Fond Farewells

Fond Farewells

Hi there!

What do retired people do

all day?  All the ones I know

are frantically rushing about

cramming into each day

all the things they always

dreamed of .............

Ah yes, time to 

celebrate ............

.......and to get us started

here's Claire Jackson

with a delightful

 retirement card

"The time to wine down stamp designed by

 Francoise Read for Woodware 

is perfect for collage. 

Together with the new sets of mini archival inks,

 which are great for stamping on glossy surfaces,

 this stamp was crying out to be used on acetate 

for a retirement card.

First I created a background by swooshing

 broken china and peeled paint Distress Oxide inks 

on a craft mat, spritzing with water and dipping 

the card into the ink.

 I kept dipping the card into the ink until

 I had the layers I wanted, with some white 

still visible. 

I also added a few tiny spatters of cactus flower 

archival ink.

Next I stamped the image twice on heat resistant 

acetate, once in leaf green and once in 

cactus flower and heat set it. 

I also stamped it once more on white card

 and completely dried the background 

before stamping it for the final time

 in watering can ink. 

I used a stamp positioner as it is quite 

a large stamp and it really helped to 

stamp it twice to get a dark image and

 catch the bits I missed first time.

I cut the glasses and tall bottle from the

 pink sheet and the round bottle from the 

green sheet. 

I rubbed the cactus flower ink pad over

 the reverse of the pink images,

 wiping off the top part of the glasses, 

before heat setting it.

 I repeated it with the green bottle

 and the leaf green.

From the white card I cut out the labels 

and coloured them with pencil. 

While the cheese, leaf and corkscrew were 

coloured in fossilised amber Distress Ink.

Once all the hard work was done I could 

layer up the pieces, gluing them down 

with glossy accents. 

I added cactus flower enamel accents 

to the grapes, a few white highlights

 with a paint pen and a light shadow 

with a grey pencil.

Although not quite ready for retirement,

 it is time to put my feet up, sit back

 and relax I think!"

Materials used:

Woodware clear stamp: time to wine down

Archival mini ink pad: set 2

Smooth stamping card: white

Woodware heat resistant clear acetate:

Ranger enamel accents – Wendy Vecchi: cactus flower

Ranger glossy accents

white paint pen

Card blank: 7” x 5”

Thanks Claire, those Woodware

stamps really lend themselves

to some great techniques don't they?

Anyone running Retirement Training

Courses?  

'Till tomorrow

Mickie xx

Acetate

Acetate

Hi There!

Well, here we are at the

end of the week with the

last Tutorial in this strand.

Have you had a good week?

Achieved everything you

set out to do?

Had the week from hell?

Settle back and have a

relaxing weekend - that'll

make you feel good again......!!

Craftyfield is here today

with another of her Quirky

Birds.  Remember the Ooops!

Bird?  Well here he is in a

different guise .......

"Of course I knew that enamel accents are 

perfect to make 3D dots or marks, 

but, since they are paints, I wanted to 

try them with a brush. 

Here, I colour matched some die-cut flowers 

from Crunchy waxed paper.

Still creating embellishments, I tried the 

Enamel Accents on brads for that glossy 3D finish. 

They are opaque enough to completely cover 

the original colour and beautifully glossy. 

What you can see behind the brad is 

my professional tool............ 

a cork which I use to hold brads for 

painting, embossing etc...

I remove the brads from the cork with tweezers 

and plant them in a piece of styrofoam to dry out.

 I then cut out all the cardstock and acetate pieces

 using a variety of dies and my guillotine.

Now for the focal image. 

Acetate is a difficult stamping surface 

but it does offer several opportunities... 

It can be worked on both sides! 

I decided to use Brilliance ink and emboss

 with clear powder to give me a raised impression. 

This will make it easy to contain the colour later. 

This acetate is heat resistant so, as long 

as the heat gun is not too close and you stop

 as soon as the powder is melted, the sheet will not warp.

