A two-fer is always a good thing. The latest Online Card Class reminded me of this paper strip technique just in time for a couple of challenges today 🎉
TGIF Challenges – a colour challenge of white, real red and granny apple green
Day 5 of the Spellbinders advent calendar and I was a bit stumped what to make for a while. I finally decided to ink up the wee embossing folder with gold pigment ink and a brayer before dry embossing. I’m not sure whether to add gems or not but that’ll be a decision for tomorrow now 🙂
I decided to make a wee tag today to use the word dies from today’s advent window. I also added some dies from days 1 and 3, and a dotted rays embossing folder.
It took me a while to work out how to use today’s dies. The inspiration came from the AAA cards black, white and gold CAS challenge. I decided to team it with a gift box from day 1 and another larger one from Holiday haul die set and a background paper from Stampin’ Up!
While it didn’t quite work out the way I’d first planned, I enjoyed creating this spotlight card. I’ve decided I need to start using supplies in my stash so I’m finally trying to use gamsol and stumps to colour images with. Still need lots more practice but I’m enjoying the process.
I also decided to use my colour cubes for the first time to try a different colour palette … then realised I don’t have many pencil colours to choose from so it’s not quite the same as I had to use a red to make orange and it overpowered the yellow underneath. It’s all good, though, that’s all part of the learning!
I decided to treat myself to this year’s advent calendar from Spellbinders. I probably won’t keep up but I thought I’d try making something every day using the day’s box contents.
This is my day one effort, along with a few extra supplies.
Supplies used:
Day 1 of Spellbinders advent calendar – car and gift dies
Christmas tree pattern 3D embossing folder by Sizzix
I adore everything about this card – this is quite possibly my most favourite stencil of all time, and the Glitz glitter gel takes the simple ink blending to a whole other level.
Project: Drop down (snowflakes drop down)
Colours: Supper table (my crockery is all blues/aquas so that’s what I based my colours on)
Element: Season(s) (I chose the festive Christmas season)
Random: Shiny (you can’t get much more shiny than that Glitz glitter gel, but I also foiled my sentiment for an extra bit of shine)
I was away last weekend at a wedding and totally forgot about my Craft Roulette card until late Thursday night – I’d planned what I wanted to do while I was away but I had to quickly pivot to make something totally different that was a lot faster and simpler! This was the result.
Project: Fun fold (I chose a simple easel card)
Colours: Aquarium (I went for aqua water with orange and black for clown fish)
Element: November (23 November is National Espresso Day)
Random: 3-item cluster (coffee bean embellishments next to the word ‘coffee’)
Supplies used:
Perk up stamp and stencil combo by Taylored Expressions
Cozy cup stamp by The Greetery
Cup refills stamp by Casual Fridays (sentiment – I cut the stamp in half so I could use the words in sections)
Crafty roast clay coffee bean embellishment mix by Trinity Stamps
Inks by Gina K Designs in (from memory) Ocean mist, Turquoise sea, Tranquil teal, Sweet mango, Tangerine twist, Faded brick, Kraft, Warm cocoa, Black onyx
Tranquil teal and Tomato soup cardstocks by Gina K Designs
A few people have asked for instructions on how to make the autumn leaf card in my last post using gilding flakes, so I’ve just quickly taken a series of photos before I put my products away. I hope it all makes sense – if not feel free to leave a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer the best I can, although in all fairness I’m no expert in this technique.
Supplies that I used:
Gilding flakes (I ended up using Red Blaze by Cosmic Shimmer, leftover Copper flakes from our Crafter’s Companion/Crop & Create Delivered class kit, and Radiant gold by Nuvo)
Mixed media liquid glue, inkpad and sponge from Crafter’s Companion (sponge isn’t in the photo oops)
Stamps of choice (I used Autumn Silhouettes by Gina K Designs)
Cardstock layers as desired (I chose to replicate my black layered card, so I have three layers of black cardstock to complete my card here – one for the base layer, one of the gilded edge layer, and one for the stamped top layer)
Container of water for the stamp once covered in glue
Step 1: Fill the ink pad with the liquid glue – note that it needs to be very juicy. I’ve also had the best results when I work it around the top of the pad to make it a bit foamy.
