Hello Crafter's
Saturdays are "my days", meaning that my daughters walk over to their grandparents, where they have breakfast, while I can sleep in. In theory anyway.
For months after we started this arrangement, they used to start their Saturdays by crashing down my bedroom door, jumping in (and on) my bed and yelling "Mum, we're leaving, you can sleep in today!!!"on the top of their voices.
By now, they don't usually do that anymore. Except today, they got up at 5 am, woke me to tell me so and wanted to leave straight away, because granny always says she gets up early anyway. What did I do wrong??? I am sooo tired now!
But I still want to show you a card I made this week:
I stamped the monster on green cardstock, cut it out and added googly eyes and some white gel pen for the tooth. Then I cut one of my monoprints to size, matted it with a piece of the same green cardstock and die cut a circle for the little monster, so it could sit on white. I created the speechbubble with an oval stencil and my fiskars cutting tool, leaving a bit at the bottom uncut, so I could freehand the arrow. The sentiment says "Monster birthday wishes" and is added with foam adhesive, like the monster.
Then I pimped the envelop (one of my new ones from the trade show) by sponing on distress inks with the same stencil. The colors don't match exactly, but I didn't want to mess with the gelli plate and acrylic paint just for the envelop...
And while I was at it, I also modified an envelop for one of the stenciled cards I did a few weeks ago. On the card, I used gelatos, but on the envelop it's distress ink. But the colors match surprisingly well.
Hope you all have a great week-end.
Ela
Hello out there,
a while ago I watched this video about how to make your own DIY Gelli plate for mono printing. The idea kind of stuck in my head, I really wanted to try this out, but never got to do it. Until in the Stenciled class, Shari Carroll brought the thought back to live.
I found a cheap used Gelli plate on ebay, but bids went too high for my taste, so I went back to that video and created my own plate from gelatine, glycerin and water.
It turned out quite nicely, though might have liked it a little large. I didn't have a perfect sized container.
I have not yet created any cards, except the one I posted on Friday, but I tried a few prints with only 3 of my stencils, just for the fun of trying it out.
Love
Ela
Hey Crafters,
last week-end my daughters and I visited the craft trade show. My girls love it there, because you can try out all kinds of crafts and spend a whole day in crafty paradise. I personally love it a little less, because it is expensive. For every craft project a small amount is charged, which quickly sums up to a much less small amount... And there is temptation everywhere.
I really held myself back buying stuff this year, considering that I had only received a large order from Simon's a week ago. But still, I couldn't resist a new stamp set (Milo's ABC by Lawn Fawn), a stencil (Texture Wave by Memory Box) and 3 mini Stamp Pads by Stampin' Up. And a whole bunch of foam adhesive, because they were cheap and you always need them...Oh, and new blank white envelops, because my old ones are nearly used up AND they were not so pretty, being from the office supplies. My new ones are much nicer!
My daughters spend the day playing and creating, here are some of the things they created:
Love
Ela
Hello crafters,
it's Friday, I am very glad this week is over.
I have to catch up with a few things too. But right now I am just about to leave the house, to pick up my kids, go shopping and visit friends for the rest of the day. Therefore I'll just show you the very quick card I created today with my new "Fresh daisies" die from Simon's and a monoprint from my frist try in gelli printing.
To tell the truth: I wanted to use blue, but grabbed black instead. And as I already had the color on my gelli plate before I noticed, I tried to make the best of it by adding some white and pink. The tiny bits of blue you can see is a leftover from the print before, which I hadn't cleaned off too well, beause I had planned to use blue again... But in the end I quite liked it.
By the way, this is the 3rd generation print, the first two I did through a stencil. This one was the first without the stencil, to clean off the plate.
I have not yet created a matching envelop, I'll probably do this over the week-end and if I don't forget I'll add a picture.
