Steampunk Robin

Jenny's theme choice for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week is Birds.

 

The card above is not the one I meant to make at all! I was all set, and had started, a card using the very pretty bird bauble stamps from Tina Cox for Clarity. However, when on holiday I'd found this steampunk Christmas stamp set, which I couldn't resist. So I decided to play with this while the other card dried - and ended up having such fun I finished this one instead!

I stamped the bird first, and heat embossed with a mixture of black and copper. I then masked this and stamped the tree, heat embossing partially in gold and partially in silver.

Masking the bird again, I brushed some colour (fossilised amber and vintage photo distress oxide) into the background. I then over stamped with other stamps from the set, as well as a cog background I already had, in potting soil archival ink and other distress oxides.

I sponged some vintage photo around the bird (using the mask still) to give a drop shadow.

I coloured the bird with distress oxides and a water pen. Rusty hinge was perfect, and apt, for his chest, with green and red for the holly to give a festive touch. The rest was various browns, used alone and mixed, and with black soot, to give a variety of shades. I also used the water pen to activate the oxides in the background within the tree, to define it a bit more.

The sentiment is also from this set, I stamped and embossed in copper. It was getting a bit lost on the busy background, so I sponged antique linen oxide over the area to knock it back, then wiped the ink off the embossing.

To finish, I blended vintage photo around the outside, and swiped a black archival ink pad across the edges.

 

I am really rather fond of my steam punk robin, with his rusty chest. A bit different and quirky! And the set I think will be useful, some of the smaller stamps will be great for backgrounds.

 

 

 

So, I hope you're inspired to play along with our challenge. To see the fabulous cards from the rest of the design team, and share your card, visit us at the 52CCT blog. The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 27th August. Have fun!!

Baublicious

Jenny has chosen an unusual but very pretty colour combination for us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week.

It took a little while to think what I wanted to do for this, and a bit of serendipity played a part.

The background uses an embossing folder, I saw a youtube of someone using this technique, which I haven't done for ages, so decided to have a play.

I didn't have an ink that I would call aqua (there was a bit of a discussion at home about what colour aqua was, how much green is in it!). So I blended distress oxides, mostly peacock feathers, with a bit of tumbled glass and bundled sage sponged on. Cracked postacio may have been a better green to use, with hindsight. I added the ink to the deboss side of the folder, and spritzed the card with water before running through the embossing machine. I had a few iterations, this was the one I was happy with - although the photo is doesn't show the touch of green there is in real life!

(You can see I also used a spray over an embossed panel, but haven't made that into a card yet. The spray was also a blend, of distress reinker colours.)

I was going to do a gel plate paint print for the rose pink, but then on holiday last week I treated myself to some pink alcohol inks, and a gold mixative (amongst other crafty things!). So it seemed rude not to use them for this colour challenge.

I used these, again blending the pinks to get a shade I liked, to make a background sheet. I used yupo paper and coated card as bases, to compare.

I preferred the piece on coated paper, although that's not what I ended up using!

Onto these, I stamped my baubles in versamark ink, and heat embossed with a light gold powder. Of course, yupo paper is plastic so doesn't handle heat well - it curled up a lot!

However, once I'd fussy cut them out, I preferred them, they had more dimension, and the card ones looked flat in comparison. So those are the ones I used. And the rest have gone in an envelope to be used another time!

I arranged on the base, then stuck down with red linetape, to cope with the plastic surface, curl and embossed base.

At this point I realised I hadn't cut my base to size, it was slightly large (as is my usual practice, in case I don't like a bit or the edge pools or something). Fortunately, it was only slightly too large, because the baubles weren't coming off! I trimmed the base slightly, and made my card blank a bit bigger than usual, and it worked out.

I sponged peacock feathers around the edge, then added the bauble strings with a gel pen and ruler. The gold was a bit too yellow next to the embossing, so I used a little silver as well, while the ink was still wet, mixing them on the page to get a more subtle gold colour.

So, there you have my rose pink, aqua and gold card. Unfortunately the photo has distorted the colours a little, and the texture on the base and baubles looks a lot better in real life! But this is such a pretty colour combination, I hope you can get a feel for it.

 

 

To play along with this challenge, visit us at the 52CCT blog. You have a week, until Friday 20th August, to enter your card into our gallery.

A sketch - or five

Jenny is our host for August at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. She has some great challenges lined up so I hope you'll be inspired to craft along and start, or build up, that Christmas card stash for the end of the year.

She has chosen a fun sketch for us.

As soon as I saw this, I thought of a bauble stamp I have. I was sure I'd blogged cards made with it before, but don't seen to have done so.

I got a bit carried away with this sketch so have a few cards to show you! Unfortunately the photos haven't come out particularly well.

 

This first is a CAS of a card I made for hubby last Christmas.

I stamped the image and embossed on black. I then added brushos, in alizarin crimson, yellow and emerald green, and spritzed with water.

