Saturday, 26 September 2015

Shiny Christmas

It's very rare I get to make and blog anything these days so thanks to those of you who still bother to visit me - I appreciate you hanging in there!   I haven't managed to play in my favourite challenge for a few weeks, but today's challenge drew me in like the magpie I am - I can't resist the challenge to get something shiny on a card!  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/week-243-recipe.html

I made a couple of quick Christmas cards using foiling as my shiny thing.


This one uses Simon Says Stamps Ornaments set - the technique here is to use FlitterGlu from IndigoBlu (I haven't found an alternative that works with foil) on some cut and dry foam and to apply a TINY amount to your stamp - too much and the foil won't stick - and to give it a minute to get tacky before applying the foil.   Leave the foil on for a few seconds to make sure its drying and then buff with your finger before gently peeling back the foil.   If masking like I did here, don't press the foil over the image in the front or the foil with "find" any bits of glue not covered in the original image!


For this second card I used Hero Arts new Colour Layering Christmas Tree (sorry I know its out of stock everywhere - I have it on back order too) and stamped the bottom two layers with their green ombre ink pad before stamping the final layer with flitterglu as above and foiling with green foil.  I added a gold foiled star and some ornaments and some red baubles with stickles.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

Don't forget to have a bowl of water on hand when using flitterglu and wash it off your stamps IMMEDIATELY or it will dry on and damage them.   If you're going to batch stamp, I would recommend washing after each stamping as it dries pretty quick on the rubber.

Catch you later

Tara

Friday, 4 September 2015

Arabian Nights

I've got a card in the current issue of Craft Stamper which goes on sale today!   http://craftstamper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-new-look-october-issue-is-out-on.html  It was for their ready set stamp theme of "Arabian Nights" which had a really lush colour palette so appealed to me and I was really thrilled when it was accepted for publication.


I used the Persian Motifs stamp from Altenew and embossed it in gold before painting the elements with LuminArte shimmer paints.  I was going for a Persian rug feel.   Watercolour painting with embossing is very forgiving and very relaxing to do!   The sentiment is embossed in gold onto a vellum strip which is secured behind the painted panel to hide the fixings but still allows the pattern to show through ;-)


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