Another project finished at last

A few months ago I started on a project to make Word Art frames for each of my boys. The idea was to make one for ourselves as a trial run, so I started with an old frame which I painted with white gesso and then several layers of Paper Artsy Fresco Finish paint, including a layer of their crackle paint. Family situations then meant that I was visiting UK earlier, and for longer than originally intended, so I needed to go ahead and make the boys frames, without a trial run, and ours was 'left hanging', well, the empty frame was anyway.

So this week I decided to have another go at it. I used photoshop to make the background, with a layer of mottled green digi scrapbook paper, and photos of Chris and I, and one of the whole family group. Because the frame was long and narrow, there was not room for the large individual photos I used for the boys, so I selected just a cameo of each, lightened them so they did not stand out too much, and clipped each one to a circular photo mask so that they had no sharp edges, but rather, they blended into the background.

Then I made the script in my silhouette software. I was using elements from other boards I have seen on the web, mix and matching them to suit me, and adding my own header. I sized it to fit on the 'empty' part of the background and cut it from black vinyl. Then comes the dreaded weeding. I had watched a video on how to add weeding lines, which are a set of horizontal lines that are cut along with the script, so that you can remove the waste background in strips, instead of one large piece. It made a huge difference, and the main weeding was soon done. All that was left to do, was to remove small elements such as the inner circles of closed letters.

Once that was done, all that was left was to use transfer tape to lift each couple of lines, and transfer them onto the background. I do have a roll of wide transfer paper that would have enabled me to do it in one go, but I was worried about placing it straight, and the transfer paper actually lifting the printed surface if I needed to reposition it, so the narrow tape was easier. I just had to be make sure that I didn't lose any tiny elements like the speech marks, and the dots over the 'i', and be careful to align them correctly, which I did by putting the background over the vinyl and holding them against the window as a light box, so I could put feint alignment marks on the paper!

Then I cleaned up the glass, and assembled it in its frame. Now it just needs a hook to hang it up, and as my other half actually said it looks quite smart, I may get it done for me later. 

One image; Two takes

Last week I made two cards for men, so this week  it is the turn of the ladies. I had someone in mind when I made the  first one. Once again I was browsing the All Things Silhouette Facebook page which is a great source of inspiration for me. and I came across an image called 'Rainbow hair' that I knew I had to try.

 A lady called 'La Isla Eva' had kindly posted the cutting file for it, so I opened it up and had a play around with it. I down sized it a bit, and having separated all the elements, I then grouped them to use with different colours. I raided my newest snippets box - off-cuts of vinyl -  and found pieces that all went together quite well, including a small piece of black for the head. I then moved each group of elements to a different area of the cutting mat on the screen, and used the grid lines on the actual sticky mat to place my pieces of coloured vinyl. Then I cut it all out. I used transfer tape to lift each section and place it onto a white A5 landscape card. This left too much white space for me so I used some black sparkle vinyl to cut two lengths of trellis using a Memory Box die, and stuck one down each side of the card. I made two butterflies by covering a small piece of white card with some really tiny left over pieces of coloured vinyl and die cutting two solid butterflies. I then used some more of the black sparkle vinyl to cut two of the matching fancy butterflies and stuck these over the coloured ones. I added one to each trellis and then cut three sizes of little flowers again from left over pieces of vinyl, using an old border punch. and dotted these randomly on the trellis. Finally one more piece of black sparkle was used to die cut the Happy Birthday using a Britannia die, and as I had three left over flowers, I added these to the sentiment. The birthday girl is celebrating today, so I can now show her card which she loves.

I wanted to do something else with this lovely image so I made it a little smaller and cut it again from a sheet of Silhouette double sided adhesive. This proved to be a disaster as the bottom layer of protective paper stuck to my new, very sticky, cutting mat, and the top layer of protective paper was too easy to remove and wouldn't lift with the sticky film attached. So the first attempt was a write off! But I didn't want to give up too soon, so I cut it a second time, and then I cut it from my pearl paper to make a mask. With this glued in place on a piece of white card, I was able to lift the elements one at a time and place them through the mask. It had been my intention to use gilding flakes, but when I was looking through a drawer to find them, I came across a roll of tonertex film, bought at a craft show at least ten years ago and never used! I don't even know if you can still buy it. Anyway, there was sheet in the roll that was a random pattern of colours and I decided to use that instead of the gilding flakes. Because the little sticky elements were catching on the mask I needed to lift the mask regularly and colour a section of it so it was no longer sticky. I didn't do a very accurate job of placing  it back each time, so my completed image had rather a large gap below the lower hair area and the neck, so I cut a few extra pieces to fill this. I again cut the head from black vinyl.

