Strings Attached!

Wow this is promising another blog post, I'm on a roll!! So I just wanted to share a card that came about after seeing a lovely card online, that was beautifully collaged with different stamps and me being me didn't really have the stuff to do it, so improvisation was required!! First instead of fancy matting and layering I decided to use my lovely apertures to create a focal panel, so a bit of inking with distress inks, bundled sage, faded jeans and tumbled glass, gave me a lovely panel of colour but it lacked the texture if the card I had seen. I needed a background stamp, but I didn't have one, but I did have some garden twine and an acrylic block, so I wrapped the twine around the block a few times, tied it in place and voila I had a background stamp. All the little fibres of the twine created lovely fine lines like pen strokes, so I inked and stamped it randomly through the aperture and created a lovely faux script effect! Then it was just a case of inking through the tulip silhouette mask slightly off set of the middle and a matt and layer here and the card was done!
So moral of the blog post, if you don't have what you need, improvise and sometimes you will surprise yourself!!

Happy Crafting

Ali xx

Just Chalk it up!!

Ok not too long between posts, but enough time for the NEC show and a couple of fun Create and Craft shows and a pile of new products to have a good play with!!
One of the most used new products in my crafting arsenal at the moment is the aperture sets, these lovely masks are ideal for all sorts of techniques and make amazingly simple but effective cards. But they also mean you can let your creativity flow, and so I have!!
One of my favourite recent experiments was to make my own chalkboard paint. And it is so easy!! Simply mix a teaspoon of tile grout (the fine stuff is best) with a tablespoon of acrylic paint, mix well. Now apply to whatever surface, I have done jars but my favourite is on cards, so you can write little messages, I stipple the paint through an aperture on to a nice patterned paper, let it dry (which doesn't take long) then mat and layer. Add chalk on a string and away you go!!
Great fun and tonnes of potential projects in the pipeline with this.
Happy crafting

Ali xx

I know, I know

I am possibly the worst blogger in the land of blogdom!! But I have my excuses!! The last few weeks have just been crazy! Like proper crazy, very very long hours and hard work and I am only just starting to catch up!! But we have released a new DVD on using Masks, released some fab new designs of masks and some beautiful stamps!
So a quick share in this occasion as I haven't done much experimenting but have big plans over the next couple of weeks!!
What I have been trying to do is explore different card layouts and Pinterest has been an amazing source of influence. The card below is using the beautiful lighthouse stamp, coloured with distress markers, spritzed with water and stamped to give a lovely watercolour effect and then scraps of patterned papers patchworked in the background. The second card is a patchwork of background that were made during demonstrating at the trade show. When I demo I always create a huge stack of backgrounds many of which never make it to a finished card, but this style is a great way to use up these play pieces!
Right best get back to it!!
Happy Crafting

Ali xxx