Floral Mini-Album Pt 7 Page 6

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

Moving on to page 6, I used pieces cut from the paper stack in my stash to mat the top flap of the page. I lightly distressed the edges with Black Soot distress ink. This particular paper was one of the least objectionable in the whole stack so I decided to leave it unaltered.

Working on two identical albums side by side presents a slight problem in that I don’t always have two sheets of the particular designer paper, and I can’t cut two matching pieces. In this case, however, I was fine. I found some green card with a slight pattern in it but thought this was too stark and didn’t suite the page, so I inked it with Forest Moss distress ink, using the smooshing method (by which you smear the ink pad on your craft sheet, spritz it with water, and smoosh the card around in it, which generates some lovely random patterns.)

This paper proved rather difficult to use for this technique because as I mentioned in part 1 of this series, I think there is a slightly waxy layer on it and the ink tended to bead up, but I got the result I wanted in the end, and once it as dry, I distressed the edges first with Forest Moss Distress ink, and then with Black soot distress ink, until I got the desired effect. Finally, I added some Broken China distress oxide ink, also using the smooshing method. In the above picture, you can see the two pieces I made for the album, and underneath, a piece of the paper in its original stage for comparison.

Here is the mat on the front of the bottom flap, complete.

When you fold the top flap down over it, you can see a small amount projecting beyond the top flap, so it needed to co-ordinate.

Keeping with the bright green and turquoise theme for this particular page spread, I am now working on the undersides of the flaps, and the page itself, to produce mats which co-ordinate with the whole. With all this paper lying around, my studio looks as if WWIII has struck it.

I had an offcut of the black card I’d punched with the Multi-Shaper Punch, and I punched it again, into the shape I wanted. I glued this down on the front flap of page 6. I subsequently distressed the edges of the flap, using Black Soot Distress Ink.

Lifting the flap, I added some more of the paper from the paper stack as a mat for the underside of the front flap.

I distressed the edges of this paper with Forest Most Distress Ink.

I was wondering how to create some sort of pocket to hold something, and thought things might fall out with the action of the “up and over” type flap. In the end I created another strap, inserting a little magnet concealed between the layers.

Here it is again, showing the circle punch I used to create the rounded end.

I cut a piece of black card from an offcut, measuring 1 1/2 inches wide, and with some difficulty (it was quite a fiddle!), pushed the end into my 1 1/2 inch circle punch from the bottom until the end was just visible. When I punched it, it came out with a semi-circular end. Unfortunately I don’t have a circular punch of exactly the right measurements to cope with the strap mat, so I drew around a bottle of glue with a circular base which was the right size, and then cut out the semi-circle with scissors. I stuck it down onto the black magnetic strap and folded the top tab over and glued it in place. Turning the flap over, I put the other half of the magnet down and it found its own place, being attracted to the first half. I taped it in place with double-sided tape, and then I attached the mat layer to the strap, using double-sided tape. This strap will be used to hold a small booklet.

Pop-Up Valentine Card for my Hubby

Recently I found a video on Youtube with a number of pop-up designs for Valentine’s and I thought it would be fun to make one for my hubby. This time last year I was in hospital for Valentine’s and didn’t make him one, but he gave me the biggest one I’ve ever seen, and all the hospital staff thought it was brilliant!

Anyway, this year, I’ve managed to escape being in hospital for Valentine’s although I am waiting to go in, so there’s no excuse for not making one for him this time!

I began by making the simple pop-up mechanism from white cardstock.

This is the outside of the pop-up, folded. You can see some of the construction lines.

I thought I would use some of the scraps from my mystery project for this card. Here they are, being smooshed with Fired Brick Distress Ink. This particular paper is an absolute pain to ink because it seems to have rather a waxy surface that resists liquid, and it takes ages to dry with the heat gun, too, but it’s a paper stack I’ve had from the very beginning, and I’ve never liked it much, so I thought it was high time I used it up, especially that nowadays I’ve got enough experience to know how to improve it.

For the pop-up piece, rather than leaving it stark white, I smooshed it with Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide to give a marbled effect.

