Experimenting with Stencils

Stencils seem to be The Thing at the moment don't you think.  I have had both plastic and metal for a while but have only recently done any amount of experimenting with them.  It's fun and I've been enjoying it.  Lots of VERY different ways of using your stencils and some are messier than others!!!  Make sure you wear old clothes or a coverall when using the stencil paste or acrylic paint.  Well worth a bit of mess I can assure you.  We are going to have a full day stenciling workshop at the end of  May.  More experimenting to do before then.  Hope you are enjoying the Easter break.  I'm just off out into the garden to do some more tidying up ready for the garden going to bed for the winter.  Yuk!!!  Thanks for visiting today.

Butterfly Corner

I am totally floored by this card!!! Thank-you Christina Griffiths for showing us how to achieve such a beautiful card.  It was SO lovely to do and I for one would be over the moon should one turn up in the mail at my house.  The only drawback???  Glitter from one end of the house to the other!!! Still no such thing as a free lunch they say.  Small price to pay really for such a gorgeous card.  Hope you like it too.  Right Hey ho, hey ho it's off to camp I go.  LOL Have a good day one and all.

Very Busy Times

Hello Everyone it is an age since I talked with you all.  Very busy times here just now.  Last week I went to stay with my good friend Alison for a few days.  It was lovely and we had a fine time walking and talking and of course crafting.  Not a long enough stay but glad for the chance.  Thanks Ali for making me so welcome.  This week I have been preparing for a double class this coming Saturday.  Had to have it all done by today because I'm going on a wee overnight camp tomorrow night with our youngest Granddaughter (10) and then on a bush tramp on Friday.  Sadly the weather has turned cool and a bit wet so I hope it all goes OK.  We will have fun whatever but may just have to sleep in the hall rather than the tents as planned.  Then to cap it all Blogger didn't want to let me post tonight.  I think it was sulking because it is SO long since I did a post.  Anyway I hope you like the cards.l  They are each done with some form of stenciling which is just the latest craze is it not?  I have been having fun trying different techniques in readiness for a class later in the year.  Hope you like the results.  Right I'm off to bed as I don't rexpect there will be a lot of sleeping going on tomorrow night. LOL PS I took pix both with and without the flash.  On the poppy one I have used stencil paste and micro glass beads which pick up the light of the flash very well

Pretty Little Lady

Just had fun with this card just for the sake of fun.  No special reason or occasion for it I just played and this is what came out.  I must say I quite like it and it was nice not to be under any sort of pressure or time constraints as is usually the case.  Hope you like it and I hope your weekend is going along well and you are all enjoying doing something you want to do. Thanks for looking.

Envelope Punch Board Class . . . .

. . . .  coming up later this month.  An all day class making all the things in the photo.  It's always good to be able to use a piece of equipment for more than one thing.  Makes the purchase so much more value for money.  So that is the idea behind the class and I thank many ladies who have generously shared their talent over YouTube so that people like me can learn these new techniques.  Thank-you.

Playing With Parchment

Hello Everyone and I hope your weekend is going well.  Lovely Saturday here in Upper Hutt.  I've been playing with parchment/vellum these last few days and I've posted the resulting cards today for you to see.  I haven't used any parchment/vellum for ages.  I did do some Pergamano a few years ago but whilst it is beautiful it is just too time consuming for me. These few cards vary from quick and simple to more time consuming ones.  I LOVE the look I achieved by dry embossing the parchment with normal embossing folders and my E-Bosser.  It gives a similar look to Pergamo but MUCH quicker. The other two cards have a parchment/vellum overlay which gives a lovely (I think) soft, muted effect.  The golden rule when stamping on parchment is to use an archival ink which WILL dry.  Having said that, I did use Adirondack Pitch Black to stamp the rose on the parchment because I wanted to use my ProMarkers (alcohol based) to colour the image and if you use archival ink it reacts with the markers and smudges.  So how did I get the Adirondack to dry??  I left the image for a while and then gently blotted  the image to see how wet it still was.  I then heat set it making sure to keep the heat gun WELL away from the surface.  A little patience required but it worked eventually.

Ombre Technique

 I came across this technique whilst browsing through Blog Land. . . . .  As you do!!! It had immediate appeal . . .  to me anyway and it looked simple so I had a go.  Had to buy 4 different shades of card first.  Such yummy colours to choose from.  Aren't we just so spoilt???  Anyway you can see what I chose after much deliberation.  I made number 2 card first (don't quite know why it didn't come out as number 1.  It was supposed to.  Anyway getting back to number 2 card . . . It is pretty basic but you need to be accurate.  Nothing looks worse than strips of card which don't quite  line up top and bottom!!! I jazzed my strips up a bit by embossing them.  Now I got to thinking outside the square.  Card pictured as number 3 came next.  I wanted to use a set of nesties so came up with the idea of using double sided sticky sheet to stick my strips to before cutting my largest Labels 20 and then embossing again. I punched flowers in the four colours of card to mount on a dark green label. The last one was just a straight cutting of the 4 sizes of Labels 20 in the 4 shades of blue.  Added a filigree butterfly and some pearls and voila.  There we have it.  I am hoping this post works.  I haven't been able to post to my Blog  since FOREVER.  Every time I try it error out so I am trying Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer.  Not as familiar with this so I have my fingers crossed!!!