WOYWW #601- The After Zoom Edition.

 Still nothing much happening craft-wise on my desk, so looking rather tidy apart from a few new Lavinia stamps. I almost got thrown by our recent Zoom meet, and only just realised today was Tuesday!

Still quite gutted I couldn't make it to post for week 600, but I was literally lay on the sofa, with no energy to move, from Sunday till I think, Friday. Just happy I managed to pull a bit of energy from somewhere to join the Zoom Crop. It was lovely to see so many other WOYWWers, and to 'meet' so many new faces.  So far this week I've managed to get pretty much all my Christmas Cards written,addressed and stamped, just need Beloved Hubby to drop them in a post box for me.

 Sat here at the moment drinking Pineapple juice- fortunately, I love pineapple- as I'm now on a second week of antibiotics, and it's supposed to help a lot with getting rid of/preventing thrush. And hopefully a second weeks course will finally see the uti's off completely.

Next item on the desk is a new laminator. The old one had decided it wasn't going to heat up properly anymore, so, Amazon to the rescue. This one has a fast heat-up speed, a fast release button, and probably a couple of other fancy, but unnecessary bits. £23.

Popping back to the Zoom crop, I'm sat here unsure whether I should be quietly pleased with myself, or hanging my head in shame, for enabling our lovely LLJ into purchasing a Tim Holtz product! as she showed she's bought the deckle edge guillotine. I suspect it should be the latter! So, until some crafting happens, and hopefully it will in the next few days, thats me done.

Which brings us round to.......And Finally..........

Particularly apt, in light of Kirsty Allsops comment, I thought.

This did make me laugh-LLJ and Annie, I trust your hair & make up is in order, rofl.😆😆😆😆

WOYWW #463

Good Morning all, and here we are again, and heading rapidly towards our 9th birthday. Julia has a page on The Stamping Ground with details about this years ATC swap. I will be up for this, so if you'd like to swap, then please leave me a message in your comment, and if you'd email me your snail mail addy, (worldwide) I'll send you mine.
 And moving on to the desk:

First make this week is using a Sweet Poppy stencil, and its matching die. I bought the die at Ally Pally, as I already have the stencil. It lets you cut out 3 sections of the piece, so you can layer them up.

There is also a Poinsettia stencil and die  too, and you can see that in the Christmas Card post below this one.

You could of course fussy cut, but I hate doing that!

I had made a couple of each design, but you can cut them all from the same one, and add some cardstock at the back of the base to mount your layers onto.
 I think these would look fab done in glitter, or the hot foil technique, which I'll be giving a try next.

These I did to try out using two colours in an image, by masking off the leaves and doing the flowers, then when that was dry, doing the reverse.

Then I spent some time using my Silhouette to cut out some stencils. I dusted the poor thing off -literally- I can't remember when I last used it, as I wanted an arch stencil, but couldn't find one the size & shape I was after. So I thought I'd have a go at making my own, using some OHP film.

I only want them for sponging ink through, so I think they'll be sturdy enough for that, but I don't think they'd be strong enough for anything more. 

Anyone thinking of getting a digital cutter, I can say it's one of the best investments I ever made. You can see here how I've been able to resize each image as I wanted, which is the main thing I love about it.

 I've also kept the inner bits, to use as masks.

I want to CASE a card I've seen done in a Facebook post, from the Loving all things Lavinia group, and the lady had used an Arched Clarity stencil that doesn't seem to be around now. It was a tall, thin one, rather than the smaller one they have now.


I'd also had a go at hand cutting some from some plastic packaging, but not tried them yet, and I don't know how smooth my cutting has been.😐

 The window shape below was not only resized, I also changed the actual windows to just 4, as it had multiple small panes in it. Plus, it cost me 99 cents from the Silhouette store!

 I have some round-topped ones to cut as well.

These cotton buds may interest you. I picked them up by the tills in Primark yesterday. I thought both ends should be very useful in crafting.





 Now for a couple of other items you might find useful.

  Firstly, those die storage pockets from Avery Elle I was storing all my dies on magnetic sheets on?
 Now, they are not exactly cheap, although they are good quality and very sturdy.  They are around £7-£10 for a pack of 50, depending which size you want, and I have found they are often out of stock over here.

Last night, while browsing You Tube, I came across a video from a lady who had made her own using a laminator & pouches. As she says, it's sheer genius! They look great and are nice and strong too. The upside of course is you can have custom made sizes to suit your storage method. Hers don't have a flap, but I'm sure that'd be easy to figure out if you wanted them, she just puts a thumb grip at the end with a 1" circle punch. Anyway, it's only a 10 minute video, and the link is HERE if you are interested.
 So I reckon, even if you don't have a laminator, you can pick up a basic bog standard one for around £15, and packs of laminating pouches on Amazon are about £7.50 for a hundred (and you can even get them in Pound stores too), if you have a number of dies- or even stamps- you wanted to put into pockets,then it's cheaper to buy a lamintor and make your own. I know I shan't be buying any more of the Avery Elle ones.