Another advantage of acetate is that obtaining a 

mirror image is just a matter of flipping the sheet! 

I did consider in fact giving my bird a fellow by doing just that.

 Next time...

 I wanted the grass to be dimensional 

so I am painting it on the "front". 

As I go about painting my scene I will flip 

the acetate for the best effect or easiest way. 

Here I have applied some green Enamel 

at the bottom and spread it with a plastic card. 

Then, with the edge of the card, I dragged 

the colour upwards, creating blades of grass.

Flipping back to the stamped image 

I applied a wash of yellow to the bird with 

a wet brush.

Back to the grass side, I added some flowers

 by just touching the nib of the Cactus Flower bottle

to the acetate. 

With the green I added a few more blades

 to get some over the flowers. 

With the yellow I added the bird's plumage.

For the eyes I used white acrylic

 paint on the embossed side.

I took a second picture with a different angle 

as it is difficult to photograph acetate, 

especially with the shadows created!

These little bottles are a lot of fun to use 

in all sorts of ways (I also tried them with

 stencils but I wouldn't recommend it as stencilling

 does use a lot of paint) and I hope I have inspired 

you to explore this medium in more 

creative ways than just dots!"

Supplies:

Enamel Accents 
Crunchy Wax Paper 
Coloured card 
Heat resistant Acetate 
Joggles Quirky Bird 3 

Thank you Craftyfield - for

ending our super inspiring

week with another take on Bird 3.

Using the cork to hold the brad

is a brilliant idea too!

I'm off to sort through my

extensive cork collection for a proper

cork (if that makes sense!)?  

'Till tomorrow

Mickie xx

Acetate

Acetate

Hallo Everyone!

Nice to have you join us

for today's blog post/tutorial

by Helen Chilton, who has

been having a lot of fun

with flower stencils and dies

along with the acetate and 

enamels................

"This tag uses the Wendy Vecchi and 

Ranger Enamel Accents. 

Love these as there's so much you can

 do with them and the colours are so vibrant

Put some Garden Patina onto your craft mat 

and get your stencil ready.....

.....then scrape over the Enamel Accents 

in a thick layer and leave to dry.

You can see here the glossy finish that you get.

Die cut some Tim Holtz wildflowers.

Squeeze the Enamels straight onto the die cut 

to give it a raised, glossy finish. 

This is very easy to do as it stays where you put it.

You can draw into it with a cocktail stick if you wish.

Then add Distress inkpad colour over the tag - 

the stencilled enamel will act as a resist. 

I've used coordinating colours here but you 

could quite easily colour over in bright orange 

and not get a muddy mess.

Rub over the Enamel with a baby wipe 

to remove any ink.

Add stamping to the background -

 I used the matching Wendy Vecchi Archival

 inkpad colours.

Add some dots for decoration.

I decided at this point I wanted another flower

 so I just stencilled one with a bit of Cut n Dry 

and cut it out.

I then coloured it with the Electric Lime Enamel 

and looked at how to arrange my flowers. 

These die cuts are great as they're very flexible.

I finished with some white flowers on top,

 a few words and some rope.

You can even decorate the words!

And there you have it - Enamel Accents used as a resist, 

for colouring, to give a raised glossy finish and for doodling."

Materials used:

Stamps used:
Kaisercraft: Postmarks, Blossom

Enamel Accents:
Wendy Vecchi: Leaf Green, Garden Patina, Cactus Flower
Ranger: Lemon Twist, Classic Cherry, White
Tim Holtz Thinlits die: Wildflowers 2
Imaginations Crafts Art stencil: MU43
Distress inkpads: Shabby Shutters, Broken China
Wendy Vecchi Archival inkpads: Leaf Green, Garden Patina

Thank you Helen for giving us

such a beautiful project, not to

mention highly informative tutorial

That will be me getting the enamels out

later on and decorating some wildflower

die cuts.  Think they'll be a really

useful addition to my stash

'Til tomorrow

Mickie xx