After this I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink – I thought that a touch of brown would prevent the card from looking too girlie.

I also distressed the sides of the pop-up, masking off the surrounding areas with some scrap paper.

Then I took one of the inked scrap pieces and cut it into half-inch strips, which I wove in and out of the pop-up to create the basket.

When the weaving was finished, I trimmed off the bottoms of the strips, and left the tops at random lengths.

I have only got one heart punch, and it makes very small ones. I punched out quite a few from one of the scrap pieces, punching them as evenly as possible so that I could use the waste piece to embellish the front of the card. Then I made some intermediate and larger hearts, drawing round a little template I made and then fussy cutting them.

I also cut some hearts from some scrap gold card to mat the hearts, and also added stickles (gold and orange peel) to some of the hearts, and began to glue them onto the pop-up with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

I punched the corners of the pop-up with my multi-shaper punch. It’s not designed as a corner punch, but with some careful lining up, I was able to achieve the result I wanted. I also distressed these punched corners with Vintage Photo Distress Ink to match the rest of the pop-up.

At this point I forgot to take any photos for a while. I mounted the pop-up on some pink cardstock, and on the outside, front and back, I added some red cardstock that I distressed around the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, and I also added some of this ink in the centre with an Inkylicious Ink Duster. I layered a heart cut from a scrap onto more of the scrap gold card, and this embellishment was mounted in the centre of the card with a large foam pad.

I attached the punched heart strip onto a piece of gold card using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, and then applied the whole embellishment to the red mat with double-sided tape, folding the excess punched layer around the back, before matting the whole thing onto the pink card base.

Here is the completed pop-up, with cut and punched hearts on the woven strips and also stuck down onto the back of the pop-up to give a dimensional effect. I hand-wrote the sentiment.

Finally, the completed card with the envelope I made from more of the pink cardstock, using my envelope punch board.

The edges of the envelope were distressed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

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.

Recycled Mini-Album Pages–Childhood

Because this album contains personal family information I am unable to share fully all the pages with you, but I can show you what I’ve been working on recently – pages concentrating on a childhood in the 1920s.

For this first page, I took three pictures (scanned and printed from the original photos) and ripped the edges to soften them. They were lightly distressed with Weathered Wood and Tea Dye Distress Inks. I created a deeply textured background from scrunched up tissue paper laid down with regular matt gel medium which was then painted with a mixture of Payne’s Grey and white acrylic paints, with a final light application of silver gilding wax on the high points of the texture. The pictures were applied with more gel medium, as were the card strips with the hand-written text. The irregular border was added at the end, following the edges of the textured background.

An important feature of this album is the arrangement of the pages throughout. All the pages were made from recycled Christmas cards painted with black gesso, and I have trimmed them so that they decrease in size to the centre of each signature, with the smallest, central one having its sides glued together to form a pocket into which a tag can be placed, which will probably be the only interactive aspect of this particular album. I am creating a different black and white border for each page so that the further into each signature you move, the more of these compound borders will be revealed.

The next picture shows some plastic packaging from some chicken pieces I bought recently. Once I spotted the gorgeous texture on the bottom, I couldn’t throw these little plastic trays away! You can see that I have cut out some pieces from the base of another identical tray.

These pieces are resting on a piece of kitchen paper that I’ve been using for mopping up – it has developed into a gorgeous grungey background which is definitely going to find its way into the album at some point. The complete chicken tray is resting on a new scratch paper which is developing well into a nice background piece, too.

Now for the transformation of the chicken packaging! Unrecognisable, isn’t it!!

I cut the border off the lozenge-shaped textured pieces, and with three of these these border pieces I created a frame for the journaling by gluing them down onto a piece of card which has previously been painted with a mixture of blue, green and crimson acrylic paints. Onto this I wrote the text, and then glued the whole thing in place onto the page. The lozenge-shaped pieces were painted and then glued direct to the page after the photo had been applied. I added a touch of gold gilding wax to the raised texture of all the pieces. (I think gilding wax is becoming my signature material as I simply can’t resist using it!)

