Crafty As L

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 ...

The Wildflower stencil from the brand-new Visible Image collection is now one of my absolute favourite stencils.   It’s absolutely perfect for silhouettes too.   I used it together with the Fly High stamp set, also from the new release. To begin, I made my sunset background by spraying a half sheet of A4 card with Distress Stain Sprays in Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry, Chipped Sapphire and Dusty Concord, adding water sprays to get the inks to blend.   A few sprays of Distress Spritz Wilted Violet were added to the top portion. For the first layer of silhouettes, I blended Memento Tuxedo Black through the stencil. Next, I stamped the text and small butterflies around the panel. After letting the inks completely dry, I blended a little black ink along the bottom of the panel.   I then flipped the stencil and applied black Distress Grit Paste, washing the stencil immediately in hot, soapy water. The paste was still wet when I covered it with Black Sparkle e...

This week, I had a play with a new purchase, Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Botanic Collage.   I didn’t really know where to start so decided to dig out one of my gel plates to create a background and go from there. Using a small brayer, I applied Distress Oxides to the gel plate, sprayed with a little water and then pressed onto squares of white card. This was repeated with a variety of ink pads. Next, using stencils from Tim Holtz Mini Layering Stencil Set #24, I added the same colours used with the gel plate through the stencil. After stamping the botanic stamps on each panel and onto a scrap of card, I die-cut the main focal image from each panel.   The scraps of card were coloured and the image fussy cut. I sprayed each panel with some Shimmer Spritz but I still felt that they needed something more so I dug out my Black Distress Paste, applied some through the stencil in various spots on the panel and the cut out.   Whilst the paste was still wet, I added s...