It started out of that same paper as the previous card.
It’s the top left part. At first I had stamped the buddha branches on the top (with 2nd and 3rd generation ink stamping) but it was way to busy, I had added the flowers and white pearldrops then allready too. So what do you do then? Add a coat of gesso on it. I made a bit of a texture in it. First I brushed it straight down, then on the top part of the gesso bit I brushed it like a pointed roof. It reminded me of a shelter. I added some paint which should dry up with a blotty effect, but it was paint on spirits base (not sure how it’s called in english) and takes a long time to dry. It was transparent too, too white. That is when I got out my brushed pewter and silver acryllic paint – added a few drops on the top, some water, and kitchen foil. Let it sit and focus on the other cards.
The effect when the foil was removed is great. It’s stoney, and the brushstrokes down give it more depth. And guess what, I even added a ribbon! I felt it needed some layering, some softening.
Oops, messed up the drop of stickles here… was looking for the shiny blingthingies which I never use but had found again and intended to use it for these cards and then when I needed them couldn’t find them… Not sure if Ill add a sentiment to that card, I don’t think I will.
I love the contrast on these pictures, especially from the Shelter card, looks like a thunderstorm and rain like this. Love how it turned out.
Now I’ve got some cleaning to do and get to bed (way too late!)
In Part 1 you can read about the reasons for these cards and the very start of making them. In Part 2 I show you how I made the backgrounds, and how easily distracted I am in going to create something else and how “just 10 minutes more” turns into 2 1/2 hours more of crafting.
06:18
It’s Saturday morning now, and the results are on the table. (Oh that sounds like a horribly translated Dutch saying). It’s 06:18. I don’t really feel that tired, as I have gotten too much awake to be sleepy, and decide to craft a bit. The youngest is put in a baby-sleeper thingy (wippertje) in front of the television to distract him, he is a bit ill and I don’t want him to crawl around, he needs to sleep but doesn’t want to lay down. The baby-seat is a chair about 20 scm from the ground in which a baby can sit/lie, the backrest is adjustable. Anyway, I craft, he is being sleeping half upright in that seat.
I put decoupage glue onto the bits where I pulled the top layer of the linencardstock off, to prevent it from ripping further and to seal it a bit again.
I’m realizing that if I mess up a card beyond repair I am in “trouble” – this foil technique can’t be sped up with a heating gun. So I go make some backups. I think I’m being smart by not cutting the papers to size yet. The paint can react differently at edges, especially when spraying with water, so I try to use a whole sheet.
Drip drip drop hear the raindrops falling… We put on the Disney movie Bambi when the children aren’t feeling well, the music is relaxing, more classical, and the lightchanges are minimal, too much flickering of light is annoying when ill. We’ve tried other movies, but stick to this one as it’s calm for the eyes and ears. So the past week, I’ve heard Bambi over and over and over again…
Kissing of the cards.
Kissing with a twist – starting to realize this is was maybe not a good idea as the colours might mix too much.
I somewhat manage, but I like the results of the other carsd better. This doesn’t looke as nice as the others, still to many “circles” of paint (the 4 pink spots) or too mixed with too small dots (blue)
I sprayed with water/glimmer mist, wrapped it up in kitchen foil and stopped crafting at 06: 52. (Really can’t remember what I did. Put the youngest in bed and went back to bed myself I think). Don’t think I remember the exact time – it’s in the name of the picture :P.
While posting the otherp pictures I know what I did – select stamps to use! Must have taken me half an hour at least.. go through my stamps selecting something children related… I don’t have many stamps for that. And then the texts! At first I thought of a simple Thank You on the front, but I really wanted to put in some words of comfort, hope, as well. So a stack of text stamps was selected too. Then everything was put away as the others were waking up.
12:30
Go to the gardencenter for the gifts. Home around 15:00. Display he gifts at 15:16
Finished wrapping at 17:13. Ofcourse it didn’t take me 2 hours to wrap it (might have been 30 – 45 minutes though…) but didn’t start right away and was interrupted in between.
20:24
I’ve taken the backup cards out of the foil and added some more paint to the too white areas. Wiped up the excess paint with extra cards (the Hema correspondence cards). I’ve got sooooo many cards to make with all these backgrounds I’m creating!
Right. Not my best backgrounds results. Quickly put those aside and focus on the other ones. It’s Saturday, 20:24, and the meeting is tomorrow at 10:00….
In case you’re wondering what’s on the chair: a wooden childrens chair and a towel. I think I swept the floor and didn’t put the chair back down. ANyway, the cards. I had stamped with Stazon on to the cards – didn’t have a picture of that. The prints weren’t all that good, eventhough I had put a thin cloth under the paper. The foil technique creates an uneven surface (depending on how you smooth out the paint ofcourse, less paint and more water creates a smoother surface). So some keyparts, like the face of the reading girl, were not very visible. What to do? Stamp again with a stampruler, and emboss it with black.
