Quadruple-Embossed Birthday Card

The second of two posts today.

After making my triple-embossed purple get-well card the other day, I thought I’d take this one one stage further and make it quadruple-embossed! This is a sort of embossing sampler: embossing with an embossing folder; embossing with a die; heat embossing, and finally, hand-embossing! I’m pretty much embossed out after that lot.

It is my aunt’s birthday on 28th September and I needed to get on with this before my next chemo session on Friday because after that I won’t feel like doing anything for a week to ten days.

I began in exactly the same way as with the previous triple-embossed card, with the same sized card base and matting and layering, and the same Cuttlebug embossing folder because this is the only one (except for a gearwheels one that wasn’t appropriate) that is wide enough for this size of card.

I inked the blank area with Spun Sugar distress ink, and heat-embossed the Cuttlebug-embossed part with clear embossing powder (this time I applied the Versamark with my brayer which worked better, and it was certainly improved by my remembering to use my anti-static bag this time!). I inked it using more Spun Sugar, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster, so that the clear embossing acted as a resist.

Then I began work on the embellishments. I had intended to stamp some flowers and cut them out, but my few flower stamps are all rather solid and don’t give much scope for colouring in, so I decided to draw some flowers. I outlined them in pencil first and then used a Ranger Brush Tip in its holder with my new Hickory Smoke distress ink. I love this new colour – a lovely soft grey which tones very well with the Wendy Vecchi archival ink pad called Watering Can.

After I had drawn them all with the Hickory Smoke, I coloured them in using two shades of pink coloured pencils, blending the colour with a paper stump.

After cutting out the flowers, I hand-embossed them with two sizes of ball-ended embossing tools onto a piece of fun foam.

Here are the flowers, all embossed and ready to go.

I could not stick them down until the end because the glue would still be wet. I moved on to stamping the sentiment on the front of the card, using said Wendy Vecchi archival ink in Watering Can. I used stamps from the Stampin’ Up set “Memorable Moments.” This is a lovely set because it can be used for anniversaries too, and comes with a set of numbers. I used my stamp lining up tool to get it in the right place.

Now time to start matting and layering. The first matt layer was done with Hickory Smoke distress ink and was 1/16 in larger than the card topper.

I found an excellent tip a while back for lining up the matt layers accurately – with such a small difference in size, the slightest inaccuracy would show. I ran my ATG glue gun over the back of the card topper and then went over the DS tape with a glue stick, which makes it slick and moveable for a short period, giving you the chance to get it just right.

The second matt layer, again 1/16 in larger than the previous one, was done with Forest Moss distress ink.

To complete the card assembly, I inked the edges of the card base with Spun Sugar distress ink and matted and layered the rest on top.

I then stamped the sentiment on the inside of the card, using the same Stampin’ Up stamps from the “Memorable Moments” set. I inked around the edges with Spun Sugar distress ink.

Now for the embellishments on the front of the card. I found some small leaf trails from my stash, that I’d cut with Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, ages ago. I stuck them down with Crafter’s Companion Stick & Stay spray adhesive.

I stuck the flowers down with Pinflair gel glue. I always use a cocktail stick for this – I find it a lot easier to control than a syringe, and I find that if you put this glue in a syringe, it is not long before it dries out and sets, wasting glue and ruining a good syringe!

The final step was to add some holly Stickles (glitter glue) to the centre of each flower.

The completed card. Nice and pretty for an elderly lady, I think!

Left out on the desk overnight to give the Pinflair glue and the Stickles time to set.

Zentangle Teabag Art–Two Thank You Cards

Now updated with video.

I have a lot to be thankful for, especially all those lovely people who have sent me cards and emails and gifts since my heart attack. Thank you, everyone, who has sent such lovely messages, by email or blog comment, or by phone or card. Today was the first day I managed to get into my ARTHaven and do anything creative for some time. I am still trying to catch up with everything that got neglected while I was in hospital and then resting at home, and as always, my art gets shoved to the bottom of the list! I want to make some cards to send to those who have been especially kind with their gifts, and an invitation out to lunch.

I am still obviously not myself because I had a field day with my video camera today – it was on standby when it should have been recording, and recording nothing when it should have been on standby! I still have to check the clips and edit them, and it may be that there is no useful footage. Also, working on such a small scale, I realised after recording the first one that it might not have been zoomed in enough to see, so I zoomed in good and proper for the second one and then discovered that I hadn’t been recording… Duh.

