A lockdown catch up with Visible Image and distress embossing glazes

Hello, it's Jane here with a better late than never catch up with the Visible Image (VI) products Susan has in stock over on the CVC website. With all the chaos happening worldwide over the last few months I did not get round to writing my usual new release post here when the most recent release launched in late February. So I thought I would have a "mix it up" Lockdown VI catch up today. Susan stocks a very wide range of the VI catalogue plus all the "new release". I have put lots of live links in this post. If you would like to buy any mentioned products just click on them. They will take you to the Country View Crafts website. If anything is out of stock, just fill in your email address and Susan will contact you when she gets them back in. Remember that any UK orders over £7.50 are FREE postage too which is win win in my books.

I hope you are all keeping well and staying safe? Most people will be staying at home and you may have even had more time to do your crafting. I hope it is bringing you some healthy distraction and enjoyment.  Some of you though may well be key workers and be busier than ever. Others like my daughter, who is a doctor, may be on the NHS front line. Thank you to you all, whether you are staying at home to keep others safe or out there helping others. We are all in this together and we will come out the other side eventually. 

OK so let's get started with my lockdown Visible Image catch up. Grab a cuppa and take a seat as this is a bit of a long post and there is a step by step of a project I made at the end too.

I thought I would start with a card to hopefully make you smile.  

 I recently made a few rainbow unicorn cards using the Visible Image Believe in unicorns set, Happy birthday sentiment and the strobes stencil. Rainbow projects are everywhere at the moment and they are so cheerful to see. I made birthday cards but with a different sentiments they could be a fitting tribute to send to a friend or family member being such a bright and happy card.
You may also notice that the unicorn looks translucent, well he is and I had my first play with the new Tim Holtz embossing glazes ( but more of those at the end of this post.)

The February Visible Image release included 6 new verse sets which are really useful. The little poem is separate from the sentiment which makes them very versatile to use. At £5.99 they are really good value too.
There are 5 other sentiments to cover all occasions including "With Sympathy",
"Thinking of you"

Thank you (shown with the Life is beautiful humming bird)

 "Happy Anniversary"

 and "Wedding"

There is also a super small "accessorize" set with these lovely accent stamps which I have used in the cars above,

including a tiny version of the gorgeous ever popular creative chaos inky flower. 

The not so new release also has 3 larger A5 sets which include 2 larger versions of existing A5 sets but they are not just a bigger version, they have new accent stamps with them.

2 of my faves are 2020 vision. (This was one I made for the recent "The eyes have it" challenge I hosted over on the Country View Craft challenge blog)

and Total chaos.

 In the 6 new A5 sets my faves include Free your imagination,

and the super cute Robot Data. I have a Design Team project coming up on 1st May on the CVC challenge site using this set but here is another card I made for my grandson's recent 3rd birthday and some matching tags.

Also "Break free"

There are 6 new stencils and one of my favourites is "Breaking glass"which you can see in my Free your imagination sample above and in a simple black and white one below.
I used it here with the awesome Night Owl set

There are lots more to check out, do have a look through the lovely stock that Susan has over on the website here.

So back to the Distress embossing glazes which I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I bought 3 colours a while back and as you saw in my rainbow card I used the Broken china to emboss my unicorn.

I have wanted to have a play using it with stencils so yesterday I did just that and I thought you might like to see my results.
There are 12 colours so far. The colours I have are Broken china, Fired brick and Cracked pistacio.

So first of all I just used embossing ink on a piece of foam and applied it through the VI Count me in stencil.

I rather liked that but then I took it one step further and added some stamping under the VI Fibres stencil. That was also interesting...the stamps are from Dare to swim

So I thought I would go for more texture so I got out my Texture Crackle paste and applied it though the same fibres stencil over some stamped text.

I sprinkled on the powders and being impatient got out my heat gun as I know that the paste will bubble and thought that might be interesting.
Pre heating....

post heating...very bubbly!

Here are all 3.

 I made one more which I decided to leave to dry overnight. 

This was crackle paste through the VI entwined butterflies stencil
In the morning I saw these gorgeous crackles.
Now the observation I will made is that less of the powder stuck to the paste when left to dry.  Once heated this was the result, still rather lovely!

I decided to make the butterfly background into a mini canvas. First I added some yellow distress inks to the background as I found the white too pale. I used stamps from the "wings of change".
I stamped and coloured the butterflies and fussy cut them out.

I also used the sentiment from the Life is beautiful set which I distressed using my tool and vintage photo distress ink.

Here is my finished canvas.

with a couple of close ups

The crackle really looks like a mosaic in real life and the butterflies sparkle vividly.

 I really had a fun day playing with the new glazes and my VI stash and needless to say I have just ordered a few more colours of the powders from Susan.

