Category Archives: Techniques

Tuesday Techniques….

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

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….will be super late today – sorry! 😦

S.

Things on Thursday – Techniques & Tutorials

24 Thursday May 2012

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If you have read my blog for any length of time at all (like this week!) you know how much I love a good technique. Combine it with a great tutorial and I’m sold! So today, I thought I’d give you a list of links to a few fun ones I have pinned on my Pinterest boards:

1. Who doesn’t love a good transfer technique? This is different from the one I did a while back but still super simple – it just takes a little longer due to the drying time required.

2. A good brooch never goes astray and always makes an awesome add-on gift or end-of-year teacher present. Love how simple this one is and that you could make it as fun or as dressy as you like – simply switch out the colours and fabric. Felt would be awesome for a winter coat!

3. Who doesn’t own a boat load of baker’s twine? That’s what I thought! Here’s a great way to use some and make super cute cards, embellishments, or tags.

4. This ornament is beautiful in felt and would look great as a Christmas ornament or to hang for everyday. Use paper and make fun party decorations! Or put a bunch together to make some front door decor.

5. Easy, pretty, and a really good bang for your buck, making your own coasters is simple and a gift anyone can use. They can even double as paperweights!

And here’s a bonus one:

6. 3D stars! These could be embellies, home decor, party decorations, tree ornaments…

Let me know if you make anything, I always love seeing how people go in different directions with the same starting point!

S.

Love Cards that I Love!

11 Friday May 2012

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And I love them because they are made with the brand spanking new Spring Seasonal Distress Ink Colours – Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade, and Shaded Lilac. Seriously though, don’t they sound awesome, even before you know what the colours are? Yup. They do!

I wanted to give the inks a test run, see how the colours dried and blended, so I made two super simple cards using the Hero Arts Lotus Background (one of my faves!) and an Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday set – Love Always Wins.

For the first one, I simply added ink randomly to the stamp, misted with water to allow the inks to blend, and stamped onto watercolour paper. Once it was dry, I added the sentiment and some twine:

For the second, I wanted to see more of the true colour so I swiped each ink pad over the stamp to make three lines of colour. I lightly misted with water to get some slight blending and again stamped onto watercolour paper. Another awesome sentiment from Ali Edwards and some twine and I called it done:

So…. simple, but I love the colours and the texture of the watercolour paper added just enough interest!

Have a great weekend, see some of you at The Paperie tomorrow for the sale and Taffety’s baked goodies!

S.

Some crafty goodness…

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Cards, Classes, ScrapBook, Techniques, Yearlong Album

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…as promised! Here it is!

Last weekend we had a birthday party to attend and I had to teach the Yearlong Class at The Paperie that day as well. Unfortunately, I had no card made for the party before hand. Oops! Luckily, as I was teaching one of the two bonus cards we made…

… Cathie mentioned the Distress Stain splats would make good monsters. Ummm, yes, they totally would! And I had coloured googly eyes at home – awesome! Here’s how that 3 minute card turned out:

Monsters!!!

So yeah, I totally *love* it! And I think Pine Needles might be my new favourite colour – see that fantastic greeny blue guy? He makes me happy… 🙂

The other card we did on Sunday was made using The Crafter’s Workshop Mini Fragmented Flower Stencil and mists.

I get a lot of people asking me how to mist properly and I always say to press on the nozzle. Seriously.

It seems to me that a lot of people are scared they’ll get too much colour or spray in the wrong place or something and they gingerly press down on the nozzle. Slowly. And that’s guaranteed to get you splats and drops, not mist. So just give your mist a good, solid press, people – go for it! And if you’re worried about too much colour, place your paper in a box, aim the mist at the back of the box, press down, and just let the mist drift down on your page. It’s much finer this way, but you’ll have more control about the intensity but since it’s mist, it will go where it wants, for the most part – you have very little control there, my friends!

All that being said, I thought we should have some misting practice in class! I used Adirondack Colour Wash in my sample – I love the colours and intensity of these. The trick with mist and stencils is to go light. The more mist, the more liquid, the more seepage under the stencil. So, go light and get a great impression! And use colours that will blend nicely together! And if you don’t think you have enough colour down, trust me, you do – do not spray again, it will be fine! 🙂

Anyway, simple cards, both done in about 5 minutes each, but fun techniques that can be used for a bunch of different things! If you want to see more techniques with Distress Stains, check out my Paperie Picks post from last week.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone – I’m at the Retreat and I know I’m having a great time!