This time I used the base card in the portrait orientation, and I used a SU Everything Eleanor stamp and versafine ink to add a swirl in the lower right corner of the card and along the top, and embossed these with my favourite disco black embossing powder which had bright glitter in it. Then I matted the main image on to silver holographic card coloured with black alcohol ink, and mounted it over the swirls. I used an off-cut of the adhesive film on white card and what was left of the tonertex sheet to cut a butterfly as above, and added a black fancy one over it. After rummaging around I found some shiny 'plastic' flowers and added these to the swirls. A sparkly black die-cut Happy Birthday completed this one. I am sorry the photo is not very good. I took this one in artificial light.

As I used so many offcuts of vinyl I am linking these to Pixies Snippets Playground, and the second card also meets the criteria for Mrs A'S Butterfly Challenge 8. This month we are playing Bingo and I have used the row, Wet embossing, butterfly and flowers.

Two for the men.

Out here in Spain, we have recently lost reception of most of the British television that we used to watch. It's a long story, but some techno folk are looking for alternative methods to view it. In the meantime I can honestly say I am not missing it much, and it has given me more time to spend in my craft room. So this week I decided to replenish my box of 'spare' cards, so that I have some ready when I need one in a hurry, and I started with a couple for men.

This first one was made using images from Joanna Sheen's "Times gone by" CD. I have used this photo taken at a slight angle to show how it was made. The front of the card is cut away along the top of the corn field, and around the horse's body and head.  The complete head, and then the face, are decoupaged so I could feather the mane and forelock a little. The inside layer is the same image as the front, printed paler, and complete with the sky. There is an unprinted oval behind the horse's body for writing on. It was quite quick and easy to do, and made a nice card.

For the second card I revisited a technique that I haven't used for ages. I found an off-cut of card from the Chocolate Box ColorCore Cardstock block, where every sheet is a shade of brown with a different colour core - in this case, very pale green. I embossed it with a previously unused Cuttlebug embossing folder, and sanded it to reveal the owl and frame.

I hunted through my green snippets box for some patterned paper that would go with it, and covered a white base card with it. I salvaged a piece from the centre just big enough to make the tag which was cut with the inner and outer edges of a wonky square die. The centre of it is made from another tiny snippet of plain green paper, stamped with a Crafty Individuals sentiment, and some Tapestry Stamp leaves. I hung the tag from  a strip of green ribbon glued across the top of the card, and added a matching bow. I decided that there was no reason why the men shouldn't have a bit of bling too, so I added tiny green gems to the owl's eyes, and a larger one beneath the bow.

Seeing as I used so many snippets to make the second card, I shall link that to Pixie's Snippets Playground. I am trying so hard to use up snippets before cutting into a new sheet of paper or card, but all my boxes are still bursting with bits and pieces!

Dashing through the snow on Rudolph Day

My two cards this month are ideal for the Rudolph Day Challenge as they feature Rudolph himself, 'Dashing through the snow! I used a set of clear stamps by Woodware that I bought two Christmases ago, and then didn't use, so I thought it was time they saw some ink.

For both of them I stamped the Rudolph, sleigh and gifts, and masked them off while I used ink dusters to add some DI Tumbled glass, to the sky. I also cut two strips of snowflakes using a recently bought Memory box die, Frostyville border, and added some sparkle to them with Stickles silver ice.. I used a Momento Teal zeal ink pad to  stamp the sentiment in the top,  right corner, and the smallest snowflakes from the Woodware set, randomly over the backgrounds.

For the first card I coloured all the images with shades of blue felt pens, and added a white sparkle peel-off border. I also dotted a little stickles on the snowflakes.

I finished the other one  in the same way, but I used a wider range of coloured pens on the images, and added a blue sparkle peel-off border. I am not sure which version I prefer. 

I glued the Frostyville borders across the base of each card.

