Creative Expression's Thursday.

Hi Folks

Well hows this for doing completely opposite of yesterday... lol   I like keeping you all on your toes hehe....
I love the vintage traditional styles almost.... I said almost....hmmmm (nope...inky still pips it haha) as much as the inky goodness as was yesterday and the only thing that today's card and yesterday have in common is ..... Cheesecloth, I had a bit lurking on my desk so it ended up on here too haha..
Thank you everyone for yesterdays kind comments  you always astound me with your kindness and I appreciate you all so very much.

So today's tutorial is more how I worked each piece and how to put something like this together without it looking like a huge bundle of mis matched papers and how you can stamp onto already patterned paper subtly to enhance rather than creating a whole backing piece from scratch as I often do.

I feel this card conjures up summer days, with hedgerows of wild roses and billowy clean washing hanging on the line wafting in the breeze, the scent of newly mown grass with flowers newly erupting from their winter slumbers , cream teas and chalk board writing announcing the delectable freshly backed goodies to temp us that day.....

What.... all that from a hand crafted card you say... my mind often wanders off on these little paths of Imaginarim folks and this is how something will spring into my head , like little buds of ideas and I sit down in the room of stash and tings start to appear and I can instantly tell which idea inspired it.
Well there you are a little peak into the workings of a craftaholics mind folks haha..

Without further ado I present today's card ...

"Just A Note". 

This card is of course for Creative Expression's, It is a new month so this means new goodies to work with so today I used some of the gorgeous papers you know I have been enjoying recently made by Couture Creations and some new stamps from our Phil recently launched.
The range is called Decadent Damask and features not only stamps but an entire range of stunning coloured pastes, glitters and glues from the Cosmic shimmer line of course.

To start...

 I chose some papers from the Vintage Rose Garden 6X6inch paper pad that I liked together , wit ha few matching colours but different patterns. I distressed the edges a little , not too much this time but just enough to give that aged look and of course inked them with Vintage Photo Distress ink, I didn't bring it into the colour of the paper I kept it to the very  edge that was roughened from the distressing tool. (edge of scissors if you don't not have a distressing tool be careful though lovlies..)

 I then hand stitched the edges with a couple of different  stitch styles  mostly just running  and zig zag on the central piece. If you have a machine I love that effect even better as it is so neat but for me this had to do as I do not yet have a machine.

 I took the smallest stamp from Phil's Decandent Damask Corners and Icons stamp set and the strip of paper I was to use to go across almost belly band style and some Antique Linen Distress ink which is actually one of my favourite colours and stamped the Damask Icon several times in a row. I love how well everthing matched thus so far.

 I then put the base together (its's all about that base, all about that base .... no trouble... all about that base ... Singing away here... ish haha)
I used latte , although it looks cream in this light and Soft gold foundations card stock and another piece of hand stitched and distressed paper from the pad.

I zoomed in on the layers and the distressing and stitches for you to view how and which layers have glue and which have a foam separating them without bulking the card too much.

 I chose three papers to go on top of the first green piece and tried them out several ways but featuring the piece with the Damask stamp mainly.I also decided to add some of the damask stamp in a little row vertically down the square piece of paper too, its subtle but I love this look.
The first two I glued flat to the the green paper with a tiny piece of cheese cloth at the top of the pink striped and the belly band piece I added foam to and layreed a larger piece of cheesecloth down with some cosmic shimmer glue before adding the band on top of it, I also added glue to the foam to give it that instant grab adhesion too.

 Next I took some thinner creamy coloured card that is easy to bend and shape and I again used the same stamp and used Antique lined to stamp out lots of the damask stamps onto the left over scrap paper and cut them all out fussy cutting by hand, Once cut I used Tattered lace Distress ink and inked the edges of every piece and on the inside of each piece too.
This is a way to use the stamps you have in a totally different way if you fancy making a home made flower, I knew I wanted a rose on this weeks card and I saw the shape of this stamp and instantly saw petals for this one.

Making the Rose...
 