For the background of the page, I took my Decreasing Circles stencil and applied Versamark embossing ink through it with a small piece of Cut’n’Dry foam. I added some strencilling over the edge of the photo as well, to make it blend into the page. After this I painted on some Perfect Pearls in Cappuccino and (I think) Green Patina.

I made a small tag from scrap card which I painted black, and embellished in the same way with the stencil and Perfect Pearls. Onto this, with my white Sigma pen, I wrote some journaling about the two older generations depicted in the photo. I made two circles from card stamped with archival black ink using a flower stamp and inked with three shades of Distress Inks – Tea Dye, Victorian Velvet and Weathered Wood, and these were glued either side of the tag. Using a 1 1/2 in circle punch, I cut a semi-circle from the edge of the tag pocket so that when the tag was inserted, the tag puller would completely fill the semi-circle.

A black and white heart border completed the page, softened a little with some curves on the right hand page.

Some detail:

I added a little Perfect Gold Perfect Pearl from my Perfect Pearls palette, to outline the chicken packaging pieces and add a bit of definition.

A detail shot of the tag, slightly pulled out, revealing how the tag puller fits into the semi-circular hole, and showing a little of the white jorunaling inside, and the stencilled background.

Turning the page, the second childhood page is revealed.

This picture shows the reverse side of the tag puller. I embellished the pages with some clear heat embossing to create some texture – the stamps were from the Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge set by Stampers Anonymous. The photos were stuck down with gel medium. Over the bottom of the left hand photo, I stamped with Versamark, using another stamp from the same set, and then heat embossed with Distress Embossing Powder to give a raised, rough texture.  I went over the entire page with Versamark, using the small piece of Cut’n’Dry foam dabbed randomly over the page, and then I applied some Perfect Pearls with a soft brush – the colours were as before, but using Interference Green instead of Green Patina. This treatment was extended over the photos too.

Over the right hand photo, I stuck down a die cut vintage bicycle, one of several which Julia, our WOYWW hostess, sent me some time ago – this particular one was lime green to start with, but I distressed it with Tea Die Distress Ink and then applied it with gel medium, some of which ended up on the surface, creating a nice random texture, which was highlighted by the application of some copper gilding wax, giving the bicycle a lovely vintage, rusty look. I did not add further borders to this particular page.

Videos will follow in due course – I’m still in the process of editing them.

The next page will concentrate on student days and young manhood.

Stampin’ Up Six-Sided Sampler Card 1–New Home

Today I made a New Home card, using for the first time my Stampin’ Up Six Sided Sampler stamps and co-ordinating punch.

Here are the materials and equipment I used to make the card.

Working from top left: Stampin’ Up Hexagon punch, Stampin’ Up Six-Sided Sampler stamps, Water Droplets stamp from Designs by Ryn, Fiskar’s embossing plate (honeycomb) (behind the stamps), Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, black acrylic paint, selection of clear sentiment stamps (manufacturer unknown, stored in CD case), alphabet stamp set in wooden box, Pinflair glue, Glossy Accents, home-made ink blender pad, Inkylicious Ink Dusters resting on clear embossing powder, Ranger Archival Ink (sepia), Wild Honey and Walnut Stain Distress Inks, Versamark embossing ink pad, foam pads, selection of pens, embossing tool. I don’t think I’ve left anything out!

The foundation for this card is an A4 smooshed background from my backgrounds folder, created by smooshing the paper around in spritzed ink on my non-stick craft sheet.

This was embossed using a Fiskars embossing plate – I bought a whole set of these several years ago on Ebay. They are rigid plastic, double-sided, with a different design on each side. I have used this honeycomb one more than all the others.

In the above photo you can see the Cuttlebug sandwich needed to emboss the maximum size with this plate. Starting from the bottom: A Plate, Fiskar’s plate (right side up), cardstock (wrong side up), “No More Shims” embossing mat (thicker than the standard Cuttlebug tan mat), 2 sheets of scrap printer card, B Plate.

