Tuesday 7 June 2016

Life's Work

Morning, Well I have recovered from filming yesterday. If you have seen the demonstration for the silk ribbon roses, then I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn't please take a look they are a really handy thing to have up your sleeve for embellishing cards or crafty project.


Today's card is made from the beautiful feather collection of stamps from Bee Crafty, drawn by Sam. A fantastic job, I am sure you will all agree. I started of by dying/ageing some papers using cold strong tea. Hung to dry overnight.


Next I stamped the old invoice stamp onto the paper. I did the original stamp in brown ink, but felt that the Black Archival would suit this project better.


Next I masked off the end of the large straight feather as I wanted the nib to be at the end to make the pen. I stamped this with Versamark and embossed using black fine detail powder and heated using a heat gun. I had previously done the same with the nib only with gold fine detail powder. I cut this out and set aside.


Separately I stamped the ink bottle with black Archival and now had all the elements I wanted for the card, including 3 old invoices in black.


For the background, I took a sheet of tissue paper and built up a pattern using a mixture of stamps across the collection, along with the words Life & Memory, both from sentiments found in the Wordage section of Bee Crafty. Obviously you can change the words depending on the theme of your project. There are some really amazing sentiments on the website.I used a selection of inks to stamp the tissue: Black Archival,Walnut Stain, Brushed Corduroy and Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink. I wanted the colours to come from the background and therefore these colours are fairly muted.


To provide the background colour, I took a sheet of A4 watercolour card and saturated it under the tap. The took Violet, Emerald Green and Cobalt Blue Brushos and added them here and there with the end of a mini screwdriver. I let the colours spread naturally before taking a straw and blowing to get some trails.


I wanted an 8'' square for my finished project, which gave me ample left over to stamp my sentiment.


I cut the sentiment to size, cut a mat for it approximately 5 mm larger and blended Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink around the edges.


I covered the watercolour card with PVA let down 50/50 with water. Scrunched my tissue paper, unravelled it and stuck it down, keeping creases and folds to add texture to the card. Leave this aside until completely dry before trimming the excess or you wont get a nice sharp edge.


Having played around with the composition, I decided something else was needed so I stamped the same straight feather onto shrink plastic, coloured with a red pencil and heated until completely shrunk. I also coloured my Quill pen with a selection of alcohol markers.


I layered my sentiment with cosmic shimmer, I arranged the old invoices and also secured them with cosmic shimmer glue. I shaped the ink bottle and used 3D glue get to secure, I then stuck the shrunk feather so it was sitting in the ink bottle.Finally I added the sentiment and large quill feather pen with 3D glue gel.


I really hope you have enjoyed my post today and hope that you will stop by again. Don't forget tomorrow night is the Launch of Leonie's new One Day Special on Hochanda at 8pm.I will be sharing some of my samples at the same time, but watch the show first, you dont want to miss out. Take care xx







9 comments:

  1. Another beautiful card Nick. I do love this technique to make the background.
    You have been really busy with doing this blog,video tutorials and samples for Leonie's shows.
    Hope you got the new range earlier this time so that you got the chance to make and send in time for tomorrows shows!
    Thank you for sharing. Nicola x

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  2. Thank you Nicola, I really like this background technique as well and you can make it to suit with whatever stamps you want. It has been busy, but I really dont mind when I get such nice comments. I have had lot's of pictures sent of people who have tried the roses already, I am really chuffed and so pleased the video was a success and has helped people as well. My samples wont be there in time as they had trouble with the courier, but they are all made and I hope to send some in to the studio during the live shows. They will all be on the blog over time. Take care xx

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    1. That must be really frustrating and also seems a bit unfair on you. Really sorry, but will look out for the pictures you send into the studio and look forward to seeing them all on the blog. Nicola x

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  3. Hi. Nick, fabulous card, your instructions are always so easy to follow! Love Jean xxx

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    1. Thank you so much Jean. I am glad they are clear enough. I think I am getting better with practice. Take care xx

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  4. Fantastic nick love the fab detail very effective.
    Hugs Julie xxx

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    1. Thank you so much Julie. I am over the moon that you like it.Take care xxx

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  5. Do like this and such a lot of work went into it. Thank you for sharing it.

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    1. Thank you so much , I am very pleased that you like it. You're welcome, thanks for looking xx

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