I started with a little circle of card around an inch in diameter and added a large blob of glue all over the centre but away from the edge , I took a few of the petal and rolled then around a pencil and then began placing them in a circle and overlapping each petal, once all the bottom layer is added I glued a piece of cheesecloth scrunched up in the centre and used a ball tool to really push down into the rose to create a well for the bud I make next to slip into.
Take two petals and glue the bottom half of both and slip them inside each other create a kind of funnel or cone shape and hold til the grab on the glue activates. then take a pokey took or small pencil and roll the edges of the unglued section back, to open it like a rose would be centrally, I too another petal and rolled it up tightly and glued  cut of the bottom and glued it inside that first piece to start the bud forming. I then just went round adding each piece overlapping them by half a petal each time until I got it large enough that I could add to the bottom layer with the cheesecloth we made first.

A country chique rose.

 

So moving on I used another of Phil's stamp sets called The Decadent Damask sentiments. I stamped onto the latte card using Vintage photo ink ad inked the edges and corners well. I mounted it onto a piece of Soft gold card.
Cutting a piece of the crochet ribbon we have here at Creative I laid that down with some double sided tape and of course lots of the little holes in the crochet allow some of the sticky from the tape to be felt through it so I used glitter and tipped it all along the crochet and tapped off the excess which gave the card a very nice sparkle but subtle look. The above sentiment could then be added to the top right of the card with glue and overlapping the crochet ribbon also.

Here is the card so far, I just need to build the Handmade Rose with some leaves and a couple of buds on the left now. I had some leaves in my stash and I bent three of them and glued then to the bottom of the rose I then chose some to glue directly to the card base wit a couple of buds to poke out from under the Rose also. I cut a piece of cheese cloth and frayed all the edge a lot and glued it under the Rose on top of the leaves then I sat the rose on top of it.
My final touches for this piece were a little glitter glue on the edges of some of the paper in a tiny thin sparkly line and also around some of the petals on the Rose too. Lastly I added three Cream 5mm pearls to the top left of the card and three the same to the bottom right on the belly band we created also.

Here is the finished rose before I added the glitter in situ on the card with the leaves.

Here again is the finished card.

I hope you like it  as I say very different from yesterday but I love to be versatile and I made both yesterday's card and today's on the same creative session which  for me comes from an idea written down and a line underneath it then a new idea another line etc etc, then I don't mix them up and try to squeeze too many things in one card etc.

Thank you again for stopping by for all my regular comments and for any new , I love and appreciate the time you use coming here with me and really wold love to be demoing in person meeting you all in person one day too.... 

Huge Huge Hugs for each of you 

Love

Kim 

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Visible Image Wednesday..... Yay...!

Hi Everyone

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking in on our little blog.
Well April showers hit us at the beginning of May that's for sure but I am hoping they don't stay for long so we can get back to our spring weather we had just started to enjoy.
How are all my lovelies , I think of you all often and wonder what you are up to and if you managed to get any crafting done that day. What was the last thing you made?

Today I have lots of pictures and quite a busy card  with lots of stages so definitely not a beginner card, it does however utilise that technique I showed you all a couple of weeks back where we melt the UTEE and stamp into it rather than set up and use the melt pot for one stamp impression.

Here is today's card for the fabby Visible Image I hope you all like it and would give it a go, or if it is too busy feel free to simplify it and give it a go with what you have or prefer to use.

This one has lots and lots of texture and movement, I really enjoyed putting it together and making the backgrounds from a blank white piece of card.

So to start.

 I took the Crackled background stamp with some Pebble ink from Ranger and stamped randomly with the stamp in my hand and not on a block so I could add bits exactly where I wanted them I left the centre more clear than the two opposite corners.

 Next I took The Bronte script stamp and added some again random areas of stamping which you can just see on the top left of this image above, I embossed this stamping in clear embossing powder to allow the white of the card to show through whatever we did on the card.