Wishing you a crafty week-end
Ela
Here is the envelop I promised:
Hello Crafters,
tonight my daughters were out late. Heroes night at the local library; Crafting, reading, playing heroes from 6-10 pm. They have had heaps of fun, I love it, when they are so excited that they can't wait to tell it all... They keep interrupting each other, and I never really find out much, but I can see the fun they had.
For me that meant a good excuse to busy myself with some crafting that I had planned to do for quite a while.
I used to store my alcohol markers in a small box with a lid, which was pretty and didn't take a lot of room, but I was not convenient. So two or three months ago, I decided I need a marker shelf. I spent weeks thinking about the best solution, to get a cheap shelf, like Ikea "Moppe" or builing one from wood myself. Bur none of these solutions really convinced me. In the end, I accidentally came across a food packaging, that fit perfectly. And the inside is printed with a monochromatic pattern, so I don't need to paint it go with plain white. So for weeks we had all the different variations of that desert, until I had 8 boxes, each one fits up to 10 Spectrum Noir markers comfortably (more if you squeeze them in, but I don't want that). Right now, I could have saved some space and put gray, brown and pink in one box, but I planned ahead. I am sure I will get more markes... So there is one box each for the reds, yellows, greens, blues (actually it's the teal set), grays, neutrals and pinks/skintones. The box on the top left is for special markers, like the white blender pen and my black Tombow marker (if ever I find it again).
I decorated the side and top with some patterned paper.
It's not perfect, but it was cheap and easy and it fits my needs perfectly. So I am very happy with it.
But I did some more:
I also wanted to create my own color mists for ages, and especially since "Stenciled"...I tried with Gelatos, but that didn't work like I had hoped. But I heard that you could mix them from watercolor paint, and I got a set of 12 tubes that were not too expensive only a while ago. So I went for it and mixed my own mists. And of course I had to try them out straight away.
I tried out the misted card from stenciled, and I am really sad that I didn't make it before the gallery closed. The envelop curled up quite a bit, it's from the office supplies and not the best quality. So I'll try to straighten it out under some books, I hope that helps a little.
Now let's call it a day. Sleep tight
Ela
Hello again crafters,
I played some more with my new supplies, I am wildly in love with them. Only trouble is: I can't decide what to use first.
But the urgent need of a really cool masculine birthday card made me decide in the end.
For the first card I stenciled a brick wall on light grey cardstock, and die cut a note with a pin for the sentiment. It's not one of my new dies, but one I've never used before. I got it cheap at an outlet sale I visit rather regularly (Efco). They never sold dies there before, but these little ones are retiring so they had quite a few at the last sale.
I also created the matching envelop.
For the second card I used my new supplies. It is inspired by this card from Kim at TAWS. I hope it's not too close to the original. I LOVE the little circle border stamp, and the goggly eyed monster. But even more I love the sentiment: "My imaginary friend said you're special".
My daughters, like me, fell instantly in love with the monster stamp set (Monster Mash, by TAWS), I think they will be stamping monsters all over the place for the next weeks, if not months.
Happy crafting
Ela
Hi Crafters,
I hope you are having a great day!
As my order from Simon's arrived yesterday, I wanted to play a bit with my new supplies. But at the same time I still wanted to complete a few envelops for the cards I created for the Stenciled online class. So I combined both and created the envelops using some of my new supplies.
Here they are:
Love
Ela
Hello out there,
I am overjoyed, my order from Simon's has finally arrived. I've been so desperately waiting for it, and "Stenciled" has increased my need for it even more, and now it's finally there!
Mind you, no blame to Simon's they shipped it super fast, it's simply a long long way to Europe...
The paket got ripped in the mail, and I first feared that several things were missing, but I was lucky, only one stamp is missing. That's bad enough, but I would have been much more disappointed if it had been a whole stampset or a die...
So, I think I'll have to craft tonight, even though I am tired enough to fall asleep right here, right now... It's been a long day for me.
If only I knew where to start. I think I'll start by trying it all once...
Happy crafing
Ela
