Friday, March 27, 2009

Book Study: Mica & Alcohol Inks - 3

Since I only have white glossy card stock, I thought I'd try this technique with some of my other mica powders. I dabbed three metallic colors with my finger onto the white glossy card stock.I then added yellow and green alcohol inks with a felt applicator.
See how it looks in natural light:
I cut the piece in half and stamped a large leafy flourish with light green Brilliance ink, then over stamped the same leafy flourish with dark green Brilliance ink.
Took dark green card stock and ran it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and colored the raised areas with the light green Brilliance ink. Then slightly offset the card stock in the same folder and re-embossed it, this time coloring the raised areas with the dark green Brilliance ink.
I stamped a bird image with black Archival ink onto the alcohol background. I also stamped a saying with the same ink and used this ink pad to color the edges.
I used the same leafy flourish stamp to cover a light green card and layered on the embossed card stock and the mica-alcohol colored sheet.
I can see there are lots of possibilities to mixing mica powders with alcohol inks.

Book Study - Mica & Alcohol ink - 2

I thought I would try another background with the alcohol inks and interference powders. I used the three colors of interference powders that I have and dabbed them over white glossy card stock with my finger. Then dabbed on alcohol inks with the felt applicator.
I stamped on butterflies with black Archival ink.
As I take this sheet over to the light from the window, you can see the colors from the interference powders better.
I cut this sheet in two. With one of them, I colored the edges with a silver leafing pen and layered onto a pink card. I glued a saying on vellum onto silver paper and added that to the card.
With the other half, I colored the edges black with the black Archival ink pad. I stamped flourishes onto black paper with black Versafine ink. I layered these onto a purple card. Stamped a saying onto a thin strip of blue vellum and attached them with black brads.

Book Study: Mica & Alcohol ink - 1

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her card "Flights of Fancy". In this card Nancy uses interference powdered pigments and alcohol inks. One advantage to using alcohol inks with mica powders is you don't need to add a binder as the alcohol acts as a binder. Nancy used black glossy card stock with her project, it really makes the interference powders really dramatic. I didn't have any black glossy paper, so thought I'd see what I could do with white glossy card stock. I dabbed three different colors of interference powders onto glossy card stock with my finger.
Then squirted three colors of alcohol ink onto a felt applicator and covered the entire surface.The powders really show up as you move the card around in the light.
I didn't use Versafine as the photo suggests (sorry grabbed the wrong pad), I don't think Versafine will set on glossy paper. I used black Archival ink to stamp on the dragonflies.
I cut this piece in two. One one piece I stamped on a saying and embossed with fine detail gold embossing powder. Used a gold leafing pen to color the edges.I layered the piece onto black paper, then gold paper and onto to a dark green card. I added a small strip of black paper between the main image and the black layer and attached two gold brads.
With the other half of the stamped sheet, I stamped on a texture stamp with silver Brilliance ink and edged the sheet with a silver leafing pen.Ran a piece of green card stock through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and inked the raised areas with a green Distress ink. Then slightly offset the same piece of card stock in the same folder and reran it through the Cuttlebug.
I colored the newly raised ares with silver Brilliance ink. I like how this gives extra depth to the piece. I trimmed this down and colored the edges with the silver Brilliance ink.
I mounted the green card stock on to a dark blue card. Added a dark blue gossamer ribbon under the focal image and glued on two mini silver dragonfly charms.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Celebrate Spring

I've signed up for a Celebrate Spring swap on ccswaps. I'm really looking forward to warmer weather and more flowers, so I will create that in a card if I can't get it outside yet. I had a sheet of dictionary paper that had been painted with gesso. I sponged on some Distress ink and then stamped on q vine floral background in the same ink and heat set.
I stamped a dandelion stamp with VersaMark ink, embossed with clear embossing powder, heat set then ran the same Distress ink of the surface to create some contrast.
Ironed off the embossing. Lightly added some darker Distress ink, heat set, then sprayed some water with Perfect Pearls in it to add a bit of glitz. Colored the edges with black Brilliance ink.
Printed a garden fairy image on acetate and layered it over a sparkly white paper. Cut out butterfly shapes from the same sparkly white paper and a sheet that had been in the bottom of my spray box.
I adhered the butterflies back to back. Ran it through a swirly Cuttlebug embossing folder and ran the lighter red Distress ink over the surface. Then ran it through a traditional butterfly design Cuttlebug embossing folder and colored the edges and raised area with black Brilliance ink.
On the reverse side, instead of Brilliance ink, I ran black Archival ink over the surface and quickly rubbed of the ink to have a lighter black tone.
Took a strip of large fabric floral ribbon and got the wet, than ran Perfect Pearls over the surface to give them some shimmer.
I attached the floral ribbon to the background with yellow brads as floral centers. Layered the background on to a dark yellow sparkly card. Attached the butterfly by just its body, so the wings are raised. Colored in the butterflies antennae and body with a black permanent marker and covered the newly black colored areas with diamond glaze. Stamped letters to spell "Spring" with black Archival ink.

