Waxing Lyrical

My turn to set the challenge at Daring Cardmakers this week and I’d like to see wax incorporated somehow, further details on the blog.

As ever when you set a challenge, it proves to be harder than tackling somebody else’s! To help me along a bit, I looked for extra inspiration and found it in the current Hero Arts challenge where the theme is “animal crackers” — use any sort of creature. That gave me the perfect excuse to pull out the lovely detailed octopus and make a watery scene. 

I started by splashing melted candle wax* onto my paper and giving it a minute to harden. Then I brushed on a few shades of blue and scraped off the wax (an old credit card is perfect for this) to reveal the splashy resist pattern. It was only after stamping the octopus I decided I’d like something extra so I stencilled carefully to avoid going over the white bits. 

*It probably goes without saying but if you’re doing this, do be extremely careful with a lit candle in your craft space — all those papercrafting supplies are very flammable!

Stamps:
Layering Octopus (Hero Arts)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Hero Arts (Soft Granite, Charcoal)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Salty Ocean)

Other:
Tea light
Fibres stencil (Visible Image)
Enamel Accents by Ranger
Stitched rectangle dies A6 size (Paper Rose)

Stay Crafty with a Blog Named Hero — Animal Crackers

All loved up

As Valentine’s Day is almost upon us, Dawn has set us a challenge with the theme of "all loved up" at Daring Cardmakers this week. 

I’ve gone for hearts and made a fairly masculine card. I’ve also tied in with a couple of other challenges — Lost Coast Designs where the theme is love and hearts along with stamping and Die Cut Divas who would like to see some gold along with using your die cutter. 

I was lucky enough to have my name come out of the LCD challenge hat recently and chose the fabulous Perspective Floor stamp as part of my prize. Of course, being me the first thing I did was something other than use it as a floor! I’ve stamped in a vertical orientation, turned and matched up the pattern (there’s actually a stamp in the LCD catalogue that would do the job for you — it’s called Fourth Dimension — but I’m never one for making things easy for myself, am I?!).

I haven’t used these primitive hearts for ages so it was nice to revisit those. The design sort of evolved a bit, I messed up what I originally planned for the smaller heart and then remembered the Die Cut Divas challenge and covered it all up with gold leafing! I used a two way glue pen and deliberately tried to introduce some texture. It's very shiny and reflective and difficult to photograph!

Stamps:
Perspective Floor  (Lost Coast Designs)
Everyday Petites (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Barn Door, Fired Brick)

Other:
Mega Flake by Indigo Blu (Chariot of Fire)
Zig two way glue pen
Primitive Hearts Bigz die (Sizzix)
Stitched rectangles dies A6 size (Paper Rose)
Fineliner

 

February’s elements

It’s the first Friday of a new month and at Daring Cardmakers that always means an “elemental” challenge — just chose at least three elements from the inspiration picture to kick start your project. 

Nat has chosen a very pretty picture this time but I must confess to “brain freeze”, I’m nearly as bad with pastel colours as I am with patterned paper! Using the colours isn’t necessary but I just couldn’t see past them for some reason. In the end I focused on just two colours (the pale green and blue from the stack of what I suspect are socks), the heart shape and knitted texture. 

Unusually for me, there’s no stamping other than the sentiment. I stuck the die cut hearts to a white panel and then ran it through an embossing folder to embed the hearts for a seamless kind of look. I got the knitted pattern embossing folder as a Christmas gift and it’s a beauty, gives a lovely deep and detailed impression.

Stamps:
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Scraps of pale blue and green
Textured black

Ink:
Versamark by Tsukineko 

Other:
Heart dies (Waltzingmouse, no longer with us)
Confetti die (Mama Elephant)
Stitched rectangle dies A6 size (Paper Rose)
White detail embossing powder by Wow!
Knitted 3D embossing folder (Sizzix)

Link in the chain January

It’s time for the reveal of January’s Card Chain Challenge. There were 25 links in the chain and mine has gone over the Pond to the lovely Linda this time. The cyber “incident” at Royal Mail May have slowed its progress somewhat but it will get there eventually, we hope!

From this month’s options I chose the theme of cocktails, the product option of Distress inks and the colour palette (candyfloss, bubblegum, mulberry) with the addition of green — although I might have been able to argue for a pink citrus slice (pink grapefruit, perhaps?) I couldn’t bring myself to do pink mint leaves! 

It’s a very simple one layer creation, just stamping, colouring and a few tiny gems. The cocktail and background are Distress inks used as watercolours, the leaves and lime slice are Copic coloured. The Seedless Preserves Distress ink gave an impressive range of shades, depending on how dilute it was and using the Misti to stamp the sentiment a couple of times made it extra dark there — I thought it looked nicer in the same shade as the background rather than using black ink.

Stamps:
Cocktail Time (Crafter’s Companion)
Birthday sentiment set (Letter It range from Ranger)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves)

Other:
Copic markers
Nail art gems
Corner Chomper