Crafty As L

It’s Mothering Sunday in the UK today and I’m sharing the cards that I made for my Mum and Mum-in-law.    The inspiration for purchasing the Altenew Craft-A-Flower Snowdrops Layering dies was from these two cards by  Jenny and Erum . Whilst I could have cut the leaves from coloured card stock or coloured the die-cuts, I decided to make a water-coloured panel of green for the leaves whilst I was creating the background for one of the cards.   For the background panel, I started with Altenew Water-Colour paints and then added Brushos for more vibrancy, adding some salt for texture. Next, the marathon die-cutting! I think this took me about half an hour to do.   I then assembled the flower heads so I had everything ready to go. I’d had a Waffle Flower frame lying around for a while so thought I’d use that for one of the cards.   The leaves and stalks were glued in place behind the bottom edge and then glued to each other or the top or sides of the fra...

This week’s post features an outing for a rarely used die that I bought when I first started card making many years ago.  It’s a silhouette flower/foliage that I really like the shape of but have never really used very much. As I was planning on white silhouette images, I needed a vibrant background so I dug out my Brushos.  I mixed up some Prussian Blue and Purple and, after putting on some clean water onto my watercolour paper, dropped in the colours and let them mingle and do their thing.  To add some sparkle to the background, I spattered on some gold Finetec paint.  On another piece of watercolour paper, I swirled some of the gold paint to use for the die cuts. Once the paint was dry, I die cut the panel with a scalloped frame and cut out the flower heads. The flowers were glued onto the background and a little white twine was wrapped around the panel.  From the leftover gold-spattered card, I die cut a small heart to cover the base of ...

    As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been suffering from a loss of mojo recently.  This is due to being ill and I am now awaiting surgery.  Now that I’ve got my head around what’s wrong and how it’s going to be fixed, I actually feel like creating something again.  I’ve read that making backgrounds can prompt some creative inspiration so I got out my gel press and got inky! The gel press is new to me so I’m still learning what to do with it.  I began by applying some Oxide ink onto the gel plate with my brayer and then splattered on some Brusho (mixed with water).  After this, it’s simply a case of laying the card onto the press and rubbing over it to transfer the ink and paint.  Before printing, patterns can be added by using stencils, stamping onto the plate or even pressing a leaf from the garden onto the plate.  Every press is a surprise – you never know what you’re going to get! I cut the pieces down to 9cm x 20cm ...

  Brusho is a watercolour pigment which is supplied in small drums of crystalline powder.  The powder is very vivid and a little goes a long way – often beyond your project and half way across your desk!!  The powder can be mixed with water to use as a traditional watercolour medium or can be used with sprayers and brushes to create a unique mix of hues and patterns.  This second use interested me for making backgrounds for my cards. Warning! It’s quite a messy business.  Cover your desk with some scrap paper and if you don’t want multi-coloured fingers for a few hours, wear gloves. I had chosen mainly blues with a purple and black as I wanted to create night sky inspired works.  The pots arrived and were identical in their anonymity!  The colour names were written on the pots but I thought it would make life easier if the actual colours were displayed on the pots.  I mixed up a tiny amount of each powder with a little cold water and painted a p...