Winter Sparkle Card

This month on the Colourcraft blog, the theme is "Let It Snow". Have you had any snow yet or just frost?
The few clear yet frosty nights have been a welcome break from all the rain, and have inspired this Winter Sparkle card. The techniques could equally be used on a canvas or on tags, either for gifts or journalling.

I started with two pieces of dark A4 card, one purple, and one black. They actually ended up being almost identical!
Once the card was folded I masked the back but this was only partially successful, so I recommend making the design on card and then mounting it on another folded card when complete.

I sprinkled the card with a selection of Brusho colours: Prussian Blue. Purple, White & Grey. I also sprinkled on some Brusho SprinkleIT: Irredescent Flash & Pearl. 

This was then sprayed with spray starch and covered with cling film before leaving it the dry. This created a lovely background effect like frosty foliage. 

While this was drying, I drew and cut out a template on the matt side of freezer paper. 

I then ironed the gloss side of the freezer paper template onto the lower part of the card. This helps get a clean edge when sponging acrylic paint on. I made a mix of yellow, gold and bronze paint to get the colour I wanted, but the choice is yours!

Once the paint is touch dry, peel off the freezer paper stencil.

Now it's time to add some more sparkle! First I used a round ponge and embossing pad with silver embossing powder to create a moon

and the small snowflake polymer stamp on an acrylic block 

A heat tool will melt the embossing powder to give a lovely sparkle 3D finish.

I then added some trees to the sides of my design using silver DesignIT relief paste, applying the paste through the secured tree stencil using an old credit card. Lift the stencil away carefully upwards to avoid smudging the paste and allow it to dry.

I then used the same technique for the bottom of the card but with the pearl DesignIT relief paste and  TCW "Jungle Vines" mylar stencil.  Colourcraft does stock this so give them a phone call (01142421431) if you would like one as they are not all listed on the website.

Adding an eye and mouth to the stag finished this winter scene.

I hope you are keeping warm.

I would love to see your Christmas card designs, so please do share them with me.

Autumn Colours: Tyvek Leaves

I don’t know if you are one of those folk rubbing your hands together in glee at the thought of Autumn? I tend to reluctantly face the fading of summer as I love long days and sunlight. However, I do love some aspects of Autumn, log fires and the changing colours of the leaves to name a couple.

So in crafting, it is autumn leaves I turn to for inspiration at this time of year.

In July I shared how I use painted Tyvek sheets for the sky in textile art landscapes, but once painted there is so much more you can do with Tyvek! Amazing things happen when you apply heat.

(You can apply heat using an iron, craft heat gun or a soldering iron.
Take care not to breathe in the vapours, working in a very well ventilated area and wearing a respirator if doing more than a small piece. At my workshops we are able to use the conservatory for the heating part, working by the open French Door).

The first step is to paint the Tyvek paper sheets. Water-based paint acrylic paint is fixed when completely dry whereas watercolour will dissolve in water. Don’t dry on paper which will leech the colour from the sheet, I painted one side a reddy brown and then waited for that to dry before turning over and painting with a mixture of green acrylic paints. But if you’d like some Autumn sparkle, before each side dries, Spray on a little water and then sprinkle on a little Brusho SprinkleIT. I used gold and copper. The great thing about using Tyvek for this project is that the paint does not go through so each side can be different.

Look at the lovely effect, you get on Tyvek when it’s dry:

You can either draw on a leaf freehand or if you, like me, are not so confident in your drawing skills, draw around leaves. Mark on some veins too.

I then sewed the main stem and centre vein using satin stitch over paper-covered wire. Variegated thread looks good. Because each side of the Tyvek was a different colour, I used different variegated threads in the needle and bobbin.

Sew the veins with a straight stitch or free machine embroidery.

Sewing on clusters of beads with invisible thread adds more sparkle! There is a pack that has some gold and pinky colours in that work well.

I painted the exposed paper covered wire and then sprayed the leaves with gold Brusho Shimmer spray for even more Autumn glow.

Now to apply heat. This will distress the Tyvek, causing it to bubble, curl, and produce holes. The leaves will become firmer, and look more realistic. The trick is to not distress it too far so you are left with no leaf.

Protect your iron and ironing board with baking parchment, placing the leaf between two pieces.

Use a dry iron but don’t press! Hover the iron over the sandwiched leaf. Note my hand position for how I find it easiest to do this. Keep checking how the leaf is applying short bursts of heat until you are happy.

I added a few extra holes with a craft soldering iron. I made a pad to do this on with newspaper with foil on top.

Here it is held up to the light.