If you got all the way to the end of this post, thank you.  I think you deserve more that just a cuppa now.

I hope my post may have shone a little sunshine into your day and perhaps given you some creative inspiration too?

Take great care during these very different times we find ourselves in.

Life is indeed beautiful.

Stay safe,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Chapter 2 Tim Holtz dies

Hi Brenda here with two Spring cards using two of the new Tim Holtz dies.

Thinlits - Feathered Friends.

Bigz - Baggage Claim.

For the process steps and photos showing how I made these cards please pop across to 

Bumblebees and Butterflies where there all the details can be found including a new way to use acrylic paints for the background of the first card.

hugs Brenda xxx

A Tim Holtz Curio Box

Using Tim's new Curio Box die I've created a mini scene with a retro/vintage transport theme. To get that lovely retro vibe I used Andy Skinner's transfers

The base of the box was cut from black card and lined with the die-cut shape from the lid which was cut from white card.

Sealed with gesso and then covered with the transfers the lid piece and insert was then dipped in some cobalt turquoise wash and dried before putting together.

As I like to do I distressed the edges with brown distress ink and spritzed it lightly with water before drying it to get that aged look and did the same over some of the backgrounds.

I kept one of the car transfers to rub onto white card and cut out for part of the focal point in the front with the lovely couple ....

.... painted a metal penny farthing bicycle and adhered to the top ....

... and added some 'extras' to set the scene.

Thanks for stopping by.

Brenda xxx

From the Country View Crafts shop -

Curio Box die

Retrology Transfers

Paper Dolls

Altered book pages for journalling

A friend had some books in her car ready for the charity shop the other day and one was A Country Diary birthday book, certainly not old at all but the illustrations are all of flowers and are hand painted prints so I decided to take it off her hands and have a play at using some of the gorgeous flower designs in some journal pages.

This is the first one stuck into my nature journal.

       

To age the illustration I stamped with some text and gave it a light coat of watery gesso and distressed the torn edges.

I painted some of the Tim Holtz wildflower stems .....

.... and drew round one of Tim's transparent butterflies on watercolour paper, dipped it in some pinky paint washes, glued them together then covered the surface with glue to make it matte. I also added a Tim Holtz crochet die border and a quote.

Altering book pages is a great way to get an initial start to a journal page and then add your embellishments to add more interest and finish it off with a good quote.

I hope you enjoy trying your own pages like this.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xx

Supplies from Country View Crafts

Tim Holtz wildflowers die and crochet die

Tim Holtz stamps Nature's Wonder

Tim Holtz Transparent acetate wings

Blended background using acrylic paints

I love my DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic paints and I have blended them for this journal panel using blending tool and foam.

I took quinacridone violet, cobalt teal hue and transparent yellow oxide which are all DecoArt Media transparent colours and translucent white which is semi transparent and blended them over a textured gesso background blending with a blending tool and blending foam and rubbing back with dry kitchen paper. When I was happy with the pale colours I then sanded lightly over the surface to reveal some of the white of the gesso below. Using ground espresso distress ink I blended around the edges of the card to give it a more vintage appeal and rubbed a little in the centre too wiping it back with a damp cloth.

These gorgeous transparent butterflies are from Tim Holtz. They are shiny and because I wanted it matte I painted a coat of DecoArt matte medium over it which dulled it down beautifully. I love how the background and particularly the text shows through.

I die-cut some wildflowers and used one of the photobooth vintage photos in my collage along with some bits and pieces I collect to use for putting my collages together. I also love adding natural elements to them.

The quoteid from one of Tim's sets of stamps called 'Nature's Wonder'.

I shall now add this to my 'Nature' journal I am slowly filling up.

hugs Brenda xxx

Bumblebees and Butterflies

Available from the shop

Tim Holtz stamps

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics

DecoArt Media white gesso

Distress Inks

Transparent Butterflies

Wildflower stems #1

Wildflower Stems #2

Using Tim Holtz Bookboard Frame and Paper Dolls

Hi it's Brenda with you again today with a board I created during a crafting Skype session with some friends. I love the Tim Holtz frames and paper dolls and they suited the project I ended up making.

There were lots of steps to get to the finish line and each of us chose the next step in turn.

I also used mostly decoart products both paints and mediums. They are my favourite go to things to use when I sit down to make something.

You'll see I also incorporated some of Tim's quote chips. They are so easy to use on bigger projects like this.

I used several metal embellishments that had in my supplies and added some Tim ribbon too.

I found the dress form die-cut was hiding in a box, it is an die also from Tim. I used DecoArt texture sand paste on it before adding some acrylic paints.

|At the end I felt the overall design didn't quite balance so I added a little tissue tape and remnant rubs (the stars) to achieve the composition I desired.

I was so happy with the final results. I hope you like it too.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx