Crafty As L

Continuing my recent theme using Anita Jeram’s illustrations, this week’s cards are made using Colorado Craft Company “Ice Cream Day” which feature two of my favourite things; cats and ice-cream.   To begin, I stamped and clear heat embossed the images so that I could colour with alcohol markers and not worry about the ink running. I used a selection of markers to colour the cats simply and added some Stickles to give the ice-cream some sparkle. One of the panels was quite small so I used the small ice-cream cone stamp to add some details to the card blank. Finally, I matted the card using Neapolitan ice cream colours.   I had to add a some rhinestones onto this one as I managed to get finger prints in a few places. This card is more CAS and the smaller images are perfect for making cute 5” square cards.

It’s been a hectic and emotional time for me lately with my father in hospital for three and a half weeks, leaving little time or energy for crafting.   I’ve been playing catch-up so I needed a quick make for this week’s Design Team post.   I love to spend hours creating a card but sometimes I just don’t have that luxury and today is one of those times.   Fortunately, Visible Image stamps and stencils are perfectly adaptable to all kinds of crafting. To begin, I cut a panel and silver heat-embossed the flower and text from Daisy Days . I received some acrylic inks for Christmas and haven’t had a chance to try them out so decided to use these to colour the panel rather than my usual metallic watercolours.   A little goes a long way with the dark coloured ink! The sentiment is the grunge style one from Birthday Wishes , also silver heat embossed. The panel was matted onto teal card and then onto a 5” x 7” card blank and finished with rhinestones for a bit ...

It’s time again for my Visible Image DT post and my brief this week was “monochrome with a pop of colour”.   With the card being predominantly black and white, I decided to add some extra interest and dimension with texture paste. I began with the background as it would need time to dry.   After attaching the Ledger stencil to a piece of black card with some low tack tape, I applied Distress Grit paste through the stencil with a spatula. After removing the stencil and quickly washing immediately in hot, soapy water, I went back to the panel where the paste was still wet and applied silver white glitter, shaking off the excess, and set aside to dry.   Once  completely  dry, I used a dry, flat paintbrush to remove any other excess glitter that had not stuck. Whilst the background was drying, I stamped and clear heat-embossed the small butterfly and sentiment from Counting Moments .   The butterflies were quickly coloured with a pink/purple alcohol mark...