All posts by Jackie

Ready Steady Stamp

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Today I have tried this Ready Steady Stamp challenge and after a few problems with my faux-batik (I used tissue paper to iron with and it stuck!) I have finally made a card.
The faux-batik is on an Edinburgh Evening News article about this weekend’s highland gathering so I used a Scottish theme throughout.

After making the faux-batik background I then sprinkled it with embossing powder and heated from beneath, then edged with the same powder.
The Celtic cat is stamped onto acetate and glittered on the underside then stuck onto the same coloured card as the card base.

celticCat

Oops… I have taken the photo before the glue has dried so you can still see some glue on the rim of the circle.
Inks: black stazon, black versafine, versamark (with gold embossing powder)
Card: grey and acetate, tartan paper
Stamps: Elusive Images Celtic cat, thistle (unknown)
Other: 3 gold brads different sizes, glitter

July CBC ATC swap

albaJane swap

Here are my ATCs for the CBC swap for July. We had to use a stamp in this swap rather than a particular theme so I used a couple of the free stamps from the craft stamper magazine (and a background stamp for the piece of vellum).

ATC 1
Inks: black document ink, copic pens to colour the owl
Card: white card, Bo Bunny paper back to backs; a gift of love and my darling motion
Stamp: free owl stamp designed by sugar nellie
Other: orange organza ribbon, small green ric-rac ribbon, googly eyes, Boo rub-on from Hambly screen prints Halloween, Hobby craft dome sticker flowers 2

ATC2
Inks: Adirondack alcohol inks; clover, hazelnut, citrus, mountain rose, watermelon and sunshine yellow, white stazon, silver pilot pen, white signo pen
Card: glossy white, white vellum
Stamps: background on vellum from Aspects of design Daisy daydreams, free dragonfly stamp designed by Kay Carley
Other: tiny gems, Hobby craft dome sticker flowers 2, wire for legs, distress stickles peeled paint, yellow stickles

Oriental fabric brooch

fabric brooch

I made this brooch for Carolyn’s tactile textile challenge and it was quite a challenge for me. I thought it would be fairly easy to just sew a few layers of fabric then sew a few embellishments to it, but I changed the layers so many times and I just couldn’t make up my mind where to add the bits and bobs so it has taken me ages to finish. The coins are actually quite fragile so the bit with the hole in it is easily snapped off.

Materials used:
Fabric pieces, black nylon mesh, cloisonné beads, sequins, seed beads, fibres, small piece of chain, 3 coin embellishments, brooch back, black thread

F for Face tag

face

Here is my tag for the ukstampers Sunday challenge; this weeks theme is ‘F’ for face.
I have used the napkin technique for this, kindly demoed by Pam a wee while ago at the Edinburgh crop. Firstly I stamped the swirls, flowers, leaves and butterfly in black document ink. The lips are made by stamping leaves in rhubarb stalk ink. I selectively coloured bits in with copics. The whole tag was then covered in mat Mod Podge, sprinkled with a tiny amount of glitter then the top layer of a napkin (cut to shape) is layered on top. This was then covered in Mod Podge again. The flower eyeballs were then glazed and the centres (colourless zooms inked with jet black alcohol ink) added while it was still wet. The eyebrows (rub-ons), stickles and gems were then added. The wording is computer generated onto acetate with a letter F stuck on.

Inks: black document ink, Memento rhubarb stalk, copic pens
Card: white card, acetate
Stamps: Impression Obsession Clingables flourishes, Elusive Images funky doodles fresh, Non Sequitur oriental love letters (leafs for lips) and Samurai set (tiny butterfly)
Other: Zooms, gems, stickles, F (Cosmo cricket), silver eyelet, rub-ons ( from watering can daisies, stalk and leaf only), patterned napkin, mod podge

T for time tag

time

Oh dear…….I am not too happy with my efforts for this weeks ukstampers challenge. The letter this week was ‘T’ for time. The idea I had in mind for this was the sands of time; sand (time) in the hour glass and sand in ancient Egypt with partial hieroglyphs as part of the background.
I printed a clipart hourglass twice and cut out the frame of one in order to decoupage it. I glazed the glass parts. The sides of the tag are painted with crackle paints then rubbed with stain to give an old effect. I masked the sides and coloured the background using similar colours to those in the clipart image, then stamped the hieroglyphs and sand. I couldn’t make up my mind how I was going to get the text on it so I printed the text on an acetate version of the hourglass, cut it out and stuck that over the card hourglass that I had already glazed. The sand at the base of the tag just doesn’t look like sand so I added a Sphinx embellishment.

