Shiny Take Two

This month's Berkhamsted Creative Challenge theme is Shiny  After my first attempt at the start of the month didn't quite go to plan, here's my second take on it.

At the same time as trying the stencil and gilding flake technique, I made some messy backgrounds, with the plastic sheet technique. I've done this loads now, the difference with a couple of these was that I brayered the card with ink to start with, so they have a blue, rather than white, background. 

This is the inks when I first stamp them onto the plastic....

... and how they jump out when I add water and squish them between the layers.

I used tumbled glass distress ink for this, then peacock feathers, salty ocean and chipped sapphire for the messy layer.

And of course, once I got started, I had to make a load more as it's quite addictive!

These are for the stash, one has already been used - I'll blog that soon!

I came back to these - distinctly unshiny - backgrounds yesterday. After dusting with an anti-static pad, I stamped with versa mark, using a background stamp from a V&A collection.

I covered it in micaboss, and heat set. Then I applied silver gilding flakes, and gently rubbed back to give the stamped pattern.

For large areas I prefer a mixed colour gilding flake, but for this kind of line work, silver is just right.

I repeated on the other half of the background, as I liked it so much (and it's not that big a stamp).

I'm very pleased with how this has come out - much more successful than the stencils.

The next thing is, what to do with these sheets. I'm sure you could do some beautiful home decor with this technique, but for now I'll settle for a card - my husband's aunt has a birthday in June, so this'll be lovely for her.

I didn't want to overcomplicate the design, I wanted the pattern of the stamp and gilding flakes to be the main feature.

I simply trimmed the patterns back to the silvered area, and overlapped and mounted onto silver mirror card to fit a 5x7 card base.  I cut "Happy Birthday" from silver mirror card with a Tattered Lace die (actually from the centre of the mount, I remembered to do this for once!). I used a strip of the background that I'd trimmed off (so without the gilding flakes) to cover the join, and make the sentiment readable.

As this will be posted, I didn't use foam tape, just tape pen to put the card together.

Of course, being so shiny, this card is difficult to photograph effectively, but I hope you can see the effect of the silver over the patterned background.

I think this is a very pretty and elegant card, I'll be happy to send it to our aunt.







I'm looking forward to using this technique on Christmas cards - it'll be brilliant for snowflakes, or in gold or copper for holly.