Playing with Backgrounds

This card was made for a swap that required a brayered background. The main image is a brayered resist. I stamped first with versamark using stamps by Hero Arts then brayer in the background colour and the Versamark resists the inks. I used an Adirondack Rainbow inkpad (Wild Flower) for the background.

The matting layer is also a fun background technique - I used Cut and Dry foam to blend Distress Inks (Faded Jeans, Dusty Concorde and Vintage Photo) onto some white card in a random way then spritzed this with water. Next I used a fairly wet sponge to dab on gold mica poweder from the Luminarte Polished Pigments range and then spritzed this again - this makes the Distress inks move some more and they carry the mica with them giving a lovely diffused look.

The card base is cream card which I have stamped with the same stamps as used for the main image using the Wild Flowers Adirondack Rainbow pad.

A Sympathy Card

What can I say, these are perhaps the hardest cards we ever have to make because we want them to say so much and yet there are no words that can be said to make things better. I tried to create a mood of calm and peace - I hope I succeeded

The stamps are all from Clarity Stamp, the technique of creating reflections with a Brayer is one I learned some time ago from Clarity's very talented owner, Barbara Gray. Ink pads were all Adirondack dye based inks from Ranger - mostly Mountain Lake which is one of the now sadly discontinued Adirondack Rainbow pads. I added some of the individual colours from that are combined in the rainbow pad around the edges of the card blank -the colours were Stream and Lettuce.

It looks so easy on T.V.

I invested in a Cuttlebug in the summer and have been having fun playing with it. One of the reasons I bought it was I love the effect created by colouring onto the embossed areas of their card. I have seen this demonstrated so often on televsion and they make it look very easy to do, but I think I still need some practice because I am not entirely happy with how this turned out, despite having several goes at it. It was a card for a swap on Craft Telly Forum where the theme was to make either a card with the theme "wide thing" or one suitable for a man. I liked the idea of this card because I felt the little bird is indeed a "wild thing" and the overall effect results in a card you could give to a man.

The the main image is from a Cuttlebug Embossing folder and coloured with chalks. The text is from Elusive Images and was stamped with an Adirondack Rainbow Inkpad. It's from the Words of Wisdom Themeplate. The background is was stamped and embossed with clear detail EP using another Elusive Images stamp, this time from the Wild Meadow themeplate.

Forever Autumn

The challenge on Daring Cardmakers this week is "Forever Autumn" so here is my take on the theme.

The card was made by first brayering colour from an Adirondack Rainbow Pad (Woodlands) onto some cardstock, then stamping the leaf image randomly using various autumnal colours of Twinkling H2Os painted directly onto the stamp. This was matted onto some dark green cardstock. Another matting layer was made by spritzing Glimmer Mists onto some orange card stock and that was also layerd onto more of the dark green card. I chose some russet coloured card stock for the main card and used an Elusive Imgages text stamp to stamp and emboss the Just a Note greeting onto it. The stamp is from the Delightful Damask themeplate

Something for the Boys

I just realised there is a new fortnightly challenge called "Anything goes" on Craft Swap Forum. There is a theme to follow each time but you can make anything you like, a card, a scrap page, an ATC etc. so long as it fits the theme. The current them is "Something for the Boys". Here is my attempt at something suitable for the men in our lives.

The stamp on the main image is from Stampscapes and was stamped using Black Onyx Versafine then watercoloured with Lyra Aquacolors. The matting layer is silver foiled card that has been coloured with Adirondack Alcohol inks (Bottle, Ginger and Stream). The strip behind that is just white paper that I coloured using a brayer and one of the Adirondack Rainbow ink pads (Mountain Lake) This pad has 4 colours in it which include Bottle and Stream. As these were the colours I had used from the alcohol inks I kept to that end of the pad with they brayer. Finally I used a stamp from Lavinia Stamps to stamp the trees onto the strip using the same Rainbow Ink pad, but allowing the stamp to pick up colours from right across the pad.

UTEE Card for DCM Mid Week Challenge

It's been a busy week, but I love messing with UTEE so when I saw the midweek extra challenge on Daring Cardmakers I just knew I wanted to play along. The challenge was to stamp into Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). But first I had to cut out my stamps, a full Illuminated Alphabet set from Elusive Images which I bought recently! Anyhow here is my card.

I made the UTEE piece by using an Adirondack Rainbow ink pad to stipple colour on to a piece of chipboard. There are quite a few variatons of there Adirondack pads, the one I was using is called "Noel" Perhaps I should say there were several variations of these ink pads, because I hear that Ranger have discontinued most, if not all of them. Such a shame as they are lovley to use. Once I had coloured my chipboard I covered it with UTEE heated and stamped the word "Noel" using gold Encore Metallic ink into the hot UTEE. Next I mounted my UTEE piece onto some gold foil card.

The matting layer was created by using a brayer and the same Adirondack "Noel" Rainbow pad to colour some glossy card stock which I then stamped and embossed a patten over using detail gold EP and a stamp from the Elusive Images Filigree Fusion themeplate. This was also layered onto more gold foil card. Finally I used the same stamp from the Filigree Fusion Themeplate and the rainbow pad to stamp a background all over some Stardream Pearlescent card and then mounted my elements.

Sorry about the photo, it's a tricky card to get a photo of because the light keeps shimmering of the pearlescent cardstock.