Princess Frames

Going to visit my grandchildren this week. Decided my little 3 year old princess needs something special to open while her younger brother gets lots of presents for his first birthday. I was working on a scrapbook of our Disneyland trip at an all day scrap event, when I found these tri-fold picture frames. Love the linen texture. I bought two. Today, I painted them with sparkly white Lumiere acrylic paint. When the paint dried I stamped on Pearl Turquoise Lumiere with a flourish stamp (make sure you wash acrylic paints off your stamps right away). I did both the front and backs.
I inserted pictures of Elaine meeting her favorite Disney princesses and added stickers to go with the princess theme.
I think she will love this and not be so interested in what her brother is getting.

Friday, March 20, 2009

More flowers

I wanted to create something with the stenciled on mat board I played with at stamp club last week. I used the same floral flourish stamp, that I stamped with black ink at club. Tonight, I stamped the floral flourish with Watermark ink (I accidentally discolored it earlier, but as long as I'm not going for a clear resist, it works for what I'm doing). I brushed purple Perfect Pearls over the watermark ink. Used the Marvy Metallics purple pen to color the beveled edges.
Sprayed two white Prisma flowers with a home made color mist spray (purple dye ink and clear Perfect Pearls mixed with water). I deliberately sprayed some of the purple spray over the dried brass Color mist that was left over from spraying yesterday. I ran the tips of the flowers into this mixture of purple and brass sprays. This gave the flowers a wonderful deep color variation on the edge of the petals.
I colored the center of the purple flowers with black Brilliance ink. I wanted to add an under layer to the flowers, using a light chiffony green to match the color in the vintage photo (from Elizabeth's blog freebies). I have a hard time judging color from the re-inker bottles, as the color is so intense. I dropped a bit of ink from three different greens I hoped might work onto scrap paper, and then sprayed with water to see how they would dilute out. I choose the color to the left as my best choice. Mixed this green re-inker with the clear Perfect Pearls, diluted with water and sprayed over two white Prisma flowers. I colored the edges of the vintage photo with the purple Marvey Metallics pen.
I stamped a floral saying onto the vintage image with black Brilliance ink. Added large black brads to the flowers and layered all onto my black mat board.

Fun to finish something that was just messing around at stamp club.

Daffodils

I took a picture of some daffodils in my yard and wanted to make something along with a great quote of daffodils from Shakespeare. I stamped some flourishes with black Brilliance ink onto black mat board and embossed them with black Distress Powder. Love the tone on tone texture this gives.
I cropped my photo and adjusted the color in Photo Shop. Adhered the photo to the mat and adhered the vellum on top of the photo. Simple, but I like it.
Very appropriate quotation, as the March winds were very strong today, and the daffodils seemed to dance along.
3/22 Update: Decided this needed something! I added a gold border around both the vellum overlay and the black mat with a gold leafing pen. Now it is finished.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Grungeboard ATC holder

I signed up for the grungeboard swap on ccswaps. I had a package of plain grungeboard to use. I cut out a butterfly shape with a Cuttlebug and two 3" x 4-1/2" pieces to make atc holder covers.
I sprayed one side of the covers and both sides of the butterfly with blue Shimmering Mist.
I sprayed the other side of the covers and one side of the butterfly with Brass Color Mist.
I ran these through the Cuttlebug with the embossing folders shown below:On one side of the butterfly and the blue side of the covers, I ran gold/black Brilliance ink over the raised areas.
I used a permanent black pen to color in the depressed areas on the back of the butterfly. Ran copper Brilliance ink over the raised embossed areas on the back of the covers.
Ran the butterfly through another Cuttlebug embossing folder and colored the edges and raised areas with a black Brilliance ink pad.
On both sides of the covers, I stamped the raised areas with black Archival ink on a script stamp.
I picked out some more images from Elizabeth's blog. Stamped on some words with black Archival ink and colored the edges with a blue metallic pen. Used this blue metallic pen to color in the antenna and body of the butterfly.
I used a Zutter Bind-it-All to put the book together. (Hard plastic badge holders were used for the inside atc holder pages.) I added blue rhinestones in some of the floral centers on the front cover and tied on a shrink plastic bead made earlier along with some fibers.
Inside front cover:
Inside back cover:
Back cover
Close up of butterfly and part of front cover to show the metallic shimmer: