#390

Today, I came across quite a good find at my local newsagents. There was a magazine with a free die set for a nice, versatile owl building kit. If you have seen these before, you’d know how great they are. The magazine it came with shows at least 5 other animals that you can make with these dies, as well as some flowers. The only problem I had was that the blades were a bit deep, and even with the holes to poke the paper through, it was difficult, and I ended up pushing the needle tool through the card a couple of times.
The bow on the finished owl, was a bow punch that I coloured with Copics and coloured pencils, before finishing with wink of Stella shimmer on top. I might cover it with glossy accents if it finds its way onto a card or something. I seem to be running out of glossy accents, so I’ve been using is sparingly until I can travel to the shop again.
I trialled the super fine embossing powder that I had bought online, and it was alright. It was rather transparent, and looked silver on the black paper that I tried it on. When I used white ink as a base for the embossing, it was brighter, but had much less details. It will certainly come in handy, but I would like to find a better brand. The one I bought was “Wow” white pearl superfine.
So I have some thinking to do, and see how many things I can make with my new dies.

#358

Exciting new development.
While watching YouTube, I saw some tips for card making with metallic and iridescent plastic, and I wanted to try and recreate some of the techniques with foil cardboard.
First of all, this card embosses amazingly. I had some trouble embossing thinner paper and card and was getting annoyed, but this is wonderful. Secondly, to bring out the embossing, the lady in the video used stazon ink for the non-porous surface, which I don’t have, so I was colouring with black Copic. As the video was speaking about alcohol inks sometimes removing the colour, I noticed that there was silver shining through the black on the pink paper. This lead me to wiping off foil with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol. The effect is pretty awesome, and probably preferable to sanding, which is what I was going to try. More experimenting needed, and perhaps a truck load of Christmas coloured foil paper…

#355

I’ve started to try an get into the Christmas card making spirit, doing a load of embossing and things. On Friday, I decided it was finally time for me to stop using my hair straightener as a craft tool for melting embossing powder, and get myself a real, live heat gun tool. I was scared of it to begin with, but it got easier with some time, locked in a room to keep the cats out, and the glitter in. I am slowly adding to my embossing powder collection, adding a leaf green, and glitter Christmas green this week.
Unfortunately, on my way to buying the heat gun, I was stung on my middle left hand finger by a bee. Luckily, I’m not allergic, but two days later and it is really sore, hot and swollen. This has made it tricky to do a lot of anything. I managed some stamping and origami, but mainly just sat and watched internet streams and Netflix and had a couple of naps.
Now that I have the heat gun, I’ll be able to do things that I wasn’t able to with the straightener, such as using Worbla, a versatile heat activated material, often used in cosplay, which I’d like to try doing one day. I can also dry watercolour pieces easily, moving the water around to get different effects. It tried this, but looks like I need some practice.
I did also try painting with food colouring. The colours you get are so vibrant, and they move so well with water. I’m not sure what would happen over long term with these, and I’m pretty sure they went a little bit brown when dried with the heat tool. I’ll have to look into it a bit more.
Sometimes, I just wish I could get everything out of my head into a book or something, and keep a record of everything. I guess this blog is a small version of that. I want to teach you as much as I know, and hope I can help you guys be more amazing than you are now.