Second thing of note was a tip I saw on a Joanna Sheen newsletter, from a crafter called Dawn Knight, about the annoying way silicone dries in the tube- (especially I find, Pinflair.) She said:
'I found that no matter what I did to protect it, whenever I wanted silicone glue, I had to spend ages gouging plugs of cured glue out of the top of the tube.  I have now taken to squeezing the glue up to the very top of the tube and covering it with a piece of cling film before replacing the cap.  Since then, I have never had to dig out the cured glue.           Dawn Knight
So hopefully that will be a helpful bit of advice.
And finally.......................... 

I reckon we all qualify! 😊😊

WOYWW #451

Wednesday again, and time to join up at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, for our regular desk hop.
My desk in all its glory-as you can probably guess, I'm still working with stencils & paste.
 Right at the front, a tub of water for dunking dirty stencils in, on top of an old towel I keep in my room for drying stamps after cleaning, hence the dirty appearance!
 A bit further behind that, a magnetic sheet for helping to keep the stencil still, a few tools and pots of stencil pastes.
 The black tile is for mixing on, I've been mixing glitter into stencil paste, which is a great way of getting a glitter look, with no risk of shedding glitter everywhere.

This is a selection of the pieces I've done so far, using 3 different Christmas Trees from Sweet Poppy stencils.



They look a little dull at the moment, but as the paste dries, you see the glitter sparkle.



The green trees had glitter mixed into Translucent paste, the gold and silver used gold & silver glitter into the same colour paste.

The weekend saw a batch of 21 cards made using a Sweet Poppy Baubles stencil, and laminating with foil. They're in the post below this one.




Has  everyone been following all the new releases coming out of Creativation? Seen some lovely new Oxide colours from Tim, along with new tools,stencils and lots of Sizzix dies, as well as stamps. Particularly like the new Alcohol Ink storage tin- it holds 30 bottles, and will store Stickles & Pearls too.
 Something I keep meaning to mention, and always forget, for those fellow Pinterest addicts. Have you seen the new feature where you can now add sub-folders to a board? I'm loving this, as now I don't need a separate board for each type of Christmas Card for instance. Where I used to have boards for Christmas trees/Santa/ Snowflakes, etc etc, now I just have one Christmas Card folder, with each type in it's own folder. Finally, they've come up with a great new idea, usually I'm not impressed when they change stuff!

 I made this card up from one of the Mixed Media panels, to take with a box of shortbread down to the Oncology Clinic yesterday, as a Thank You for the Doc and staff there for looking after me so well last year when he took one look at me & admitted me, my not feeling well turning out to be Sepsis. I had no idea how serious that was, and since I've been out, I've seen so many news items about people who contracted Sepsis, and have lost limbs, and their sight, some even dying because of it. I'm still shocked that I left hospital without any serious repercussions. I mean, we've all heard about septicaemia, or blood poisoning, but I always just thought it was a bit of an infection mainly picked up from gardening related injuries.  So be aware, everyone, and get any potential infection checked out ASAP.
 

 And finally .................

Damask Baubles Christmas Cards.

 A batch of 21 Christmas Cards made using a new to me Sweet Poppy stencil called Damask Baubles.
This is why I end up with loads of UFO's! When I've got stuff out, I tend to make a huge batch, rather than just a couple.

 These were done using Stencil paste, and then adding Heat Transfer Foil with a laminator.

I did 6 on white card, then another 15 on black card, then matted them onto A5 card bases of the opposite colour.

This is how they looked after foiling, and before matting. I used a variety of pastes, black, white, gold and silver, and they all work as well as each other for the technique.

Some were done with one colour of foil, which was the easiest way.

The bottom left one here was done on a leather effect card, and using a silver holographic dotty foil. I have this in gold as well, and both seem to leave a dusting of foil all over the card base.( You can see it on the bottom left card in the upper left image). Which doesn't actually look too bad, but was unexpected. But it's the only one of the foils that does it.

Some I made things harder for myself by using a different colour for the bows and chains.

 That's fine as long as you remember not to breathe while arranging it, and don't have any static on your fingers!

But it does give a pretty effect, and it's one way of using up small off cuts of foil.

Apologies if some look a little blurred, I think it's the holographic effect confusing the camera!

 After a bit of trimming to fit the card front, I matted them all up, then added a greeting using up some small peeloff greetings.

Not sure if they show up, but on these I added some small acrylic gems to some of the dots on the baubles, then decided I didn't like it, so didn't do any more. You can see them more clearly in the very first picture.

Next plan will be to try this stencil using paste & glitter, or probably by mixing glitter into paste first, that way when it dries, you don't get any glitter shedding.
 I also have a second stencil I bought, called Mistletoe Tree, so that will get an outing soon as well.

Christmas Card Challenge #2

So, I'm finally back crafting, and making some Christmas Cards. It feels like I've been fighting one infection after another, starting with the Sepsis in September!
 This challenge theme was Christmas Baking, but I don't have a single thing on that theme at all, so fortunately,this year it also allows us to make a card on any theme.
I recently bought a new Sweet Poppy stencil, Damask Baubles, and had been making up some card fronts using stencil paste and laminating with foil. So my theme this month is Baubles.😁

I made a total of 21 in all, 9 on white card, and 12 on black.  Story of my crafting, and why I end up with so many UFO's- I can't stop at one or two. While I've got the stuff out, I end up making loads.

I'm just showing a few here, I'll do a blog post on them all later today, or tomorrow.  Photos don't really do them justice, the sparkle is gorgeous, and changes as the light catches them.

Some were done using one colour of foil, others I used a separate colour for the bow & chain- that was a real test of patience, lol.


I finished them by matting onto an opposite colour A5 card base, and adding the greeting use small peel offs.
  Now I just need to do inserts, and they'll be good to go.

Part Two- Hot foil, a laminator or an Iron.

This Butterfly was the last image I left yesterdays post with, and I think it's one that shows how stunning this process looks.Moving on with more images, again this is a photo heavy post, so be warned,lol.

This butterfly panel, showing two views of how the colours change depending on the light source, was done with a Holographic foil.

This one used the Sunset Rainbow foil.

Back to a holographic foil for this one of two dragonflies.

I cut the base card to match the shape of the image, and it's covered in gold foil. I got this really cheaply from E-bay, from China. 50 A4 sheets for £2.49! and 29p shipping, lol.

This Steampunk dog has the same foil on it.

These are two new Sweet Poppy stencils, and I covered these with the Oil on Water (Marble) foil.

Now we come to the pieces I did with my iron. I'd wanted to have the stems green, and the flowers a different colour, and this was a bit of a fiddly process to be honest.







Requires some patience, and preferably the ability to hold your breath for long periods. It's a bit like working with Gilding Flakes, one small breath scatters it everywhere.

 I put the image with it's foil inside my folded paper, and placed that on top of an old tea towel I use for drying my stamps, on top of my glass mat. The Iron was set to Max, and I reckon I ironed it for about 20 seconds, maybe 30.

Turned out perfectly, as you can see. The flower heads look jewel like, almost as if they are covered in Acrylic gemstones,or sequins, but without the bulk.

 I did the same here, using a foil that came in blue strips for the flowers.
 I chose these pieces to Iron, as I thought there was more chance of the small pieces moving as I fed it through the laminator, and I wanted to see how well an Iron would work. So two birds, one stone.
 By the way, there is nothing special about my iron. I wasn't going to spend out for a 'Craft' iron, and intended buying a travel Iron to do craft stuff with. However, I couldn't find one anywhere, so I just bought the cheapest Iron either Tesco or Argos had, can't remember which I got it from.

So, if you don't have a laminator, but do have stencils & paste, then you can still do this technique easily.

Right, we're almost at the end now, this is the last piece.





This foil is called Tropical Sunset, and I'll list the foils and where I got them at the end.

So, I love how these turned out. Most I think need nothing more than a sentiment adding.
 I still have a few experiments I want to try. I want to see if this works with ordinary rub down transfer foil for one. And I also wonder if this will work with rubber stamps and a glue pad. I've never had much success with Glue Pads, they've never seemed to stick properly in the past, so it's worth a try. I'll try both of those with the iron, in case the laminator gets too hot for them.
 I also want to see if this works with Dreamweaver Stencil pastes, as I have a few of those in my drawer too.
 And I want to see what the result is with different colour pastes.


It seems to me I should have given the basic instructions somewhere, and I haven't.
 You need to create your stencilled image, and Julie used Sweet Poppy Glossy Black Paste, which is what I used. I tried Glossy Bronze paste on one, and that seemed to work fine. Then leave the image to dry overnight, before adding the foil. And that's all there is to it.
 I love ideas that give me new ways to use stash, and this does that, as well as employing my laminator for more than just creating stamp storage sheets!
 I shall be trimming down the foil sheets I peeled off, as most have reasonably sized usable areas left, ideal for creating designs using more than one colour.

 Foils bought from Tonertex.:

Multi Coloured Assortment pack, which contains:  67 sheets 100mm x 100mm:
12 sheets Tropical Sunset
15 sheets Turquoise
12 sheets Slimline Rainbow
8 sheets Carnival
10 sheets Hologram Silver
10 sheets Hologram Gold
 I added to that Marble Foil and Seasparkle foil.



Foil bought from Patsy May Crafts: (on EBay)
Silver Mirror Pattern ( Holographic)

Gold Foil from E-Bay








A bit of advice on foils- when you are looking to buy them, you want TONER foils, NOT TODO foils.  I was ordering from Patsy May, and she was kind enough to take the time to advise me that the TODO foil I had ordered would not work with a laminator, apparently it's designed specifically for the TODO machine, and works with pressure & dies. It has a sort of adhesive on the back, so will stick completely to the card. So, as long as it says TONER foil, it's fine.