I have the brilliant (I think) idea to cover the allready stamped image with gesso, as I probably will not be able to stamp at the exact same spot, and as the reading lady has lots of black in it, details might get lost. Also, it enables me to use more options for colouring as more colorants take on gesso then on (glossy) paint. Just a thin coat, not necessary to cover the entire image. The girl has allready been gesso-ed and stamped/heat embossed with ultra fine black embossing powder.
All images done this way. But what, weren’t ther 8 cards? That’s right, but as I still was doubting for the image on the other two cards, I hadn’t stamped that yet.
It just looks soooo much better this way, they really pop off the card now. See the reading girl? I stamped her first on both cards, then decided I wanted to add a bit more, it became the childrens cart. I stamped that one on the pink card first, with the childrens cart completely visible. It somehow felt a bit off (the cart is floating, the chair of the girl is lower down) so I stamped it at a more correct height on the other card.
No pictures of the last two cards, as it was 22:37 and I was in a creative flow, concentrated on what I was doing.
Silly me, I can’t even mat the cards onto plain coloured cardstock when I’m in a hurry… I need to break the colour with slight pattern. I used the diluted ink spray again, see the blue cardstock. I put the stencil on a clean surface, placed a (Hema_ correspondence card on it and pressed it and lifted it carefully. Wauw! Love the result!
I repeated this for pink matting cardstock (no pictures taken – it was 01:25 at the above picture). I think I’ve got about 6 extra backgrounds now as well. Or 8.
Then I matted the card on the frame and noticed I had somewhere made a mistake in the original cutting of the cards – there was less room available for the background card then I thought. Or I had planned not using a backing paper at all. Anyway, I couldn’t put htem in plain envelopes, so I took some basic ones, laid down a heart and spritzed with glimmer mist. Then laid down a stencil of bare feet prints into the heart, and footstep prints out of the hearts, representing the growing up of the children. Most of them come to the daycare center as babies, they are loved and taken care off, and leave with at the age of 4 to go to school. I finished at 03:00u. (I know, not healthy, and now I’m writing instead of sleeping, but this is relaxing for me too.)
For F, who had a baby 4 weeks ago (when the center closed she was almost due…) She managed the baby group (0 – 2 yrs). She is stil within her pregnancy leave, and hasn’t looked for a new job ofcourse. Stamps uses:Text from Stampendous, baby from Stampinback.nl
This quote from Quietfire Designs is hard to emboss, I’ve used it before and had the same issue. I should take note to ink it very well and to put more pressure on it. This one is for M, who was very emotional about the closing, and who I want to say: look forward. She has a new job allready. Stamps uses: baby from stampinback.nl, text from Quietfire Designs
For E. She was Tobias his best friend when we moved, he had a tough time adjusting and she was his friend. If she was there, it was good. Even at home, he often says her name instead of mamma (and vice versa at the daycare center.) She is a free thinking spirit, whom to me felt a bit out of place at that daycare center as it was a more regular/basic one. She would looove a more natural one, like the one my kids are going to now. Or a more adventurous one. She hasn’t found a job yet. She’s been eligble for some jobs, but they were 24/28 hrs and not allowed a second job. To be able to pay her house she needs at least a 36 hrs contract. Unfortunately, she has to follow her wallet/head now, instead of her feelings/heart. I do hope she finds a place where she can unfold her wings. Stamps used: text and girl from VivaLasVegaStamps, cart from Deep Red.
For P, as she is fantastic with the babies. I know it isn’t a baby image but I only have one baby stamp. Babies like to “read” books too. She’s found a new job. Stamps used: cart from Deep Red, reading girl from Vivalasvegastamps, text from Crafter’s Companion Vintage Floral.
For N. She wasn’t at the meeting today as it was too emotional for her. She has her own side business, decoplaats: http://decoplaats.wix.com/decoplaats which might get a new impulse, hence the text. I think she has a new job allready too. Stamps used: Text from Quietfire Designs, Rose from Christina Renée, Le Petit Prince and his sheep from Memi-s Rainbow on etsy (although it’s more like eraser stamps and not rubber).
For K. She is working at the same daycare center as the one my kids are going to now. She absolutely loves it there! She told me, with tears in her eyes: At [..] we had 1 meeting in the 4 1/2 years I worked there. It was all communication in one direction: they had to do it like this. Last Thursday, she had her first meeting at the new daycare facility. They asked for her input, listened to her ideas and thought with her. Management and staff are one team. I am very glad she found this place, as I think she would have “rusted” at the other place: become used to it and take that as the standard, while a daycare center can be so much more then that. Stamps used: Crafter’s Companion sentiment, rose from Christina Renée, Le Petit Prince and his shieep handcraftet by/from Memi’s Rainbow on etsy.
For L. Or K? It is possible I changed my mind at the last moment. She worked a lot with the afterschool care children. I’m not sure if she has a new job allready. Stamps used: Sentiment from Crafter’s Companion, performers from Christina Renée.
