#426

The other day, I went to the newsagent across the road, and browsed for a bit before wisely buying a large pack of white card stock, which I needed, as I had run out of plain white card bases, and couldn’t find them for cheap anywhere, as it was discontinued where I bought the last packet. I also can’t find the large pack of white card stock that is somewhere in my craft room.
Since this trip to the newsagent, I had one of the cardmaking magazines stuck in my head… and I ended up buying it today. The thing that drew me to it was a stamp set that contained four different flower stained glass look stamps, two matching sentiments and an embossing folder. I looked up stamps on eBay that were similar, but there weren’t many, and those were quite expensive. I often disregard the magazines, though they have a few ideas and papers in them. The gift that comes on the magazine is often of high quality and usually worth more than the magazine itself.

I’d like to emboss these designs, to give a more stained glass look, but for now, stamped them in Memento Tuxedo black, so I can use coloured pencils, watercolours, and my Copic markers.

Stay glassy, San Diego…

#364

This weekend, I needed a break from staring at Christmas paper for the cards, so I did a bit of colouring and needed a birthday card. Luckily, I had a card that I was trying to make, but wasn’t very Christmassy, and worked much better as a birthday card. I was struggling between using gold or silver to accent the card, as I liked them both, but the silver won out.
As for the colouring, I used my Staedtler triplus fineliner set, and used a variety of hatching, stippling and lines to fill in areas. This was more about doodling casually and not worrying about cards and things and whatnot.
Spose I’d better get back to my pile of card making.

#246

I was browsing the internet, adding to my wish list of craft supplies, when I was thinking how awesome stamps with matching punches are. Due to lack of availability, cost and the fact I like making things, I decided I could do this myself. I’ve been wanting to carve some stamps and I definitely need to practice more, but I like the rough style that came out of it.
I began by punching the shape I wanted, from card, and traced it onto the carving rubber. I then cut the shape out using a blade, and began carving away. The grooves don’t need to be too deep, just check if it needs to be deeper by inking it on an ink pad. Anywhere the colour touches will likely stamp onto the paper, so cut these unwanted parts off. White erasers can be used to do this, but I find the rubber from the art store carves much easier and cleaner, and it’s cheap.
The only thing to be wary of is make sure you carve within the line that you traced, as it will be slightly larger than the punch itself, and it won’t match well. Don’t forget you can make negative and positive patterns, have multiple stamps matching each punch and die, or even have two step stamping.

#201

Horrible photo is horrible.
I wanted to make a Christmas themed headband and I thought of the leaves and flower idea. Then I bought my new circles die and stacked three sizes of red felt with a button finished with a gold thread cross for the flower. I’m not sure I like the red and white leaves in with the green. Perhaps different tones of green would look better, although it is very Christmassy, just like gaudy jumper/sweater.
It would probably also look nice as an everyday headband if the colours were changed. Perhaps a peach or white flower. Maybe more than one flower and only a few leaves. You could make a wreath using a leaf die or punch. Make the leaves autumn themed with reds and oranges or match your clothes or decor.
I get a lot of ideas that I have to write down because there’s no way I could make them all. I have about 700 notes on my phone alone. I always carry around a notebook and I’ve filled many of them. Not all of them good, but it is important to write them down. I not only think of art and craft ideas, but game ideas and how to fix certain parts of the world. I recommend that you do this too. Creativity feeds creativity. Write down any ideas you have. They don’t have to be good, you don’t have to show anybody. Even if you don’t do anything with the idea, you may look back and it will give you inspiration or just be fun to look back on.

#181

I really try to like sequins. But I don’t like them when they are just by themselves, stuck to a card, with their hole for everyone to see. Maybe with a rhinestone or a bead would be OK, but they seem weird to me all naked. What I do like with sequins is these flower like embellishments that I found on youtube.

Embellishments!: http://youtu.be/VktmDp5VRws

When done nicely, you cover all the holes and its all symmetrical. It’s easy to do, though can get fiddly and sticky unless you have tweezers. You can use any size sequins and circle. I even started doing a large one on a canvas. Just draw your circle and glue sequins over in to cover the line and the rest just lines up.

#179

I quite like this embellishment. It was created by fussy cutting out designs in matching papers and stacking them with foam adhesive in between. I added a few gems, which was harder than it should have been, as my hands were shaky. This will go nicely on a card, I think. I’ll have to look through my paper stash for more designs. I’m sure this would look nice with flowers. I’ve seen something similar done with intricate designed stamps, where you stamp multiple of the same stamp, but cutting different amounts off, just like paper tole images.
I did put together a few cards, but the photos I took were bad, so I’ll take some more in the daylight.

#175

I made this yesterday, but it used a lot of glue, so it looks better now. Usually, you’d concertina a long piece of card, but I had a bunch of heart cut outs, so I started folding them without knowing what to do. I was watching YouTube, so I wasn’t paying much attention to what I was doing. So I need up with quite a few, so I glued them together. I was almost all the way around before I realised it would have been easier to have a card circle as a base, so I went and found my circle punch and glued it all down. After trying different combinations of sequins and gems for the middle, I settled on the gold and blue, although purple looked nice, too.

Day #16

Woo I got some done 🙂
I snuck into my art shop while on my way to food shopping and brought some stickers for the cards and stuff. Makes more shinies.

I also brought a small pack of brads to make this flower I saw on YouTube.

Yay! Craft!