin have been/are teachers – there’s a times table, an attendance certificate, a dictionary entry and an old fashioned ruler, which I am going to collage onto the dark background. The ones on the left are just at the stage of having chosen some card to mat and layer, and the one on the right has got a piece of Core’dinations paper embossed with a Tim Holtz Texture Fades folder, rubbed down and inked with Distress Inks, and certain parts highlighted with a white marker and Glossy Accents. So far it’s all a bit samey so I’m going to add something (don’t know what!) to give a bit more impact.

I REALLY want to be doing something else!!! – but I’m quite enjoying doing it really.

Not on my desk, but I was just going upstairs and spotted this through the landing window.

I love tortoiseshell butterflies! At this time of the year they tend to come in the house and look for somewhere to spend the winter. This one was sunning himself on the wall, idly flapping his wings open and shut. I zoomed in on him on maximum zoom (18x) with the camera resting against the window. Hope he survives the winter!

I got my camera back from being repaired last week, and it’s great! My wonderful hubby lent me his last week which was a tremendous help, but it’s really good to have mine back again, complete with a huuuuge new SD card so I can do lots of videos as well as photos if I’m out and about!

Crochet

For the first time in more years than I can remember, I have got my crochet stuff out again! I inherited several boxes of crochet cotton in various thicknesses (mostly white, but some cream or coloured) from my grandmother, and I have a set of tiny crochet hooks. I used to make Irish lace but haven’t touched it for ages. My other grandmother taught me to crochet when I was 8 or 9 years old (50 years ago – can’t believe it!!) and over the years I’ve done quite a bit.

These are the motifs I’ve crocheted so far, together with the threads and hooks that I used; the thicker thread is 20-gauge, and I used a 1.5 mm crochet hook with this, and made the larger-sized flower motifs. All the smaller flower motifs and the partially-completed butterfly were worked with 60-gauge thread with a 1 mm crochet hook. Nowadays I cannot work this without magnification – when I was last doing it I’d take my glasses off and work close to my nose, but it’s a case of Anno Domini these days I’m afraid!!

These are the simple flower motifs; very few rows and quick to make up:

You can see the considerable difference in size, just working with different thicknesses of thread.

Having seen various people using small crochet flowers to decorate their work, I am thinking of making these up into embellishments, maybe with the addition of a pretty brad or pearl bead or a jewel in the centre, and a backing of ruched ribbon or a paper rosette, or perhaps a piece of decorative paper, or punched or Cricut-cut card. A collection of embellishments could be made up and stored in readiness for making up a quick card when needed.  I’ve already made more than enough to play with, and I may experiment with colouring some of them with inks. Being cotton, the thread should take up colour very well, and it would be easy to rub a distress ink pad on the craft sheet, spritz it with water and muss the little crochet pieces around in it to add some colour! I am sure that a spray of glimmer mist would work as well, and maybe a touch of gold or silver.

This is the first 3-D flower motif that I’ve made, also with the 60-gauge (fine) thread. It has 3 layers of petals.

These are a lot more of a fiddle to make, especially with very fine thread, but worth the effort for the lovely dimensional effect.

Finally, this is a butterfly I am working on, from a vintage pattern book that I downloaded from the Internet.

This pattern is quite complicated to follow, and I couldn’t stop half-way through the wing or I’d have got lost!! I’m thinking of making several butterflies and mounting them on dark-coloured card to show off the lacy effect. This particular design is really pretty, and has loads of potential for future use!

Looking forward to doing lots more, as this is something I can do while relaxing on the recliner when I’m feeling well enough to do something not too arduous, but not energetic enough to work in my ARTHaven.