Birthday butterfly

My friend's daughter is at that age where she's no longer really a little girl but she's not old enough to be into "teen" things just yet, either. So,  I decided to throw a bit of sophistication into the mix this year but kept a girly pink and gold colour scheme and personalised it since I think kids tend to like that.

I got  new laptop a wee while back and it had a protective film over the keyboard area.  I used that as a stencil with a couple of Distress ink colours for an ombre effect.

The stamped butterfly was sponged with the same inks - I've added hot pink glitter to the spots on the edges of the wings and used water to lift off some of the colour in the large spots. The body was filled in quickly with a Copic and I used my usual trick of stamping just the antennae on the card and adding the cut out butterfly over the top rather than attempting to cut round anything really fiddly!

The sentiment was stamped with Flitter Glue and then flaked and the die cut lettering got the same treatment. It makes photography more difficult but it's a nice rich gold effect in real life!

With hindsight, I think I should have put her name just a wee bit higher up for better overall balance of the design but never mind, she liked it!

Stamps:
Antique Engravings and Essential Messages (both Hero Arts)

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko - Pearlescent Chocolate
Distress by Ranger - Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry

Other:
Font One dies by Spellbinder (both upper and lower case)
FlitterGlu
Chariot of Fire Megaflake
Hot pink glitter
Corner Chomper
Film from laptop keyboard used as stencil

Thanks for stopping by!

Postcard Time

It's been ages since I managed to play along in the regular postcard swap at UK Stampers but I've finally managed it this month.

Because the clocks go forward this month, Sam chose "time" as our theme.

Postcards go "naked" to their recipient so light and flat is good. I've gone totally single layer with this one - just stamps and ink using some basic masking and then a tiny bit of Copic coloring for her lips, eyes and some shadows to give things a bit of depth. I have ready-cut masks for everything I used here (I just keep them in the CD cases with the stamps any time I cut a mask and use it until it falls apart!) so it came together quickly.

Stamps:
Molly by Beeswax Stamps
Time to Stamp by CHF (and it's one of the sets that's available from the "new" CHF)

Ink:
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko
Soft Granite by Hero Arts

Other:
Copic markers
Corner Chomper

There are still a few days to play if you fancy getting a time-themed postcard on your doormat - just make a card and post a picture to the thread and come the 25th, Sam will tell you who to send it to and who will be sending you one in return.

Thanks for stopping by, hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Deconstuction - PaperArtsy

The current challenge theme at PaperArtsy is "deconstruction" - all the details and some great inspiration starts here.

I let a few thoughts brew for a while and eventually settled on a plastic bottle and a net bag as the basis of my project. I eventually threw in some toilet paper (deconstructed with water and glue, nothing more radical!) for good measure.

The toilet paper got used to make a paper cast of the sentiment. The cast worked OK but the words "and" and "wait" were missing a couple of high spots and since I wanted to dry-brush (making height difference crucial) I used a tiny paint brush and some glue to build those areas back up.

I cut the top off a plastic bottle "on the wonk" and then Mod Podged some torn netting bag onto it. Some texturising medium, spots of glue and the paper cast sentiment provided the texture and I heated one side of the bottle to get it to collapse a bit.

The whole lot got a couple of coats of Prussian Blue acrylic paint. Once that was dry, I dry-brushed with Mermaid and then Snowflake Fresco Finish paints and finally glued on the fish charm and some glass "bubbles". The charm started life as a brassy gold so that got a coat of Prussian Blue acrylic and then some silver Rub n Buff so it tied in better.

I'm not sure if this is destined to be a wee vase or a pen pot. I shoved some rosemary prunings in to take the photo but we'll see.

Supplies:
Clocks Plate 3 by PaperArtsy
 Empty plastic bottle
Netting bag from garlic
Toilet paper
PVA glue
Prussian Blue Americana acrylic paint by DecoArt
Mermaid and Snowflake Fresco Finish paint by PaperArtsy
Texturising Medium by DecoArt
Mod Podge Matte
Silver Rub n Buff by Amaco
Glass bubbles
Fish charm

Thanks for stopping by!

Look Ma - no lines!

I sent my mum some yellow freesias for Mother's Day and thought it would be nice to make a card that tied in with the theme. This lovely freesia stamp is an oldie from Cornish Heritage Farms and I thought I'd try something a bit different with it to see if I could get a genuine-looking watercolour result.

