Mixed media faux cloisonné gerbera for Uniko's 10th birthday!

Dusted off the blog and hopefully I can get back into posting more often again, rather than just on Facebook and Instagram. Doing a blog post is a great reminder of how I made some of my cards and so useful to look back on in the future! 

Today I have made a card to celebrate Uniko's 10th birthday. I wanted to try out one of the faux cloisonné techniques I recently came across and knew I wanted to experiment with the fabulous gerbera set. 

Pure Florals: Gerbera (Uniko Studio)

For this card, I used the magazine technique. I found a large photo of some yellow Echinacea in a gardening magazine, which I cut out and adhered to a piece of 200gsm white cardstock. I stamped both flower images (one of them twice) and both sizes of the leaf stamp in embossing ink, carefully choosing which parts of the photo to use, embossed in gold and fussy cut. I did find that using glossy magazine paper made the embossing slightly brittle and very easy to chip off so I'm making a note to be very careful with it, especially when fussy cutting the images. 

For my background I used something I previously made in a Tracy Evans workshop by using alcohol inks in plain water and dipping lightweight cardstock into it. This piece was primarily blues, greens and yellows though I can't remember now the colours of inks that I used. I added interest with some blue Distress Oxide splatters, stamped the sentiment in blue and used my embossing ink pad and gold EP to add a border to the edge of the card. I arranged my flowers and leaves on the card gluing the leaves flat. The partially opened flower has just been raised in the middle with foam pads and glued at the edges, whilst the two big blooms were stuck on with foam pads. 

I love how this turned out but next time I want to try using my IndigoBlu Luscious pigment powders to paint the flowers as I think this will give a more realistic cloisonné effect.

Pure Florals: Gerbera (Uniko Studio)

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Pure Florals: Gerbera, Simply Said Birthday (Uniko Studio)

Ink Pads: Stormy Sky (Distress Oxides), Cornflower Blue (Wendy Vecchi Archival - Ranger)

Embossing: WOW Embossing Pad, Gold embossing powder

Snippets: White cardstock (200gsm), Magazine paper, Alcohol inks

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

Quest 1: The Linky Party (Uniko Studio 10th Birthday Celebrations)

Many congratulations Bev, on reaching such a milestone birthday. It's no mean feat for a small company especially with all the crazy events of the past few years!

Thanks for visiting!

Stef

AALL & Create Mini Book

This is a little album that I made following a facebook live (or three!) by the wonderfully talented Tracy Evans using stamps by AALL & Create, some by Tracy. I love the way it has turned out and will definitely be making more mini books as I just adore them!

The front cover

The book started as an A4 sheet of thin card (200gsm). The first layer was made by dripping alcohol inks into a bowl of water, then immersing the card in it and leaving it to thoroughly dry. The lovely thing about this technique is that you get colour on both sides, just lighter on the back. I did a whole pile while I was at it so now have a lovely stash of backgrounds to use!

Back cover

The card was then folded and cut to make a book 7.5 x 10.5cm. Two separate pieces of thicker card were used to make book covers. Layers of blue/green paint were applied to the covers and areas removed using a stencil with a baby wipe. Touches of purple were added using a stencil dabbed in paint, misted and used as a stamp. Extra stamping was added using the same blue and green paints. The main images were stamped in black and then decoupaged on book text. Sentiments were added using smooshed scraps of card. Doodles and splatters with white pens were added for even more texture!

Pages 1 & 2

Pages 1 and 2 are my least favourite, but they were created using similar techniques to the front and back covers with extra touches of purple introduced with an old credit card. I wish now I'd kept the black on black and the blue on blue!

Pages 3 & 4

This are my favourite pages, it just works and I love the slightly paler colours! The image was stamped onto card smooshed with ink pads and misted a lot! It's nice to also see the original alcohol inked backgrounds on these pages.

These pages were created by adding Distress Oxides blended through a stencil and continues the circle theme to the book. Texture was added with background stamping and this time the sentiments were stamped onto book text.

Left over stamped elements were added to some of the pages. The book was finished by adding lines of stitching to the open pages and sandwiching pieces of ribbon before adhering the front and back covers.

Supplies used:
Ranger Alcohol Inks: Dandelion, Denim, Silver (mixative)
Fresco Finish Acrylics: Amethyst, Venice Blue, Zucchini
Stencils: Bubbles (IndigoBlu), Mini Tiny Circles (TCW)
Distress Inks & Oxides: Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint, Seedless Preserves
AALL & Create Stamps: #150 Create It Grunge, #162 Bouquet Border, #239 Teasel
Inks and Pens: Onyx Black (Versafine), White pen for splatters(Posca), White pen for detailing (Sakura Gelly Roll)
Caran D'Ache Crayons: Leaf Green, Royal Blue
Snippets: 200gsm thin white card, Greyboard, Book text, Ribbon 

If nothing else this serves as a reminder for making the next one!
Stef x

Mixed Media Valentine

I was lucky enough to receive a subscription to Craft Stamper for Christmas and a project in the March edition really caught my eye when looking for some Valentine inspiration. I haven't copied Tracy's project but have been inspired by the design and by her sketch to make my card.

I made a masterboard by brayering 'Blue Oyster' acrylic paint lightly in patches onto a piece of 300gsm card and then with a dry brush/baby wipe applied patches of 'Mermaid', 'Jade', 'Lime Marmalade' paints and white gesso until I was happy with my background. I then dry brushed it with the Interference paint which gave it a gorgeous opalescent sheen in places. I stamped the background script with Distress ink.

I don't have any mdf shapes so I made my own heart embellishment by die-cutting a heart five times from strong grey card and sandwiched them together. I applied texture paste on top and left it to dry before adding patches of 'Mermaid' and 'Lime Marmalade' paint and then overpainting with 'Park Lane'.

I dry brushed two doilies, one for the outside and one for the inside with 'Mermaid', 'Lime Marmalade' and 'Park Lane' paint. The sentiment was printed using my Dymo Letratag gadget with paint smeared over the top.

I cut a piece of the masterboard to fit my card blank using a dark blue mat. The doily and the sentiment were stuck to the card colouring around the edges with a blue pencil to embed them into the card. Scraps of ribbon, lace and cotton thread were stuck to the doily before placing the heart on top. I finished by making some marks with white gesso and splattering blue paint and white gesso to tie everything together. The piece of the doily that was left over from the front of the card was put on the back for interest and the remaining doily was stuck inside with the other part of the sentiment.

Supplies Used:
Acrylic Paints: Blue Oyster, Jade & Mermaid (PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk); Lime Marmalade & Park Lane (IndigoBlu), Interference Green (DecoArt Fluid)
Stamps: Background Script (Lavinia Stamps)
Inks: Stormy Sky (TH Distress)
Dies: Classic Hearts (Spellbinders)
Snippets: 300gsm card, Thick grey card, White doilies, White gesso, Pearlescent embossing paste, Blue pencil (Derwent Cumberland), Ribbon, Lace, Cotton thread

Tracy's original

I would like to enter this project into the following challenges:

Country View Crafts: February 2018 Anything BUT Cute

Happy Little Stampers: February 2018 Anything Goes With Dies

I seemed to have everything everywhere while making this project but I really enjoyed doing it! Thanks for visiting.

Stef x