A Rainbow Inspired Gothic Arch

This is my answer to my lovely friend, Rainbow Lady's challenge, over on Gothic Arches. We were to use 2 colours, 2 stamps and an inspirational comment. I decided to go pink/violet and purple because she didn't!!! We both love the colour, but she desisted and I have jumped in, lol...

I used bubble gum and rum raisin glimmer mists sprayed on to doubly embossed white card. I used swiss dots and stylised flower, through the Cuttle Bug. The stamps are Aspects of Design, by Kay Carley, from the StampMan and a huge dragonfly from Creative Expressions. The words are from a plate by Butterfly Kisses. I rubbed over the embossing and aged the egdes with a lavender chalk cats eye pad and printed with black onyx versafine, embossed in clear ep. I painted with the same glimmer mists. Sakura pens add touches of sharper colour and shimmer and the whole arch is mounted on a sheet of paper, printed from a Joanna Sheen disc. Loads of lovely texture, I hope she likes it!!!

I also want to enter this one into Mixed Media Monday challenge, which is come fly with me.

I would love to shrink small enough to fly with this dragonfly!!

A Card to Cheer a Very Ill Rainbow Friend

Here is a card made for a Rainbow Friend who is terminally ill. We have "known" her for quite a long time, and I want to send her something to cheer her a bit, and to show her I am walking with her. This was a Gothic Arches challenge piece, to which I have added a couple of the inchies I made for the InchyByInchy challenge I set last week. A brown bow and couple of gold peel offs finish off the front.

On the back, I have used some pink card, sprayed with Glimmer mists, and stamps from Lavinia Stamps, which I got at the NEC last month. More brown ribbon and peel offs echo the front, here on the back.

I hope it brings her a smile for a while. Keep on keeping on, Liz.

With Love and Light.

xx

So Pleased and Delighted

I am so pleased and delighted to have been chosen to join the team at Inspirational. I have admired the work there since I started blogging, in January. I answered a call for more people to join the team, never thinking anything would come of it... and now I have been asked to blog-hop and chose super work to share with you all. OOOO it's really exciting!! It's wonderful to have a REAL excuse for dipping into all your blogs, and showing you all off to the world!! So watch out, here I come!! LOL.
xx

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.