For K, althought the “all things grow with love” might have been more suitable as she’s pregnant 🙂 She hasn’t got a new job yet, and as she’s pregnant she’s taking it a bit easy. Stamps used: Sentiment from Stampendous, fairies/pixies/performers from Christina Renée.
Three of the staffmembers found a job at an organizatoin that had just closed their facility in this village 1 1/2 years ago, as it wasn’t profitable anymore. Now they arranged for a very fast reopening and took on three people of this staff. Many of the children are going there now. Three haven’t gotten a job yet (one just got a baby, one is pregnant now and the other one needs more hours). One I don’t know, and one now works at the daycare center where my youngest kids are going. The oldest is going to school now so needs afterschool care, which he has at Moerveld.
Although making the cards costs me sleep, I’m quite proud of them (despite sometimes offlining them when matting them on the card – I was too tired to bother). I really like this series. Also, it feels good that I was able to do all this – set up this facebook group, get a group of people who wanted to contribute for a gift, get the gift and make the cards. A lot of work, but that’s just it: it’s the personal things that makes it count, that makes me feel very good about this. (Patting myself on the shoulder a bit). I am very often unable to help – I can’t come over to people to help as I’ve got my own children to take care of. But making people happy with my hobby is worth a few hours. One can say that something needs to be done, or this or that should happen, or we’re all very sorry about how things went, but take action upon it quick. Don’t wait for a few weeks – the initial feeling of unjustice has subsided, and you carry on with your life. The staff would have felt a bit disappointed maybe at how easily they have been forgotten. Now, when having acted upon my feelings, the staff knows how much they are appreciated. Sure, people could have gotten something themselves, but that is not possible for everyone. And even if no one had participated, I’m sure I’d have made the cards and gotten them gifts, maybe not this big but something nice still.
Thanks for reading this wall of text and images if you’re still here. Now it’s really bedtime for me, have some sleeping to do!
Here are some before and after pictures. The ones wrapped in foil is when it’s just been wrapped, the other ones is 6 hours later in the morning unwrapped (the youngest was awake very early, so short night… decided to craft a bit :P)
This is the right cardstock in the picture above, but turned 180 degrees.
This is the left linencardstock in the above picture.
Theupper right card turned counterclockwise 90 degrees. You see what can happen when you take of the foil while the paint/paper isn’t dry yet. I didn’t mind a lot, as it was fixable and created some more light space to stamp on.
I only wrapped these in foil partially.
This is the right card. The paint is shining more where the foil has been.
Back to last night, as I wasn’t done then.
As I often forget that the size of the paper where I stamp the images on will be smaller then the card size due to matting it on other papers, I precut it to the desired shape this time. I often create the background first and then trim the paper to size, but I end up not wanting to cut through pretty spots etc…I had planned on throwing out the cutoffs, but I had some paint left so I swiped them through it. Didn’t have enough paint left ofcourse to cover the strips properly so I added some more paint and pushed the papers around. I thought I might use the strips on the cards. Painty fingers is the result.
When cleaning out the brushes I got this… and *sigh* ofcourse I thought it looked nice and could be used for another card, so I saved it….
So, the brushes are cleaned (picture taken at 21:17hrs), the cards are drying. Read Ryn’s blogpost. Get inspired to make something of the other backgrounds (see previous post). Think: Oh, 10 more minutes, just going to try it out for a bit. Nothing too elaborate.
Riiiight…..
2 1/2 hours later:
Sprayed with ink, but this time I had thinned it (mister, water, spray the inkspray into the mister, shake, spray on a kitchen towel, and use). So it was a bit lighter. Spray abundantly, and add salt to it, it will absorb the moist and create lovely random patterns. The salt had been used before – I wonder if it will still work as good. The piece is still lying on top of the piano, I haven’t checked it yet. (Yes poor family, every surface here is used… coffeemachine, piano..
I don’t think I have used thinned ink on this one. I applied a coat of modpodge on it, you can still see the milky parts of it. This acts like a kind of resist. Stamping with water based ink isn’t possible, but stazon will work. And gesso and paint ofcourse.
The celltheory stencil was stamped on this one previously, and now I had replaced it and sprayed it lightly with the thinned orange ink, it really contrasts with the green. I’m still not sure how this one will end. I’ve used Ryn’s stencil here (the pink bits) nd a rose stencil. (orange and green bits).
A closeup. It looks interesting now, but where to go from here? I added modelling paste through the stencil onto some of the roses after taking this picture.
The bottle allready was almost empty, really! Only 1/3 of a glass in it left… Anyway, I used stencils on stencils (although the paper in the middle is really the last scrap paper where I pressed the stencils on before cleaning them. I’m not sure if I’m going to use that one. Then again, why not?
And the red pepper one with the thinned poisoned jade and turqoise one. It looks like it’s giving off light. I’m not used to working with neoncolours, don’t even like them, but this will be another challenge for me, to work with these colours.
