Vintage

Thinking on the lines of vintage, I decided to make a card that resembled a old pub sign. I came across this stamp at Artymiss, thought it was ideal for a man card.

For this card I got down to designing a background using my graphics programme, and using brushes made a musical theme. Its not shown well on the card. I then used black pearlised card for the backing. I stamped onto cream card the cheers sign. To make the sign look old and slightly worn, I added some double sided tape to the edges, then peeled it off at a angle so that I got a patterned edge. Using vintage fawn ink pad I rubbed some ink into the torn edge, this gave the darker colour. Then using vintage chalks I then brushed over with a brown, then red and finally light fawn colours. To finish I added 2 brass coloured brads as to look like old nails. I thought the card would be suitable for fathers day, I have not added any text to it.

I decided to add a little picture of my own background that I used for layering this card. Using Paint Shop Pro. Starting off with a colour that matched the theme colours I flooded a 3x3 inch square, then changing to the brush I used a range of different brushes that I had made by using black and white images. I kept layering and layering the different brushes until I ended up with the sample that is shown here. I have added more of my backgrounds to my slideshow.

This was just a play about project to start with but I think its turned out pretty good.

Holly

Whispers pens and brads

Whispers pens are great when using to change the colour of your brads. I used Whispers permanents to do these with, and some colours give a translucent effect. I also made a colour chart so that I know for future reference of what colours look like on the brads. There is not much difference when you use either plain gold or plain silver. You can also cover coloured brads too, but these tend to go darker in colour. I just brushed over these one shown here, but you can add another layer, you may want to varnish them first for if you add more colour before completely dry they do tend to become fluid again.

So now I can add any colour range to the styles of my cards and match any brad with the colours of my fibres.

You can also add glitter and if you add small blobs of clear glue you can then add another colour to the glue so you get a designer effect. The choice is endless.

Hope you enjoy trying this one out, I have added a link to the Whispers pens range just click on Whispers on this page.

Happy crafting all

Holly

Opalite Backgrounds

For this background I used Opalite inks, Crystal Blush and Glacier blue, I also used gold Ink it up.

Using black card stock, I stamped a butterfly background around the card using the glacier blue, then using my laura ashley clear stamps I used the bird in flight stamp in crystal blush, finally using a tiny bird with a ring stamp in gold ink.

This background looks very pretty when you actually see it, sometimes photographs do work no justice. I am now going to use this background for oriental atc's, I felt the design went well the the oriental theme.

It's great experimenting with your stamps and making your own backgrounds. Trouble is I spent more time playing than I did producing...haha.

Happy Crafting

Holly

Making Backgrounds

Today I thought I would work on making some backgrounds for a couple of oriental cards. So I got out my stamps and inks and paints. The first attempt was done on plain card, I used green ink and smoothed out with baby wipe. Did not come out to the best I wanted but it did have a nice effect in the end. I then stamped in black using my new Laura Ashley stamps, I then added clear embossing powder and heated with the gun. I then used another of my LA stamps this time the bird one, and using gold ink I stamped some birds scattered here and there. The end product you can see if the picture, after I had taken this I then trimmed the edges and used shaped scissors to give the edge a nice effect. I am going to use this background with butterflys that I stamped on acetate and then coloured in with Sakura stardust pens. These make a nice effect on acetate.

The next background I decided to make on photo paper,

I love working with photo paper, the inks really blend in

and you can add water to them. For this background I used to start with lilac ink, this I pressed on with a baby wipe, it gave it a speckled effect, next I used another of my LA stamps this time a sort of butterfly and leaf stamp, using it to look like a washed out fabric effect. To complete I got a bit adventurous and decided to use my small clear butterfly stamp, as it was cheep I thought no problems if I mess it up. So I covered the stamp using my gold pilot pen, then quickly pressed onto the paper in various areas. I must admit it does give a nice gold effect to the paper, but cleaning the stamp was difficult. So if you use this idea make sure you do not use your best stamps...lol.

So I have got some nice backgrounds to play with now, I may cover one of them with acetate and add a little tag or oriental lady. I will post the cards on this blog when completed.

Till then happy crafting everyone.

Holly