Birthday Cards for my Mum and a Naughty Squirrel

(Warning – image rich post!!)

I don’t seem to have blogged for several weeks, except for the weekly WOYWW blog hop – for details click on the logo in my sidebar – for over a fortnight I’ve been laid low with a dreadful throat infection/flu-type virus and although I’m tons better now, my throat is still a bit sore and I haven’t got my voice back completely (I was voiceless for over a week!). I’m also feeling pretty wiped out as a result. Still, it’s the time of year for it and I’m not the only one who’s been suffering.

My main project recently has been to make a collection of birthday cards to give my mum for Christmas. She is hard to get presents for these days as she’s 90 and wants to get rid of stuff rather than acquire more, and she always appreciates things I’ve made, and these can be given away, which is even better. I have tried to keep them fairly simple as card making isn’t my No. 1 favourite thing to do, but I do enjoy embossing and inking and experimenting, so I’ve been having some fun. I am not going to give them all to her but put some in my ever-diminishing stash – there’s always a panic on when it’s someone’s birthday and a card has to be made in a hurry, and everyone’s birthdays in our circle of family and friends seems to be in the first half of the year.

I’ve made a box to put them in, which I thought she could use again to put cards in when these have all been given away. I used my Crafter’s Companion Top Score Multi-Board to make the box out of black cardstock, and decorated the sides and top of the lid.

I designed the label using Serif CraftArtist – I wanted a soft, romantic shabby chic look for this box, which I hope I have achieved.

The embellishment is made from two small crochet flowers I made a while back, which I sprayed with some pale pink glimmer mist (which doesn’t show!!) and secured with a pretty green brad over some organza ribbon.

Here’s a picture of some of the cards in progress – I uploaded this a while back on a WOYWW post. I have made them all the same size (A5).

Now for the cards in detail. Here is a pair of similar cards using clear heat embossing as a resist, and inking with Tim Holtz Distress Inks using my Inkylicious Ink Dusters. I love this technique as you get a lovely subtle blending of the colours. The sentiments are peel-offs.

Here’s a couple of pink cards – the first one is quite dark and might possibly do for a man – it’s embossed with a Cuttlebug paisley folder. The sentiment is cut on the Cricut, and as with all the sentiments so created, it was coloured using Tim Holtz Distress Stains to co-ordinate with the card. The one on the right was made using a doily as a stencil, using an Ink Duster and Spun Sugar Distress Ink, and then going over the white part with a white marker pen to give a bit of texture and make it look like lace. The sentiment is stamped.

The next two I am very pleased with. The one on the left is using a script Cuttlebug folder and some Core’dinations card in their “Whitewash” range which I really like – when sanded, the pastel shade underneath shows through. I made the flowers by stamping with some stylised flower stamps I’ve got, and then painting them with distress ink and hand embossing them, before gluing them down onto the card, and adding some orange Stickles glitter glue for a bit of bling. The background was inked with Distress Ink using some sequin waste as a stencil, and the sentiment cut on the Cricut. For the one on the right, I used a small oval die cut piece of decorative paper I had left over from another project, using a Spellbinders die, and I stamped and heat embossed the butterfly in gold, cut it out and painted it using pearlised acrylic inks. The iridescence doesn’t really show in the photo. The background was distress-inked with my Ink Dusters, and the sentiment is stamped.

The next two are done with some Tim Holtz Texture Fades embossing folders, and the sentiments cut on the Cricut. The one on the left is quite plain, but effective, I think – again it’s done with the Core’dinations Whitewash card, sanded and inked with Old Paper Distress Ink. The one on the right was inked in several green shades, and some of the embossed motifs outlined with a white marker pen and then emphasised with some Glossy Accents.

The next two are very simple, just using two different colourways of papers from one of my Tim Holtz paper stacks, which I then edged with a bit of gold rub’n’buff (which doesn’t show on the photo) and added some ribbon. The sentiments were cut on the Cricut.

I hand-painted some stems on the next card and then glued on some yellow hibiscus flowers from my stash, that I made from one of Penny Duncan’s cut files. The sentiment is stamped.

Here are the pictures of a doily being used as a stencil (small trial piece on the left) – I stencilled onto some decorative paper.

I used this as a background for the second card below; I then used the same doily to create the pink doily card above, and as a result the doily was really inky in graduating shades of blue and pink, which I really liked, so I cut it up and used some of the motifs to make these last two cards with, both of which have peel-off sentiments.  I arranged the different elements to make a suitable design, and on the right background, and with the addition of some stickles, they look quite exotic! I’m really pleased with this pair! Doilies definitely have potential for art!