At 23:30u, it was time to clean up and go to bed. I I had known I’d be up at 05:15 the next morning I would have gone to bed sooner…
Our children’s daycare center stopped abruptly in March. At Thursday, there were rumours that the inventory was for sale on an auction site (auction date would be next Tuesday), with the tax agency as the .. what do you call it… seller? At Friday we received a mail from the management that all was fine, the invconenience had been taken care of. (I wouldn’t call this an inconvenience though… I would call a tax agency selling my stuff a problem..). The daycare center would be open on Monday.
Monday, 16:00hrs, we get an e-mail: They hadn’t been able to completely resolve the problem, and had to close as of the next day.
Both parents and staff were completely unaware and uninformed of any problems, the staff heard the news the same time as the parents, so there were many tears that Monday. They didn’t even had an opportunity to say goodbye to the kids properly, or to say goodbye to the kids who didn’t come on Monday.
The financial troubles were because of mismanagement of the owners. Whatever the reason, sometimes daycare centers have to close. But the way this went is unacceptable (altouhg it’s better to accept then to be angry about it, nothin can be changed now). Financial troubles don’t arise from one day on another, so there should have been plenty of time to inform people, so staff could look for other jobs, parents for other daycare centers, and a farewell party could be organized for the staff.
That evening I felt I should do something, this didn’t feel right. I’m not very active on facebook, but I made an exception for this, I started a group solely for the parents and employees at that daycare center.
It was much appreciated, and the first two weeks many (emotional) messages were posted. But also, we wanted to say goodbye properly to the staff. Two dates were chosen (as not everyone was available on one day). Today was the second date, a weekend day.
I knew I wanted to get the staff something, but what? I thought it would be great if some parents would get a gift together, as it could be a bigger gift. As it was busy here, (youngest of 9 months was quite ill of the chickenpox and the middle one wasn’t feeling very well either), I didn’t think about it again untill last Thursday. I managed to get in touch with most of the parents who would come today, and got some together who wanted to share a gift.
Yesterday I went shopping for some flowers, I ha d actually wanted to get a large Vergeet-me-nietje/Forget-me-not in a nice bsaket/pot, but there were only 3 miserable looking plants left in the gardencenter. So on to search for something else.
I settled for these cute baskets and an insecthotel:
I wrapped them up as good as I could (I am not good with the plastic foil). That was finished at 16:00ish yesterday.
Then the cards. On Thursday (or was it Friday?) I had started making the background . Only indoor pictures as it was evening. I wanted big cards, A5 sized. As it was for 8 ladies, I decided to make 4 and 4. (4 of one colour, 4 of another colour). And ofcourse the excess ink was used for another print, which I ended up liking more then the positive stnecil image which you can see on the back of the table. This is our dining table. We clearly need a bigger one.
I had fun with the stencils and ink. But the colours… they were too bright. I didn’t have the gifts yet at that point so had nothing to match it with. They didn’t fit taking care of babies, caring for children. I needed to tone it down a bit. So I put this aside, and started anew, this time for normal A6 sized cards as I realized A5 sized cards would be more difficult to finish on time as there is more space to fill.
So smaller, and other colours. Pink and blue, but I didn’t have that in sprays, so I chose acryllic paint and the kitchen foil technique. I used linen cardboard for a more interesting texture.
I was too lazy to use a plate for the paint so I applied it directly to the paper. Put some randomt splashes of paint on the paper. As the bundled sage didn’t have a small opening (paint dabber top), I put it down hard on the right piece of paper.
Next, put the papers together, press and twist it a bit, and open up to see the effect.
Put your papers on top of eachother in different ways, up side down, tilted, untill there’s hardly any white left.
The pink ones are almost ok here, maybe a bit too much of the old rose colour. The blue one hasn’t mixed well, and I am missing the baby blue a bit. (Didn’t have that ready in a bottle so I’m going to have to mix).
That is also quite simple, add white paint, take a brush and mix. Added some white paint in the middle too.
A little lighter pink also on the left card, and the right cards have “kissed” allready. You can see spots of paint on the lower white cards and my brush on them, but that’s ok as they will undergo the same process. Funny, only now I think: Why didn’t I just start with the bottom ones? Probably because I did most of it standing so the ones further away are easier to look at (instead of straight down) and they where closest to the paint.
Spray the cards a bit with glimmermist / perfect pearls (not too much as it might get too shiny which distracts from the image). I used only a tiny bit and sprayed more with water. Wrap in kitchen foil and wrinkle it a bit. You can see the front cards are being made ready for kissing.
Here I turned on the flash – I find it is sometimes somewhat annoying when working with glimmering/reflecting surfaces so I had turned it off for the other pictures. I love the colourblends allready.
Now leave to dry on a flat space. I didn’t have enough space, had to put them away so my children wouldn’t grab them, so I stacked them and put them on the coffeemachine as the top is warm.
The coffeemachine is something we can’t do without anymore… I’ll take a picture of our beloved device:
As there’s quite a few pictures in this post allready, I’ll go on and make another post with part 2, the unwrapping…
Part 1 , as I think many more will follow. Some allready have preceded this post, but I thought I should dedicate a post about them.