For a final touch I glued tiny blue gems to the curl of the antlers on the first card, and for the brown one, I used gold flat-backed pearls.

I told Sarn that I was ready for her challenge this month, which I was, several days ago, but I almost forgot to do the post today! But now I am off to link these at  Stamping for Pleasure.

Celebrating with the family

My blog is beginning to look like a Christmas only place, so it is time I posted something different! I have been absent for a few weeks now as I spent a fortnight in UK helping my son with his final preparations for emigrating to Denmark, and then attending a family funeral. I did return home (to Spain) bringing my sister with me for a week, but a few days after that I went back to UK for the wedding of my grand-daughter. We had a wonderful family day, and now all the excitement has died down, I feel I can share the card I made for them.

The colour scheme for the day was shades of purple and white so that 

is what I wanted to use for the card. I have very few wedding images in my stash so I was trawling through pinterest for some inspiration, and I came across this which I thought was just perfect for a modern young couple. I wanted to cut it using my Silhouette Cameo, but it is not a very clear picture and I was having difficulty in making a cutting file. I then saw it again on Facebook, so a big 'Thank You' to Belinda Savage from the All Things Silhouette Facebook page, who helped me to trace it. 

The next thing was to chose the paper to use. I knew it would cut well with vinyl, but all my vinyl is high gloss and I didn't think that would look right. So in the end I used my pearlised -all the way through - paper in white, as this is non-fibrous so works better for detailed cuts than ordinary paper does.

When I had cut it, I trimmed it down and edged the right hand side with a Marianne lace border die. I then matted this onto dark purple pearlised card and again used the die along the right hand edge. Next I mounted this onto a lilac pearlised base card, and added some purple pearls to the top left corner. 

There was space underneath for a greeting which I printed on the computer and framed with some dies from the Spellbinders resplendent rectangles set.

The lower left corner was filled with some tiny purple flowers rescued from a card I received a while ago. I was very pleased with the end result.

As it happens my sister also had a family wedding, the day before ours, so I shall follow her to enter this in a couple of challenges that are featuring weddings this week.

Crafting with Dragonflies Challenge 26:

Celebrations

Paperminutes Challenge 322: Weddings

While I was in the right frame of mind to work on fancy cutting files, I also made this for them. This time it is made from dark purple vinyl, adhered to a piece of lilac scrapbook paper and mounted into a narrow, silver frame. I made the image using a monogram font called Regal for the main letter 'B', and the font Black Chancery for the rest of the words. It does of course show both their names, their now-joint surname, and the date of their wedding.

I am hoping to make a similar one for Chris and I, (35 years late!) but it may not work. The initial 'P' will not split as naturally as the 'B' did, so I may have to change it a bit. That is a project for when I manage to find some spare time?...

Right it's back to Christmas cards now as it is Rudolph Day coming up on Sunday!

Rudolf Day Recycled

I have just returned from two weeks in UK, and having had a lovely week with my sister who came back with me, I now have a list of 'must do' projects to complete before I fly back to UK in ten days time for our grand-daughter's wedding. So I made a start today with two recycled Christmas cards for Rudolph Day tomorrow. (That's the 25th of each month when Sarn encourages to make and show two Christmas cards). I needed something quick to do, so I rifled through the pile of old Christmas card bits that I have saved, and chose a few items to play around with.

For the first card I have used a red and gold background from one card, a post-box image from another, and a red mirri-card poinsettia from a third. (It is much more red than it looks in the photo).I made a white A6 base card, and used a snippet of red card and a gold peel-off border to mat the image, and another tiny snippet of the card to hold a gold peel-off greeting. Some gold-ice stickles on the snow gave it a bit of sparkle, and that was one done. As is the nature of shiny card, the gold background is marred by my own reflection as I took the photo, but I won't worry about that too much.

For my second card I used a bright robin from one card, a holly wreath from another, a snippet of robin paper and a green sheet from a Papermania 6"x6" pad. I fussy cut the robin and fixed him behind the holly wreath which was already cut out. For the background I used a Martha Stweart cut-around-the -page punch set, and matted it onto some green holly paper. Then I attached this to a white square base card. The white background paper has tiny robins dotted all over it, but when it was assembled I noticed that the top left hand corner was completely bare, so I added a small red peel-off greeting there.

