Backgrounds

 Christmas backgrounds - we made these at the Christmas club at the Craft Barn.  Use inks, I think we used distress ink and distress stains, and use a brayer to paint them on to card.  You are meant to put a little bit on and you need to get the look of it fading out.... (ie don't cover your brayer in ink and try to get a smooth line).  Just keep going with different inks.  Then you can print a script in gold or silver ink on it (I used red on the red one) - it's meant to be faint.  Spray with gold or silver to finish.  I used Treasure Gold in silver round the edge too.  Then I just used die cut shapes from mirror card to put in the middle - I love the background so no need to put too much on it.

Little Claire Stamps

I bought these little stamps at the Biggin Hill show back in May - really useful with this background paper.  I was trying out my Gelli plate, but used paper to print onto instead of card.  Once done, I used a stamp (the Jo Firth Young one of snowflakes) and also put glitter on.  I put it everywhere because much more came out of the bottle than I thought!  (I used Stickles glue.)  I then decided I needed something simple to put on top - and the snowman stamp doesn't need many colours on it, either.

Pop up card

These seem to be very popular at the moment - I made it with a free gift from one of the cardmaking magazines (sorry, cannot remember which one) - the aspire crafts "Sew Pretty" range.  Used the free papers and the bits provided, I only had to add a 12 x 12 inch sheet of claret coloured paper as a backing.

Penny Black Stamp

 I thought I might frame this rather than put it on a card - it's a Penny Black stamp, which I coloured with my Copics.  I'm now quite impressed with my colouring - I decided to go with Copics after my husband looked at a Christmas card I made a few year's ago using Copic pens, and wondered who had sent us a Christmas card so early.  If he couldn't work out I had coloured it, I decided they were the pens to go for!!

Notebooks

These are 2 notebooks I made - using various things I had laying around.  The top one is probably my favourite; the background is an early gelli plate attempt (not great at it yet, but the backgrounds are really handy for this kind of thing).

The stamp is a Paper Artsy stamp, done using glass paints.  Helen Chilton demonstrated this last year, and I really like doing it.  You need to stamp on glossy paper, and you need dry wet wipes.  Use a cocktail stick to put the glass paints on and then rub them with a dry wet wipe to spread them out (you can mix them up, but you could end up with a horrible shade).  For her cheeks, I used the pink colour but just applied it with a cocktail stick.  When you have finished, leave it overnight to dry. I used a button and some cheap metallic cord to close it with  - probably don't need to, but I quite liked the look.



The second one uses off cuts of paper with salt on top (see my last post for instructions) with a Paper Artsy stamp on the top.

Woodware stamp

This is another picture I made using a Woodware stamp.  I did it at the Craft Barn, Chris Dark showed us the background and then we stamped in black on top, and outlined it in white.  It takes a while to outline it in white, but it makes a huge difference.  We were making pictures for a calendar, but we made quite a few that day, and I decided to frame this one.  I used die cut butterflies (done from the spare bits of paper on the outside of the picture).

For the background...... very simple, and it's an old technique, but such fun!  You need a non stick craft sheet and maybe sensible to wear an apron, too . . . . ...   On good quality stamping card, you need to spray it with water first (just a small spray bottle), but it needs to be wet.  Then spray it with spray inks - we used Dylusions, but any brand will do.  (Though I must say that I thought the Dylusions colours were fantastic - very bright.  I have used other brands when trying it at home, but not as nice as the Dylusions ones.)  I tended to use 3 colours, but you can use more. 

Spray it in patches round your card, and make sure it's covered - don't be afraid of using lots of colour.  If it's started to dry out a bit, spray with water again.  You can also place another piece of card on top to take up some of the spare ink - again, cover with a bit more ink if necessary.  (You can probably get a third one from the ink left on the mat at the end, too.)  Spray again with water if necessary.  Now you need salt crystals - they need to be rock salt (I tried it with normal salt at home, and it doesn't work), ie the posh stuff that you normally grind down.  Place the salt on the wet paper, and then leave it to dry.  You can finish off heating it to set it, but not at this point - you'd end up with salt going everywhere.  When it's dry (I left mine for an hour, then used my heat gun to finish drying them) you need to brush all the salt off.  You can keep it in a spare bag to use again (never waste anything....).  I didn't use that much salt on mine (well, I thought I had, but clearly not!), and I ended up with a really nice effect - looks a bit like snakeskin.  Others had used far more salt than I had, with lovely results - someone did one with dark blues and purples in it, used loads of salt - looked like the night sky at the end.

