Welcome to my blog

I hope you enjoy reading my posts, and please leave me a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and will try to visit you in return.

For security reasons for me and for you, I would appreciate it if you would leave your name on your comments.

You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.


This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others, including my favourite right now, parchment, both traditional skills and Groovi, very relaxing and calming to do.

I have decided to put some structure into my blog so that each day will have something of a theme.
Monday- for Mindfulness; Tuesday - Tidy Up Day; Wednesday - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday; Thursday - Technique and Tips; Friday - Finish Off Day; Saturday - Start Something New; Sunday - Anything Goes
These themes are not hard and fast and will be changed if I feel the need.

Showing posts with label My Craft Studio Pro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Craft Studio Pro. Show all posts

Monday, 27 June 2011

Using the computer to emboss


This is a technique taught to me by Shaz ( http://silverwolfcards-shaz.blogspot.com/ ) quite some time ago, but I thought it was time to revisit it.  You need an inkjet printer and time to play with the settings (each one is slightly different).  You can use any font you have on your computer to create a sentiment for the front of your card, as shown on these first two cards.  To print and emboss, as on these, you need good quality parchment with a nice shiny surface.


Get all your embossing equipment ready before you start, the top off the jar and copy paper to sprinkle over.  Once it comes out of the printer, speed is all important in getting the powder over the writing, then you can relax a little.  I have found that it is better to print on the normal setting.  High quality takes too long and the writing has already started to dry out, draft is not quite wet enough, but practice on your own machine to find the right balance.  Don't try to do too much on a sheet at one time, as it will have started to dry out.  If you use spray adhesive, such as Crafters Companion Stick and Stay you can stick your sentiment onto backing card before attaching to your card.


The next card was done in a similar way.  I was inspired by the Framer stamps from Barbara Gray (Clarity Stamps).  I took the name I needed, and increased the size of the central "O" , placing the other two letters as I wanted on either side.  (I did the setting up of the word in My Craft Studio Professional).  Once I had that right, I printed direct to an A5 sheet of Clarity silk art card, and embossed it direct from the printer.  I had treated the card with a light dusting of baby powder to reduce static, and then dusted off any stray speckles of embossing powder with a paint brush, before embossing from underneath.

Having got the embossing out of the way, I printed another copy on copy paper and cut out the "O".  I used the flowers from the Flower framer kit to place the flowers in and around the "O", and the Speedball brayer to colour in the background, both in the "O" and around the outside framework.  The flowers were coloured with promarkers.  You can polish the silk card to a high sheen with a screwed up pad of kitchen roll, but make sure you do that BEFORE doing anything else, otherwise you could wreck everything you have done.   I edged the white section with a copper coloured pen, and used a Krylon Copper pens to edge the whole card.    Both those pens will smudge if you attempt to polish after you have used them.  I found that out the hard way.  However butterflies are very useful in covering up minor blips.

Sunday, 12 June 2011

Another year gone!

I just want to know where the last year has flown off to.  I started this blog just one year ago yesterday without any idea of the number of new friends I would be making, or the number of new ideas I would be given.  Thank you to all of you.  I am so glad I met you.  And special thanks to Shaz (Silverwolf) who inspired me to try it, and who is always so generous with her help and tips.  Also thanks to her lovely husband who managed to solve my photo problem on the blog yesterday.

I had a great day with lots of visitors and some lovely cards and pressies.  I will photo some of them and post them later in the week.  My wonderful husband bought me the four Barbara Gray DVD's (number 5 is due out soon), so I can study her techniques and attempt to do better than I do now.

 This is a card I did recently for some friends who now live on a narrow boat, wandering the waterways.  I found a photos of their boat and printed it onto a piece of silk art card, thenn once the ink was thoroughly dry, I masked it off and brayered and stamped the border, using leafy stamps to create the lower areas.  (The nasty blobs at the top left turned out to be Krylon gold leaf on the scanner plattern - cleaned off now).  Then I removed the mask and drew a wriggly line round the picture with a fine line gold pen.  I edged the whole card with Krylon Gold Leaf and mounted it on green and red  card.  The numbers were printed and cut out and embossed with a glittery red embossing powder.

This card has not yet been delivered, but I don't think he will be looking at my blog.  This one went together very easily until I tried to decide what card to mount it on.  My room looked a wreck when I finally finished.  I have a lot of lovely card, but I am getting to the point where I have not quite got the variety to make choices easy.  The image is from My Craft Studio, and it was all designed and sized within that program.  Once it was all stuck together with Pinflair glue, I left it to dry before giving it a good dose of Spray and Shine, until it was really shiny.  Then I mounted it with a thin border of holographic silver card and then put it on to a silvery blue pearlescent card.  I shaped the boat and the sails before adding them to the decoupage, which, I think, gives it a more realistic look (and hides the glue better too).

This is another card that got the shaping on the decoupage, and a good dose of Spray and Shine  on the finished card.  Again the image was from My Craft Studio.  I think the Spray and Shine enhances the image and brings out the colour.  Because this has to go through the post, I did all the matting and layering within My Craft Studio and printed it out direct to the white supersmooth card.  The gold club and the ball were separate pieces of decoupage, shaped to give dimension without being too high.


We have got a new oak computer desk downstairs, so I have snaffled the set of drawers that belonged to the old desk to store things like my heat guns and things that really have no real place yet.  So I am off up to my room now to sort that lot out.  I suspect it will also become a place for another pile to start.  You all know what happens to clear surfaces in craft rooms.  Time will tell - very soon!