The no-line colouring technique (stamp in a very pale colour and use markers or pencils so that the lines don't show) works well for many stamps but this one is in the style of an etching and has quite a lot of shading lines so I didn't think the technique would work well for a transparent medium like watercolour. Instead, I stamped on scrap paper with black ink and then put the stamped image on a lightbox with a piece of Bristol Board over the top.

For those of us who can't really draw (so faint pencil is out of the question) this provides a great way of getting an image without having an outline that will show. I just left everything in place on the lightbox until I had enough colour on the paper to be confident of the shapes.

I also had a first play with some Kuretake Clean Color pens here. I have one Wink of Stella pen and (perhaps bizarrely since the glitter is supposedly what it's all about) have pretty much fixated on the brush nib! When I saw that Kuretake did watercolour pens with the same sort of nib I thought it would be fun to try a few.

I used Lemon Yellow to put down a base layer for the flowers but probably the biggest advantage was when it came to the background. The really fine point made it easier to get in to those fiddly spaces between the flowers with Light Blue.

The Kuretake colours played nicely with the Distress inks I used for the rest of the colouring and lifted to make highlights as a traditional watercolour would do (hopefully the detail shot will show that). So all in all, I'm pleased with those.





Stamps: Freesia and Mother's Day Centers (CHF, retired)

Ink: 
Brilliance by Tsukineko - Pearlescent Chocolate
Distress ink by Ranger - Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint

Other: 
Clean Color pens by Kuretake - Lemon Yellow, Light Blue
Artograph Light Tracer

Hope all the mums out there are having a lovely day and hugs to anyone missing their mum. Thanks for stopping by!
 

A mini exploration

The current challenge at PaperArtsy is to do some artwork on a miniature scale.

I decided to go down the jewellery route and use a glass domino but keep it quite simple and graphic. I heat embossed the car with black detail powder directly onto the glass (watch your fingers if you do this, it gets hot!). This does, of course, mean that any writing on your stamp will appear in reverse on your finished project but the word "Chevrolet" is tiny here so that even with detail powder, it's indistinct enough to get away with it! I deliberately left a few little stray speckles of powder rather than wiping it ultra clean before heating it as I thought it added to the slightly aged look of the piece.

I stamped a single word on paper, sponged on a bit of Vintage Photo ink, stuck the domino onto it with a smear of Glossy Accents and trimmed round once dry. I finished the back by adding metal leaf topped with a layer of resin.

Domino pendants are more often portrait orientation so to keep the bail from looking out of proportion on the horizontal format, I added a couple of small springs glued either side of it. I think it kind of echoes the grille or bonnet detail of a vintage car, too.

Stamps:
Mini 81 by PaperArtsy
Everyday Petites by CHF (retired)

Ink:
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko
Versafine Satin Red by Tsukineko
Distress Vintage Photo by Ranger

Other:
Glass domino
Black detail embossing powder
Glossy Accents
Silver coloured bail
Small springs
Two part epoxy glue
Lisa Pavelka Magic Glos resin
Flitter Glue and Sheffield Steel Mega  Flake 

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthdays are for the bees!

I'm just managing to squeeze in a card for this week's DCM - Nat has asked us to use yellow as our key colour in her Mellow Yellow challenge. I've used my PanPastels and a stencil so I'm linking up there, too: Stencil It.

I've just bought some Mylar sheets for making stencils - it's sturdier than acetate which is what I've mostly used for quick DIY stencils so far. It cuts easily with wafer thin dies though which is what I've done here, cutting repeatedly with a hexagon die to make a honeycomb design.

I used yellow PanPastel through the stencil, then added a wee bit of Burnt Sienna at the bottom of each cell and a little white at the tops. I highlighted further with a Posca paint pen and doodled sketchy outlines round the bottom of the cells with a brown fineliner.

I added just a hint of yellow to the unstencilled part of the card after stamping and colouring the bees (I used pencils to make sure there was no bleed through and this could be a genuine one layer card and there's a bit of Wink of  Stella shimmer on their wings). I just rubbed the same yellow as the honeycomb over the card and then used a good-quality white eraser to rub it off - it sort of "stains" the card and leaves just a tiny bit of colour.

Stamps:
Queen Bee by Crafty Secrets (retired)
Sentiment from Big Day Today by Waltzingmouse Stamps

Ink: Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate by Tsukineko

Other:
Mylar sheet
Hero Arts die from Geometric Shapes set
PanPastels - Diarylide Yellow, Burnt Sienna, White
Spectrafix Degas spray fixative
Wink of Stella Clear glitter pen
Posca white paint pen
Coloured pencils
Sepia fineliner
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!