A Few More...

Here are a few more inchy "jewels"... Don't worry about having a small enough stamp!! The top 2, bottom 2 and the left middle, are all from parts of the Life is in Bloom stamp from Stamp Addicts. The middle right is one of the parts of the bookmark stamp from Elusive Images. These were all done with 2 colours of ep on the top layer, after using thick, clear on the first and second layer. The bottom 2 use 2 kinds of verdigris - love them!!

InchyByInch Challenge - "Little Jewels" with triple embossing

Hi... welcome to this InchyByInch challenge. I do hope you all enjoy it. Get out your stuff and have a go - it's true alchemy, as far as I am concerned. OOOOO, I am so thrilled!! I have written a tutorial which might help you get started, if you have never done triple embossing before. It seems long but it's just me chattering on!!! Here goes :-


Triple Embossing to make “Little Jewels”

This technique is simple and so effective. if you have some embossing powders, a heat gun, a versamark pad and a stamp, you are in business! Always work on a heatproof surface, as the heated powders get very hot.

For my inchies here, I began with some thick card from Magenta, already cut into inch squares. Woodware do them too, or you can make your own. The thickness is important, so the finished article does not curl up and crack! You can use the backing from those stiffened envelopes you get paper and card products delivered in.

1) Prepare your surface and gather all your elements together, because you will need to be reasonably quick once the powders are heated.

2) Cover your card piece, liberally, with the embossing fluid from the versamark pad, or similar. I do so much of this that I bought a 2 fl oz bottle from Stamp Addicts, by Judikins. It has a dabber on top for application, but it’s not necessary, a pad will do.

3) For my inchies here, I covered the card with black ep and heated. I repeated this 3 times, in order to build up the depth. As each of the first 2 layers is heated, drop it back into the powder. If you are too slow, cover again with the embossing fluid.

4) As you are ready to heat for the third time, ink up your chosen stamp, using your colour of choice, (eg gold) and put it ready to use. Heat your piece until it is smooth, molten and shiny, then take up your stamp and press the image into the hot mixture. It will not damage the stamp! Leave it to set for a short time then remove the stamp. You will have the wonderful, “squigged” (my technical term!!!) image of the stamp indented into the ep. It may overflow the edges or be deeper in some places, that just adds to the magic. You can cut off the edges if you want, when the piece is cooler.

5) Instead of black, you can use any colour ep, or any mixture of colours. You only need them to be molten, in order to impress the image. Just sprinkle various colours on to your heating piece, and they will blend like alchemy!! I have some examples like this on my blog. Run a gold or silver pen round the edges to finish them off neatly.

6) When mine were cool, I brushed different Cosmic Shimmer powders onto them. You can use Perfect Pearls, or other similar mica powders. This technique works best on black ep, I find. I GENTLY reheated the piece to set the shimmers – if you reheat too much, you will melt the indentation away... this is handy if you did not like what you made, because you can stamp it all over again, once you reheat! If you had used gold ink, this will melt into the mix too, and can be SO effective!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at
Dragon@Dragonsweb.net or on my blog. ENJOY!!!

Here are a few more...

Watch This Space!!

I have been asked to be a Guest Designer for the InchyByInch challenge this next week, so please watch out for it and do join in, if you can!! I shall really enjoy visiting all those blogs!! Well, I do anyway, but moreso if you are having a go at my challenge!!!

Love and Light
F
xx

Simply a Lotus Blossom

This is simply created for the challenge over at Crazy Amigo, simplicity - use as little as possible to make a beautiful card. Well, this lotus blossom by Judikins, is very beautiful, simply stamped in Brilliance peacock, on to plain white card. The background is made from Glimmer mists, overlaid with bubble wrap until dry. And that, as they say, is that!!

It also fits the challenge at Wednesday Stamper, which is green.

(PS made this whilst our lovely Cynthia, Rainbow Lady, had her well-earned nap, after her flght down to my house!!)

