Crafty As L

For my latest Visible Image Design Team post, I had free-rein so decided to revisit another way to use stencils that I’ve not used for a long time.   I like being able to stretch my stash and being able to dry-emboss a stencil gives a whole new look. To emboss a stencil requires an additional bit of kit – check your machine’s accessories.   I’ve got a Sizzix Big Shot and I used an Impressions mat together with a silicone rubber mat in the following configuration: impressions mat – silicone mat – card – stencil – cutting plate I flipped it over so the cutting plate was on the bottom and ran it through the Big Shot. Here’s a close-up of the embossed panel using Squared stencil.   It’s not deeply embossed but it's definitely textured. Next, I trimmed a bunch of squares of white card in various sizes and stamped the focal images onto them, clear heat-embossed and coloured with alcohol markers.   The images are from Little Ladybirds , Bee Happy , Antisocial But...

My post this week features the card and ATC I made for this month’s Visible Image ATC swap, the theme of which was “Use Kraft”.   I quite like using kraft card and tend towards monochrome makes with it.   These makes ended up using just gold and white but had lots of texture and dimension. To begin, I cut the ATC (2½” x 3½”) and a 4¼” square panel for the card and white heat-embossed the sentiments, which are from Grunge Greetings . After masking the sentiment with a sticky note, I applied Tim Holtz Distress Grit Paste through the Rotation stencil. Whilst the paste was still damp, I sprinkled on gold embossing powder in places as I wanted some of the white to show.   This was then heated which melted the powder and made the paste bubble-up, creating that lovely texture. For the focal element, I stamped the dragonflies from Brighter Days using Versamark ink on thick vellum.   I then added gold embossing powder in stripes and knocked off the excess before ...

According to Google, string art first started in England in the late 19 th century but became popular as hobby items in the 1960s and 70s.   I was too young for it then but my husband bought me a string art kit for Christmas and I’ve only just gotten around to doing it.   The kit came with a thick booklet with about a dozen or so designs in it.   I was torn between the bee and the lion.   I opted for the lion, despite it having the longest list of instructions – 3000 of them!   The first job, which wasn’t that thrilling, was to position 180 screws into the canvas.   This took me almost an hour to do. To make my life easier when reading the many lines of numbers, I made a windowed slider that slid around the edge of the page to hold it in place.   As each line was completed, I moved the slider down to reveal the next row on numbers. There was a plastic thread holder in the kit which made it much easier to get the thread between the screws.  ...

For my Visible Image Design Team post this week, I’m sharing the card I made for my very dear friend who was awarded a British Empire Medal in the New Year Honours list this year.   As well as being a talented crafter, she also founded Project 71, a support group for WW2 veterans and the award is in recognition of this.   Lorie has worked tirelessly raising funds, organising events and marshalling her band of volunteers and the award is very well deserved.   I’m very proud of her. She was presented with her medal a few weeks ago and had a little shin-dig to celebrate with the volunteers and show off the medal. Lorie likes autumn colours and also knitting so I decided to use these as my inspiration.   I stamped the Birthday Balloons in orange and yellow tones of Distress Inks, spraying the ink on the stamp with a little water before stamping. The balloons were cut out with the matching dies and then some were decorated with the star and dots stamp in the set an...

Last week, our godson, Rowan, celebrated his 5 th birthday.   I don’t have many stamps specifically for children so I had to get creative with what I had.   Rowan’s Mum keeps a flock of Icelandic sheep and I have a sheep stamp set.   Sorted! I wasn’t sure how many sheep I would need but guessed it’d be quite a few.   To get some colour on the fleeces quickly, I opted to spray a sheet of damp watercolour paper with Distress Spray Stains. This next stage is a quicker way of stamping and die-cutting if you’re going to be doing a lot of the same image.   I die-cut the shape as many times as I could from the inky panel.   To make a frame for the stamping, I die-cut the sheep from a piece of scrap card. After securing the frame in my MISTI, I positioned the sheep stamp in the aperture and picked it up with the door of the stamp positioner. One-by-one, the die-cuts were popped into the aperture and the sheep stamped. To give the sheep a bit more chara...

Last week my friend, Lorie, and I had a little crafty evening out doing some flower arranging.   I was amazed that Lorie hadn’t done any before as (like me) she’s done most things! The tuition was from All About Flowers but the event was held at 1086 wine bar, both of which are in the same Botley Mills complex.   It’s a glorious building with lots of nooks, crannies and beams and, unsurprisingly, used to be a flour mill. We began by securing our saucer and foam block into the basket using florists’ tape and pins to hold the tape into the foam. The idea was to start at the bottom and work up so the first layer was to get the big bits of greenery in so the foam was obscured. As both mine and Lorie’s philosophy with flower arranging is “more is more”, we then added more foliage, trying to leave enough foam free to stick the flowers into! We then placed the focal flowers, the rose, irises and tulips, into position.   It was supposed to be a basket that could be vie...