I had hoped the tree would be less visible throught hte fairy. Or that the colours would be less transparent. Didn’t feel like stamping a new fairy on other paper and glue it on top. The tree in the middle is made from stamping a Chocolate Baroque stamp (bark) twice. The branches on the left and right are actually trees from The Stempelwinkel. The fairy anfish scales are from Designs by Ryn.
Hmmm getting an idea now, what if I cut out the fairy out of this card (maybe except the wings) and use that image on another card? And then also stamp the fairy onto another piece of paper and put it in place of the previous one.. Hmmm…
This one, not entireyl right, stamping is too light. So added more layers, including a tag. And then modelling paste. And inka gold – ancient gold.
The left corner stamp is from Kaisercraft, the bird is from Crafter’s Companion. The text stamp is from Art Specially, and the keys from Chocolate Baroque. I used a die from sizzix, Tim Holts dots stencil and Finnabair Harlequin stcil. The milled lavender is crackle paint. The texture around the text is made with modelling paste, I just put some down and put the palette knife on top and pulled it straight up. Last is, as said, the inka gold Ancient gold paint. Oh on the tag is also the backgroundstamp from crafters companion (the berries).
The texture looks interesting, but the colours and images… it’s just not working right. e I should try spraying it all with ink? Cover the tag, spray the rest with ink, wipe the ink off the gold bits. Think that would bring it all together more?
Next: colour mismatch. Was supposed to be an entry for
It dave the colours from the challenge, but does it work this way? noooo. Reason? Two contrasting colours are equally present. Usuly it’s prettier to use them as accents rather then main colour, it takes over the scene. Adding crackle paint on top of it didn’t make it better, nog yet on this picture but it will show a bit further down on another picture.
Next isn’t exactly a fail, it’s just a card I don’t know what to do with. I’t’s not really my style, it’s not my colour, I’m just not about this card. Maybe a card for teen?
I used up sssscraps here. The center heart is a mod melt. I used an old Chocolate Baroque stamp below, and roman letters/latin stencil from TCW on the top half. The purple flower leaves are punched out leaves, and the center pink is also from a punch. Some more stencilling can be seen on the purple background card.
Another card that was good but is now mwah, started with a tag.
I had been playing around with a stencil and loved scottish squares effect and tried to recreate it on this tag. I didn’t get the same look but it looked nice. I added the new crackle paint (do you have that too, when you get something new and want to try it out, you just grab something it doesn’t necessarily match with and apply it without having an idea of what to use it for, just because you want to try it?).
The crackle looks nice. But now some stamping. I chose a dancing couple, and liked the result. I used some scrap paper (yellowish background), stamped the text, and added crackle paint to make it match the tag. I tore the bottom of to make it look more old. That is why I made holes in the tag to, it’s sort of to symbolize the passing of time. Hence also the background, I think that also was a scrap piece which is covered in ink, then paint, then probably paint again, and another colour paint.
The card would look better if I hadn’t made the holes in the tag. Still then it would be uncomplete. What do you think, should I add some sort of embellishment? What? and where? A ribbon? In what position?
On to some backgrounds still waiting to be used, this is not nearly all my background stash though:
The above backgrounds are from hen I just got the cuttlebug. I played with inking the embossing folders, I love the vintage look of the colours. But what next? I think the three cards with the corner embossing could be done with nice stamp. (Oh btw, I see I forgot to rotate the image… left side is the bottom). But the others… I guess it will be stamping on another pand lace on top, or make a card of diecuts?
Other embossing folder backgrounds. I can’t stamp on them so they lay around for quite a while. You can see I tried some inka gold on the purple card. The pink card (now gold and nikkel) gave me an idea, what if I highlight some honeycombs in a molecule pattern? (This is a molecule pattern, I thought of it after this). Then decoupage a tissue paper with a stamped sentiment on it, and the card is sort of ready. (Sort of…) What to do with the guitars background? You can see I did some colouring allready, trying to make it look better. Still don’t know how to go on from here. Obviously a teenager or childrens card. The bottom right was a piece of paper where I scraped off the leftover paint. Challenging to make something from it 🙂
Top left: stencilstamping. The contrast between the leaves and the white should be reduced to bring out a (future) stamped image more I think. Middle: left over ink and some stencilling with paint. beneath it also some left over paint. Next to it a cut out embossed piece of cardstock. Maybe make it gold?
Middle left: new Clarabelle stamps, arbre et oiseaux (or something similar, trees and birds). Too much stamping on top of eachother. There’s a red bird in there too. I should stamp it again on another paper, cut it out and glue it over the stamped image. Then the card is nearly done as it has it’s focus point. Middle wooden floor: that was a white piece of paper, brushed corduroy and some walnut stain distress paint swiped over it, then a clarabelle background stamp. It looks great!! Now to finish it – still many possiblitties. A tag with a word, finish it with some typography like a big “hello” – makes a nice men’s card. Or die cuts?