I have also made some extra backgrounds which I am going to use for my card stash. Here are some nice dark, grungey backgrounds I created by embossing some black Core’dinations card with the Cuttlebug and sanding down to reveal the orange core, and then adding some heat embossing in a mixture of gold and copper, and also some black distress embossing powder. They are really gritty!

I had to trim off the edges of the various pieces of card that I used to make the birthday cards so they’d fit in the embossing folders, and I thought they looked really pretty, so stuck them down onto a piece of plain white card – not sure what I shall do with this yet but it’s got potential!

Here are some more backgrounds using the Core’dinations card again – the first ones are using the Cuttlebug script folder – I love this one with the “Whitewash” Core’dinations!

The second ones are using card from the Core’dinations “Gemstones” range – this has a nice pearlised sheen, but not much difference of colour underneath so there isn’t much point in sanding them.

Finally, here are what I call my “smooshed backgrounds” – I used some small pieces of card to smoosh up my distress inks from my craft mat after I’d spritzed it with water. The card isn’t very good quality and has gone a bit spotty, but I thought these were quite pretty, and could be used either as backgrounds or cut into flower shapes and made up. (Also, they are free!!!)

Completely off the subject, look what I managed to photograph the other day – the beastly little monkey!! Hope he doesn’t get too much of a taste for our bird food because it’s the BIRDS I want to feed, NOT SQUIRRELS!!! The window looks pretty mucky but that’s because it was wet – it had recently stopped raining (well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!).

WOYWW 128

I know we all say it, but goodness, where has the last week gone? thank you, Julia, for organising us once again for our weekly Nosey Session to see what’s on our desks midweek – if anyone doesn’t know what this is all about, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar and hop over to Julia’s for a look.

In between some pretty rough days health wise this week, I’ve been pretty busy, but managed to have a few sessions in my ARTHaven, continuing to work on the set of birthday cards I’m making for my mum for Christmas. I’ve decided to make a whole lot, to fill up my card stash so I can relax next year and concentrate on doing the sort of art I “want” to do, and less of what I “have” to do!

On my main work table this week, here are the Cuttlebug-embossed Core’dinations sheets I’ve done over the past couple of days for further cards, distressed round the edges and some matted ready for making up. I have used a range called “Whitewash” on the left and “Gemstones” on the right. The latter do not sand particularly well so I didn’t bother – the core is so similar in colour to the surface, which just has an iridescent sheen on it. The Whitewash ones, however, work beautifully, and I particularly like the script embossing done this way.

At the back of the table are some more that I did on black Core’dinations card which has an orange core. After embossing them (the 2 on the left are Cuttlebug “Ornamental Iron” and the one on the right is a Tim Holtz Texture Fades folder with a wood grain effect) I sanded them, and then added some embossing powders, the one on the right with a little clear embossing powder around the edges, and the other two with some bronze and gold mixed, around the edges, and then some black Distress Embossing Powder, to give them a grungey blackened effect. I thought I might make these up into more “man” type cards but not sure what I’m going to do with them yet.

On the left, at the back, you can just see the corner of my new art doll faces mould that I bought on Ebay this week. Jo of Jozart (thanks Jo!) inspired me with her gorgeous angels last week and I asked her about the faces, so I had a look on Ebay. No chance to try them out yet.

On my brown table you can see the additional cards I’ve made since last week, including (far left, 3rd from left) ones embellished with bits of cut up doily after I’d used the doily as a stencil – I thought it looked really pretty with ink on it, so decided to use some of the doily motifs, adding dots of Stickles in various colours to give a bit of bling. The one on the far left has the doily stencil piece I showed you last week, as a background. The pink card (2nd from left) is another one using the doily as a stencil – after inking, I went round the edges with a white marker pen to add definition and make it look more like lace – this has a slight shiny texture which has turned out nicely. The turquoise one has stamped images with clear heat embossing as a resist, and inking over them with Distress Inks, using my Inkylicious Ink Dusters. I love this technique! I may do some more of these.

On the far left of the table you can see the pile of cards I showed you last week, and between them and the new ones, tucked behind, if you look carefully, you will see the lid of my favourite teapot which I dropped in the sink the other day and… broke! Grrrr. I am hoping to be able to mend it.

In front of the cards is a piece I’ve made by gluing my offcuts to a piece of plain white card – bits I’d trimmed off the sheets so they’d fit in the Cuttlebug folders. They looked too pretty to throw away. I’ll think of something to do with them!

