Happy Birthday

Hello Friends, 

how are you? 

Today's card was again made with bits and pieces I had prepared a long time ago. Well, actually it's only one piece, which is the main panel I coloured with Gelatos, back in the day. I found it in my stash and decided to make something with it. 

Since it was a bit narrower than the card base, I decided to leave a white border and spell out Birthday along the edge. I also added a strip to say happy. I've had that stamp set for a long time, but I've only made it work for me lately, with my stamping platform. Before I was never able to get good coverage on any of these sentiments because they have so much solid area.

The result was a bit bare still, so I looked through my stash of stickers and found this ice lolly that matched neatly and added a splash of red, which I like a lot. 

I hope you'll have a lovely day

Ela

Mixed Media first try

Hi Crafters,

I've been seeing a lot on the internet lately about mixed media and art journaling, it really got me hooked. When I went to the art supplies store to get some more tape runner refill the other day - I've really used a lot of that lately, with all the inlay technique cards - and I found a pad of Canson mixed media paper I simply couldn't resist.I also found some matt gel medium, and got that too.

I am not thinking of it, as an art journal, that would probably just intimidate me, but I really would like to try out new things with it.

For my first "page" I chose a rather simple flower design to go with spring, which was in the air today:

I gessoed the page and used Gelatos for the background. Then I free-handed the coulds and flower from lightweight printer paper, stamped the clouds with a background stamp and glued them to the page. The flower I coloured with orange color mist and a brown tombow marker and glued it down too. The dragonfly is stamped, sponged with distress inks, fuzzy cut and also glued on.

Stem and leaves are free-handed directly on the page with tombow markers and the rest of the shrubbery is stamped.

For the letters, I sponged some thin watercolor paper with yellow distress ink, and sponged on some leaves through a stencil, for some texture. Then I cut the letters with my big shot and a Tim Holtz die.

To add shadows I tried replacing big brush markers with tombow, and it worked well enough. I really can't afford to buy yet another sort of markers...

So, there it is, my first "non art journal page".
And I learnt a few things already, like don't use distress inks in mixed media, for anything that's supposed to stay crisp. Sponging is ok, because if it smears a bit more with the gel medium - who cares...


Have a nice day
Ela

C&S 3 Day 1: Christmas and Daisies

Hi there,

I've not been very creative this week-end, maybe I am suffering from an overflow?

Yesterday I mass produced bookmarks for my daughters' birthday in June. They are all done, but I want to laminate them to make them more durable and then add some ribbon or yarn. So I first need to borrow a laminator, because I don't own one. After I've done that, I'll show you.

And today I managed two more cards, still with the layering technique. I had such an idea out poor on Monday, that I haven't even thought about the other techniques yet.

The background for the first card was again created with gelatos. The rest is just a variation of what I did before.

The second card is another early Christmas card. I used some patterned paper as a background. I had no matching red card stock, so I darkened a bright red with some brown distress ink. It didn't match the colour exactly and it's kind of cloudy, because cardstock wasn't very smooth, but it's toned down enough.

Inlaying the word over the delicate snowflake was a risk, so I stuck down the snowflake with heaps of adhesive and ran it through the big shot several times with a piece of card stock as a shim. In the end it was easier than I would have thought.

I glued on the positive die cuts to the envelops to make them match. I used a glue pen, which works exactly like a gel pen, only that it's filled with glue. So you can precisely glue down the tinyest pieces. I really hope it's strong enough, that would really solve a problem!

Have a nice day
Ela

C&S 3 Day 1: Layered Butterfly - NEVER again

Hello Crafters,

today, all my ideas seem to be terribly time-consuming... I pulled out my butterfly die once again. I've had much trouble with it before, it doesn't cut properly without a shim, and unfortunately I still don't have one. I make do with cardstock, but it's still not working perfectly.

Not the best conditions for paper piecing the butterfly, right? So I thought, but the butterfly wasn't what caused all the trouble. The Happy die did not cut as nicely as usually - the thin bit of printer paper that held the other die cuts in place was just a bit too much, so I had trouble to get out the pieces.

