Crafty As L

The brief for my Visible Image DT post this week was to make shaped card and to use stencils.   My last post used stencils to do embossing but this time, I’m using them in their traditional role.   For the shaped card base, you can use almost any shape and layering die sets are particularly useful for this. To begin, I selected two dies for each card, one for the card base and the other for the decorative panel. I cut the heart panel and blended Wild Honey and Picked Raspberry Distress Inks through the Entwined Butterflies stencil and set it aside to dry. For the next panel, I blended Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink through the Lava stencil. The next stencil, The Cat’s Whiskers was placed over the top and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink blended through the gaps. After peeking under the stencil, the cat’s face didn’t seem to stand out enough so I went over the face using texture paste in black for the face and gold for the eyes. Once the pastes were dry, I outlined t...

We’ve got a fun fortnight of Design Team posts over at Visible Image with the theme of using our fave music album cover as inspiration.   I’ve picked Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi, which I had on repeat throughout my teenage years and I still love it now.   The original album cover featured a busty woman in a wet T-shirt but apparently the record execs thought that shops would refuse to stock the album due to the cover being sexist and wanted a different design.   At the last minute, Jon Bon Jovi got a black bin liner, sprayed it with water and wrote the title in the water with his finger and the iconic cover was made. Image ©PolyGram Records, Inc. For my non-card make, I began with the letters across the top and stamped ‘CELEBRATE’ from Birthday Wishes   in Versafine Clair Strawberry ink, heat-set with clear embossing powder and then trimmed each letter leaving a thin white border all around.  On a 5¼” square of white card, I blended Worn Lipstick, Stormy S...

This week’s card was one I needed for a very dear gentleman’s 101 st birthday.   Since he is a retired Naval officer, I decided on a sea theme and dug through my stash to find some appropriate gear for the card. To make the background, I used Weathered Wood and Salty Ocean for the sky and Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire Distress Spray Stains for the sea.   I blended a little ink over the edge of a piece of paper to make the horizon and stamped some wave tops from Inkylicious By The Sea.   After planning to make a square card, I changed tack and decided on a DL card so had to make some beach from the overspray area by blending some Mustard Seed Distress Oxide over the area.   I also added a little Peacock Feathers at the edge of the water. Once the blended ink was dry, I used Versamark and white embossing powder to stamp the waves at the bottom of the panel.   After stamping, I used markers to add some shading to the waves. For the top of the ...

My card this week is one I made for a cat-loving friend.   The stamp set was a limited edition to celebrate Visible Image’s 20 th birthday called Purr-fect Birthday and I love the silhouettes and fun sentiments.   It’s a great set to use for quick cards and brilliant for those tricky male cards too. For background, I blended blue and red inks through the Squared stencil. Whilst that was drying, I stamped the cat in the box onto white and kraft card.   I added a little shading to the brown box and then fussy cut them both, chopping the cat off the brown box.   The brown box was then glued to the white one, with the cat peeking out of the top. Returning to the background, I replaced the stencil and used a fine black pen to draw around the squares.   The various cats were then stamped into the big squares. I stamped some paw prints onto the other squares and then added the sentiment.   Each of the cats’ eyes were finished with clear Nuvo Drops to m...

Recently, I needed a card for a special 4-year old’s birthday.    He loves dinosaurs so I’d purchased the Layered Dinosaurs stencils by Pretty Pink Posh for his RAWR-SOME card! The set comprises three layers, the first one being the body of the dinosaurs.   I selected a variety of bright colours and began stencilling with mini blending brushes. The next layer added some additional details to the dinosaurs together with leaves and footprints. The final stencil added more details to the dinosaurs and leaves together with the dino faces. To finish the card, I added a little sentiment together with a no.4 die-cut from glitter card. One of the dinosaurs was stencilled on the inside of the card.   This was repeated on the envelope using Versafine Clair inks so that they didn’t run should they get wet.