Note, this is a special ink pad designed for this technique, and is a foam pad – don’t use your dye ink pads for this technique, or you’ll ruin those.
Step 2: ‘Ink up’ your chosen stamp with the glue on the ink pad, then stamp onto the cardstock. Note, you must do this step really quickly or the glue will start to dry on the stamp and it can really easily tear your cardstock when lifting the stamp up (ask me how I know!). Continue to stamp as many images as you need, adding a bit more glue to the ink pad each time before stamping to keep it juicy.
Step 3: Once you’ve finished stamping, set your stamped panel to one side to dry. Don’t forget to throw your glue-covered stamps into the container of water once you’ve finished stamping with them!
Step 4: Once the glue has dried for a while, you can start adding the gilding flakes. In this example I chose to just use one leaf stamp and one tub of gilding flakes that has a pre-mix of rich autumn colours.
You seem to get the best results when you lay the flakes in a ‘flat’ position over the gluey areas so it retains it’s shine a bit better. Some flakes turn to dust more quickly when you rub over with your fingertips to work them into the glue, which is what you need to do to get a full coverage with the flakes. Just keep adding another little ‘pile’ on top of any gaps and smooth with your fingertips to get them to adhere to the glue – the dust and clumps are inevitable, but it’s good to keep it to a minimum if you can.
Step 5: Burnish with the wee sponge to get all the residual flakes off, and the beautiful shine comes through. It’s my favourite part of the process seeing those rough images start to transform.
Step 6 – mat layer: For my card I decided to use gilding flakes on the edges of my mat layer for a consistent look. This can be done either by swiping the gluey ink pad along the edges and then applying the gilding flakes as above, or by adding double-sided adhesive tap along the edges and applying the gilding flakes to that instead. Both options give pretty much the same result.
Glue option: This is how it will look if you swipe the edges with the gluey ink pad (and this is what I did on my first card):
Important: If you’re swiping the edges with the glue don’t do what I did – make sure you put some scrap paper down over our work surface before you start, or you’ll end up with a very pretty gilded table surface! Hand sanitizer and a bit of scrubbing should get it off, though (I was too lazy to mix up some soapy water) … at least that worked on my glass mat, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that on a wooden surface.
Adhesive tape option: For my second attempt I decided to use the adhesive tape (I didn’t get quite to the edge, so I had to do a quick trim after I completed the gilding – I recommend doing that before pulling the release paper off, though, as I ended up with a slight tackiness on the edges afterwards). In hindsight I needn’t have bothered trimming, though, because all my card layers are black and it shouldn’t have been obvious … doh!
Because I wanted to have mostly gold with just a hint of copper, I covered most of the edges with gold flakes first.
Then I filled in any gaps with copper flakes.
I then buffed off the extra bits with the sponge, the same way I did with the stamped leaf panel.
Step 7: All that’s left to do now is to glue the layers together on my cardfront.
Step 8: I added a few small ’24 karat’ sequins from Gina K Designs and a sentiment, and my card is finished.
If you have any questions, I’ll try to answer as best as I can. I’ve found the Crafter’s Companion glue difficult to find locally in Australia so I’ve bought some Prima Marketing gilding glue to try next, but not sure how it will go on stamps … time will tell …
I used the Autumn Silhouettes stamp set by Gina K Designs with some gilding flakes to create this CAS card. Mostly created around 1am after falling asleep yesterday at 4pm 😳 Feeling rubbish today but just had to glue the layers together to finish it while waiting for some water to boil yay. That’s my card for day 14 of my card a day challenge with Mel’s Card Corner who’s sadly more under the weather than me today 🙁 And on that note back to bed I go … but not before adding this to the following challenges:
