Metal Shim

Back again with another selection of cards that have been published by Practical Publishing. This lot of cards was published in Australian Papercraft Essentials 31. These cards featured a variety of uses for metal shim in cardmaking. I wanted to keep the techniques fairly basic, while still being interesting.




This card used a number of embossing folders, including some embossing in brass in the Vintag tags and folder. I also stencilled with some  Viva Décor Copper 3D Stamp-Paint, used a metal butterfly and metallic mesh to increase the metallic look.




















I die cut Ranger Inkssentials Foil tape sheets for this card and then created a metal foil rose using outline stickers that I placed on the mesh and cut around, before shaping and then adhering together to form the rose. The leaves were made in the same manner, but using silver outline stickers on the foil. I love the mixture of gold and silver.

      







On this card I did dry embossing with an embossing folder, then sanded the surface before playing with alcohol inks to give an aged look.

       To make the foil stronger and more resilient to dry embossing I stuck it to some cardstock before embossing.

To be honest, there are parts of this card I like (flowers and the painted doily behind) but I wish I'd done something else with the foil. Not sure???

      









For this card after I embossed with an embossing folder, I then painted the foil with some Viva Décor 3D Stamp-Paints to give it a totally different texture. I sanded the banner before adding the sticker alphas.

The foil on this card was die cut before being recoloured using alcohol ink. 
 










This final card was created by hand embossing the house that had been stamped in thicker foil and then shaped with tools to create the shaped image. To keep the shaping, I filled the back of the image with foam tape, before attaching to the card. 

The letters were heat embossed with Stampendous Frontage Embossing set, adding mica to give it a more tactile appearance.







Anyway, that's it for this lot of cards. Be back soon with more.

Bye for now,
Love,
         Janelle

Watercolored Cards

Here are some more cards that were published by Practical Publishing over the past year. They were published in Australian Papercraft Essentials 30 and featured quick tricks with distress markers.

Whenever I do a "technique" collection, I try to do a different technique on each card, so this first card features a background where I scribbled over a craft sheet with a few distress markers, spritzed with water and then smooshed the cardstock over it.

This second card was stamped and then coloured with the distress markers. Only a little water was brushed over to blend the colouring.

 This card was stamped with a stamp that had been coloured with the distress markers and then spritzed with water before stamping. That's why you get the watercoloured effect and less distinct lines from the stamp.

This card was the most complicated to do. The cardstock was dry embossed with an embossing folder, then brayered with VersaMark, before being heat embossed with white embossing powder. The impressions in the cardstock were then coloured with the distress markers and a waterbrush.

This final card has a background that was coloured with distress markers on a background stamp, then without spritzing, stamped onto the cardstock. The collage stamp was then stamped over the top and coloured with the distress markers. 

 I think that this last card is my favourite of this lot. It was also the hardest to do perfectly as the background had to be stamped just right to work out without too many light patches. This is the tricky bit when just relying on a "huff" to keep the ink moist enough to stamp evenly. I then had the second layer of stamping to worry about as well. I think I had six or seven attempts before I got this sample to use.

Anyway, more next time.

Bye for now,
Love,
         Janelle

P.S. Reason I didn't post yesterday was that I couldn't get my son off the computer - that's what you get with school holidays.

A Retrospective Look Back Over The Past Year

Over the next week I'm will be presenting cards that I made during the past year and published by Practical Publishing. With all of my commissioned cards, I must wait three months after they have been published, before I can post them on my website. Consequently there is an avalanche of cards that has piled up. : ) I'll also be putting all of these cards onto my Pinterest board. ( http://www.pinterest.com/ellenajg/cards-ive-made/ )

This first lot of cards were published in Australian Papercraft Essentials (Edition 29). They featured trinkets and embellishments. The papers and most of the trinkets were from Prima, with clock faces, cogs and metal flowers also. The flowers were a mixture of Bo Bunny, Prima and Kaisercraft; with the leaves from Manor House.

I loved making these cards as they turned out so pretty and I just love the combo of pastel colours, lace, flowers, metal and rhinestone swirls - thoroughly feminine!

I'll be back tomorrow with some more.

Bye for now,
love, Janelle

P.S. Did you know that Google does a special "Google" icon for your birthday? How super!

A Baby Card

Today I'm presenting a baby card I've made for my niece, who's just had a baby boy who she's called Hudson.

We're all so happy for her and her husband and we're sure that he'll grow into a wonderful person as part of their loving and caring family.

This card is CASEd from one created by Therese Calvird.

I wanted my top layer to look more like clouds so cut the white using a scalloped oval die and made some air-foam moulded characters instead of the stamped image she used.

I'm going to use an acronym created by Darnell Knauss. My scalloped oval die, the moulds and the Hello die are all NBUS. (Never-Before-Used-Schtuff) I'm making it my mission over the next couple of months to use more NBUS. (Darnelle has inspired me!  ; )  )

They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so I hope Therese likes what I did to her card.

