Crafty As L

It’s time for my Visible Image DT post and this week I’m sharing a card I made for the hospital ward staff who looked after my Mum when she broke her hip and needed surgery.   Mum has advanced Alzheimer’s and the staff treated her with kindness and dignity which I really appreciated. For the background, I had a piece of inky mop-up lying around on my desk.   I can’t remember what I used on it but it’s a combo of yellow and green with some gold metallic on it too. Using the Rotation stencil and Mowed Lawn Distress Ink, I added some stencilling in patches around the panel. I clear heat-embossed the daisy from Daisy Days and fussy cut.   I used the solid petal stamp partially inked and Weathered Wood Distress Ink to add a little colour to the petals.   I used the solid circle to add colour to the centre but decided instead to stamp the flower centre on the little off-cut of inky background and cut that out. To make some stamens for the flower, I wound some ver...

My project this week was the card and ATC I made for this month’s Visible Image ATC swap.   Our theme this month was “Say it with words”.   I've found it hard to be creative as our little girly cat disappeared almost 3 weeks ago and, despite all our efforts, there has been no news and Mr L and I are feeling very sad.   Looking through my VI stash, the sentiment in Glimmer of Light   spoke to me so that’s where I started. On an inky mop-up piece of card, I trimmed it make my ATC and card front and started by stamping and clear heat-embossing the moth, sentiment and light bulb. Next, I used the Strobes stencil, with the central blob masking the light bulb, and blended Black Soot Distress ink, fading to the outer edges.   I also blended ink around the edges too. I repeated these steps on the card front too, adding a large light bulb from Shining Bright .   To make the light bulb glow, I added some gold metallic watercolour paint, flicking it out alo...

Well, I know it’s usually Christmas in July in the crafting world, however, over at VIHQ, there’s exciting news coming next month so we’re doing the festive stuff early.   For my CAS makes this week, I’ve done a bit of batch making to get ahead.   I’m not a big fan of all my cards being exactly the same so using an inky background ensures the cards are the same but different whilst still offering the speed of production-line style stamping. For the inky backgrounds, I got busy with my Tim Holtz Distress stains and spritzes and half A4 pieces of card.   I like to use a bigger piece of card so that I can trim the part that suits my project best.   Invariably there’s a dodgy edge so it allows for trimming that off! The stains I used were: Dusty Concord, Picked Raspberry, Chipped Sapphire, Stormy Sky, Broken China and Lost Shadow (for the snowy part).   The spritzes were Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Uncharted Mariner and Weathered Wood.   I tried not to m...

I glanced down at my desk recently and it was awash with bits of card leftover from previous projects.   To kill two birds with one stone, I thought I’d use a couple which would also tidy up a bit – not something that happens often in my craft room! These backgrounds were from my Greetings Earthling card and were made by using Distress Spritz sprays on black card. Using Visible Image’s Grunge Birthday Words, I white heat embossed the stamp onto the backgrounds.   I love this stamp for quick cards! To mat the panel, I used up a failed bokeh background that just didn’t look right for a background but was perfect for just a peek of colour. I tore a strip of vellum and gold heat-embossed “celebrate” from Best Birthdays Ever on it.   To attach it, I folded around the edge of the mat and secured on the back. The sentiment was gold heat-embossed on an offcut of the mat, backed with black card and attached using foam tape.

The Design Team were tasked with providing some Halloween Tricks & Treats (aka tips & tricks) and I chose heat-embossing as it’s one of my favourite crafting things to do.   (Ink blending is the other and, as you’ll see later, they are the perfect bed fellows!)   When I first started trying heat-embossing, I had many epic fails; some were due to my lack of knowledge and others were using the wrong equipment.   Hopefully, these tips and tricks will get you on a successful heat-embossing journey. Embossing Tools To heat-emboss, you will need a heat tool.   There are many makes of heat tool; some have one heat setting and others have two, a lower heat for drying and a higher one for embossing.   Another tool which I think is essential is an anti-static powder tool.   They are inexpensive and last for years.   Mine is called an Embossing Buddy and is a small sack of very fine powder which is rubbed or dabbed over the card before stamping. ...