Next the sunrays from an embossing folder from Tim Holtz. Also for that previously mentioned colour challenge, you can see the fairy card next to it.
Bottom left: Clarabelle wood floor stamp onto green cardstock. I think I’ll swipe some brown over it and seehat it will be. It is stamped with brown ink, so not sure if it will be very visible still after it. THen some blue coloured bit, a robothead in a jar (vivalasvegastamps).
Left two cards: Kitchenfoil technique and leftover paint smeared out with plenty of water. Right: stencilling and trying out the megaflakes from indigo blue. The peacock didn’t show up as well as hoped, else it would have been a great card. What to do with it now? Try to highlight it by masking it and darkening the background? I think that might work. Chipped saffire or jeanscolour blue.
Now here you see 3 bits of very well succeeded background, the top right actually is a card allready. I decided not to stamp on it as it was pretty as it was. How is it made? Cut offs of cards, then glued on an A5 sheet of cardstock with decoupage glue, and also added it on top to make it look more smooth. Bottoom A5 sheet is done with non patterned cutoffs mostly, and I added some letters to it when decoupaging it. I don’t like the blue /letters on it. The right bit is painted with brushed pewter and some brown inka gold, it looks ok. But what next? And the blue left bits, change those colours as well?
Feel free to brainstorm with me about these cards!
What a month it’s been – and still is. I’ve had a few days off but it feels like I’m more tired then before. “Tropical years” is the literal translation of what other parents with multiple kids call it – the years when the children are under the age of 4.
No consolation from people with older kids though, as they say it doesn’t really get easier after that, it keeps being busy…
I’ve finished this card after I made the previous post, but didn’t have time yet to post it or take pictures at daylight, so I’ll just do with the pictures of the completed card in lampight.
The progress of the card in pictures. First, adding the paint and a card on top.
Spray with glimmer mist or water and wrap in kitchen foil, let dry. Then stamp over it.
I liked how it looked so far. extended some of the ink splatters a bit. I know a Cephalopod doesn’t spray ink from his tentacles, but who cares, it looks nice this way like he’s spray painting his surroundings. Like he’s protecting his pearl.
I wanted to add more scenery, so I stamped some seagrasses and coloured them in as silhouetes. I think I liked it better without them, they´re much too present. A well, it´s done. The sentiment I have added is “What´s your poison?”. I actually wanted something about ink (inky fingers) but didn’t know what, so I chose this one. Not sure how to use this card for now haha. But it was fun making it.
I hope to be able to share some more of my creations soon, my limited time “free” I rather spend crafting then blogging about it!
A birthday card for an 11 year old boy – what to make? Chocolate Baroque has stamps for that occasion as well, the steampunk sea set is very suitable for boys (of any age).
A few posts ago I wrote about the technique with kitchen foil, paint and spray, and at that time I made also a blue background with this technique, as you can see here. I didn’t put two pieces of cardstock together for this one though.
The colours were chosen from the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge #9. This is my first entry for the challenge. (Yup, the ocotopus is going to be another one but that one isn’t ready yet and I might have ruined the scene a bit. I think it looks good the way it is here, not sure if what I did was an improvement. Ah well, not this post.
All colours are incorporated in the background. The fishes are mostly pearly lila colour, together with some watery blue.
Some more blue in the seahorse, and bundled sage on the letters. Somehow Shaded Lilac and Milled Lavender are difficult for me to recognize, I keep picking the wrong one, they seem to be the same but when I look at the ink lids they are quite different. I think I did use shaded lilac on the letters though. First letter is a steampunk stamp set from Vivalasvegastamps, the other letters and banner are sizzix thinlits dies (tattered banners and some medieval alphabet I think).
It’s matted onto white card of which I pianted the edge blue.
I was running late for another entry for Designs by Ryn for the March challenge, so I decided to post this for the April challenge instead. And what a coincidence: the main stamp I used is on sale now! And one that I don’t have is on sale as well, so I think I’m going to order that one as a birthday present (ok my birthday has allready passed, and I got myself plenty of hobby-gifts, but hey, one more stamp…or a stamp and stencil…or two…)
How I made this card
Start by gathering pink/lila coloured paints. I don’t really like pink, but I think in a moment of sanity loss I had ordered some pink paint. So I decided to make a very pink card.
Also, I had bought the Winter sheet, to which I’ll refer to as the Celtic sheet from now on – it removes some mental limits to its use. Pink isn’t really a winter colour, so perfect for this stampset (to show that it’s also nice on non-winter cards).
Pour drops of it onto glossy or very smooth A6 cardstock, and press another piece of cardstock on top of it. Wiggle it around a bit, pull apart, turn one cardstock, put togehter again, pull apart, etc. Divide the paint with the papers so the entire surface (or almost all of it) is covered.
Then, spray with glimmer mist (or water, but a tutorial I once saw they used the glimmer mist because of a special reason I forgot). I had also used perlescent paint by the way.
After wetting it, wrap it in kitchenfoil. Wrinkle it and let dry.
