Heat Embossing at Craft-Room

Well, here in the UK you may be aware we've been having a little heat wave, so, in keeping with the weather Suzanne is asking us to create something using Heat Embossing. Our Sponsors are the fabulous Stamp Addicts, who manufacture their own unmounted stamps. I've used a couple in my card  - 

Embossing resist is one of my favourite techniques, I've stamped with a flourish from this set here, embossed in clear and then coloured over with distress inks.  

I then inked a piece of card with versamark, covered with a mixture of embossing powders and heated. I then stamped the Butterfly and heat embossed in black before finishing off with some distress stickles.  

I hope you will join us for this fortnights challenge - as always the team have created some stunning samples to inspire you. I look forward to visiting...Esther xx 

Emboss It Challenge

Hi all - it's my turn to choose the theme over at The Craft Room Challenge so I have gone for one of my favourite techniques. After basic stamping it's the first thing I learnt to do and I love the texture that Embossing techniques add to a creation whether it be as a background or focal element, I especially enjoy triple embossing  though usually make quite a mess doing it ! I've used embossing resist (fern leaves) and triple embossing on my sample – the sentiment is stamped on card and I have embossed over the top with 3 layers of clear EP, using a small flower stamp to make an impression before the powder cools and sets.

As well as being on the Craft-Room Team I also design for Stamp Addicts and they have kindly agreed to Sponsor our challenge this week with a £10 voucher to be spent at their online shop.  All the stamps used in my sample are from Stamp Addicts.

Established in 1992 Stamp Addicts is the UK distributor of top quality rubber stamp manufacturers JudiKins, DeNami Design and Printworks Collection.  Since 2009 Stamp Addicts have been manufacturing their own rubber stamps in unmounted sets, with new designs available each month and some soon to be available on static cling.  Stamp Addicts is also a stockist of Hot Off The Press templates and paper packs as well as lots of Tim Holtz Distress products.  They are also regulars on Create and Craft TV and have a new show scheduled on May 10th @12.00. 

So pop on over to the Craft-Room Challenge to see the inspiration from my fellow team mates, and join us with lots of creative embossing techniques! Have fun…Esther xx

Black and White

I don’t know about you but I love the elegance of black and white cards – but I never think to make them unless it appears as a challenge theme which is exactly where the inspiration for this one came from -

The secret Crafter challenged us to use just black and white so I’ve embossed this Fiskars stamp in white EP on black card and added some glue dots covered in glitter. This finishing touch was inspired by the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays and I have to say I’d never thought of using my glue dots in this way before and love how they look – here’s a close up !  I’m also going to enter this at Crafters Companion where the theme is Glitter and Glitz and at Fashionable Stamping Challenges - this is a new challenge site set up by some of the girls who were on the Lets Ink it up team (where I had a brief adventure) which sadly had to close when Suzanne became unwell. Their first theme is anything goes and I wish them every success in their new challenge.   

Hope you’re having a good week – thanks for stopping by…Esther xx

Rock Chick Birthday

This year seems to be one of big birthdays- My mum is 65 in a couple of months and myself, my other half and my best friend are all hitting 40! I'm the youngest of the three of us - my friend and partner are both 'celebrating' this week (spooky my other half and best friend of 25yrs were born in the same week!). Needless to say my weekend has been focused on creating cards for them and this is the one I've made my friend. She's a bit of a rock chick and so I've used a recently purchased (from E-Bay, is anyone else addicted?) set of stamps from Inkadinkadoo and my fav distress inks in milled Lavender, Dusty Concorde and Pumice Stone.  I coloured with Milled Lavender first, then clear embossed the stars to create a resist before adding the other colours and stamping with Hero Arts dots.  My trusty Tattered Florals die provided the feminine touch and a computer generated message finished off.