Once the stamping was this far I took milled lavender Distress ink first and subtly blended the inks into the centre then I brought the darker colour of Dusty Concorde in and really worked the colour into  the embossing which we did earlier, which really makes the embossed writing stand out on this bright purple. I also used a little black distress ink on the very edges.

 These are the predominant inks on this card.

 I took the Edgy set of stamps next and some versamark ink for embossing and added the stamp impressions around the edge of the card, I then used some sparkly purple and clear embossing powder to give the card a lot of brightness and glamour.

I matted this piece onto a piece of white card and set aside for now.

 I took the smaller of the two stamps from the Edgy set and the same Dusty Concorde ink and stamped around the edge of a larger piece of card to use as the backing piece.

 I went back around with the larger of the two stamps in the edgy set and stamped over the purple with versamark embossing ink and then used gold embossing powder  Once I heat set it I matted it onto a piece of Black card with a very small amount showing.

I stamped out the sentiment I wanted to use, called Just making memories which I love and coloured the piece to match the card of course, I just love the font on this sentiment, it reminds me of writing in an age long gone for some reason.

So next to recap on what we learnt a couple of posts back , I rubbed some versamark ink on a piece of card and tipped on some Ultra think embossing powder , I heat set from underneath, not only does this create a much smoother surface to stamp into but it also means the utee granules stay put as they are inclined to fly all over the place if you try to heat from above on the first couple of layers are the slippiest I'd say. You can do as many layers as you want but I find 2-3 is ample as it will snap when cold unless you melt some flex in with the utee.

 Once I had enough layers I inked my stamp with more versamark this time to act as a release agent after we press our stamp into hot melted Utee. Move quickly and if it starts to set too quick or your image slips etc that ok just reheat all the UTEE and re stamp the image again.

 This is how this image came out this time and as you can see I didn't press hard enough in the top left hand wing but as I know I am making wings for the dragon fly from acetate
, and colouring then with alcohol markers so this tip of the wing will not show so is fine for this imprint,

So here is the dragonfly stamped with Staz on ink on acetate and cut out, then coloured with alcohol markers on the back of the image not the side with the staz on. I then cut it out carefully around the edges and bend up the wings into position.

 Once the wings were bend I added a tiny bit of glue down the under body of the dragonfly and stuck it on top of the impression we made in the utee.
I also coloured the edges of the ripped card and added some beadazzled bead and sparkles into glue in varying sizes and I also added some tiny sparkly stones.
I set this aside to dry for a while while we finish prepping the base.

 I did a double layer of white card with foam in between for the backing piece to sit on.

 Then the coloured sparkly piece was added to that. With the sentiment on a jaunty angle and sitting on a piece of cheese cloth too.

I decided I'd add a little more of the cheesecloth poking out from under the seat the  dragon fly sits on too.
I also decided at this stage to add some tiny little sparkly stones to the body of the dragonfly, this really does stand out extremely sparkly in person but again as we have mentioned before the camera just never does the images justice with glitter.To finish all I did was go around wit my glue and teeny weeny sparkly stones and add them anywhere that I felt would benefit. I also added some of the super sparkly beadazzle bead and sparkle pots , I wish you could see this in person (arrrrr)

 Anyway here is the finished piece again  I really enjoyed putting this together and doing some of the fun stuff we used on this one. I hope you will give this a try if you have any Utee about as it really is a lot of fun, it picks up alot of details from the  stamp or whatever you use to make an impression into the utee.

So the stamps I used on this one were.

                                                                            Edgy

                                                                Crackled Background

                                                              Just making memories.

                                                                     Bronte Script

                                                                        Dragon fly.

I hope you liked this card it certainly is a little more complicated with lots of steps but hopefully you will all be able to see what I did from the pictures.
Please feel free to come on over to the Visible Image blog today and check out my post there if you would like to leave me some love on the main site , that's always nice too but I am so appreciative of you all being here with me. The other gals do some awesome work too and we are having a few new teamies soon so it be great if you would like to pop along and meet them once all have been chosen in a while too.

Have a wonderful Wednesday my lovelies

Love as always to all

Kim 

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