Sunday 5 April 2009

More experiments

After making the butterfly card below I had some of the spiced marmalade (distress) ink and wild plum (adirondak) ink background left, so I thought I would give a more detailed explanation of what I did on the background and show a few before and after photos.

The first photo shows the background plain, and as you can see it really doesn't look much at this stage. I started with a sheet of white matt card and rubbed the marmalade ink in diagonal stripes roughly about 3" wide and 3" apart. I rubbed the pad on the paper until the colour was dark and fairly even (up and down and round and round). Then I did the same with the plum going over the edges into the marmalade to make a red colour between the orange and plum. You may need to wipe your plum pad on a bit of paper to get rid of the mamalde ink it has picked up.

Then I wet my hands and shook some water drops on the page. After about 30 seconds I blotted the paper and the ink became lighter where the water had been. I have seen this technique several times so unfortunately I'm not sure who should get the credit. I then wiped over with a baby wipe to even out the colour a little. I also wiped the back to reduce paper curl. Dry with a heat gun or place it under something heavy to dry naturally.

I overstamped with black memories using a Club Scrap stamp.

The image (Sugar Nellie by Leanne Ellis) was coloured with a mixture of ink from the marmalade and plum pads using a wet paint brush to get some ink from the pad (with the pad shut press the middle of the lid into the ink and then take the ink from the lid), copics (yippee! E000 is now available in UK) and glitter gel markers.

Then I layered everything up. In an attempt to make a card that wasn't exactly the same design as most of my other square cards, I think I may have lost the plot a bit! The happy birthday circles are from a Kirsty Wiseman CD and the flowers are prima. No idea where the bling came from! She looks a bit peaky so I think she needs a bit of blusher!

Love Anne E

Spring has sprung


Over the last few weeks the weather has been lovely - well for March. Ok so it rained a bit and was windy too - stay with me here I'm thinking happy thoughts :-) As I sit and type the daffodils are in boom and the birds are busy fighting over the seed feeders and there is even a blackbird having a wash in the bird bath.

With this in mind I thought I would share some photos of blossom - I think they would make nice backgrounds so feel free to copy them if you fancy a play.

I should be making wedding invites but my lovely - NOT - e-mail system has deleted the attachment which contains the words for the inside! Oh well at least I can play on the pc a little longer with a clear conscience.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Love Anne E x