That's Crafty!: January 2023

Happy Monday lovely That's Crafty Creatives!

Today's project is using a simple technique for those of you who love a bit of a watercolour effect!

I started with Pentart Liquid Watercolours in Pink, Red and Apple Green and Melina's Floral Set 3.

I squeezed a very small amount of the red and pink watercolour ink directly onto the petal areas of the stamp and the green on the leaves. Then with a paintbrush, spread the colours lightly across the stamp.

I spritzed lightly with water (the spritzer was approximately 12 inches from the stamp) then pressed white card onto the stamp, gently rubbing the surface of the card with my hand,

Carefully peeling the card off the stamp, it reveals a beautiful watercolour flower.

If you wanted, you could drag some of the colour from the darker areas to fill in some of the white space, but I love the effect of just using the watercolour as the outline. As the Pentart Liquid Watercolour is so intense, that one application will create several impressions, simply by spritzing lightly again with water on the stamp - each time the image gets lighter and lighter.

To create my card I tore around the edge of the card and painted some of the pink liquid watercolour around the torn edges. This card was then mounted on another piece of contrast card, again torn around the edges. Before sticking to my card base I cut a piece of lace from my stash and adhered to the left hand side of the card with That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Adhesive. I folded both edges of the lace over and attached to the inside of the card with two strips of card and the multipurpose glue.

I adhered the floral topper onto the card front and finally added a hand-written sentiment on white card, edging with the pink liquid watercolour.

A beautiful card, ready for the Spring, and a technique that means you can make more than one card at a time, with one application of the Liquid Watercolours!

Happy Crafting!

I'm using the gilding flakes with cutting dies this week, and it produces beautiful results. Now you could die cut and then add the gilding glue, but as these die cuts are very delicate I decided to work the other way round.

Cover some card with the gilding glue and let it go tacky.

I then put the flakes on top. It takes a bit of patience but is worth it in the end. I was going to stick with one colour, but then decided to mix it up a bit.

I'm using some Studio Light dies.

Arrange on the gilded surface - you can also cut the bent stalk from underneath so it faces the other way.

I stamped this AALL&Create background for my long tag.

Then I spritzed an acrylic block (rather dirty in this case!) with Distress Oxide Spray and swooshed the tag in the ink.

Repeat with the yellow.

Then I stamped some small flowers over the top in Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide ink.

Then just layer up and finish off.

I'm definitely going to be creating more die cuts in this way and also mixing up the metallic colours - it works really well.

Have fun experimenting!

Helen

Hello!

This week I have a project to share that's actually easier to make than you might think as clever Kelly O'Gorman creates the most versatile detailed images that do quite a lot of the work for you but it's good to be able to make them really yours as I've done here.

Step by Step:

I stamped the gnome cloche on a piece of smooth white stamping card with black ink and coloured just the images (leaving the surround as it was) as I planned on cutting them out to give a more dimensional look to my project.

I coloured a piece of smooth cartridge paper with Flat Matte Sprays using Green and Yellow at the base going up to Orange and Pink at the top. I then stamped the cloche image on with black ink and cut it out.

Laura and Graham designed a very clever MDF shape which matches the cloche exactly. I painted the top section of the MDF piece black and glued my stamped image in place. I cut the extra coloured images out and rounded them with an embossing ball tool before sticking them in place.

I then prepared the bottom section on which I used a spatula to apply sand texture paste roughly all over. Once it was dry, I painted the pieces with Evergreen Multi Surface Paint.

I glued all the sections together to finish.

Supplies:

That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Gnome Cloche and Insect House

That's Crafty! Surfaces MDF Upright - Cloche

That's Crafty! Sand Texture Paste

That's Crafty! Flat Matte Sprays

That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paint - Evergreen

VersaFine Clair Nocturne Ink

Watercolour Markers

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

Fliss x

Having had two steampunk makes since the start of the year I thought this week I would have a change and do something a little more feminine but with a Vintage feel. The base of this piece is a 12 x 12 dimensional canvas that is set in a large frame from a well know Swedish furniture shop.