Meanwhile, clean your dining table on which you sprayed perfect pearls mist because you managed to leave only 2 small A6 sized spots open to craft on on the edge of your craftsheet.
Ofcourse I have not taken a picture of the results at this point. Wouldn’t want you to spoil the surprise for you, just try for yourself!
I did this technique also with some other colours for another challenge, these are the results near the end. 4 cards, 2 backgrounds, (actually the right paper is where I put on the remaining paint, as I hate to throw away those leftovers.) The paper on top are the colours for the Chocolate Baroque colour challenge.
On the next picture you can see the foil effect very well.
HEre too, and here you can see how shiny it is. It is very shiny. A bit too much, so I covered it with stamps and ink. (Ofcourse I wanted to try out the new celtic stamps too.) Colouring the celtic symbols was tricky – I can’t paint inside the thin lines and making everything white is a bit boring. To bring out the figures more I added the blue.
I chose for white embossing this time, as it fit the celtic symbols. Gave the fairy a bronze colour and blue hair, blue and red dress and green/brown leaves/feathers. Some bronze/brown in the wings and harp, and accented the eyes.
I like the shiny bit above her head, like the harp produces magic.
Before matting it onto a white card I lightened up the edges a bit with some lila colour.
It could be a winter card still. Or it could just be a mystic summer card. Hope you like it!
Well, nothing really, except that I discovered the fun of marbled pearls while listening to the tune of Nils Holgersson.
First, a tip.
Tip 1: Don’t promise to post something on a date in the very near future if you haven’t written the post yet. If it’s further ahead, make a draft right away! I completely forgot I had promised untill I saw my pearls sheet laying around! So apologies for not doing as promised (“will be out later tonight at latest”) in my previous post. (Which is edited by the way with pictures of the disappearing fairy. Repeat some steps with different inks to make the fairy visible…)
Anyway, after (or during?) making that Autumn card I got distracted by my paper/perlen/gloss pens. This probably isn’t something new, but I disovered it while making the previous autumn card, and it was such fun to do!
What, then?
Marble with the liquid pearls-pens! (Viva Decore gloss gel pen, paper pen or perlen pen)
Pearls pearls pearls (or domed shaped discs or multicoloured pearlsplashes)
AFter the autumn fairy card I made a few more on a card, and loved the look. Oh, about that card!
I have shown you the background card before, it was made with the kitchen foil and acryllic paint technique.
I chose the blue/purple one to work with as it was hard to make something out of it anyway, I kind of considered it as wasted allready. So when I made those mushrooms for the previous card, I had fun, and wanted to make more pearls, but on what? Aah well, that card is failed anyway, let’s try this out some more on that card. And so it became a card I really like. It looked like some sort of migration of microbes, a journey. The title of that card is (and will be, as it’s not entirely finished yet) “Journey of the microbes”.
Nils Holgersson – the migration of the geese
Having the old cartoon Nils Holgersson on the background, with the intro music being heard every half hour when the next episode (or the same) starts might have influenced my crafting too. Nils Holgersson is about a farmboy who is mean to small animals. One day he catches a dwarf/gnome and he puts a spell in Nils, making him as small as he is, and then he disappears. Nils then starts to search for him, and he is accompanied on this journy by his hamster who has shrunk as well, and the farm-geese Maarten. Nils is able to talk to animals now, and learns a lot. They find a pack of wildgeese and travels with them to Lapland. – The journey is ofcourse what the series is about, I just recapped what I vaguely remember of the first episode and what I gathered from other episodes.
Hoog in de lucht boven Zweden – Over de huizen en over de zee – Vliegen de ganzen naar Lapland – Kruimel en Nils mogen mee
Nils Holgersson – Vliegt op een gans naar de zon – Nils Holgersson – Komt in het najaar weer om
Laag in de donkere bossen, hoog in de bergen waar ‘t koud is en guur – Nils en de ganzen beleven – steeds weer een nieuw avontuur
High in the air above Sweden – Above/over the houses and above/over the sea – The geese fly to Lapland – Kruimel and Nils can come along
Nils Holgersson – Flies on a geese to the sun – Nils Holgersson – Returns during FallLow in the dark forests – high in the mountains where it’s cold and bleak – Nils and the gees have – a new adventure all the time
See the background on the right? That was the start of the 2nd frame, but this time I would cut it out after I had made it, and use the left over bit for another card.
Almost the right frame, but it’s not yet it. It’s too rectangular, those geometric lines don’t fit.
This looks great! But not completely yet…
That card “just” needed a frame (as I wanted to make one for the Panpasteluk challenge). I made 1 frame but didn’t like it, then made 2 backgrounds to be cut up and serve as a frame, but I loved those soooo much I couldn’t cut them up! This led to me scanning the background, going ooh and aah over it, getting a lightbulb over my head (heeey, maybe there are a few people who would buy this? Design paper and such? digi, printable backgrounds?) And then I spent a few evenings behind photoshop and the scanner. (It’s not done yet). So after an evening/day or two only being behind the pc and not actually get my hands dirty I just needed to craft something quick. So I took a few of my outdated business cards, applied gesso on it, and then had some fun with it. Another thing that got me very enthousiastic, so the next crafting moments I was making more of those.