S.

Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

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I’m playing along with the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger again this week. It’s a fun one that inspired one of the cards I made for last night’s Hero Arts/Studio Calico class at The Paperie.

The trigger was watercolour butterflies:

Butterfly Reverie

As soon as I saw the border of butterflies in the Calico Borders set we were using in class, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Watercolour Butterflies

I misted watercolour paper then coloured it with Distress Stains while it was still wet. As I was drying it with a heat tool, I kept misting to blend the colour and get water spots. I then stamped my images with black Archival Ink. I cut around the wings of two butterflies, coloured them with my favourite Sakura Stardust pen and bent the wings for dimension. I coloured the string with Distress Stain and wrapped it around the card front several times. To finish, I adhered the card front with dimensional adhesive for depth.

Love how it turned out – easy but fun and colourful!

S.

Rainbow Tag Class

14 Saturday Apr 2012

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I’m teaching at The Paperie tomorrow morning and there’s still a spot or two available!

image

We’re playing with lots of Ranger goodies and October Afternoon Sprinklers so if you’re interested, swing by at 10 am and join us!

S.

Creative Chemistry 101

09 Monday Apr 2012

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So I’ve raved about the online course I’m doing with Tim Holtz through Online Card Classes, and I’ve shown you a couple of tags that I’ve made. Today, I’m posting all the ones I’ve completed!

They’re all pretty standard, just the basic techniques, but now that I have this bunch, with recipes on the back, I can expand and make all sorts of fun stuff! I’ve already done a card for an upcoming class at The Paperie and made a birthday card, now I want to do some stuff on layouts. There are a couple of tags I haven’t been able to do yet, like the custom stamp pad, as I’m waiting for supplies to come in and can’t substitute for a few specific items. However, here’s what I have so far:

Day 2: Distress Ink

Blended Spritz & Flick/Brushless Watercolour/Wrinkle Free Distress

Day 3: Archival Ink

Alcohol Ink Agates/Archival Resist

Day 4: Re-inkers

Watercolouring with Re-inkers/Layered Misting

Day 5: Spray Inks & Stains

Stained Kraft Resist/Stamping with Stains/Marbled Stains

Day 6: Distress Markers (can’t wait for these to arrive at The Paperie!)

Picture will be here soon….I hope!

Day 7: Embossing (Regular and Distress)

Nostalgic Batik/Rusted Enamel/Distress Powder Resist

Day 8: Paint (Acrylic and Distress Crackle)

Dabber Resist/Crackle Paint Resist/Shattered Stains

Day 9: Perfect Pearls

Perfect Distress Mist/Perfect Distress/Perfect Distress Splatter

Day 10: Distress Stickles

Rock Candy Distress Stickles

Aren’t they cool? My faves are the Stamping with Stains, the Nostalgic Batik, and the Perfect Distress – love them!

This was truly one of the best classes (along with Jennifer McGuire’s Inspiration Showcase) I’ve ever taken – great techniques, lots to learn, and tons of info on the differences in inks, paints, and mediums.

Now, I just can’t wait to play some more! But first, I have to redo a class LO, make the May LO for the Yearlong class, and do a special project for The Paperie – maybe I’ll find a way to incorporate some of the new stuff!

S.

Creative Chemistry 101

28 Wednesday Mar 2012

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I’ve written here and I’ve tweeted about how much I am loving the Tim Holtz class – Creative Chemistry 101 through Online Card Classes. I’ve done quite a few online classes, and this may just be the best! Though, the Inspiration Showcase class with Jennifer McGuire is up there too. Let’s just call it a tie!

I’m having a blast learning about the chemistry behind paints, inks, stains, markers. And just hearing Tim talk about how he got started in the business, why he doesn’t clean stamps, how Distress Inks came to be, and more is worth the money, forget the other stuff!

Here are a few tags I’ve made – pretty basic, I really just wanted the technique on these, but I’ll also show you a card for an upcoming class that combines a couple of different techniques.

From left to right, top row:

Blended Spritz & Flick

Wrinkle-Free Distress

Layered Misting

Bottom row, left to right:

Stamping with Stains

Marbled Stains

I’ve tried a few other as well, but they’re not complete – I’m waiting on tags (black and kraft) and markers! And, before someone asks, the reason I’m waiting for those specific tags is that they are coated and so are a better surface to work on – I’ve tried office tags and they’re just no good!