#249

I did a few things today, in the way of crafts. I slept in, so I crafted instead of my afternoon nanna nap. I did some embossing, which is fun. Still using my hair straightener to heat the powders. I have a heat gun on my list, but I’m great at improvising. I had a few problems with the white powders I had. One was rather chunky and lost all detail, but a brilliant white, the other was lovely and fine, but subtle and transparent. It helped to use a white ink pad under the fine powder, but it made it look silver. I might have to invest in some superfine ones, designed for sentiments, as I have a lot of delicate looking stamps.
I tried embossing that honeycomb texture from the silicone mat, but I must have pushed harder in some areas and got a bit of ghosting, probably due to the extra squishiness of the silicone. I tried embossing some stamps, which had large flat areas, onto patterned paper in clear powder, with the intension of inking over it, and it resisting, leaving the image patterned, and the surrounding area inked. Unfortunately I messed up three images, before figuring out I had put too much ink and stained the clear image. But now I know, and I could even see some of the pattern through the ink which is fairly nice.
I also began knitting a project. Yay! My hands are not a fan of knitting, but I surely am. I’m surprised I got as far as I did, and can still type. Just. I originally wanted to make a beanie for myself, and I’d bookmarked a pattern, but when I went back, I realised it was meant for kids, and was in all garter stitch. I love purl, so this wouldn’t do. I’d already gotten out the wool and kneedles, so I looked a bit for a beanie with matching materials, but for some reason (maybe because I haven’t made one yet, or found one) there isn’t a way to search for patterns by needles, yarn and stitch. All I wanted was a beanie knitted on 4mm straight needles with 8ply wool, but that’s too much to ask for, so I started a scarf. They don’t need patterns and I wanted one to match my nonexistent beanie. I just cast on 30 stitches, and began knitting. After a few rows, I decided to make it a sample scarf, as I got bored of the stitch I was using. Scarfs are so lovely and forgiving. If only they didn’t make me itch and feel like I’m suffocating…

#240

Doing some heat embossing tonight. My partner got annoyed at me moping about my lack of money and gave me a motivational speech about selling on esty. So, on top of homework and friends and family’s cards and presents, I have to get together some things just for selling. All sites I’ve looked at to prepare say about 20-25 items is a good starting point to have in stock. Luckily, I can make things one of a kind, so I don’t get bored. You should know how sporadic my creativity is by now.
I’ll have to set some goals and timelines to keep on track, I think. Fairly sure I’m allergic to schedules.

#202

Playing with my big shot machine. Tried embossing acetate from packaging and it worked brilliantly.
My arms are getting tired from cranking, but it’s fun.
Now just need to find where I put the rest of my embossing folders. I’ve seen them recently…

Day #131

I was trialling watercolour resist techniques tonight.
This one above uses those metallic or shiny plastic sticker sheets that seem to be popular in scrapbooking and card making. This didn’t work too well with other stickers, so I hope you know which ones I mean. Apply stickers, and make sure they’re stuck down well- I used my bone folder to make sure, to cardstock. I’m not sure how this would work with watercolour paper, as it might absorb underneath. Then apply the watercolours, I tried to be fairly liberal to really test this and get a nice contrast against the paper. Wait for the paint to dry before peeling up stickers with a pointy tool. I’d like to test this in layers, putting a wash of colour under, but not sure how much layers the card stock can handle or if the stickers will affect the paint.
I also did a bit of heat emboss resist. This definitely didn’t work on my watercolour paper. Not sure if it was because I use low quality paper in the testing, but the embossing soaked into the paper and wasn’t shiny and resisty. It worked well on card stock and the lines were nice and clean.
I also made some glimmer mist. Considering I’ve never seen glimmer mist in my life, I assume I did ok. I mixed iridescent medium and water in a mist bottle (finally found a place that sells them individually.) I’ll find out if it worked tomorrow. Drying times are only useful when you have more things to create.

Day #125

Last night I put on a clean pair of pajamas and noticed the design reminded me of an embossing folder that I bought at the craft fair on the weekend. Instead of mixing and finding colours that matched properly, I picked out things as I went, going more by instinct than conscious deciding. This makes it a true inspired by rather than copying completely. I painted on the raised side of the embossed tag which was alright for following the lines, but I imagine filling the debossed side would keep the paint in line better.
Let’s see what happens next time I put on clean clothes 😛

Day #96

Went shopping today…
I got a new embossing folder, an alphabet die, a small hole punch and a tiny hole punch. The letters I got are a good size for cards and a font that can be used for many occasions. I cut it out of adhesive paper, so I didn’t have to glue all the little bits down.
The embossing folder is a pirate themed pattern, but there may be other uses, such as cutting out the diamonds or using it for gothic themes. It seems more masculine than my other two folders, which may be useful.
The two circles I didn’t realise at the time but are the perfect size for making home made sequins. I got them to fill in the sizes between my existing circle punches, the tiny one especially to make holes for making paper charms for jewellery.