Little Claire stamp

This is something I made for a card, but then decided to frame it instead.  The background is just distress inks on paper, spritzed with water.  The stamp is a new one from Little Claire, just a silhouette stamp with some tiny butterflies on.  I then used a Lavinia stamp on the right hand side (free with a magazine) and a Hobby Arts stamp for the foliage.  I then cut out from black card some grass, butterfly and leaves which I glued on top of the card.  I made this for a craft fair I attended - another one to be blogged tomorrow........

Gelatos. . .

 This was another thing I made at the Christmas Club at the Craft Barn.  Chris Dark showed us how to do a background using gelatos - paint a background of gesso on to a sheet of paper (the kind you'd use to make cards from) making sure you don't have a particularly smooth surface.  When it's dry, scribble gelatos onto it and then use a wet wipe to move it around slightly.  You need to be quite careful with this - it's easy to move it all away!  When it's dry, stamp over the top in Versamark ink and add embossing powder (we used snowflake stamps).  Then use a heat gun to emboss - making sure you get all of it done (otherwise you find out later on when you're trying to make cards......).  Then you just cut it up for your cards - I chose specific bits to use.  On top we put cut out snowflakes, and added a small self adhesive gem in the middle.  You can also outline the masterboard cut outs with stickles - I did but I doubt you can see it here.

More tiles....

 Two more stamps..... these ones I did at home.  I used the JOFY stamp from her first Christmas set (with Bah Humbug! - great wording).  That one is actually quite easy because only 2 colours to paint on.  The other one is a brand new stamp - from the Tim Holtz range, but designed by Brett Weldele. I was going over one I didn't like the first time, so I already had a red background.   Both of these stamps are not see through, but they both worked the first time - perhaps I was lucky??!

Woodware stamp on a tile

This is a tile we made at the Christmas Club at the Craft Barn.  We made 4 tiles, but I am really pleased with this one - Chris Dark, the tutor, brought some stamps in for us, but then she said use anything you want ......  had one look in the Christmas stamps drawer and found this.  Not sure I'd have bought this for a Christmas Card, but it's lovely for a tile.

We made this in really the same way you do a stampboard tile, but instead of using inks we used paint.  Paint the tile - 2 layers  - and then use a pale shade of distress ink to put the stamp on.  Then use paints to colour the bits you need coloured.  On this one, I used white paint for the beards, green paint for their headgear, gold paint for the jars and the star, then a tiny bit of red and some pale blue.  It's quite difficult to paint everything, so no need to fill in every bit of clothing.  When the paint is dry (doesn't take long) use black archival or staz-on to stamp the stamp on over the top.  This tends to be a lot easier with see through stamps, as you have slightly more of a clue where to put the stamp.... but I did 2 at home with non see through stamps and they were fine.

Then cut a square of felt to go on the bottom so that they don't catch (and if you drop them and break them, you at least have a chance of keeping them together!)


 

Funky Kits stamp

Funky Kits Stamp - this is part of a set I bought a little while ago, which was a great bargain - cost me £1 per stamp.  This is by far my favourite one.

I am entering this for the Funky Kits challenge this month - we were given colours to use so I had to find backing papers in those colours - and then I didn't want to use flowers on it, so I then remembered I had Sizzix dies of the scissors, cotton reel and needle.  I then went through ribbons to find ones that matched..... I thought the ric rac went well, and then I coloured the large ribbon with my Copic Marker as I didn't have anything in dark grey.

Hobby Art Stamps - part 2

This is part 2 of the Hobby Arts workshop......  for the top one, we embossed the card first and then added the bits on top (the embossing folder doesn't quite cover the whole card, so you need a layer on top).  There is also a bit inside - which I obviously forgot to take a photo of - saying Merry Christmas, with the holly and the log on it. 

The second one I really liked best...  Just watercoloured it and added Wink of Stella pens (the clear one) - if you haven't seen them yet, they are a great way of adding glitter without using glitter (not my favourite thing....).  Not sure whether you will see that on the photo though. 

Hobby Art stamps - snowmen

More Christmas stamps - I went to a Jenny Mayes class at the end of October (yes, it has taken me ages to download these from my phone) and we did Christmas cards.  These two were great for special cards - as usual, you think you're going to do something really nice, and then Christmas posting dates get closer and closer and you need to use something you have already made. 

More coming up tomorrow......

Hobby Art Stamps

It's been a while since I blogged.... was busy during December and forgot to take photos of a lot of the Christmas stuff I made.  This stamp from Hobby Art was a lifesaver.... I did loads of cards from this stamp.  Doesn't take a lot of colouring, and so easy to cut out.  Much as I like making cards that take a lot of time, I don't have quite as much time to do that at Christmas.....