My favourite is the Stamping with Stains tag – love the bright colours, the white stamping and the black images, which is why I use the white stamping technique on this card, along with the Alcohol Ink Agates technique:

This is just a prototype, but the techniques are very cool! The card class will be the end of April, we’ll make 3 cards, and this stamp set is included! Pretty awesome!

You can join the Creative Chemistry class anytime, the content is available forever, it’s fantastic even for those few scrapbookers who aren’t Tim fanatics, and Tim does a minimum of 2 videos a day – worth every penny and more! Go sign up! Now! You’ll thank me, I promise!

S.

Tuesday Techniques – Finishing Touches: Background Stamps

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

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We’re going to continue with the Finishing Touches series today and look at inking the edges of a project and adding background stamping. Both of these things will add depth to your work and, in my experience, are usually that last thing you add and then go, “Aha! That’s what it needed!” Nothing major, it’s subtle but packs a punch!

Supplies are simple:

Supplies

Brown ink for inking the edges (I like to use a darker one like Walnut Stain), and a different brown ink for the stamping (I like to use a lighter ink for this, usually Frayed Burlap or Brushed Corduroy); a background stamp (I use text or script 99% of the time); and an ink blending tool with foam.

That’s it – supplies most of you will have anyway (and if you don’t, run away now to the store and buy them please. Thank you. We can wait for you, these are essential supplies, after all!)

OK, now we can get started. Make your tag, or card, or embellishment, whatever. Here’s mine:

Pretty, right? The stamp is from Local King Rubber Stamps, a Canadian company (yay!) that makes cling rubber stamps and they have matching dies too! However, it’s still a little, well, boring.

So, ink the edges! This adds some definition without taking away or adding anything to the overall feel of the card.

See the difference? Just a little definition around the edges to help it stand out yet blend everything together.

It’s better, but still not quite there. With Distress Inks, I could flick some water on to blend the colour some more and add watermark splotches, but if you’re not using a background of Distress Ink, that won’t work for you. So, add some depth with adding bulk by stamping a large background stamp over the whole thing. I like the text and script stamps because they don’t distract from your focal point or image, but they still add a little something more. I use a lighter brown ink so it doesn’t overpower anything, you really just want this to be texture in the background.

Here’s my finished tag:

See what I mean? Same tag as before, but the edges are defined and the stamping adds some depth and interest without distracting from the silhouette stamp in the foreground. Not so boring anymore!

I did use Black Sparkle Embossing Powder which makes for a little more interest, as you can see here – love that stuff!

Hope you liked this one and that you try it out! As always, leave me link in the comments so I can see what you do with it!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my October Afternoon layout for the Dr. Seuss challenge, and I’ll fill you in on the class I’m taking tonight with Rae Lynn at The Paperie – she does amazing CAS stuff!

S.

Tuesday Techniques – Finishing Touches: Scored Lines

13 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Cards, Techniques, Tuesday Techniques

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I thought I would do something a little simpler the next few weeks for Tuesday Techniques – Finishing Touches. Sometimes it’s that last little thing that holds us up but is the perfect thing to finish off a project when we do figure it out. Over the next few Tuesdays, I’ll show you a couple of quick, easy things that work for me!

Today, one of my Mom’s favourites when she sees it – Scored and/or Perforated Lines.

You need:

Supplies

A scoring board, a bone folder, a perforating tool, and cardstock. If you don’t have these items, you can use the ridge in your paper trimmer, your finger nail, and a thumbtack – I just like collecting supplies!

Put your cardstock in the upper left corner, making sure everything is straight, then press the bone folder firmly on the cardstock, letting it run down in one of the grooves; I went 1/2″ in for this step…

Scoring...

…and 1/4″ in for the perforating.

Perforating...

Then I did some masking, inking to pick up the perforations, and I was finished!

And a closeup of the details:

I like how the scoring and perforating, with a little inking, makes it looks like a stitched luggage tag – perfect for this one!

To give you some more ideas of how this technique would finish off a card, here are a Sympathy and Birthday card I made using the same Papertrey Ink set and the ScorBug:

Sympathy

Birthday

And finally, a card with scored lines and another Papertrey set:

Chickadee

I scored over the drawn lines to give them a little something more. It’s hard to see here, but adds a lot IRL – just a little oomph!

As always, I’d love to see what you do with this, or any technique I’ve shared. Leave me a link in the comments where I can view your project and I’ll take a look!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my 12 on 12 pictures!

S.