Blogtoberfest 2014

I have (perhaps foolishly) decided that I am going to participate in Blogtoberfest 2014.  A blog post every single day of October.  This is a bit of an undertaking for someone who has just recently started posting again after a two and a half month gap .....

It's all Karen's fault.  She has persuaded myself and Sy that it will be fun :-)

Do, or not do.  There is no try.......

See you tomorrow!

Steampunk wall art

I haven't blogged since mid July ..... where did August and September go??  A severe lack of mojo combined with (or perhaps because of?) pressure at work meant that I made hardly anything during that time.  Some half completed pages at crops, some half finished cards.... but no real inclination to finish anything.  I have managed to cross stitch for 10 - 15 minutes every day, sitting in my car before work, which has resulted in a couple of finished pieces, more on those tomorrow :-)

The steampunk piece below is a class kit which I started at the Merly Impressions retreat, back in June.  The original class item was this frame, covered with flowers ..... so not really my thing LOL.  I brought it back home with the paper (Kaisercraft, not sure which range) attached to the separate pieces and that's how it stayed for, ahem, a couple of months.  Finally I bit the bullet and put the pieces together, painted the mini frame, found a nice quote from this site, added the keys, the crystals and the other metal bits.  It still needed a little more, so I made an interrupted border from silver nailheads.

Here it is in its final position:

I am very pleased with it :-)  also I have made a great discovery - Cosmic Shimmer glue will stick metal to metal, now that is something which will prove very useful in future!

Deco 'celebrate' birthday card

I needed to make a card for a 50th birthday, but was in a quandary as to whether to use the number 50 on the card, or not.  DH agreed that it was a dilemma, then suggested that I could do something with a champagne glass and the word 'celebrate'.  Well, that was just an inspired idea and here it is :-)

The deco fan is a Silhouette cutting file, reduced to 30p from 59p, what a bargain.  The champagne glass is made with a Britannia die, the sentiment tag is a Nestie.  The word is spelt out with individual 5mm peel off letters, from Craft Creations.  I added a couple of crystals onto the tag, and then a few tiny ones for 'bubbles'.
It was a little fiddly, not to mention more time consuming than you would think, assembling all the pieces.  But I really like it, I think having two glasses on an anniversary card would look good too.  Incidentally, the card and fan are ivory, rather than white as they look in the photo, it looks a lot warmer in real life :-)

BtCR May

Beat the Christmas Rush for May .... I made four cards, difficult to get into one photo!

The postage stamp circle mat is a Silhouette cutting file.  I stamped /embossed the Christmas image (Just Rite) and punched into a circle with my huge 4" Woodware punch.  Then I inked it with Antique Linen and Tea Dye distress inks.  I used 1mm foam tape to attach it to the mat, so it's not completely flat, but still "post-able"!

Mixed Media - Clock & Butterfly

This is a present for my friend's daughter, based on the mixed media piece of wall art I did a little while ago, here.

I didn't take step by step photos, as I was quite anxious to get it finished in time, but the basic procedure is as follows.....

• Cut some greyboard to fit the chosen frame - I knew that I would be using a mount to allow room for the crystals, so I cut the board to 10 x 8", and marked out the visible area of 8 x 6".  Cover both sides with gesso - the back won't be seen, of course, but it does seem to stop the piece warping if both sides are primed.
• Die-cut your chosen shapes in white card.
• Gather the 'background' items together - masks and stamps.
• Work out placement of die-cuts, then stamp/emboss where required.  I used brown embossing powder as I wasn't sure how it would take everything that was going over it - if it acted as a resist, brown would look OK (though I did end up putting Treasure Gold over it anyway!).
• Adhere die cuts.
• Use texture paste through the masks in required areas.  Leave to dry.
• Cover everything with gesso, leave to dry.  I did speed this up with a heat gun!
• Apply colours  .... I have used mists and alcohol inks, using water from a mister to help everything flow around the piece nicely.  Dry thoroughly with a heat gun between each colour so the colours don't muddy together.
• When happy with the result, make sure everything is completely dry and apply Treasure Gold to various raised areas.  I have used Classic Gold on the clock dial, the embossed script and a little over the texture squares  in the corners, Onyxite on the die-cut corners, the clock hands and the butterfly.  The gears and clock centres have the misleadingly-named Sapphire, it is not really blue, much more of a teal!
• Place crystals here and there :-)
• Leave for at least a couple of hours to let the solvents from the TG evaporate off before placing behind the glass in the frame.

I took the photo without the glass, to avoid reflections.  My friend is very happy with it and will let me know if her daughter likes it ...... fingers crossed :-)

Father's Day cards

Two Father's Day cards today :-)

They are both quite simple, the top one has patterned paper from a 6" pad matted over brown cardstock onto a kraft card blank.  Then I used a Sue Wilson die for the topper and added a peel-off sentiment.
The second card has half of the front cut away (shortfall card??), some freebie magazine paper from Making Cards and a stamped & coloured image which is from Crafty Individuals, I think.

52CC - week 23, aqua & yellow

The prompt for week 23 is a photo, predominately aqua and yellow.  Now, yellow isn't really a colour I am fond of, and certainly I don't see it as a Christmas colour, so I did a birthday card and a get well card instead.  I decided to go with using inks, after seeing an example on UKS from one of the other participants (thank you Silver Tiger!)

The get well card was inspired by something I found on Pinterest, here.  Simple stamping and some scored lines to add interest to the white space :-)

For the birthday card, I revisited the embossing resist technique, stamping & embossing the flowers in white and smooshing distress ink over in Peacock Feathers, squeezed Lemonade and Salty Ocean.

I won't say they are my favourite cards ever, but they are acceptable :-)