A sympathy card

Sympathy cards are always so hard to make. I always feel they should be quite simple, but they also need to be special.

This one took me a while to get just right. It is a masked sun with clouds sponged over the edge of a nestie scalloped shape in Cherry Blossom and Lilac Paris Trunk inks with a hint of Dried Marigold DI. The sentiment is a simple one from Personal Impressions by Paula Pascual from a very useful set. The main image is a flying goose die cut using a lovely Memory Box die cut out of purple card. The matting is in shades of lilac and purple and I deliberately left a wide white border to balance this design.

Another murky picture I fear!

I am embroiled in frantic Christmas card making, but batch making is help a lot and I am up to about 30 now, so pleased wth my progress so far!

Hope you are having a good weekend

Elaine x

Wrinkle-free- that's the card not me!

While I was staying with my lovely crafty friend Judith recently, she helped me understand the mysteries of the wrinkle-free distress technque. Now I had tried this before and you would think it was simple, but there is nothing like being shown how to do it and given that I had often admired Judith's results from this technique who better to show me? This is the result of our playing, oops, I mean my learning.

So what did I learn to help me get a so much better result? Firstly use a good quality water colour paper and make the paper wet first as well as the ink on the craft sheet. Secondly build up the layer and dry thoroughly with my heat gun in between the layers. Thirdly, make good use of the way the ink beads in the mositure on the sheet and make a feature of that in the gaps that appear as your design builds. Lastly, to pat and press the paper onto the sheet gently, too much pressure obliterates the shape of the water drops and you lose the definition of the pattern.

I think the colours I used were Peacock Feathers and Shabby Shutters. I edged with a little sponged Chipped Sapphire, one of my favourite colours for edging panels.

I finished off by using a La La Land die from Judith's collection, diving into her offcuts box for blending colours. I love this die shape like a fern unfurling. Then I pinched some gem swirls from Judith's not insignificant gem collection! Lastly I used a sentiment from a Stampin Up set that has a lovely script font that I rather coveted in Judith's collection! I don't think this card will be sent anywhere, I am going to keep it as a reminder of a very nice crafty session during my weekend with Judith.

And not a Kaisercraft sentiment stamp in sight, although I fear there will be another post or two using them coming to a blog near you soon!

Elaine x

A leaving card

I had to make a quick card for a colleague recently and I am still enjoying using my Kaisercraft sentiment stamps, so they were lurking on my desk. This is a variation on the theme of the last card I blogged.

I apologise for a rather washed out picture, I really struggle in the limited light this time of year. Once again I inked a background through the Clarity flourish mask and then stamped the dancer image, that I think is a Lost Coast stamp if I remember rightly. I then added the Viva flourish stamp to frame the panel. The sentiment was stamped and matted on a separate panel, I used Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feather and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks for the colouring with sponges.

I have just got back from a brilliant weekend with my lovely friend Judith in Norfolk who made me very welcome and looked after me very well. We took in a brilliant workshop with Lin Brown on Sunday and I just need to put some finishing touches to my canvas before I share the finished result. As always Lin was very inspiring.

Have a great weekend

Elaine