To start my make I tore our the central part of the Album de Roses rice paper and adhered it centrally in the canvas with Matte Decoupage glue. The remaining corner fragments of the rice paper were then clued to the 4 corners of the canvas. I made sure that I sealed the surface of the rice papers with the decoupage glue as this means it is easy to wipe off mediums later on if you so wish. Next I took Garden of Promises Bird Stencil and filled in the gaps using modeling paste ensuring that the pattern overlapped the torn edges of the rice paper. Once the paste was dry I coloured the background using a mixture of paints - Old Ivory, Capuccino and Avocado. I blended the colours to give gentle transitions - you really don't need to be very specific but it helps if you start with the colour closest to the ones in the rice paper and blend out from there.

Next I used Umbre Patina Paste over everything wiping it back to help reveal some of the stencil detail (Vintage Antiquing Paste will do the same thing) before adding gold metallic wax to the surface details and around the canvas edge. - If I am totally honest I think I actually preferred the background BEFORE I did these steps so the choice is yours.

Having created the background I made my embellishments by casting the perfume bottles and title from the Fragrance mould with Amazing Casting Resin. Once set the resin was coated with Bonding Primer before painting. I chose to work with Old Ivory, Aviation Blue, Powder Blush and Warm Red Allegro paints. Once the paint had dried the resin pieces were coated with fluid gloss (Glossy Accents will work) to seal the paints before then using Antiquing Paste to age them in the same way I had the base canvas. Gold wax was then used to highlight the details.

To complete the piece I added the moulded pieces along side lots of the pieces from the chipoard die cuts that co-ordinate with the collection - edging each piece with metallic was and building depth by using pieces of cardboard to lift the elements over each other.

Finally I added splatters of white an black paint to unify the layers.

To decorate the frame I added stencil detail to the mount that came with it using Truffle Deluxe Paste and then glued the canvas centrally in place. The black frame was then painted with Champagne Deluxe Paste but any metallic paint that will adhere to plastic would work just as well.

I hope you like this piece and look forward to seeing your makes inspired by it.

Happy Monday lovely That's Crafty Creatives. Today's project is all about the Bunny!

For this project I have made a little notebook with a fun little woodland scene.

I started by cutting 2 pieces of mountboard 5x3 inches and 1 piece 5x 3/4 inches. Then with a piece of A4 paper I drew a horizontal and vertical line the width of my ruler. I added That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Adhesive to the back of one of the larger pieces and lining it up with the drawn lines I stuck it to the A4 paper. I measured a space of 1/8th of an inch then added the thin piece of mountboard - again using the Multi Purpose Adhesive, then measured another gap of 1/8th of an inch, then finally adding the last large piece of mountboard.

I scored along the sides of the mountboard and folded the paper inwards, then cut each corner off the paper.

I added glue to the sides of the paper then stuck all sides down. For the inside of the book cover I traced around the outline of the cover onto another piece of A4 paper then cut approximately 1/4 inch off one long and one short side. This was then stuck to the inside cover.

To decorate the front cover I used That's Crafty! Dinky Bare Tree stencil and Texture Paste.

Once dry I painted with Pentart Matte Acrylic Light Blue, Leaf Green, and Light Brown. To add texture, I cut down a cheap sponge scourer and lightly sponged over the blue with Pentart Matte Acrylic White.

For the inside cover I painted with the blue paint, then again sponged over with the white. I also punched two holes at the top and bottom of the back cover. This would be for the binding of the pages

For the pages I cut 30 sheets of paper measuring 4 7/8ths x 2 7/8ths (just short of 5x3 inches). I punched holes in the sheets to match up with the cover, then cut a piece of thread approximately 16 inches long. I threaded through the top of the pages, down into the cover to the back then up through the pages again - I repeated this a second time then fastened with a bow.

To finish the front cover I cast a bunny from Stamperia's Wonderful Season Mould with Delight Air Dry Compound. Once set, I painted with the brown acrylic paint, and added lowlights with Rich Hobby Metallic Black Paint, then glued it onto the front cover with the Multi Purpose Adhesive. To add texture to the grass, I added more texture paste, let it dry then painted with the green paint.