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.