Crafty As L

It’s the last post of the month so it’s time for a Christmas make and this week’s cards were inspired by one of my current crochet WIPs, the Lapland Blanket CAL by West Yorkshire Spinners.   This is an overlay mosaic crochet pattern that, together with the chunky roving yarn, is creating a thick, warm blanket that is growing fast!   It looks complicated but it’s really not, it just requires a lot of counting. I used Visible Image’s Christmas Tree Grunge and Grunge Christmas Words and started by making my backgrounds.   Using Distress Oxide ink pads, I rubbed them directly onto the 5¼” square panels, blended the ink out with a brush then added water splats.   I also inked up panels for the trees too.   Once dry, I used a regular ink pad in a similar colour to add the small elements from the tree stamp set. I used Distress Oxides in Lumberjack Plaid, Twisted Citron, Weathered Wood and Mowed Lawn . Once the panels were dry, I applied anti-static powder then stamped with Versamark on

The theme for this month’s ATC swap in the Visible Image Facebook group is Halloween Colours.     Since I’m loving the pumpkins in the Happy Halloween set, I thought I’d use this set again.   An ATC is 2½” x 3½” so the small pumpkin was a suitable size for my project.   I began by stamping the pumpkin onto the ATC and onto a piece of masking paper.   The pumpkin was coloured using alcohol markers and I fussy-cut around the masking paper on the inside edge. Next, I placed the mask onto the pumpkin and blended Villanous Potion and Twisted Citron inks all over the card. For texture, I used the Graffiti stencil and the same colours and then used The Cat’s Whiskers stencil and black ink. The ATC was finished by adding a little shading under the pumpkin with a black fineliner and gold heat-embossing the sentiment. To accompany my ATC on its journey to my swap partner in Australia, I made a shaped card/tag using the large pumpkin stamp and die.   For the card base, I die-cut two lar

Working in the aviation industry, I do like to have a few plane-themed stamps and dies and I splashed out on the Flyby Greetings from Spellbinders after seeing a couple of great cards on Instagram. There’s a lot of die-cutting to begin with and some of the bits are quite fiddly! Once you start assembling though, they come together quickly. There are two sizes of clouds in the set which can easily be used for a background.   I supplemented the clouds with a little ink blending using my homemade cloud stencil. For a little dimension, I adhered thin foam tape behind the aircraft and the banner. To finish the card, I added a few white highlights, some enamel dots and matted and layered the panel using the same colour card I’d used for the die-cutting. This one was made with the opposite colour scheme.    

  Hello and welcome to my fortnightly Visible Image design team inspiration blog post and this week I’m focusing on the  Splash of Whisky stamps and  co-ordinating dies but giving them a Christmas twist by adding in the  Christmas Eve stamp set.   You've still got time to get your hands on a 30% discount off the Christmas category with code CC30 until the end of October 2023. My plan was a Christmas tipple in a cozy log cabin so f or the log cabin, I stamped the shelf from the Splash of Whisky multiple times using Verafine Clair Pinecone ink pad then water-coloured using Distress Ink Vintage Photo ink.   I die cut one (for the sentiment from Christmas Wishes ) and fussy cut the rest. I originally gold embossed the sentiment but redid it in white so it showed up more. I added a thin stripe of glue along one edge of each plank and adhered the next plank to create wood panelling. Some side pieces were added and I trimmed the bottom off the wood panel and adhered it to t

Last month, I joined the Visible Image Facebook group ATC swap.   For the uninitiated, an ATC is an Artist Trading Card which is 3½” x 2½”.   I’ve never made an ATC before but, aside from the size, the only rule (in this group) is that only Visible Image stamps, stencils and dies can be used to decorate it.   The theme this month was “Rusty” which gives lots of scope. With the weather being so lovely, I’ve been taking advantage of living on the coast and have spent a couple of hours, on a few afternoons, sat on the beach.   I love watching the sea and have enjoyed the peace and quiet, away from our building work.   This prompted me to have a beachy theme for my ATC.   Whilst only an ATC is required for the swap, I wanted to make a matching card to send too.   To begin, I die-cut the Torn Fishnet Layering Die and applied IndigoBlu Flitterglu all over and left to dry.   I then applied a few dots of copper flakes and then used a small blending brush to apply Lucious Pigment Powder i