Inks: Distress inks; black soot, frayed burlap, mustard yellow, worn lipstick, walnut
Card: white card, acetate
Stamps: Judikins artifacts cube, A Stamp In The Hand sand
Other: Distress crackle paints; picket fence and frayed burlap, printed clipart, sphink embellishment, large eyelet

Magic ATC Tutorial

acetateClosed
acetateHalfPulled
acetatePulledUp

Inks: Black Stazon for the acetate, black document ink on the card, various colours
Card: white card, ivory card, acetate, decorative paper
Stamps: Penny Black toadily, Lavinia Stamps foliage, Rubber Stamp Tapestry (various), Sugar Nellie owl, Non Sequitur oriental love letters
Other: watercolour pencils, copic pens, ric-rac, ribbon, twine, coin, button, bead, stickles, eyelets

I found this link for a Magic pull up card years ago but I thought about altering it to make ATC sized versions for this months ukstampers swap theme ‘acetate’. I was using my ruler with inches on it so all the measurements are in inches.

Here is a tutorial to show how I made my ATC versions:

ATCs are 3 1/2 inches x 2 1/2 inches.
1
Measure some card stock 5 1/2″ x 7″ see Fig1
Score the 7″ side at 3″ (Fold 1)
Score the 5 1/2″ side (from the left hand side) at 1/2″ then 3″ (Fold 2 and Fold 3)

Fig 1

Fig1
2
Cut away the top left hand rectangle and save it for later – this will be the sliding piece.
Cut the corners off the flap at the left side
Cut a slot measuring 2″ x 1/4″ over Fold 1 as shown in Fig 2, leaving 1/4″ at both sides of the slot.

Fig 2

Fig2
Mark and cut out a window from the left hand rectangle measuring 1 7/8″ x 2 3/4″.
Now get the rectangle that you saved earlier and cut the flap off first. Now mark and cut away a strip down both sides down to about 3/8″ from the bottom.
You should now have pieces that look like Fig3.
Make sure that the T shaped piece can slide easily through the slot and if not just take slivers off until it does.

Fig 3

Fig3
3
Fold the top rectangle down over the bottom one.
Fold the left hand window side over the to the right and tuck the flap in at the right hand side.
Try to make the folds ‘generous’ because the inside will contain 3 layers, this will help stop the sliding part becoming stuck.
Now that you know which side will be the front and back unfold it all again. You can now colour and decorate the outside. Take care to leave the inside panel plain as this is the side you will see through the window and acetate.

4
Stamp an image on the T shaped sliding piece (you can use the window to guide you so you stamp within that area). This image will be the coloured one so if you are using water colours choose a waterproof ink to stamp with.
Take a piece of acetate larger than the T shaped piece, place it over your T shaped piece and using Stazon ink or Brilliance ink stamp the same image onto the acetate directly over the previous image. Make sure your ink dries before the next stage. Holding the card and acetate move them around so the images are EXACTLY over each other and cut the acetate to the same size as the T piece using a craft knife or scissors. If you have a stamp positioner you could cut the acetate out first and use the positioner to get accurate results. This image will remain uncoloured.
Colour in the CARD image. see Fig 4

Fig 4

Fig4
5
Fold the top right hand rectangle down over the bottom one. Slide your coloured card T piece all the way up through the slot until it stops.
Draw a very thin line of glue along the top edge only and place the acetate piece EXACTLY over it and stick it down. To disguise the glue you can add a small piece of card or ribbon over the top.

Fig 5

Fig5
Now push the slider all the way down and fold the front over. Put glue on the flap so that when you tuck it in at the back it will stick to the back and not to the slider. (you can just fold it over and stick it down without tucking it in if you prefer).
You can add eyelets and ribbon and decorate as you wish.

