Welcome Hoppers!
LOTS of techniques in this post!
We're halfway there! It's Day number 7 in the Countdown to Valentine's Day Blog Hop. There has been some STUNNING artwork this past week. I can't imagine what is waiting for us in the coming week! I've seen so many great ideas with this hop - I'm never going to get to them all, but I'm sure gonna try!
Today's artwork is from the class I went to last Friday by fellow consultant and best crafty pal, Yvonne Wickham. She got me into LOVING Close To My Heart and has recently come back into the fold after taking time out to have a baby and focus on her beautiful family!
SHE calls it a simple card class - I call it Techniques 301! We played around with several different skills and had a beautiful canvas to work with - the new Sweetheart My Reflections paper pack. They all turned out amazing - despite my ineptitude, lol! Thanks for inviting me, Yvonne!
Liquid Applique
Okay, liquid applique is a great product we sell. It comes in a small tube and you use it like a pen. Simply draw where you want the design to go, heat emboss and Poof (puff?)! It goes on really thick and it expands 2 to 3 times its original size. It's just great for sheep, clouds, Santa and butterfly bodies. Oh, and flower stems, and ... Well, you get the idea. Anything to puff out a bit.
Reflection Stamping
Just like the name implies you stamp a reflection of it by using a brayer. Ink your stamp and stamp directly onto the brayer roll. Now you're going to line it up and roll the brayer to drop the inked image onto the paper. In this case, we inked a single heart for each butterfly wing. If you were to just stamp it on either side with the bumps on the heart out you'd have the "Egyptian Effect" as Yvonne calls it - one up and one down. Now to get the other side, you want to Second Generation stamp, by inking, then stamping off, then stamp right onto your art. The brayer acts as a Second Generation stamp and does remove some ink in the process. So to even them up and make the coloring uniform, you stamp off first on the regular non-brayered image. This works great with mountains and a lake or mirror scenes, too!
Spray Pen
This is a fabulous new tool which debuted in January Inspirations. You fill the body of the pen with about 7 drops of re-inker then top off with water (about an ounce total) then spray on your art! Simple! The closer to the art, the more full, solid coverage. This would work great if you ran out of cardstock for a project! On the middle square here, I was about 7 inches away from it to get the splotchy effect. Below, on the white candy hearts over the cotton candy circle, you can see the ink on the circle is pretty solid. That was about 3 inches away and a few sprays. You'll want to wash the spray pen thoroughly in warm water after each use to prevent clogging and bleeding - especially if you add in pearl paint.
Rock n Roll Stamping
One of my FAVORITE techniques! This is done by first inking the image up, then stamp off the paper (onto scratch) to achieve a Second Generation impression. Before you stamp your project, you're going to take your inked stamp and roll only the outside edges in fresh ink. This will give you a dark outside "border" and a lighter center. This works best if you have the smallest block size possible for the stamp so you can better control how much ink and where it gets put on the rock and roll. It really gives you a depth to your stamps previously missing. To see a variation, look
here.
Heat EmbossingThe white heart is embossed using a craft dryer, tweezers and White Detail embossing powder. Ink your image in Versamark Watermark ink and stamp. Then sprinkle embossing powder over the image and shake off excess into your craft tray. Using your tweezers (so you don't burn your widdle fingers!) hold the paper 3-4 inches from the dryer and dry until you see the image change from dry matte to shiny plastic. (You CAN over do it and burn your project so be careful!)
Masking
The "Love" tag is stamped with a word stamp that actually says, "I Love You." To only get the one word, use a post it note and cover up the "You" portion of your stamp. Now ink it, but leave the "I" un-inked. It doesn't matter if you ink up your post-it note. That's what it's there for! Now remove the post-it and stamp. Voila!
Masking of a Different Sort with the Spray Pen
When you have an image that is trimmed fairly close to the original design, you can put that item down on your paper, spray over it, then remove and clean the stamp. Now mount the stamp on your clear block and stamp the image in the white space left.
Pinwheel Flowers
Yvonne came up with a simpler way to do these flowers. Rather than four squares the size of the flower you want, she took a 12" long strip of B&T in the width of the radius. After accordion folding the strip, attach the two ends together. Then lay flat, positioned where you want it and add a dab of hot glue or Liquid Glass to the center. Add your grommet and squish in the circle to the center a bit to grab the glue and hold until set.
Box Pleats
The pleats are formed by folding a long strip of paper Up Down Down Up Up Down Down, etc. The UP is toward you and DOWN is away from you. Some people score them every half and quarter inch. I prefer them just a bit messy! This card took 2 2-1/2" x 11" strips, adhered together. I started in the middle over the seam to 'cover' it with the folds and worked out in either direction.
Random Stamping
The pleats are white printer paper random stamped with Tulip hearts and then spray penned with a cotton candy re-inker and water mixture.
Sponging
The white paper flower is sponged with cotton candy ink to give it a little pop! All edges in all the cards are sponged in Tulip ink also.
Pleats
The cotton candy flower strip is folded back and forth to create a series of pleats. You want to fold a long and a short. Fold Down first, then a quick Up. Then go longer past the first fold before folding Down - so the pleats are staggered, rather than a flat accordion fold with everything the same size.
"Love" and the scroll are from the Bohemian alphabet. Both are
Heat Embossed in Detail White powder as described above.
Whew! That's a lot of new techniques! Thanks for sticking with me and check out this fabulous art from my fellow consultants on the Countdown to Valentine's Day Blog Hop!
Warm wishes,
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