That’s how it also goes when I craft, you can understand now why I always have tons of projects going on, and how, even when I am trying to finish only 1, I end up with 10 new projects? And it’s also how I forget I would post about the pearls, or that I even made the pearls.
After that, I made a few pearls on my craftsheet as it occured to me that they get hard and I should be able to peel them off and glue them in place later on!
While drying I did something else – and ofcourse I smooshed a few pearls. Another lesson learned!
Tip #2: Make pearls on something that you can put aside so you can use your craft sheet for other things while you wait for it to dry.
Tip #3: Leave enough room between the pearls, more then twice the size of the first drop. Or don’t, if you want a ribbon/catapillar look 🙂
Look at the next picture. See the smudge on my craftmat, and how the pearls flowed into eachother. I think the drops started out as small as the blue ones above, but due to adding the liquid it becomes bigger ofcourse.
Marbling
I took a needle which I also use to unstuck my glossy accents bottle, and very carefully put the tip in the pearl. Don’t put it in too deep or you’ll break the pearl. It almost looks/feels like you’re not touching it at all. Try putting the needle in the first drop and move it slightly, then in the second drop (within the first drop). Play with it and see what it does.
Eyes
It’s easy: drop a small amount on a piece of acryllic or otherwise hard plastic sheet. Pick another colour and drop in a smaller drop of the liquid. Add a few more drops, but be aware that the cohesive force isn’t strong enough to make big pearls, you’ll more likely get domed discs if you use too much. (Oh, and leave enough room between them, see tip #3). You can leave it as is, or you can them do some marbling.
I liked the eyes I made, the blue and orange ones. You can see one blue eye fell to the left – I made the white drop too much to the side. Drop down blue, then white, then in the white another colour. No need to really wait for the white to have spread – the weight of the 3rd colour and the cohesiveness of the liquid makes sure the 3rd colour stays within the 2nd. That is, if you drop in a smaller amount – sometimes just touching the tip of the paper/perlen/gloss gel pen to the 1st layer is enough.
Clover pearls
Layer 2 colours. Then, dip your needle in the 1st colour and move inward into the 2nd. Clean your needle. Do this on 3 sides of the 2nd drop (let’s say north, east and west). Before you get to the third move, read tip #4 and forget about it. Because after the third time, you dip your uncleaned needle in the 1st layer and then move it inward.
Tip #4: Clean your needle every time you take it out of the pearls.
Little mushrooms
Drop 1 colour, add 3 tiny drops of another colour, not in the center. Turn your sheet if necessary for the right angle.
Swirls/fish
Layer 2 colours, the 2nd is in the center. Get your needle, dip it in the 2nd colour and move outward with a curve. Sometimes, when you let it dry a bit more, the substance gets a little less runny and you can “turn” it more easily without blending or breaking the pearls.
Retro circles
Drop 1: brown
Drop 2: yellow, in the center
Drop 3: orange, in the yellow, offcenter.
Leaves/swirls
2 layers, the 2nd drop in the center. Dip your needle in the first layer, almost not touch it, then move inward. Clean your needle, then move to a spot a bit more below (not going North East South West) move the needle a bit in the same direction, the middle colour will move a bit, sometimes it almost sinks to the side (the thickness of the pens might vary), but you can push it back with the needle.
Apple / flower
Those where hard to make, but I’m sure there’s plenty of crafty people out there who get better results or more consistent results than me. The apple (the green pearls): make swirlds first, then add the red dot. Daisy: (white and pink pearls): layer 3 colours, each one in the center of the previous one. Dip in the 1st colour, move inward in a straight line, repeat 3 or 4 times (so 4 or 5 times total). Clean your needle in between. Gerbera (white pearl) Start the same as the daisy, but make more moves and go in a circle, (following the outer circle of the 2nd drop when placing your needle) – alternate sides so the colour won’t be pushed to one side. Make a curved motion when you make the move.
You can see I had fun, I have lots of paper/perlen/gloss pens but don’t use them often, but I like them a lot :).
Usage
Well, I got as far as this before I got distracted. They can be peeled off easily once dry, the only challenge would be to adhere them to your card. I imagine some tweezers and a dot of glue on the card would be best. (Not on the pearl – if you drop it, the glue goes to the wrong spot).
Hopefully you aren’t distracted as easily as I am – then again, if you managed to get to the bottom of this post I guess you haven’t! Thanks for reading, and I’d love to know what you think of this.
If you have any of these pens, did you know about this? Have you got other fun things you can do with it to share?
The texture looks interesting, but the colours and images… it’s just not working right. e I should try spraying it all with ink? Cover the tag, spray the rest with ink, wipe the ink off the gold bits. Think that would bring it all together more?
DaqaDoodles 