Lovely As a Tree

Hello again, you know I'm so lucky to live in Cambridgeshire; it's a beautiful part of the country even though the landscape is so flat! You can see for miles...

The other day, instead of my usual trek into work, as it was half term I travelled to Cambridge on the guided bus to meet my friend, Chantelle, for a day of shopping, eating cake and drinking tea. It's a journey I used to make on a daily basis when I worked in Cambridge but I don't often travel there now so I really enjoyed looking out of the window at the scenery. Sadly I didn't get chance to take a photo.  Watching the sun coming up over the lakes at Fen Drayton really inspired me to use Lovely as a Tree. I had an inkling of an idea on the bus and made a scribbled drawing to remind myself.

OK so the photo isn't mine but I have tried to find contact details for Jme and also included his blog details. I just thought the addition of a photo would give an indication of the view.

Tangerine Tango

Crushed Curry

Old Olive

Early Espresso

I love blending inks, it's so theraputic; the more time you take, the better it looks as the colours build up. You just have to make sure you aren't going out for a special event though as fingers get very inky!

If you try it and aren't too sure of the result, keep going as it will improve. This time I used a die cut Post It note to mask a circle for the sun.

For the background layer I did the Joseph's Coat ink technique, it worked so well with the colours.

Stamping inside the card and also on the envelope ensures each project has a cohesive and finished look.

Happy New Year

Hello, as we approach the end of 2016, a brand new year full of possibilities is about to start, I don't know about you, but I always associate fireworks with 1st of January and I have a couple of seemingly unlikely stamp sets that will give a lovely effect.

The first one is my Xmas favourite, Star of Light and the other is the small round stamp from Balloon Celebrations. I did this technique on a first birthday card. The brief was "fireworks" as the little girl arrived on the 5th November. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the finished card.

The ink technique I want to show you is called Joseph's Coat. First of all I "splodged" random blocks of colour onto white card using my inkpads and sponge daubers. The next step is to stamp an image using Versamark, then heat emboss it using clear gloss embossing powder.

Splodging - a great technical term - ink over the paper and embossing
powder on a Versamak stamped image

Once heated it (obviously) goes clear. I hope you can see it on the picture below. At this stage I tend to go very carefully, stamping and embossing a little at a time, repeating as required to build up the image as I find it quite difficult to see.

Once heated the embossing powder melts to a clear finish

For the next stage you really need to be quite brave and not mind inky fingers! Certainly not a task to undertake prior to attending an important event.

This works best with a dark ink sponged over the entire paper quite liberally. All of the colours need covering well. Again it's best to keep going over the paper, building up the colour bit by bit. It can take a while to complete, particularly if you have used bright colours.

The final step to this technique is to take a piece of kitchen roll and buff the paper. The dark ink doesn't adhere to the embossed images leaving splashes of colour behind, all ready to use on a card base.