Crafty As L

It’s new release time again so I’m back with another of my samples made using the amazing new  Time To Fly collection.   This time I’m only using the Spread Your Wings stamp set but here is the whole glorious collection! (It's on a time-limited bargain deal at the moment that you can find  here .) To begin, I cut a 5¼” square of white card and arranged the stamps in my MISTI so that I could repeat stamp them, partly to get a really dark, crisp image and partly for the technique I was going to use. Next, I cut up an inky panel made using Distress Spray Stains and Spritzes into three random sized windows and positioned them over the stamped panel, using a tiny dot of glue to hold them in place. The stamps were inked up again and stamped onto the coloured windows. As I’d only used a tiny dot of glue, each of the rectangles could be easily removed and glued onto black card.   Before doing so though, I used a black marker to colour the white edges for a neater f...

Hello and welcome to my first DT post, a sneaky peak using the gorgeous new Time To Fly collection from Visible Image - which will be out later today!    It’s a very striking release of stamps and stencils with sentiments in fabulous fonts and styles.   All the stamp sets and stencils work so well together; it was such fun creating the samples! To create the background for my 5” x 7” card, I used Distress Spray Stains to create a sunset sky and then added a little stencilling using Fingerprints and Dusty Concord Distress Ink. For some distant bushes, I stamped the branches from Soar using Versafine Clair Morning Mist ink across the bottom of the panel, adding the small bird from this set and the one from Spread Your Wings. Next, I stamped the large bird image using Versafine Onyx Black, adding a little gold embossing powder just along the edges of the head, wings and tail and heat-set. I had planned on doing the same with the sentiment but it didn’t really pop so...

My makes this week were for a couple of my friends who I’ve known for over 30 years so I can be a bit cheeky with them.   The recipients were a male and a female so I adjusted my spraying to mute the background a little for the masculine card. The backgrounds were sprayed using Distress Spray Stains and water and finished with a light Distress Spritz for some shimmer. Once the backgrounds were dry, I trimmed them to 5¼” square then stamped and clear heat-embossed the stamps from Visible Image’s Just Hit Play and Grunge Birthday Words to decorate the backgrounds. For the main images, I stamped the cassette and cassette tape on a scrap of card and fussy cut them.   The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted Laugh Out Loud and it pairs perfectly with the retro cassette. After spattering with Dr pH Martin’s Bleedproof white, each panel was backed with black card then mounted on white square card blanks. Finally, the toppers and sentiment were attached to the card using t...

  Our Visible Image DT theme this week is “Gratitude & Reflection” and it’s been a tough one for me to do.   Our little girly cat went missing almost 3 weeks ago and despite all our efforts, there has been no news.     She was a real home body so this behaviour is most out of character.   My husband and I are very worried and it’s been a distressing time.   So, my inspiration for my art journal page was to try and get myself into a more positive mindset with a calm, misty mountain scene. A muted colour scheme seemed appropriate so I selected Distress Inks in Stormy Sky and Weathered Wood and blended them onto the sky area before spritzing with Lost Shadow Distress Spray Stain and Iced Spruce Distress Oxide Spray. Using a torn paper mask and the smallest fir tree from Christmas Eve , I spritzed the page with water and then stamped the trees in Bundled Sage and Iced Spruce Distress Inks, using second generation stamping for some more distant trees. ...

Our Visible Image Design Team theme this week is ‘Thank You’.   Do you or your children send thank you cards after Christmas?   This CAS style card would be ideal for making with youngsters and also batch making – if you think Santa’s going to be generous! For my mini-slimline card, I started with a 5½” x 2¾” piece of white card, taping it to my gridpaper, and taped the stripy side of the  Stars & Stripes stencil over.   I then blended Squeezed Lemonade and Worn Lipstick Distress Inks through the stripes. This step is optional but I wanted to add a little shimmer so sprayed some Fossilized Amber and Picked Raspberry Distress Spritz.   I was a bit heavy handed with my spraying so some seeped under the stencil so try to spray a light mist. For the sentiment, I used the Thank You stamp set and did a bit of ‘stamp surgery’ as the font size suited the design better.   I simply trimmed carefully along the flat parts of the stamp between the letter...

I’ve had my eye on this layering stencil and die set for a while so, when it was in the Black Friday sale, I decided to treat myself to it.   For my first cards, I went with a traditional colour scheme although I might try some contemporary colours next time. The set is Holiday Wreath by Alex Siberia Designs.   It comprises 4 layering stencils and 4 dies to cut out the wreath, garland and two bows.   I didn’t use the stencils in order and I don’t think it made any difference. To begin, I blended dark green ink through one of the leaf stencils. Next, I added the twigs using brown ink.   The large bows were also on this stencil so I did those too. The next stencil was the second leaf layer which I did using a lighter green.   The last stencil layer was the berries, which I did in the same red as the bows. I then used the matching die to cut out the wreaths and bows. I gold heat-embossed the sentiment and then, after glueing the bows in place, I attac...