This week I’ve also been preparing for my Bible teaching session on Thursday – I am supposed to be doing a demonstration of the Passover for them, but today my throat feels odd, and I very much fear I may be coming down with a cold (or worse still, a throat infection – I am prone to these, accompanied by a temperature and flu-symptoms when colds are going round) – my hubby has started a cold so the outlook doesn’t look good. If it does develop, it will be in full swing by tomorrow. (I’m typing this at 12.30 a.m. Wednesday, so about 36 hours to go…) I am Really Fed Up about this. The group are so lovely and they have reassured me from the outset that if I’m not well enough any time, there’s no pressure, and they’ll just do something else, but I hate letting people down, especially in this case, when various different people have been doing things to help prepare for the session.

Sorry I didn’t manage to get round many desks this week – it’s hard to fit it all in. I’ve had a few really rough days and needed to rest, and I’m also trying to archive a whole lot of magazine articles which takes a lot of time, and continuing to work on the word book pages for my friend (only 4 more to go!). Thank you, those who visited me and left comments – always much appreciated! Happy WOYWW everyone!

Steampunk Clock Face

Today I worked on some clock face pieces to embellish my steampunk mirror. I made some out of shrink plastic (not photographed yet) which came out quite small – with the shrink plastic only being 8 inches wide, you are limited as to how large you can make things. I wanted some clock face pieces which were quite large, and which would blend in with the rusty background of the frame, between which I could adhere my various gears, screw heads, clock hands, etc.

I decided to make a clock face from chipboard (I used the back of an old cereal packet) and cut this on Jiminy Cricut, at 8 inches in diameter, and then proceeded to colour and distress it.

I’ve been longing to try my new Tim Holtz Distress Stains that I got at the craft show recently, and also the Distress Embossing Powders – I have already tried the Black Soot one with my shrink plastic gear wheels, but today I wanted to use the other one I’ve got, which is Vintage Photo.

The first step was to coat the clock face all over with Walnut Stain Distress Stain, and then to daub on Vintage Photo randomly. Finally I daubed on Black Soot randomly, rubbing it off with a paper towel to make it subtle.

Then I stamped it randomly, using three different Tim Holtz grunge stamps, using archival black ink. In this photo, I’ve left the ink on the stamps to show up their design better.

The next step was to add the Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder. To apply this, I stamped with another Tim Holtz grunge stamp with Versamark, and then added the embossing powder and zapped it with the heat gun. For this photo, so that the stamp design would show up, I have applied some Black Soot Distress Ink to the stamp.

This distress embossing powder gives a lovely rusty effect. This particular stamp gives just the blotchy, spotted effect I wanted.

To add a bit of shine, I daubed on some Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Rock Crystal (the clear, colourless one), randomly here and there around the clock face. Unfortunately this doesn’t show up too well on the photo – it’s pretty subtle anyway, and it’s always hard to catch sparkly, shiny or iridescent surfaces on camera.

The clock face is now getting a lovely rusty, weathered look which will go well on my project. The final step was to ink the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Inks, first Vintage Photo, and then a little Black Soot around the edges.

I’ve now got most of the embellishments ready to start working on the frame itself. It is already painted with black gesso and the green acrylic paint mix that I prepared as a verdigris layer.

Today I also rubbed some patina Rub’n Buff onto the Friendly Plastic embellishments I made the other day and this is a pretty close match to my paint mix. Once I’ve finished painting the rust effect onto the frame I can start sticking everything down and adding rust to the clock parts, screw heads, etc. and add a bit of chain and one of the charms I’ve made.

Watch this space! I am also going to do a steampunk mirror with panels of embossed metal with alcohol ink and maybe a bit more rust, and perhaps repeat the idea on my original rust ATC. I like the idea of embossing metal, colouring it with alcohol inks and cutting bits out.

Shrink Plastic Gear Wheels

Yesterday I had fun creating with shrink plastic – another first for me. I wanted to make some more grungey gear wheels for my steampunk project. Here is the line-up of materials and equipment needed for the project.

I got a sample pack of shrink plastic, and used a sheet of the clear. In this picture you can also see a sanding block, Versamark, embossing powders, barbecue stick and tweezers, palette knife and heat gun.

I took several images of gear wheels and edited them in my vector drawing program, Serif DrawPlus (I know a lot of people use Inkscape, but I find DrawPlus a LOT more user-friendly – OK I had to pay for it but as a long-term registered user of Serif software I get very good deals on upgrades etc.). I converted the designs to .svg format and these cut files have now been uploaded to my SkyDrive – see my sidebar for details of this – they are free to download and use, and can be resized and edited as you like.

I wasn’t sure whether Jiminy Cricut would be up to cutting shrink plastic, but he was well up to the task. I set him to do a double cut at slow speed, maximum pressure, and all the pieces popped out with no problem at all. In this photo you can see them after I had sanded them with the sanding block, to give a bit more tooth – they also show up better on my craft mat for the photo! (My first attempt was a failure – more later.)