The guitar is embossed with black glitter EP - (you can see it if you click to enlarge the pic), and for the other images I've used Opaque Pewter by Stamp 'N' Stuff which is a gogeous EP for distressed looks but one I tend to forget about.  I made this card purely based on what my friend would like but it does happen to fit a couple of challenges by coincidence so I thought why not...over it goes to -

Simon says Stamp and Show - Stars

Simon says Challenge - Happy Birthday

Lets Ink it Up  - Die cuts/punches

Charisma Cardz - 'to die for'

Sunday Stampers - '(I Just) died in your arms tonight!'

Now I must dive over to Facebook to remove the Network Blogs post before my friend sees this!! And I better think about what I'm going to make for the Other Half - not so easy...Men are so difficult (and tricky to make cards for too!!)

Thanks for visiting - Enjoy what's left of the weekend....Esther xx

Tims Tags - playing catch up!

I have a cold...thanks to my darling other half who kindly shared his! So what better way to rest and cheer myself up than a day of making Christmas tags Tim Holtz style (see his 12 tags of Christmas here)...now I'm way way behind and will not manage them all but I've finished the first five. So here they are - I've had to adapt them to use materials I have but have followed the technique instructions pretty much..

Tag 1 - WOYWWers may have seen this incomplete on my desk last weds..since then I made a little holly garland (so fiddly!) and added smoke and a ticket. This took my ages - I made everything from scratch as didn't have any of the dies or pre-made embellishments but was really fun to make. I'm going to enter this at The Artistic Stamper Creative Teams challenge blog. (Ooh..and a thankyou to The Artistic Stamper cos I won a prize for guessing the materials used to make their snowman, looking forward to Mr Postie arriving!)

 Tag 2  - I really like the colours on this one - going to enter it at Gingernsaps Creations in the Colour challenge which is vintage hues and Simon says Stamp and Show where the theme is 'Holiday Greeting'.

 (tag 3 was made earlier in the week and is posted here)..

 

Tag 4 -The paper on this tag is Crafty individuals, I didn't have a facet to use so made an oval from shrink plastic and did the alcohol ink technique on that instead which I think worked ok. The glitter flourishes at the bottom were made with crystals on Tims card but i'm too frugal to use that many on one piece so used white glitter instead, I think they look like little snowballs!  Going to enter this one into the Gingersnaps Creations Spicey Supply challenge.  

Tag 5 - I think this is my favourate - I love this stamp from Stampington and Company. Made the numbers from grunge and heat embossed with white EP and then clear UTEE.  I'm going to enter this one over at Lets Ink it Up - their Christmas theme has an added option of sparkle or bling and the stickles on the holly leaves here definately add sparkle!

Thanks for stopping by...Esther xx

More ATC's - this could be addictive!

 Today I have had a fabulous time creating my ATC's for the next Stamp Man swap - which this month is 'Take a Letter'. I'm really enjoying taking part  and had some lovely swaps drop through the letter box, I'd never made ATC's before 2 months ago and can see it being very addictive. I have literally taken the A T C letters -

I've used a letter on each one so that they are linked as a set but also stand alone individually because I've used a theme connected to the individual letter  (does that make sense - it's getting late?). The colours were inspired by The Play Date Cafe challenge #54 which are gorgeous as always. Each background was made the same way, stamping and embossing an image in clear then using distress inks on a craft mat, spritzed with water and  'smooshed' on to the ATC. The clear EP resists the DI leaving a white image. I made each letter using the technique from Tim Holtz's compendium that Linda has chosen for this weeks challenge over at Studio L3 - it's page 54 and that's all I can tell you.  Not sure I'm really happy with how the letters came out, I didn't have the right tools so had to improvise and not sure it worked like it should - not 'scratchy' enough!.  I used shrink plastic to make wings for the A and a tiny clock for T. I had real fun with these just making it up as I went along with my stash of E-bay BargainTim Holtz stamps.