Once dry, I used inktense pencils to bring out the baubles, and polychromo pencils to knock back the background in places, and add a drop shadow.

The sentiment is from Clarity's sticker sentiments.

For this one, I used the stamp platform and inked the stamp in distress oxides. I think I used aged mahogany, fossilised amber, and some green... can't remember which!

I spritzed the card and stamp with water before stamping, so the ink moved around. I repeated for more ink, then left to dry without taking the stamp out of the stamp platform.

Once the stamped image had dried, I over stamped with watering can grey archival ink. As the stamp hadn't been moved, it lined up perfectly. I am so happy with how this has come out!

The sentiment is stamped on a scrap of card with the same grey ink, which I've also used to edge the sentiment and card.

After the colour stamping for the card above, there was ink left on the stamp, so I stamped onto another piece of card, which I'd spritzed with water to activate the oxides. It gave a lovely soft print, although the ink didn't travel much.

I overstamped in the grey as above, but as there wasn't so much colour, I added in a watercoloured background with inktense. I liked the prettiness of the baubles so decided to colour the negative space. It's by no means great watercolouring but I'm still really pleased with this, it may be my favourite!

I put this onto a 5x5 card blank (the others are 6x6).

The other thought I had when looking at Jenny's sketch, which is inevitable for circles, was snowflakes!

I tried the same technique as above with the stamping platform and the bleeding ink. I did one with oxides and one with distress inks, to compare. There wasn't too much difference, and neither bled as much as I hoped. It may be the card I used for this one, although it is designed to take water, or maybe the stamps are too fine to hold enough ink.

I over stamped the snowflakes with versamark and heat embossed in white.

They looked quite lonely and plain on an expanse of white, and not in a good way! So I needed to add layers to these cards.

For the card above, I heat embossed the Merry Christmas at the bottom, then stamped the "Let it Snow" stamp in archival, with shades of blue and second, third and fourth generation. I then smooshed through blue inks on the mat. 

For the card below, I stamped the Let It Snow sentiment in archival cornflower blue, then heat embossed a lovely background word stamp over the rest of the card, masking the snowflakes and sentiments, before smooshing.

 

The snowflakes had sunk back a lot, so I sponged more oxide over these and the Merry Christmas sentiment, and spritzed with water, to make the embossing pop out.

I edged with blue and mounted on DL cards.

The photos of these are particularly bad, the camera hasn't coped with the mottled background! They are quite soft but pretty, with delicate detail that doesn't show in the photos.

 

So, there are my efforts using the sketch. I hope that, together with my design team collegues on the 52CCT blog, I have inspired you to play along.

This challenge is open for a week, until the 13th August.

Enjoy!!

Groovi snowflakes

I'm a little late posting my card for Andreja's technique challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown - my daughter decided we needed to make a Dalek cake for hubby's 50th on Friday, so that took precedence!

Andreja's technique choice is:

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a Groovi card! I do so little, but do like it, and have the kit so feel I should make use of it!!

For this I used blue parchment. After marking the area to fill with pencil, I put the manuscript style letters in for NOEL, then filled around with snowflakes from various plates.

Using a white eraser pencil, I removed the ink from the open areas of the letters and snowflakes. I then did some white work on the letters (very inexpertly, I don't so this a lot and don't have the patience!)

This means that the letters are white all the time, whereas the snowflakes are see through, so are coloured when there's something behind but white when the card is open, as you can sort of see below.

I coloured the vines around the letters with perga pens, which I got on sale a little while ago.

For inside the card and the die cut snowflake swirl, I blended various blue oxides onto card, then flicked with water and blotted to create the snow effect.

To construct, I measured and marked with pencil on a card blank for the aperture, then cut with a craft knife. I repeated on another piece of white card just smaller than the card front, to go on the inside. I then attached the parchment behind the first aperture and added the liner, matching the apertures up. 

With a grey pen and ruler, I added faux stitching around the aperture.

Finally, I added the blue inside the card, and the die cut on the front.

 

 

This was a bit more fiddly that I anticipated, with the cutting etc, but not too bad!

I do like the icy shades of blue, and snowflakes are my favourite Christmas (really Winter I guess) motif, they look so pretty here!

 

 

 

To join in with this challenge, come and visit us at the 52CCT blog. As there are 5 Saturdays in July, you have 2 weeks to play along, this challenge closes on 6th August.

Alternative pinecones

At 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week, Andreja has chosen a theme I really like - pinecones.

I had only two options for this from my craft "collection" - a mini stamp from Lavinia stamps, and a die. So I decided to use both!

My two cards are very similar, and use a design I've used before, but have very different colour schemes, made in different ways.

The green and brown version started with a smoosh using the plastic folder technique, and oxides in iced spruce, weathered wood and bundled sage. I made another piece in brown shades.