I have put the ruler there to show how large the pieces were when I’d cut them out.

Completing each gear wheel in turn, I rubbed both sides with Versamark (nice sticky, messy project this was turning out to be!) and then sprinkled them lightly with copper embossing powder – not too much because the combined shrinking/embossing process does concentrate the powder as it ends up on a much smaller surface.

I then zapped them with my heat gun. A word of warning – although the non-stick “heat-proof” craft mats are very good, they are not protective of whatever’s underneath. I have learnt this to my cost in the past, having warped my big self-healing cutting mat on BOTH sides – the first time I did it was through sheer ignorance, so I turned the mat around so that the warped bit was away from me and not causing a problem. I managed to warp the front bit again when I put my melting pot on it, not realising how much heat was radiated downwards from it through the craft mat. That mat is now on my second table where it doesn’t get much use. I bought a nice new mat and have been very good at looking after it – when doing any heating I always put my glass kitchen cutting mat down (with feet that hold it away from the surface) with my old, rather mucky non-stick craft mat on top, and until now, have had no problems – it’s obviously OK for small amounts of embossing etc. However… yesterday I was zappping a lot, at close quarters, and the heat obviously penetrated through the glass and through the air space beneath, and grrrrr!!!!! my new self-healing cutting mat has WARPED!!! This is the LAST time I’m making this mistake. The warped bit will go to the back, and the mat is going to be REMOVED from my table next time I do any shrink plastic. I think I need to get a mat made of that stuff that hi-tech thin oven gloves are made of…

Anyway… apart from that, the project was extremely successful!

Zapping the shrink plastic is an amazing experience. The piece starts to curl and distort as it shrinks, and it’s quite scary – it looks as if it’s going to be a disaster and will never go flat, but keep at it, and it miraculously flattens out. I turned the piece over to make sure the embossing was even. A wooden barbecue skewer is good for this, and for holding the piece down so that the heat gun doesn’t blow it away - as it gets very hot, and anything metal will conduct the heat and burn you. My tweezers were there to help turn it over etc. but were not used for holding it down. You can use the stick to help flatten the piece during shrinking, too.

Here it is, having been embossed with the bronze embossing powder and shrunk. At this stage it is still hot, and I am sprinkling some Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder all over it. This is the first time I’ve used this amazing stuff. It’s pretty gritty. I then heated it again, and found that I needed to repeat the process to get the coverage I needed, and then on one or two of the pieces, when they’d cooled off, I reapplied the Versamark and gave it a final coating. When it’s cool, you have to rub it to get rid of the release crystals which gives the wonderfully pitted, corroded look that these embossing powders are renowned for.

Following is a photo of my first attempt with the shrink plastic. On my original drawing, I made the spokes of the gear wheel too thin, and they didn’t withstand the shrinking process, so I redrew this particular drawing and thickened the spokes, and also enlarged the central hole which had more or less disappeared in this piece – I tried to pierce it out with my piercing tool but it really wasn’t worth bothering with. I put this picture in to show one of the pitfalls with shrink plastic – everything shrinks, including holes, so if you are making pendants you need to remember to make the hole in the top large enough.

Here are my successful pieces. The one on the top left is slightly distorted, so I think I will reheat that one and gently pull it back into a circular shape – the shrink plastic becomes soft when heated after shrinking. Again, I’ve put the ruler in the photo so you can see how very much smaller these pieces are than before shrinking – they reduce to less than half the size (the pack says 45 percent).

In these close-up shots you can see how amazingly grungey these pieces are! The combination of the bronze embossing powder and the Black Soot distress powder gives just the result I wanted. I wish you could feel how rough and gritty they are – but for now, we will have to wait until the advance of technology provides us with Touchy Feely Internet.

My craft mat was in a terrible state after all that – I should have photographed it! Melted and solidified embossing powder. I scraped it off with my flat palette knife and was about to throw it away when I thought I could re-melt it onto something else, or just glue it on – lovely grungey flakes!

This project has been great fun. I want to shrink some larger pieces now. I didn’t want to go mad on my first attempt in case it went wrong and I wasted a lot of material, but I think I know what I’m doing now!

Edited 24th August 2014: After a request for info about this post, I thought I’d bring it up to date. I have now got to grips with Inkscape which is a truly awesome program and well worth persevering with – there’s lots of help online. Also, I now use a Silver Bullet Cougar cutting machine instead of the Cricut – a more sophisticated machine altogether. For heat protection I now use Presspahn mats – http://www.presspahn.com/Cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_2_23&products_id=12 – really heat proof – the ultimate Shoshi proof mat lol!