Cracking up!!

That sum me up pretty well to be fair, but on this occasion I am referring to crackle effect! This is fun but not for the more impatient crafters, so do as I do, start it just before bed so you leave it over night...that stops you impatiently trying stuff too early! This works on card and wood so give it a go, you need 2 colours of acrylic paint and good old PVA glue! Choose your base colour and paint a coat of this. Let this coat dry completely, then slap on a coat of PVA glue, and straight on top of that paint your second colour of paint. Keep your strokes in one direction.

Leave to dry and crackle!! It is so cool you will be tempted to watch paint dry!! Once dry you can stamp and colour on the top. Simple but soo much fun!!

Happy crafting

Ali xx

I call it "Faux Laser"

Said in my best Dr Evil voice!! I love the effect of this technique, it really creates the sense of dimension and it is easy to do! All you need is a brown ink pad and a good white embossing powder and a nice stamp. So simply stamp your image in the brown ink (I used Frayed Burlap distress ink) then while the ink is still damp give it a little smudge. Make sure the image is dry and then re-stamp the image with an embossing ink, over the top of the smudged image, so the brown shows through. Then add the white embossing powder, heat set from behind and watch the whole design just pop out of the card!!

Simple but very effective!!

Happy Crafting

Ali xx

Wax lyrical!

I love to play and try things out, I know shocking you didn't know that about me did you?? And I will use anything I lay my hands on! So when I wanted to try something different for a background effect on a card my hand fell on an old candle I had lying around. I wanted to use it for a resist technique, which I have done before but I have traditionally done it over a mask like a brass rubbing, but this time I embossed my card with the beautiful Moroccan mask first. I left the mask under the card and the ribbed the candle over the embossing, this way the embossing is not squashed and the wax only catches the edges of the embossing. I them removed the mask and inked like crazy with a couple of distress inks, forest moss and gathered twigs. Then rub off any ink on the wax with a bit of kitchen towel and voila!! A lovely distressed background. Added a faux out of the box die cutting with one of the aperture masks and the card was nearly done! Final touch was to use a 4 ply hemp twine, carefully untwist a 1 inch section until it flips back on itself creating a four petal flower effect, glue it in with a dried rose and it is done!! Simple, honestly it is!!

Happy Crafting

Ali

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

I can't plan...

I change my mind like the weather (just ask Paul) and this card is one of the prime examples!! I was going to demonstrate this card on Create and Craft today, but the stock ran out before my demos did!! so here is a little run down on how it came about.

It was going to be like wet stamping, where you ink the mask and lay it on wet card, let the colour bleed out and then over stamp! But shock horror I changed my mind and decided to lay the inked mask onto the wet card and then ran it through the Grand Calibur (on the nesties cutting sandwich) and wow I loved the effect. The colour was sort of washed out and around, leaving the mask design pale, and as the card I used was a pulp card (more like water colour card) it compacted slightly giving a slight embossed look. I matted and layered it, as I thought it needed nothing else. Hope you like it.

Happy Crafting

Ali