I overstamped the greeny background with the pinecone stamp and the same oxides, second generation.

The brown background I cut to a matt, then die cut the pinecones and sentiment from the centre and offcuts. The sentiment I sponged with some extra walnut stain distress ink, so it was dark enough to stand out, and the matt I did the same with brushed corduroy. I use distress ink rather than oxide as it's translucent so the mottled pattern shows through. The pine cones I left with some white on. I edged the card front with the iced spruce.

The base of this card uses alcohol inks. I applied them to a solid stencil (I used an aperture stencil with the innie replaced). I then used the grand calibur due cutting machine to transfer the ink to card with blending solution applied to it.

To overstamp, I used archival inks this time, in matching colours.

I did make a background piece using mushroom alcohol ink, but it didn't stand out on the bright background, so I swapped in some black coated card, again die cutting the sentiment and pinecones from the centre.

This has turned out to be a very pretty, naturalistic card. The pinecone stamp makes a great pattern in the background, enough detail to be interesting without being overwhelming.

This one, on the other hand, is deliberately unnatural. The colours really zing, they may not be that Christmassy but they're bright and cheerful, and lift my spirits.

 

 

 

So, now over to you - what pinecone themed design will you come up with?

The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 23rd July. Pop along to the 52CCT blog to see the rest of the design team inspiration, and link up your card.

Alcohol and gelli

This week on the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, Andreja has set us a colour challenge.

 

Last weekend I did an online workshop with Angela, using alcohol inks with the gel plate and stencils. I came away with a huge stash of gorgeous backgrounds, not least because I kept going after she finished, there was just one more stencil to try, one more mop up, one more idea....

Some of them I made with this challenge in mind, using Clarity Christmas aperture stencils.

I've made two of these into cards, the rest are waiting (along with so much else) for another day!

For this one, I dabbed purple twilight and aubergine ink through the stencil onto the gel plate, then pressed bubble wrap into it. Once the ink was dry, I brayered white acrylic paint over the plate and pulled my print. There was yellow ink residue on the plate, which wouldn't clean off, which has given the background a pale golden glow.

I cut the print to size, using a scrap from the side for the gold embossed sentiment. I edged with a gold sharpie, then doodled on the star, tree and border with a gold gel pen. I do like the bubble wrap baubles.

 

 

This card is the "waste" from the technique used above. With IPA on my felt, I swiped the excess ink from the stencil onto a clean piece of card. I then pressed the bubble wrap in - I think it would have had purple ink on to start with (from another print) then I spritzed it with the IPA and pressed, for the subtle impression.

The background of this one was therefore clean white card at the start.

I replaced the stencil and used an embossing pen over the cap area, then embossed in gold. I also embossed a border (after cutting to size).

I placed the "innie" stencil over the bauble, along with a piece of card to protect the loop, then used gold pigment ink to stamp the script in the background. I also sponged this ink round the edge to give the aged, vintage feel.

On the bauble, I stamped the sleigh and heat embossed in white. I added the stars/snow and line with a posca pen, then the larger star, again embossed.

The final touch is a slight drop shadow with light and dark grey polychromo pencils, to give the bauble some depth.

 

 

The paint pull on this gives a grungy feel that the photo doesn't capture. I like the looseness and imperfectness of this image.

This one has taken a grungy feel I didn't anticipate from the starting print. Blending the ink around the egde softened the script print, which I over did a bit, and gave a balance. The sleigh stamp is so pretty and delicate, even when embossed.This was overlooked in my stash for a long time, I'm glad I've "discovered" it now.

To join in and share your ideas for using these colours, head over to the 52CCT blog, where you'll find all the inspiration from my design team colleagues.

The challenge is open for a week, to Friday 16th July.

Have fun!

July sketch at 52CCT

Andreja M is our July host at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. She has chosen this lovely sketch for us to play with.

I had the brushos out again for this one. I wanted to try brushos over a dry embossed card, I was hoping they'd take up the embossed pattern.

I tried 4 different folders. The shallow emboss didn't work well, the water from the brushos took out a lot of the emboss. The deeper emboss was better, although it still didn't steer the colour as I'd hoped. One was a bit better, but I have put that aside and not used it here.

I also used brushos for the backgrounds.

For this card, I used prussian blue and black, I love the drama. This was a deeper emboss. The sentiment is from a new to me stamp set, I edged everything with a black permanent pen.

 This one has brighter, more Christmassy colours. I used yellow brusho, paired with leaf green in the background and brilliant red on the topper.

The emboss was shallow on this one, so I put it back through with an extra layer in my sandwich after I'd coloured the card. I then added drops of the red to run around the emboss, although it's still "subtle".

 

 

The other two I made, I've kept back without the sentiment, for when I need a quick card, as there's nothing on them that's specific to Christmas.

To play along with this sketch, head over to the 52CCT blog. The challenge is open until Friday 9th July.