Crafty As L

Over at Visible Image this week, our Design Team theme is End of Summer.   For my inspiration, I’ve chosen the zinnias and sunflowers in my garden that are blooming their socks off and will continue to do so until the first frosts.   I grew these from seed and have loved watching them develop through the various stages. For my non-card make, I decided to have a play in my art journal, something I don’t often do and it pushed me a bit out of my comfort zone.   On a double page spread, I stamped all the elements using Versafine Clair Nocturne ink and the Sunflower Grunge , Daisy Grunge and Create Happiness stamp sets.   The flower in Create Happiness is actually a gerbera but it’s close enough to a zinnia for me! The pages were sprayed with Distress Spray Stains and a gold mica shimmer.   They turned out a bit dark but I thought I could lift some of the colour out.   That didn’t work, so lesson one of today’s make was that the mica spray seems to s...

This week’s Visible Image Design Team theme, 'Teenage Birthday', was a challenge for me.   I don’t have any children nor do I know any personally so I went with my friends' descriptions of life with their teenagers.   This largely translated to “it’s like living with another species” so the Alien Invader stamp seemed the perfect choice. My brief was to make a CAS card so I started with my background, as that forms a large part of a CAS design.   I knew that Distress Spritz sprays showed up on black so thought they’d make an excellent galaxy.   I sprayed Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers and then used a paintbrush to spatter Frozen Fog for the stars. After stamping and clear heat-embossing the images, for some simple colouring, I smooshed Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed onto my glass craft mat and sprayed with water for easy watercolour.   I also used a little gold and silver mica spray for glitter...

  Welcome to my Visible Image DT post where I’m stretching my stash and using a Christmas set to make a birthday card.   My Mum has Alzheimer’s type dementia and I wanted to make an interactive card for her that would make her smile.   The frosty mornings we’ve had recently inspired me to create a chilly-themed card and penguins were the ideal assistants! To begin, I applied Ranger Transparent Matte Texture Paste through the Frosty stencil onto a 5⅜” square of white card. Once I had a good, even layer of paste, I scraped off the excess, carefully peeled off the stencil and added Wow! Whirlpool Embossing Glitter and heat set.   The panel was set aside to cool and set.   The mix of embossing paste and glitter gives the background lots of texture and sparkle. Next, to create my penguin border, I cut a piece of white card 5½” square and stamped the penguin from the Snowman Jack stamp set around the edge of the square.    To make masks to enable...