This is what the background sheet looks like after being passed through the Cuttlebug. The Fiskar’s plate embosses a maximum of 5” square. At the top of the sheet it is not embossed, and you can see the impressions left by the holes in the embossing plate. I put the sheet on the tan embossing mat and smoothed these out using my bone folder.

Here is the background sheet trimmed to size, and resting on the base card which has yet to be inked.

There was a slight impression left by the edge of the plate, between the embossed part and the non-embossed, and I created an embossed line to cover this, using my Scor-Pal scoring board. This doesn’t show up very well in the photo, I’m afraid.

Using Wild Honey Distress Ink, I stamped a series of hexagons onto the background sheet, from the Stampin’ Up set. (The embossed line shows up a bit better on this photo.)

On a piece of pale yellow scrap card, I selected another hexagon stamp from the set, and stamped three shapes with Versamark, and then heat embossed them with clear embossing powder to act as a resist. This had the effect of darkening the yellow colour.

I inked them with Wild Honey Distress Ink, using an Inkylicious Ink duster, deliberately keeping the colour uneven and random.

These hexagons were then punched out with Stampin’ Up’s co-ordinating hexagon punch.

After this, I used one of my home-made blending pads made from an old wood block from when I unmounted my original rubber stamps, and some cut-n’ dry foam. I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink to darken the edges.

I was about to put the remains of the yellow card away, when it occurred to me that I could use the punched out shapes as a stencil to add dimension to the background sheet. (To the right, you can see the list I made, of the steps to create the card – useful for composing this blog post!)

I used Wild Honey Distress Ink with an Ink Duster to add some random hexagons.

To create a mask over the stamped hexagons, I laid down some greaseproof paper and traced around the edges of the hexagons.

I then cut around the traced line and held the mask down with a couple of small pieces of low tack masking tape.

This is the water droplets stamp from the backgrounds set by Designs by Ryn – one of my favourite stamps as it creates the most realistic three-dimensional water droplets!

For this card, I used sepia archival ink over the background, to simulate droplets of honey.

When I use this stamp, I accentuate the realistic effect by adding a tiny dot with a white marker onto the catch-light of each droplet.

To create the main embellishment for the card, I drew a honeybee, and then outlined it with a black permanent marker pen (one of my Zentangle pens) and used the fine one to create the veins in the wings. To add colour, I rubbed my Wild Honey and Walnut Stain Distress Ink pads onto my non-stick craft sheet, spritzed them with water and picked up the ink with a brush, and painted the bee.

(I picked up the excess ink by smooshing the yellow card stencil piece in the ink – another useful addition to my backgrounds folder.) After a quick blast with my heat gun to make sure it was completely dry, I cut out the bee with a pair of fine scissors, and painted the edge of the cut card with black acrylic paint.

Turning the bee over onto a piece of fun foam, I embossed the body with my large-sized embossing tool.

The wings were painted with Glossy Accents and the bee left to dry.

While it was drying, I attached the three punched and heat-embossed hexagons onto the background using foam pads.

I inked the edges of the base card with Walnut Stain and Wild Honey Distress Inks, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster. I put a piece of scrap paper inside the folded card to protect it from any misplaced ink.

The card mounted onto the base card, with the sentiment stamped.

I used one of a set of clear sentiment stamps, a small amount of hand writing, and my alphabet stamps from the little wooden box – a set I got on Ebay – stamped with the aid of my stamp alignment tool. I used Wild Honey Distress Ink for the stamping, and then accentuated the text with my sepia permanent marker.

The completed card.

The bee was attached using quite a large amount of Pinflair glue filling the embossed body, with some more under each wing to keep them raised above the surface of the card. The legs were stuck down using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. Both glues were applied with the aid of cocktail sticks, and the card set aside overnight to dry.

The impression I was trying to create is of the new home owner approaching her new home – in this case, her very first home of her own. Her first sight of it is definite and clear, and as she moves forward in time, things become less clear, but there is the promise of sweetness and joy as her life moves forward, into who knows what adventures! Onwards and upwards to a bright future full of hope!