I'm also going to enter these into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge - Shabby. I must admit I get a little confused by the different styles sometimes because they seem to overlap - where does grunge stop and shabby start ? Anyway - my ATC's are Tim Holtz inspired which is what this challenge site is all about so hopefully I'm not too far out. Here they individually -

A - Artist

T-Time

C - Creativity

Thanks for having a look - better get to bed or I'll be no good for anything tomorrow and there's a list of commissioned Christmas cards waiting !!  Esther xx 

.....and relax

What a great weekend I've had...after a very stressful week I have ignored the housework and indulged in some crafting which has left me very relaxed.  My creative session resulted in some entries for challenges of course. I started off yesterday by having a go at the quilting challenge over at Gingersnaps Creations. Not a technique I've used before I made a design for the front of a sketch book I've had hanging around for a while. I use the book for my scrapbook LO sketches and thought the linking squares where sort of representative of the many LO's inside - I have these notions occasionally!

I used the gorgeous colour palette set over at The Play Date Cafe who are celebrating their one year anniversary!  I was tempted to jazz up the book cover itself before applying my design but decided I liked the plain black border. I created four pieces of patterned paper by applying Distress Inks, then stamping and embossing with clear EP. I cut each piece into the required shapes and 'quilted' them onto card stock.  Obviously this is going into TPDC challenge and  Gingersnaps Creations - Quilting, but also Simon Says Stamp and Show - 'anything but a card' and Allsorts - 'spots and stripes'.I enjoyed myself so much with this technique I decided to stick with it and made this Christmas card using another pattern (there's a link to the patterns, which are from McCalls on the Gingersnaps blog).

 

This time I created the patterend paper pieces with alcohol inks before using versamark ink to stamp the snowflakes and embossed with silver and pearl EP. The BP is alcohol ink spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer though it's not very shimmery on the pic! I stamped and embossed the snowflake swirl and then added some gems which are not very clear on the pic either (unless you click to enlarge). This card is my entry into -

Beary Sweet Challenge - 'Spritz the Glitz', Totally Gorjuss - 'Sparkle' and Gingersnaps Creations -'Versamark'.

And finally I made this vintage style card - I love this style and as I'm trying to get together some Christmas cards to sell went with this lovely stamp from  Stampington & Company which I had last year but didn't get round to using. I created the BP by using an assortment of stamps, distress inks and a gold ink. I then layered up with some printed vellum, DP, lace and the Stamped image which I had layered a couple of times to create contrasting borders. It looks quite red on the pic but is much softer in real Life! I made this using the sketch from the Friday Sketchers challenge and it also fits with Charisma Cardz - 'vintage' and The Artistic Stamper - 'Layers'.

Wow...thanks for sticking with me if you got this far, maybe should of split that into two posts!! Hope you've all enjoyed the weekend too.....Esther xx 

Splash of Green

Do you ever have an idea for a project, and enthusaistically get going only to be interupted by your mum phoning, distracted by your OH fiddling abut in the same room on the computer and just generally get frustrated when things are not going to plan! Well this is what happened during the creation of this Easel card for The Play Date Cafe.

Inspiration didn't come easily for this challenge, which is a colour splash - Black and White with a splash of Green. I've been thinking about it since the theme was announced and finally had an idea while driving between appointments for work today! Only to find that once home and itching to get started things did not run smoothly. Apart from the previously mentioned distractions, I struggled to get a good clear stamping to emboss - though the white embossing looks better than the black and then I couldn't find quite the right colour ribbon, I stamped my circle slightly off, couldn't find the message stamp that is the perfect size for inside the circle so had to use a smaller one, and to cap it all I creased the card slightly off so the bloomin thing doesn't stand striaght (though I've 'wedged' it for the photo).

But I persevered and the end result, while not perfect, is presentable and I was determined to enter it regardless after it had caused me so much frustration, I had intended to make more with different colours but sometimes you just have to admit it's just not one of your best crafting moments - and quit while the goings good!

I'm off to bed and maybe tomorrow will be a better day as I'm hoping to find time for the Compendiuum challenge from Linda at StudioL3.  Night all....Esther xx