Monarch Birthday

Here is my project for the challenge at InchyByInch, this week - birthday. The actual inchie is a googled image of a monarch butterfly emerging from it's chrysalis, hence it's a birthday!! But it looked so small and vunerable, poor thing, I decided to add a twinchie of a butterfly wing, and a whole butterfly, from a UMount plate. The colouring is done using butterscotch alcohol ink and a couple of Sakura pens, a blue metallic and an orangy stardust. I think I have cheated again but I like the finished piece...

Dans Ma Maison il y a - a woman, writing...

Loved planning this one. Very simple house for Dans ma maison il y a une femme - a woman. I am definitely in an oriental phase, so she had to be an oriental lady. She is from a Non Sequitur plate that I have had for a long time... I coloured her in with Sakura pens. The papers making up the house are from the postcard Far East stack and the display sheet is from the 8"x8" stack - yummy.... The lantern is from a cube by Judikins, from Stamp Addicts, and I outlined the house with a gold peeloff. I wonder what she is thinking?

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Here is a postcard for 2 challenges this week, about words. The first is Sunday Postcard Art with their theme of words of wisdom, and the second is from Mixed Media Monday, where the theme is the written word.

The background is sprayed Glimmer mists, overstamped with bamboo from the Japanese set by KC at Aspects of Design. The people and stones are from a plate by Non Sequitur, coloured with inktense pencils. The sage saying is by the philosopher Lao Tsu, who lived in very ancient times, but who wrote so many words of wisdom with resonance for today.

DragonFlight

This piece is made to fit 2 challenges this week. The first inspiration was Arty Girlz, blue and yellow, and the form was dictated by the Tag You're It theme of wings. I have used Glimmer mists in lemon zest, sea grass and denim blue, to colour the tag and embellishment. I coloured the image of the dragonflies, with inktense pencils. The stamps are from Aspects of Design (from the StampMan) designed by Kay Carley - I have all 4 Japanese sets and they are great favs. I added some texture using chalk eyes and stamps from UMount butterflies, and finished off with yellow and blue ribbons from my stash. I think this will make a good card topper.

A Circular Tour of My Arch.

Lots of stamping again for this piece, which was made for 2 challenges. The first inspiration was the colour scheme at Gothic Arches, pink and brown. The form was decided by the circles challenge at Daring Cardmakers. The 3 different agapanthus stamps are from Stampendous and the 2 circular stamps are from Hero Arts.

I stamped the images using versacolour brown, blending blox in shades of brown, worn lipstick distress ink and the pinky end of the happy birthday Big n Juicy. I used a favourite ep all through which is Moonglow 2 tone - Kaiser Rudolf russet, which comes out as a pink/gold, and changes over the brown versacolour pigment ink. The background was filled in by spraying latte and bubblegum pink Glimmer mists, which made it more sparkly and gorgeous... I think I will make a card from this, adding a couple of flowers, perhaps, placed strategically - however, I don't have any at the moment, so it might be a time!!!

Fine Feathers

Here is my piece for two challenges this week. The first inspiration was feathers for TGIF, and the second was Make it Monday, turquoise. I began by making the backing paper, from a thin card, sprayed with several colours of Glimmer mists, such as turquoise, latte, sea glass and sea foam. When it was very wet, I did my old trick of covering it with bubble-wrap until it dried. This gave a wonderfully textured surface upon which I stamped the background feathers from the Elusive Images peacock plate. I covered them with clear ep, so they shine a little.

With the same colours of mists, I sprayed on to my heat sheet and placed another piece of thin card over to soak up the mixture for a smooth look, then I used my alcohol inks, in stream, butterscotch, bottle and latte, to make a wonderfully deep set of colours on top. I stamped the two square images with black stazon and used clear ep to make the image stand out. Several different feathers, from the plate, were stamped on to the smooth colour card, cut out and placed strategically on the sheet. The whole piece is displayed on a vintage cash sheet from The Graphics Fairy. This is all so much more colourful and shimmery in real life, than on the scan. I can see it will make into a card eventually. Thanks for looking - I was so tickled with the result!!! lol