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...

It’s time again for my Design Team post and I’m making a bright and bold spring birthday card.   To begin, I stamped and clear heat-embossed the large tulip from SketchedTulips , sprayed them with Distress Spray Stains and Spritzes and set aside to dry. For the background, I stamped a 5¼” square panel with the rest of the stamps in the set, using Versfine Onyx Black so that I knew it would be waterproof.   Putting the panel into my spray box, I used the same colours as above to add colour. Next for some texture, I used the new Logic stencil and applied Distress grit paste in areas around the panel.   Whilst the paste was still wet, I sprinkled on gold embossing powder and heat set, allowing the paste and powder to bubble up. For the topper, I gold heat-embossed the sentiment from Birthday Wishes .   I tore around the edges and dragged the edges through a Versamark ink pad and heat set with gold embossing powder.   I fussy-cut some of the tulips and glue...

Welcome to my DT post where my brief was “Spring Birthday” on a DL card.   I wanted to use the Golden Daffodils stamp set so having the DL card in landscape format suited my plan for a field of daffs.   When I started the card, it was sunshine and blue skies but as I’m writing it up, it’s torrential rain (again!) so the sentiment seems even more appropriate. After cutting a panel, I stamped and clear heat-embossing the flower bunch, varying the height for interest. The single daffodil head was stamped in the spaces, and I masked one so I could stamp the stems and leaves from the main bunch beneath it. As I’d clear heat-embossed the stamping, I was free to choose my colouring medium so I decided on selection of alcohol markers. I fancied the background being a bright blue to contrast with the daffs and was going to watercolour it but, as I’d chopped my panel to the required size, I couldn’t tape it down.   Instead, I found a couple of little used alcohol markers a...

Today is Father’s Day in the UK and you may recall my Father’s Day inspiration for my Visible Image DT post at the end of last month.   I had my Dad in mind when I made that one.   However, I needed another card for my Father-in-Law so here’s what I created for him. My plan loosely involved beer bottles and a wall but I decided to add a cat peeking under the wall.   This is exactly what our youngest cat, Dill, would be doing.   I marked in pencil where the stencil bricks end and added a bit of sticky note to mask then stamped the cat from Curious Cats . Whilst I had that set out, it occurred to me that the whiskers would make rather good grass so I stamped that along the bottom edge. Before stencilling the brickwork, I lightly blended some brown ink so that the mortar lines wouldn’t be stark white.   Then I blended terracotta ink through Distressed Brick stencil. To give the bricks some texture and interest, I mixed a small amount (which was still way too ...

Our DT theme this week is “CATS” and I’ve chosen a big one!   Whilst searching the internet for pictures of white tigers for this week’s post, I found out a few interesting facts about them.   I was surprised to discover that they are not a subspecies of tiger but their coat colour is caused by a genetic mutation and they are not classed as an endangered species.   There are believed to be none left in the wild and, s adly, white tigers are bred in captivity purely for profit.   Due to the rarity of the gene, a lot of inbreeding takes place which causes the tigers to be born with a plethora of health problems.   Here’s my homage to the beautiful white tiger. To begin, I used my MISTI to stamp the tiger from Fearless Tiger .   I like to use my MISTI as the stamp is large with lots of detail so I like to do a few repeat stampings to get a perfect result.   Once happy with the stamping using Versafine Clair Nocturne, I added clear embossing powder and...