Bye for now,

Janelle

For a change - a layout!

Here is something else I did at the craft expo I attended recently.

I made it during a class called "#Boys" with Tracey Kielty. The photo was taken in April of this year when my son, Alex, came second in the Lego Challenge final held at a local shopping centre. He was chuffed and you can see it in his face.

The layout uses a piece of cardboard box as its base, with some top layers torn away. It's been painted with gesso and then coloured using Glimmer Mists, etc. As you can see, there are a variety of techniques going on in it, including, stencilling with Viva Decor ferro Steel, stamping, using die cuts, using acetate, using flyscreen and using hardware. It was very intensive (brainwise) but I love the result - so totally different to what I usually do. I especially love the grey stencilled brickwork (very tactile).

Bye for now,
Janelle
  :)

P.S. It was square, but my photo came out odd-shaped trying to prevent glare from the acetate.

Cards from the Papercraft Expo

Here are the cards I made at the recent Papercraft Expo.

This first lot were made during the "Textured & Dimensional Frame Cards" class taught by Belinda Spencer from Darkroom Door. It featured the Shadow 12 Up Frame Stamp from Darkroom Door, which I can see being very versatile. I definitely love these cards and Belinda was an exceptional tutor.

The cards also used some of Rachel's Filmstrips, Wordstrips and Montage sheets. I'd not used these before, but love the effect achieved with them. I love the beach themed card the best. The black and white card used a stamp kissing technique on the background stamp. Must admit it was the first time I've used two colours to do this technique; previously I'd only done it with a clean second stamp to create an impression effect.

This next set of cards was made during Tracey Cooley's class "A Touch of Whimsy". These are totally different from the other lot, being just sweet and fun with the butterflies and glitter.

This first card is called a lantern card. It's made with three leaves (I'm showing the front and back sides). When it stands on the table, it forms a triangular shape, and an electric candle fits inside the triangular space and you see it through the vellum. Don't you just love the die cut frame? It's from Couture Creations and called Tied Together Ornamental Lace Die. I just had to buy a copy of it for myself.

These cards used design papers from the Bo Bunny Primrose Collection and all of the butterflies were cut from a sheet of Primrose Bliss. The glitter was just a clear glitter glue.

I hope you like these cards. The designers, Belinda Spencer and Tracey Cooley, made it easy to make these cards and the classes were well worth their value.

I'll post more work from the Expo tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Janelle

Not good enough!

It's really not good enough, Janelle, that you have only been doing one post a month!!! Buck up and get at it!!!

There, now that I've given myself a good talking to, I'll tell you about my fun-filled days at the recent Papercraft Expo in Brisbane. Oh, I had so much fun!!!

First off, I'll get this out of the way. In previous posts I've told you about my health problems (CFS, numb feet, etc). Well I went to the neurologist and I have peripheral neuropathy in my feet and hands with notable deficiencies.  He isn't even sure if it's permanent or not. So for now, I just have to put up with the nerve pain, numbness and cramps. 

As part of his investigations, he sent me for a glucose tolerance test - and you guessed it - I also have Type 2 Diabetes. Yay, me!! Consequently, this is why I've not been working on all cylinders and not keeping up with my commitments (esp. card-making and blogging). So, if anyone out there can give me some support, (I've only known for two weeks), I would so desperately appreciate it. For the first four days, I didn't even know how to do the blood testing properly - thank goodness for friendly chemists! Anyway, I'm now part of the NDSS (National Diabetes Services Scheme) and trying to absorb all of the info re diabetes.

Now onto some fun stuff. The craft expo was brilliant. I went on the Saturday (so incredibly packed, you could hardly move) and did two card classes; and then on the Monday, I went with a fellow scrapper and did two scrapping classes. I'll post pictures tomorrow - keep you hanging on. :)

I also was able to catch up with some scrapping friends, Rachel Greig  from Darkroom Door and Sue Smyth. I met Rachel about three years ago and have used many of her stamps in my commissions for Practical Publishing. She is such a talented photographer and I love her work. Sue Smythe also works for Practical Publishing, as well as for a number of other places as a demonstrator/tutor and designer. She's such a lovely lady and I adore her layered works.

I was fortunate enough to meet Jane Davenport, who was there encouraging more art journalling. She's amazing and her work is also. I love watching her work as she gets so involved in it. She is a little quirky too, which suits me. She was sweet enough to have a photo with me.

I also did a card class with Tracey Cooley from Couture Creations and she was a blast. The girls from Couture Creations all dressed up for their classes and were also very generous, as they gave away embossing folders to everyone in the class (as well as what was in the class kits). Great value.

Tracey was dressed as Tinker Bell as her class was called "Once Upon a Whimsy". She even made her glittered shoes with pompoms on the toes. (Sorry you can't see them)


Anyway, tomorrow I'll post photos of the cards I made, so you can see what I've been up to.


Bye for now,
Janelle
    :)