I also forgot to photograph the original teabag stains that I chose for the backgrounds of the two cards, so if the videos are any use, I may be able to take some stills from them.

Anyway… I do have some photos of the two finished cards. Both were based on the stains left by round teabags this time – I have not worked on these before, and I love the soft outlines. For the first one, I wanted to achieve a more pictorial and representative effect than my usual abstract designs – this card was for someone we visited the other day for lunch, and after being cooped up for so long, I really appreciated an outing, and our drive took us through the beautiful lush green Devon countryside with its gently rolling hills, and this is what I wanted to depict in miniature scale.

The sentiment on this first card was stamped using Tea Dye Distress Ink (which was also used to distress the background card which was a bit too yellow). I have had the stamp for ages and cannot tell you what it is, I am afraid.

I cut out the completed art work and mounted it on a piece of recycled packaging which had attractive striations. Originally I was going to use some torn corrugated cardboard but this was much too heavy and dominated the design.

The second one was more abstract. For the base card I used white card instead of the yellow-ish cream of the first one, and muted it down with Tea Dye Distress Ink, applied with an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

Instead of photographing this one on one of my pieces of scratch paper that I clean my brushes on, I decided to lay it on a diamond pattern sheet of teabag stains. The sentiment on this one was hand-written.

In both designs, I outlined much of the staining detail left by the drying teabag on the watercolour paper, and then added a few patterns, trying to leave a little white space. To do the drawing I used a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen (super fine) in sepia, which is my preferred pen for Zentangle teabag art. These pens are archival, water- and light-fast, and lovely to work with. I also tried using my ancient pastel pencils for shading, which was a first. It didn’t require much, and then I smudged it with a paper stump. Before I did the shading I thought the designs looked very flat and the patterns were not differentiated sufficiently from one another. In the Devon Hills one, I also added a touch of blue, and a touch of teal, to indicate the sky and the sea and river. Finally, I gave both designs a light spray with fixative. I hope I have achieved a good representation of our beautiful local countryside with all its variety, not to mention the changeable weather!

I have several more to do, and to prepare for a bit of a production line, I designed a back piece with Serif PagePlus, my desktop publishing software, giving details of how the technique was done, and a short explanation of Zentangle. This was printed on the left half of a landscape piece of A5 card, which was then folded in readiness for the front embellishment.

Watch this space – if I haven’t made a complete pig’s dinner of the videos, I’ll upload them in due course!

Zentangle Art in Colour!

Now I’ve got my gorgeous Inktense pencils, I can branch out into colour! I’ve done two pieces so far: a fan and a fish. I really love the shape of a fan, and I’ve written down what I did to draw the shape, so I can replicate it and use different patterns to embellish it.

I thought a clown fish would be a striking one to do – again it’s an orange/red combination so we’re all warm colours for my first attempts!

I have tried to use patterns that complement the fish shape, and imitate the overlapping scales of a fish. This was a fun one to do!

Now an update on the equipment I need for this art work. Since my last photo, I’ve got a few more items, including the new Inktense pencils, of course.

On the left is my cheap printer card with its gorgeous smooth finish, that I bought originally for pop-ups but which doesn’t fold nicely without getting soft and mushy, but is fabulous for drawing on with my fine archival pens which are sitting on top of it – the three on the left are black, and the one on the right is sepia (I haven’t tried that one yet, but I think it would be a nice effect on cream card). On the right: my new Inktense pencils in their tin, with my drawing set, protractor and fine propelling pencil for drawing. Also on the tin is my set of three water brushes – if you haven’t tried these, they are absolutely fantastic – you fill the barrel with water, and squeeze gently to release a small amount of water onto the bristles. As you paint, the water continues to seep down the brush in a controlled fashion with no drips or splodges, and to clean the brush between colours, you just paint onto a piece of scrap. Also lovely and portable as you don’t need to take a water jar with you. In front of the tin is one of my new paper stumps that my hubby bought for me, which are so much better for smudging the soft pencil shading than a thick and greasy finger tip! In front of that is my 8B soft black pencil for shading, and also a soft white eraser and pencil sharpener, and finally my glass nail file which I use, not only to file my nails, but to sharpen the point of the paper stump and remove the pencil stains. That’s it, I think – not really too much equipment to create art!