A New Technique (to me anyway)

Today's card is the result of my first foray into the technique of 'eclipse' cards and if, like me, you'd not heard of them there are several YouTube videos to show how it is done.  I decided to go fairly simple to start with and the patterned square was taken from my box of 'inky play' backgrounds made a while ago using Distress Oxide inks and acrylic paint for the random white lines - applied using the edge of an old credit card.  The large letter dies were lined up on the card and taped together so that hopefully I could keep them together to cut a second word from another piece of card to give the letters a bit of depth.  Once cut the patterned square with the 'letter-shaped) holes was stuck to a piece of purple card, leaving a border and  the birthday sentiment was stamped.  The two sets of letters were then stuck together carefully before popping them back into the gaps using foam pads.  Fortunately I had some die cut flowers in one of my pots which matched the background and a scrap of purple was used to die cut the leaves.

I will certainly be trying out some of the other ideas gleaned from YouTube but the only drawback is that the recipients need to have fairly short names otherwise the resulting cards would be so long that they wouldn't fit into the post box!!  My original intention was to make cards for two granddaughters with birthdays this week and guess what - their names both have way too many letters!!

Pixie Snippets Playground

Time to visit the Pixie Snippets Playground again and of course another opportunity to use up some of my snippets of card and paper along with a few bits and pieces such as odd die-cuts or the 'waste' from border punching which are left over from other projects and which I keep in little pots and boxes on my desk (sad or what??).  Quite often they aren't the right colour when I come to use them but fortunately this time I was lucky.

I acquired a little bee die recently and decided to build this card around that.  I coloured a snippet of card using Distress Oxide inks and then die cut a tag;  a scrap of orange card was cut in the same shape but slightly larger (no die for this piece);  the next move was to use a hexagon mixed  media die on a corner of the tag;  some different coloured snippets were used for flowers, leaves and the all important bee; a Distress ink marker was used for the stripes on the bee body and clear Wink of Stella applied to the wings;  most of the flowers and leaves were cut for this particular project from scraps but I've also used a few odd leaves and the tiny flower centres which were in the pots on my desk.  I had a scrabble through my huge pile of partially used paper pads and found an odd sheet suitable for the background layer and this was stamped with the sentiment - using the Misti for positioning.

I do look forward to this particular challenge each fortnight but, as I've said previously, the mountain of snippets doesn't seem to diminish!  I'm sure many of you will have lots of bits and pieces to use up so why not have a go at the challenge?  There is always a tempting prize on offer.  I wrote this yesterday but have now spotted what the prize is this time around - a super set of succulent stamps with matching dies.

Sizzix Dies - Tag and mixed media hexagon cut out
Stampin' Up - Botanical Builder Framelits die set
Sentiment - Apple Blossom Honeybee Heaven stamp set
Bee - dinky die from X-cut

Butterfly in Parchment

There are always issues with attaching parchment layers to each other and to cards because there isn't really any kind of glue I've tried which doesn't show and you can't always disguise it with anything.  I've been using brads recently for all my parchment cards but decided to try something different with this one.  I've made it with two layers and the white layer is attached with four tiny brads but the whole thing is assembled as a card by cutting a backing card and a frame both of the same size and then gluing them all together - fortunately the scalloped design I'd done fitted nicely into the aperture of one of my large square dies.  I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before and I might try some other variations with maybe ovals or circles.

Groovi Plates - scalloped nested squares, Jayne's butterflies, sentiments border plate
Frame - Sue Wilson Noble Pierced squares dies

Lucky!

I was one of the lucky people to win a prize in the raffle when I attended a Stampin' Up workshop recently - a handy set of floral stamps which I'm sure will come in for lots of different cards when I have more of a play.  They are clear polymer stamps and require multi-stamping for effect although of course you could just stamp the outline image and colour in the usual way.  I cut a square of white card slightly smaller than a card blank and die cut a section in one corner, backing this with paper to match the colours of the stamping.  Unfortunately my scanner has 'translated' the colours so that they appear different but they are a much better match in real life - sigh!!  I then used the Misti to position the various stamps to colour the lavender, leaves and ribbon; also it came in handy for placement of the sentiment as well.  Finally sponged lavender ink around edges of panel and popped it onto the card blank.

Stamp Set - Lots of Lavender from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - freebie stamp with magazine
Die - Mixed Media die set by Tim Holtz for Sizzix

Nouveau Poppies

I have another parchment card to share which I made yesterday based on what I could remember from watching the clever Tina Cox on the recent Clarity  Hochanda show but using a different plate for the main part of the design.  The shows were based on the pierced borders to highlight two new books and of course some new floral and butterfly plates.   I used three borders across the piece with some flowers and dragonfly in the top section.  There was some cutting involved and the image was coloured from behind using watercolour markers.

Flowers - taken from Nouveau Poppies plate
Dragonfly - taken from Tina's flowers and butterflies
Borders - straight and diagonal pierced borders plates

Groovi Parchment

I caught up with a couple of Groovi shows on Hochanda yesterday evening which of course reminded me that it is about time that I spent some more time on this parchment technique - more hours needed in each day!!  However I have a few cards which I made a while ago and here is one of them to share with you today.  What I particularly like about the Groovi system is the way that so many designs can be worked by taking elements from several plates and combining them. 

We've been promised lovely weather for the Bank Holiday weekend although it is off to a slow start this morning with fairly thick mist which I'm hoping is heat haze!  I hope you all have a good break whatever you have planned and hopefully the sun will be shining for us all.

Elements taken from Tina's flowers and butterflies plates
Sentiment uses various letters and tiny tags from one of the plate mates
Nested squares used for border, infilled with elements from a plate mate
Border embossed using a Border  design plate
Coloured using pencils

Inky Technique

Despite having  a large number of TV channels available nowadays there are often evenings when I can find nothing which I'd like to watch so I often resort to the laptop and either Pinterest or YouTube.  This card is more or less CASE'd from a YouTube video in which a square acrylic block was used to produce an inky background - these backgrounds are quite unpredictable and certainly cannot be replicated exactly another time but great fun nonetheless!  As I don't have a square block I die cut a mask from paper and printed through the 'hole'.  First of all a couple of colours of ink pad are selected and applied to the block as you think best, spritz lightly with water and then print onto your chosen piece of white card.  My piece of card was slightly smaller than a 6" card blank but with hindsight could have been a bit smaller so that I could have added a toning coloured layer behind.  Once this ink was dry I used the Misti to stamp a sentiment, the tree and a flight of birds before using a square die slightly smaller than the inked square to cut out the centre.  The white layer was adhered direct to the base card and the cut out square inserted into the square 'hole' using foam pads to raise it up.  The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted the small area behind the birds where some of the ink leaked outside the makeshift paper stencil but I decided that just added to the interest and unpredictability of this great technique (that's my story anyway!!).  I can think of quite a few stamps which would work well using this technique.

Stamp - Sheltering Tree from Stampin' Up
Sentiment - from the same stamp set
Birds - from High Tide stamp set Stampin' Up