Tuesday 28 September 2010

Lone Stag


This topper is very quick and easy to create but looks great. All I used was Distress Ink Chipped Sapphire, the stag from the 'Winter Wonderland' stamp plate by Sam Poole, Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder 'Aurora Crystal Sparkle' and a tiny spritz of Cosmic Shimmer mica powder 'Pearlescent' from the 'Metalics' set, Oh and a torn piece of paper.
The card is inked from the top working down. Tear a piece of paper to make your hill mask. Lay this paper mask about 1/4 of the way down the card and using cut and dry foam gently ink up your sky. Move the paper mask down a little changing the angle slightly and begin inking up your hills, this time use less ink and less pressure to achieve the paler layer. Repeat this for the next layer again applying even less ink and even less pressure, now you have a graduated background.
Spritz the card lightly with water and dab off, this will give you a snowfall effect. It doesn't show up very well in this picture but I then spritzed the card with a tiny spray of the pearlescent mica made from the powder set using the little bottle in the pack.
A tip for making up your powders into sprays - don't follow the instructions on the bottle as this will use up most of your powder, ignore the little arrows and only mix up 1/2 a teaspoon of powder with enough water to reach the lower arrow. It lasts ages and you can always make more if you need it.
The stag is stamped in Chipped Sapphire and then embossed with Aurora Crystal Sparkle and that's all there is to it. This card looks good in other colours too, like Dusty Concorde. Depending on how you mat and layer the topper you could get several different looks to your cards using the same picture, great for a few last minute extras.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Blooming Fuchsia

This card was made using the 'Fuchsia' stamp plate from Creative Expressions and a gorgeous sheet of fuchsia coloured metal from Walnut Hollow. I was lucky enough to find a sheet of mirri board the same colour as the metal which really helped frame it.
The metal was coloured with alcohol inks, Purple Twilight, Raspberry and Pesto. I stamped the swirl in black Archival ink on the front of the metal and very gentley traced over it, then I turned it over and traced the lines a bit harder on the back to get the raised swirls on the front.
The flowers were stamped on the back of the metal and worked with the texture tool to produce a raised image on the front. I felt black lines on the swirls made it a stronger looking branch, no black lines on the flowers a softer image.
To stop all your hard work being squashed pack the back of the raised areas with filler, I use 'Sand Less Filler' from B&Q (500ml pot will last you months). It dries very quickly and is so smooth you really do sand less! No idea what it's like on a wall...it's for crafting!!!
To remove the colour on the flowers I used Blending solution. The coloured metals from WH are coated aluminium (except copper and brass) so the top colour can be sanded off or wiped off with the blending solution. I felt this made the flowers stand out more.
Well it's onto christmas designs now so I'll post one I'm working on at the moment when it's finished. Happy crafting!