Tips:
When you fold it all over the first time it may not fold well so just take a sliver from the left hand side of the top rectangle and make the folds a little more generous.
The window can be any shape or size.
Try colouring your acetate image one colour and the card image another colour for a different. look.
If you stamp on the inside panel by mistake (as I have done before) you can still use it by folding to the left instead of to the right.
If you make a cardboard template then just use this to make others by drawing around it (saves having to measure things out) but remember to cut inside the pencil line when cutting it out but cut outside the pencil line when cutting out the window and the slit.
When adding embellishments to the front, remember not to stick them to the acetate.

Unusual patchwork tag

unusual

The inspiration for this weeks A-Z tag challenge at ukstampers came from a picture in the Magic Patch magazine No 34. I don’t do sewing but my mum gave me the magazine as it had a few interesting projects in it. The seams in the curtain come to the outside and are left fluffy and I love the effect. I stamped a few images onto muslin which I the stuck onto squares of card. Some squares (of cloth and card) were just coloured with the direct to paper technique. These were then all joined up fairly randomly. The background for the curtain is meant to represent a door. Yes, I know some of the squares look a little squint – I did get in a real mess with my glue and the muslin slid a bit on the card, also the fluffy seams kind of stick out at funny angles making things look a little wonky. I had fun making it though.

Inks: Memento rhubarb stalk, Brilliance beige, Stampin up mellow moss, Marvy pen English red (for lines in-between the green on the gingham), Adirondack alcohol ink Willow (for the metal)
Card: white card
Stamps: Anna Griffin clear stamp set, pattern from Non Sequitur cranes, Dimensional Fourth Ltd gingham
Other: chopstick, pink zooms, metal embellishment and eyelet, white tassel, scrappin beads

Donna and Jackie’s Oh happy day card

ohHappyDay
Congratulations Donna and Jackie!
I hope it stayed fair for your ceremony in Callander.

Their card uses a resist technique using versamark ink on glossy card.
Plain white glossy card was stamped using the dotty background stamp, dried with a heat gun then inked using the direct to paper technique. I wiped it with kitchen roll to reveal the dots that resisted the colour. The hearts were stamped onto this card using black ink and cut out.
A piece of paper was scrunched up and then flattened again. Using the direct to paper technique the colour was added to the high points of the crumpled paper. This was cut to size and edged with colour. On a piece of plain white card the dotty background was stamped in the same colour, trimmed to size, edged and distressed. The greeting was stamped onto plain card, this was then trimmed to size and edged. These layers were matted together with a plain piece of white paper then the hearts and embellishments were added.Inks: Versamark, black Stazon, Memento Rhubarb stalk
Card: glossy white, plain white
Stamps: greeting (unknown), stampin up polka dot background, The artistic stamper Stitchels dashy dot
Other: dotty brads, ribbon and pearl

Suzanne’s birthday card

versamarkBirthday
Happy Birthday Suzanne

Suzanne’s card was made using 3 different techniques with versamark ink.
The background was simply stamped (dots) in versamark on green card then edged all around with versamark.
The greeting involves the drop shadow technique where you stamp once with a dark colour then stamp again slightly off to one side using a lighter tone. I used a green colour for the first stamped image then versamark for the second to create the shadow.
The third technique is used on the butterfly. I stamped the butterfly in versamark ink then gently wiped chalks over the top using a cotton bud. The versamark is sticky so the chalk sticks to it creating a soft coloured effect. The branch and flowers were stamped using colourd inks and highlighted with stickles.

Inks: versamark, stampin up mellow moss, caramel and pale plum
Card: white, green
Stamps: greeting (unknown), Papertrey Ink Out on a limb, RS tapestry Nature plate 5 (butterfly)
Other: Stickles fruit punch, green brads, pink lace

Queen bee tag

queenB

I sooooo need a new computer! I have had so many problems with it the last few weeks I have been pulling my hair out in exasperation! I finally managed to get this photo of my ukstampers challenge ‘Q’ for queen tag on my blog after a couple of hours of swearing very loudly at the computer.

Inks: Distress inks Pine needles, peeled paint and mustard seed, black stazon, versamark with gold embossing powder
Card: Ivory card, red felt card
Stamps: Inkadinkado morphic bugs, Anna Griffin clear flourishes and crown
Other: Q brad, rub on letters, large eyelet, gems, gold and clear glitter pen, Fusible film crystal pearl (for the wings), gold pilot pen splatters