And the most stupid idea of the day: Piecing the Happy together in two colors... I totally messed up the first P, please don't enlarge the picture.I tried to cover it a bit with white gel pen, but it's still quite visible.

Except for that flaw, I am quite ok with the result. The green cardstock was created with green, blue, yellow and gold Gelatos and Gesso and has a little shimmer to it, which the foto doesn't show.


Well, off to bed, it's half past 1 am, I had never planned to stay up that long.


Sleep tight
Ela

P.S. This  time I created no matching envelop, if ever I send that card, it'll have to be a plain white envelop.

C&S 3 Day 1: I am still layering

Hello there,

I still have not moved on to the other techniques, but I decided that it's okay. If that's what my heart desires, who am I to tell it otherwise? There'll be plenty of time (okay, not plenty, time is what I never seem to have) to do the other techniques...

This card took me just about forever, I was actually planning to do something entirely different, playing with my Gelatos and trying to create a nice background for my dies. As these have to dry a little, I started on several backgrounds, layering several wasches of color and gesso. This one was the one I considered done and dry first.

The color scheme reminded me of sunset, so I decided to have the circle look like a sun. This made me think of a hope theme, so I chose feathers and a Get Well sentiment. For  the feathers I had first thought of a sihouetted look, but then black feathers seems somehow creepy and not at all hopeful, so I went for white and a contrasting colored one. I chose blue, because it would stand out  most and also because blue and orange are complementary colors.

The blue feather gave me a hard time, I wanted an uneven look, with darker and lighter blues, but I only have the one light blue Gelato. So I went back to my favorite of my daughters' craft supplies, the Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 pencils. If you don't know them, they are very chunky and somewhere inbetween a colored pencil and a wax crayon. They are water soluable and work great for watercoloring. The colors are very vibrant with good coverage.

I coated the feather with my blue gelato, and added droplets of darker blue on the wet feather, so the colors could flow and blend. I also flicked on some white droplets with my IZINK Jasmine.

I added the panel to a white card base and created a matching envelop. Unfortunately a little color got under the mask for the address, so I'll probably have to stick on an address sticker after all.

This card was definately neither clean nor simple, except for  the fact that it ended with only one layer (on top of the cardbase), but it was really fun, and such a creative mess. But I fear that's probably the only card I finish tonight.


Happy craftig
Ela

Flowers and butterflies

Hi again,

I love this day, I am soooo crafty...

I created another card using my Gelatos. I love them, because they are so nice and vibrant, but at the same time I am still kind of scared of them. I had planned to use vellum for the sentiment, but I didn't like it when I tried it out. Couldn't stand to cover the colors...

I'd also like to show you a card I created a while ago, even though I am not quite happy with it.
I created it to try out the new stamp set, but I think it turned out too busy. I should have used more of the larger flowers and kept the stamped area smaller. But to try it out it was fine, and it's a single layer...

Now I fear I have to quick crafting for today, and get something done in the kitchen, before I have to pick up my kids from school.


Bye
Ela

Stenciled - Take 4

Hi again,

Next I tried heat embossing the butterfly and coloring the background with my Gelatos. Today I blended them dry. I matted the panel on some black and white washi tape and kept it without a sentiment.

I did some more heat embossing afterwards, but that panel had to dry, so I forgot about it and now it's still just a panel no card. Hopefully I'll do something with it tonight. Truth be told, I doubt it, because I'll have all the new videos to watch...


See you in a bit, when I will post the last card for this morning.
Ela

Stenciled - Take 2

Hello Crafters out there,

did I say I was off to bed? I lied!

I couldn't resist a go at misting, but I entirely failed. I don't have any mists, but I do own a set of Gelatos I have never used. I've wanted to make a mists from them for ages and never dared, because they are so expensive.
But I went ahead tonight, but it simply didn't work. So I gave it up and went for blending the Gelatos with a baby wipe and my fingers. So here is the result:

I embossed the sentiment on vellum, added a few rhinestones and popped up the panel on the card base.


So now, please stop posting pictures, I really desperately need some sleep.
Good night
Ela

P.S: I remembered to take the daylight shot: