COVERED NOTEBOOK

Its a bit of a cheat to call this a technique, but I was pleased with the results of covering this discount store notebook with some lovely patterned paper, and so thought I'd share.  The blue is Bazzill, and the black strip is ribbon, which also doubles as a bookmark.  A few black adhesive pearls were used to finish.

BARGELLO BACKGROUND

Even although I've labelled this as a background, I think it could stand alone as a card topper.  Its the paper version of a well-known quilting technique and I've seen it in all sorts of other places so I make no claim to originality here.  I do, however, think its a great way to use up scraps of paper.  having said that I think I'll spend a bit longer chosing colours when I use it for a "real" project rather than just as a try-out technique for this blog, as I'm not totally convinced that these ones go particularly well together.
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LEAF PRINT

A very long time ago when I lived in PNG I made a little wall-hanging quilt from leaf prints from the garden.  I used fabric paint on calico, and did a few trial runs on paper first.  I found this one when I was sorting through some stuff in the craft room.  I think it might be a taro leaf, but so much time has passed I'm not sure.  I do know that lacking any equipment to speak of at the time, I just painted onto the leaf and pressed it with my hand onto the paper/calico.  I have scanned it for this example and turned it into a "pretend card" i.e. made on the computer.  I had rather forgotten about this very simple technique but think its time to rediscover it.  It would be a good way to embellish garden-themed scrapbook pages.

CUT UP YOUR STAMPS

I needed some words to go on this little panel  but couldn't find quite the right thing.  I saw a Kaiser (and no I don't work for them.....its just that they make some good stuff at a reasonable price so its a bit over-represented in my craft room) stamp that was almost right.  It had a religious text that was inappropriate for how I wanted to use this card, and in any case, it wouldn't have fitted in the small space with extra words.  A few snips with the scissors later and I had just what I needed.  Acrylic stamps (I have just found out) cut really easily, and if you need them as they were they can be somewhat reassembled on a clear block.  I'm now revisiting some of the unused text stamps from other sets I own to see how they can be made useful.  After all....."All things are possible".

MARKER PENS AND GESSO



I quite like the look of coloured embossed backgrounds, but these ones (a Cuttlebug folder  and a Couture Creations design), initially coloured with some cheap marker pens were a bit too bright for my liking.  Also some of the areas where I'd overcoloured the pen stood out from the rest.  A thinnish layer of white gesso saved them from the bin. It toned the colours down nicely and disguised the "dodgy" bits.  Unfortunately as I didn't think this would work very well I didn't do a "before and after" scan for comparison, so you'll have to take my word for it!  All in all a technique I'll use again - maybe even deliberately next time!!

KITE-FOLD CARDS

 The kite-fold is one of the easiest tea-bag/kaleidoscope folds.  Just turn a square on end and bend the sides in to meet in the middle.  Eight of them make a circle.  I was just using up some of my Kaiser paper left-overs when it struck me how much the choice of colour and pattern affected the end result of what is esentially three examples of the "same" card. 

I like the look of the split pin in the middle but if your middle is a bit messy, it doubles as a great disguise.

LEMON JUICE EMBOSSING

The picture doesn't really do justice to the results of this technique. All you need to do is rub a cut lemon over one side of your embossing folder. Emboss a fairly sturdy piece of paper or card (neutrals work best) and then apply heat with you papercrafting heatgun.

It will take some time, but eventually the lemon will start to burn and go brown. (It goes without saying that you need to be careful not to set the paper on fire!)

Soon the paper takes on a nice "aged" appearance - great for vintage effects or fun projects E.g. pirate treasure maps!

This is a variation of the old "secret writing" some of us used to do as kids. I can't see why it wouldn't work with stamps but I might leave that for another post.

SEWING ON STICKERS

There are lots of different ways to add stitching to cards and scrapbook pages.  This is a super simple one, as this bag sticker comes with pre-marked patterns.The stickers are transparent so you can chose your background.  A plain colour is probably a good choice if you want the sewing to show up.  I've cheated and made a digital "sticker" for the "Happy Birthday" greeting, and have used a silvery rainbow metallic thread to complete the design.

FINGERPRINT BIRDS

There's no reason little people should have all the fun!  There are endless critters and suchlike that can be created from finger prints!  I've made a couple of birds but you could try making the prints into petals, or add a tail and a couple of ears to make a mouse etc etc etc.  I've picked up a bit of paint on my index finger from the background whilst its still wet (underneath the eventual position of the white panel so it won't show) to make the print.

The background is just a combination of green, gold and white paint dabbed fairly randomly onto a piece of black card with a stiff brush for a faux marble effect.

SHELLMAN

Just for a complete change....here is a photo I made years ago (yes...I know the idea is to try new things but when I rediscovered this image I couldn't resist a little “show and tell”). As a long time passed since I did this, I can't remember the specific details, but it doesn't really matter as each photo is unique and will need slightly different treatment to get a similar result. The process if you want to play, though, is straightforward. Take two photographs – a close-up of a face (side-on may work best as there's more skin and less features), and something for “texture”. My husband who only looks half this scary in reality was “the face” and the texture was a dish of shells (you could use a tree trunk or grass or dog fur or pasta etc etc). In Photoshop or Elements open both pictures and drag the texture over the face. Try each of the blending modes in the layers palette until you find one you like. Now you need to select the eraser and remove the texture from any important details that may be obscured. This is especially important for the eyes, as they are the feature that attract most attention. In this case I then selected the eye and increased the saturation so it was quite intense, and added a little glint of “light”with the brush tool, although this is optional. Finally collapse your layers and save the image. You won't always get wonderful results but its fun playing around until you find a successful combination.

PAINT AND SAND EMBOSSING

This is a simple background technique.  Simply paint a "dyed-through" paper such as Bazzill with a thin layer of a contrasting colour (in this case gold).  When it is completely dry, run it through your embossing machine and use an emery board or fine sandpaper to remove the paint from the raised areas.

COLOURING WITH PENCILS

As I've mentioned, I still have a long way to go before I'll be happy with my colouring skills, but on the off chance that I might improve with practice, I've decided to stop being negative and get on with it!  These examples were coloured with pencils (an assortment of brands) and blended with Zest-it.  The stamps are from Hampton Art/Graphic 45.  I like the effect of the neutral grey around the main image. 

STICKER MASKS

A simple but effective way to use outline stickers is as a mask.  In this example I've sponged over some distress ink and then added a second layer of a darker brown ink over the top of the butterfly stickers.  Its a bit hard to see in the picture, but the middle section (wrapped in gold thread) is slightly raised above the base.  Its called "begin" because I'm doing a demo on such things in August and I had to start somewhere......................... 

AUTUMN LEAVES

 Well its Autumn!!! I couldn't resist picking some leaves from the garden and scanning them so that I could use them in digital projects. I put a black sheet of card behind so that selecting individual leaves would be easy (using the magic want tool). The individual leaves have been run with the “poster edge” filter in Elements although you could use many of the others to great effect (or just leave them alone!). I've reassembled the single leaves into one composite picture which is a bit kitsch but gives the general idea of the whole copy and paste thing.....I'm sure the leaves could be  used in much more tasteful ways!! (For the keen gardeners....yes there is one ring-in...a Nandina leaf). Feel free to copy the leaves and play.

                                  

3D STAMPiNG



Completed Card



Initial Image

This is a simple 3D card using a Kaiser acrylic stamp.  I first stamped it with black ink onto white paper and then scanned the image, increased the size, and printed it twice onto three different colours of card.
The red was used as a base.  The next layer was cut out of dark pink card around the inner outline (as shown) and the final layer was made up of the inner shape, cut out of cream card.  The cut pieces were assembled on top of each other using double sided tape and two different thicknesses of foam tape.