Crafty Lizzie

After the Rain Comes the Rainbow

Hello there! I'm sharing one of my rare designs that I truly love and that came out exactly as I had pictured in my mind. (Both of these things are relatively rare occurrences!)

I started with a piece of Distress White Heavystock. I used VersaFine Clair to stamp this sentiment from Impression Obsession*, and then used Newton's Nook Design's Raindrops stencil with some of Ranger's Transparent Matte Texture Paste. I set the paper aside to dry for maybe 20 minutes or so, and then took out my blender brushes to blend the rainbow on top of the now-dried texture paste. I used Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry, Orange Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron, and Peacock Feathers. And BAM -- the card was done! Besides the drying time for the paste, this design was so simple and fast!

* As I write this post, Impression Obsession's website is down for "maintenance," and I am not sure how soon they will be back. I had read recently that IO plans to discontinue all of their cling red rubber stamps, which is a huge bummer. BUT, after having read their explanation -- which I am not able to find at the moment -- it does make sense for the direction of their business to focus on clear stamps. Anyway, I *so* love their sentiments and am really glad I paused on their website some months back, in darker COVID days, to study their inventory and place a couple of large orders. :-)

Dusted off the Alcohol Inks...

I learned about alcohol inks years ago... maybe five years ago or so at one of Jenn Shurkus's Creative Journey Art Retreats on the Cape. Her events are always amazing -- virtual or in person! -- but this one was particularly great, and I got way inspired by the alcohol inks we had used in class. I bought a ton of supplies, with intentions to get all inky with these cool new techniques and goodies.

Well, life kept on happening and those supplies have just been hanging out, waiting for their day in the sun, so to speak. When I received the You Mean the World to Me kit from Simon Says Stamp! and it included three alcohol inks and a piece of YUPO paper, well, I decided not to wait to dip (or maybe re-dip) my toe into this inky technique.

I used Alcohol Ink in Gumball and Laguna, and Alcohol Pearls Ink in Alchemy. I threw caution and control to the wind and dripped the inks on the YUPO, and then took a straw and tried to blow the colors around. I let them blend and dry. And I stared at the paper, trying to figure out if I liked it or not. It's messier than I usually craft. It's not precise. Could I have somehow done "better?" Without a doubt, yes. But the more I stared at it the more I came to accept it as messily acceptable, maybe even verging on pretty in spots. I liked it enough to not want to throw it in the trash.

So, I cut the piece of YUPO in two, fished out a couple of apropos sentiments from Tim Holtz Idea-ology's quote chips pack, and I called it a day. The expressions in the pack are seriously just amazing. Perfectly perfect.

Make Today Count

Happy Monday -- and for those of you with school-aged children, happy return-to-school day! I'll also note that I'm not sure that anyone reads these blog posts; as I am writing this entry I'm thinking of that scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas where Charlie yells into his mailbox, "Hello in there!" But it's all good. I did let this blog languish and wither for more than a decade, and maybe one day I will figure out how to drive some traffic here. For now, I'll just ramble on to myself.

Last week I ordered and received the Simon Says Stamp! Mother's Day kit, You Mean the World to Me. It just had so much good stuff in it! And usually when I get these kits I admire all the component parts, vow to make projects with the goodies, and get distracted and never do. This time I challenged myself to actually use the supplies! Time was limited, so my card design was simple.

I used the Butterfly Layering stencil set on Distress Heavyweight Cardstock, blending three colors of Distress Ink (in order, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, and Ripe Persimmon). Then I embossed -- a bit sloppily, I'll admit -- the flower centers and other dots with satin pearl powder. I fussy cut out the butterfly and set it aside. Then I took two pages of this Paige Evans paper pad to make the card front, also choosing one of the many amazing sentiments from this pack of Tim Holtz Idea-ology label stickers.

This design, though simple, was out of my comfort zone. There's a lot going on here in terms of color and pattern, and I usually embrace more white (or just blank) space. But, I completed my challenge to make a card using the contents of an SSS kit as soon as I receive it, and for that I feel a sense of accomplishment.

Happy Mother's Day window die

I know it's a little early for Mother's Day cards, but when I received this Hero Arts Mother's Day window die, I just had to try it out straight away. I'm glad I did, because this is one of those supplies with which a *little* practice makes perfect.

For my first attempt -- not pictured (and actually thrown away, which I almost never do!) -- I tried to use liquid glue to stick the die down, but because the die is so delicate in so many places, I kept getting glue where I didn't want it (as in, it was slightly visible, even when dried). That wasn't going to work from me. For the second try I mounted some 4" clear double-sided adhesive to the Lawn Fawn card stock before I ran it, with the die, through my Sizzix Big Shot. I did run the die through the machine twice, and slowly, to make sure I had gotten a crisp, complete cut.

Once the die was through being cut, I had to poke it out, with all of its beautiful frills and embellishments, and that was a bit tedious. Thank goodness for my Spellbinders Tool n One, seriously! I then peeled off the backing from the double-sided adhesive, carefully affixed the die to a piece of vellum, and then affixed the vellum to the Lawn Fawn Flower Market paper.