So that is my two cards for this month, and I have to say that I am very pleased to have used up some more of my salvaged oddments, which I always keep but rarely use! Tomorrow I am off to the hospital early for laser surgery on my poor left eye, and as I have no idea whether I will be able to use it to do anything on the computer when I get home, I shall try to link this up before I go.

As well as the Rudolph Day challenge on Sarn's blog, Stamping for Pleasure, I will also link up in Pixie's Snippets Playground.

Recycled circles

I didn't really intend to post any more before my trip to UK tomorrow, but having finished the frame I was making for my son earlier than I expected, (see previous post), I found myself with an evening to spare, so I gave myself the feel-good factor by putting inserts in the set of ten Christmas cards I made for the last Rudolph Day, and then I had a look in my box of bits to recycle from cards we received. One of them had this lovely image in a circle, with the word Christmas written across it, and Blessings on a separate banner below it. Because the wording was an integral part of the image, I had to keep it as it was, but I cut around the top of the circle, and then loosely around the word. I didn't like it much, so in a mad moment I decided to fussy-cut the letters, which took me quite a while, but was worth it. I cut the banner for Blessings as it was, and then I put it away in my WIP folder and forgot it.

On having a second look I thought it had some potential, so I made a background from my lovely Cover-a-page holly stamp from Impression Obsession, stamped with versamark and embossed with Cosmic shimmer bright gold powder. I made a base card for the image and then found my holly was not quite wide enough, so I trimmed it down a bit and made a border for each side using one of my sizzix border dies, and a matching infil die, and some red card from my snippet box.  I assembled the card and noticed one or two berries in the top left corner had not stamped very well, so I used the little red circles from the border die cut, to cover the berries. 

Having just seen Di's entry for Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge, which this week is 'Going round in circles', I realised that my card fitted the bill too, so I shall link it up, and also link it in Pixie's Snippets Playground, week 118,  then I had better  think about packing my case!

I will try to drop in now and again while I am away, but I am not sure what internet access I will have, nor whether I will manage to do much using my tablet instead of the computer.

A Leaving Gift

Anyone who follows me on my 'other blog' will know that I am flying over to UK on Thursday of this week, primarily to attend the funeral of my sister. But before that, I am spending a week with my middle son who is leaving for a new life in Denmark, the following weekend. I will be helping him to leave his current flat in a clean and tidy state, so that, with a bit of luck, he will get his deposit back! On Sunday his brothers have organised a family lunch for him, which I will now be able to go to. I love it when we all get together. I wanted to make a little gift for Tom to let him know he is not forgotten, so I put together this frame.

I started off with a digital scrapbook kit called Timeless Romance from Alexis Design Studio at Digichick, and opened up a background paper. I made it several degrees lighter. (I made all of this except the script in Adobe Photoshop).The main images of Tom himself, us as his parents and the full family group at the base, are all added full colour, and then each of his brothers, some with their partners, are added down the sides as lighter images. I clipped each photo to an artistic photo mask, to take away any strong edges and make them blend together better. The masks come from a variety of digital scrap sites, bought over the passed couple of years and stored on my computer. I then had two empty corners which I filled with flower embellishments from the same digi scrapbook kit as the paper. When it was done, I flattened all the layers and saved it as a jpeg file.

Next I opened publisher and imported the image, resizing it to exactly fit into a basic clip frame. I am not a great fan of these, but it was the best on offer in my local shops here.

I then opened the script in my silhouette cameo soft ware. I bought it as a ready-made cutting file from the silhouette store. I sized it to fit the centre of my picture and cut it from black vinyl. I weeded out the unwanted pieces and used transfer tape to position it onto the page. I was wary of lifting the print with the transfer tape so I de-stickied it (?) by pressing it onto my arms first, and it worked fine. I had to re-cut the word 'WHERE' because I tore it first time around, but other than that, it all worked just fine.

I hope he likes it as a little reminder of the family while he is away. I am sure we will still see him out here in Spain for holidays, and back in UK for work sometimes. He has spent almost a year commuting between offices here and in Denmark, so I am sure he will occasionally have to do the same in reverse. And of course, I feel a holiday in Denmark coming on, once he is nicely settled there!