I then curled the wire stems around each other to create my Autumnal table decoration. I think it looks great on a mirror tile as you get the reflection of the underside.

I couldn’t resist taking it outside to the garden to see how realistic it looked. What do you think?

Happy autumn, Helen x

Autumnal Index Cards with Suzi

Good Day All, Today I'd like to share with you my latest Altered Index Cards.  I've used lots of Brusho Crystal Colour Powders, SprinkleIt, Metallic Acrylic Paint and Coloured Pencils to create my Index Cards.

Here's my Index Cards;

Here's how I created them;

First of all I created the backgrounds on my Index Cards.  I took four Index Cards and gave them a coat of white gesso before applying Brusho Crystal Colour Powders in Gamboge, Burnt Sienna, Olive Green, Yellow Ochre and Orange. I also applied some Copper SprinkleIt for a bit of sparkle.

Next I took some old book pages and my Brusho Crystal Colour Powders and created papers for me to use for my die cut leaves.

Here's a selection of the papers I created;

Here's a selection of the leaves I created, using Funky Foliage Dies;

The next step was to sketch out the faces on my Index Cards;

As you can see I also added some tree shapes to my cards. 

I then added more details using the Koh-I-Noor PolyColour Coloured Pencils.

I then took my die cut leaves and arranged them to give the impression of hair.  I also added some to the base of my trees.

If you look closely you can see I added some Copper Foil to some of my leaves for a little extra shine.

To finish my Index Cards I trimmed off the over hanging leaves and added a boarder of Copper Metallic Acrylic Paint around the edge of the cards. I also added some of the Copper Metallic Paint to the cheeks of the Face in Profile.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out, when I was creating the backgrounds I didn't really know what the next stage would be, but the Brusho Crystal Colour Powders created there own patterns and in those patterns I saw the start of the faces.  I love how unpredictable the Brusho Powders are, you always get a surprise when you use them.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing how I created my Index Cards. I had great fun creating them.

Thanks for visiting with us today

Bye for now

Suzi

xxx

Seaside bunting by Karen

The other Karen on the team and I had a similar idea: Summer means bunting! You can see her lovely butterfly bunting < here>. I already had some jute bunting crying out to be decorated and, as I live near the sea, that was my inspiration. This bunting has 13 triangles but I decided to start one in and decorate every other triangle to start with so 6 in total. I cut out slightly smaller triangles from watercolour paper to decorate my bunting, keeping the offcuts for stamping and die-cutting, and distressed the edges.

I die cut and embossed some shells and sprayed them with water. I then diluted some Dark Brown Acrylic Ink to paint in the details, letting the colour spread for a subtle colour.

For the backgrounds, I used a pipette to dot Turquoise Acrylic Ink on to a craft mat, sprayed it with water and smooshed the paper in to it, repeating until I had good coverage but being sure to leave some white. Repeating the 'smooshing' builds up layers and gives more depth to the background.

This was repeated with a smaller amount of darker Ultramarine for more depth and then everything was left to dry.

Expand-It paste was stencilled and added with a paint knife to the backgrounds. I sprinkled this with Gold and Irridescent Gold Sprinkle-It to give a sandy effect. When heated the Expand-It puffs up to give great texture.

I used more Acrylic Inks to colour stamped images and swiped a stamp though ink on the craft mat to add more detail to the background too.

Realising the shells were very pale alongside the stamped images, I painted over the embossed lines and edges several times with Dark Brown and an almost dry brush building up the colour to shade and add dimension to these shapes. For these three triangles, it was then some background stamping and gluing the images on.

For the final three, I positioned where I thought I would stamp and then added the Expand-It in the same way as before but avoiding the areas to be stamped (I still changed my mind on one!). Finally, to pull them all together with the stamping finished, I added a bit more Dark Brown with a paint brush to add shading to lots of areas. Because the Acrylic Ink is permanent once dry, painting over the blue didn't reactivate the colour below. I then used what was left on the mat to finger paint over the Expand-It on all the triangles, highlighting the texture. I then decided the order that I wanted them to hang and glued them on to the bunting as shown in the first photo.

Hope you feel inspired to make some bunting. It's a great way to brighten an area or welcome the summer days. However, these techniques will work equally well for a larger project or cards.
Karen

ColourCraft Acrylic Inks

Brusho SprinkleIt

EXpandit 3D expanding medium	Plastic Painting Knives	Heat Gun	Golden haired nylon brushes	Pipette
Clear Spray Bottle

Stamps used are by Chou & Flowers and Mes P'tits ciseaux available at Kerudoc Création and a very old set of stamps and dies now retired.