Because I thought the design needed just a little bit more oomph, I used a clear Wink of Stella pen to paint the sentiment, and used Lawn Fawn Sparkle Glaze on the hearts and leaves. As usual the photo doesn't do it justice, but the finished product is just lovely. And beside the poking out of the die, it was easy too! Thanks, Hero Arts!

You Shine

Howdy! On a whim on Thursday I grabbed this Ranger Stickles Glitter Gel in Solar Flare and it sparked inspiration as soon as I brought it home. I had recently picked up MFT's Ray of Light stencil and I wondered what the glitter gel would look like used with the stencil on plain (Neenah 80lb solar white) cardstock. Well, you can see the results for yourself! 

I remembered I had snagged this awesome You Shine die set from Simon Says Stamp! earlier this year, and had been meaning to create with it. What a perfect combo was this sentiment with the glittery ray of light! I cut the backing piece with Paper Source black cardstock, and the "you" with Lawn Fawn's gold Sparkle Cardstock that's found in this holiday multipack. I glued the sentiment together with Lawn Fawn glue tube and popped the whole sentiment up with foam adhesive. What a simple, fun design! Can't wait to send it to a friend who needs to be reminded of how awesome they are. You can't remind people enough of their greatness, IMHO. Long live happy mail!

You're a Good Egg

I recently took a class taught by my friend Cheiron. She used this adorable stamp set and die set from Reverse Confetti, and after the class, I had to get the items for myself. I mean, they are just too perfect!

This card is both simple and complex -- I guess simple in its design but complex in its execution. The die set only comes with one egg die, so for each egg carton I had to run the egg die through my Sizzix Big Shot six times! The carton pieces are cut from Neenah 110lb white card stock, and the eggs are cut from Tim Holtz Distress White Heavystock.

I cut each egg from paper on which I'd already ink blended the six Distress Inks I used (Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Peacock Feathers, and Wilted Violet). Once cut, I added even more ink to each egg with my blender brushes, to get them as vibrant as possible. Then I spritzed each egg with a generous amount of Lawn Fawn's Liquid Stardust mixed with some water in a little spray bottle. After the eggs had dried, they looked like shimmery tie-dye. Very cool!

I added a tiny bit of shading to the edges of the egg carton pieces using Antique Linen Distress Ink. I assembled the top of each egg carton by holding the eggs into place with glue dots.

The pieces of the egg carton were mounted onto the card base (from Lawn Fawn's Watercolor Wishes) with foam squares. I stamped the sentiment with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink.

I Hope that my crafty friends love the happy mail that's on it way to them!

Choose to Shine

Well hello there! I am so grateful that a few weeks ago, at Crop on the Cape, I took a class with the wonderful Cheiron in which we got to experience these new Tim Holtz Distress Foundry Wax products. I don't know about you, but even after I read all of the descriptions about this intriguing new product, I had no idea what it actually was like or how it worked. Spoiler: it's very cool, and also -- sorry -- kind of indescribable. It has the same magical transformation as embossing powder when you set it with a heat tool, but... different. If you're curious, just try them for yourself.

Anyway, so I got home from Crop on the Cape and reserved a set of the Foundry Waxes from Simon Says Stamp! and when they arrived, I opened the packages and contemplated just what to do with them. I tried applying them to card stock embossed with an embossing folder, but I couldn't find the right embossing folder to get what I was after. Then I looked through my (ever-growing) stencil collection and found this Waves stencil from Newton's Nook Design Co. and got to it.

The card stock is nothing fancy; it's Paper Source's black offering in cover weight. With each of the four colors of the wax, I poured a small amount onto a craft sheet and used a dry paintbrush to paint the product onto the stencil.

Once that was done I turned on my embossing gun and watched as each of these four colors just melted and transformed in the most amazing way. I mean, woah.

I cropped the paper to 4" x 5.25", mounted onto a card base, and used foam adhesive to mount one of the amazing Tim Holtz Idea-ology Quote Chips. (I had the hardest time choosing one. The options in this pack are incredible.) 

Boom. So cool!

Crafty Friends Are the Best!

Good afternoon! Yesterday I was so inspired after completing Stamp Joy Spring 2022 with Taylored Expressions that I decided to create with white embossing powder and ink blending!

These two cards are identical, save for the paper on which I stamped, embossed, and ink blended. The one on the left is Tim Holtz Distress White Heavystock; the one on the right is Paper Source paper bag. The image I used is Crafty Collage Background from Taylored Expressions. 

I used my MISTI to stamp the image with Versamark and then heat embossed with Lawn Fawn's white embossing powder. Then for each of the two cards I used my TE blender brushes to blend six Tim Holtz Distress Inks, starting in the upper left and going clockwise around the card. The colors I used were, in order, Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Peacock Feathers, and Wilted Violet.

To finish the cards, I mounted them on Lawn Fawn's Peacock card stock, then embellished each one with TE Drip Drops... which might be my newest crafty obsession. They are amazing!