Silver leaf and acetate

This is  the Silver Birch stamp from Clarity Stamps, one of my favourites.  It is stamped with any black ink on to the reverse of an acetate sheet, the rough side made for printing.  Once it was dry, I sprayed the printed side with spray adhesive and then applied silver leaf and burnished it.  Then it was back to the spray adhesive to attach it to black pearlescent card, which gives more depth to the solver.

I kept the mounting simple, with silver holographic card, black card and then onto a white pearlescent card to finish.  A simple silver peel off provided the sentiment.

The slightly grainy reflection from the silver leaf brings a good texture.  The biggest problem is remembering not to breathe anywhere near the silver leaf (even worse with gilding flakes), otherwise it gets everywhere.  Rubbing baby powder into your hands is a good idea too, to stop it sticking to you instead of the adhesive. 

If you wanted to, you could add some colour behind the trees before applying the silver leaf, but I rather like it simple. 

I love Barbara Gray

Finally, the creative juices are starting to flow, and new things are being tried - not just finishing off old ones.  Having watched Barbara Gray on Sunday (I do wish Create and Craft wouldn't alter the times - it made a mess of my pre-set recording), I was dying to have another go at brayering.  I know all the theory, but actually putting it into practice is very different.  

I stamped the silver birches onto the silk card, and then followed what she had done with the Versamark pen and clear embossing powder, covering the trees themselves.  The first attempt was rubbish.  Not sure if it was the pen (lack of use), not enough powder or the just a rubbish crafter.  So once it had cooled, I added more Versamark and more powder and reheated.  Much better this time.  I really wanted to use a dark colour, a pale grey or something like that, but I haven't got that yet.  The darkest I had was the Mountain Meadow Big and Juicy, so that is what I used.  Having inked up the brayer, I duly took off what I thought was most of the ink and started flicking the brayer across.  Wrong!  I needed to take off much more ink.  The background is now far too bright for what I wanted, so that attempt will go on the shelf until I decide how I can recover it for use.  Never mind, it was only a play, and you don't get things right every time.  Hopefully, you learn.  I did have another go with the brayer, this time taking off so much ink I could not see any left on the brayer.  The result was much better, so that piece of card will also go onto the shelf until I decide what to stamp onto it.

I also had a go at stamping onto acetate, then spraying with adhesive and applying silver leaf to the back.  after burnishing that, I mounted it onto plain black card, then onto silver mirri card, and onto black again, before mounting the whole thing onto a piece of pearlescent white card.  I was quite pleased with the result, which will make quite a good card for a man, being very plain and simple.  I can print a sentiment off on acetate, back that with silver leaf and mount that up below the image.

I am so pleased with my new printer.  It will print everything I have tried so far, including quite thick card, up to 350gsm, which is what I had hoped for.  So I can use it to print a background direct to the card before matting an layering on top of it.  I even tried with a piece of textured card.  Perfect!

By the way, how does anyone else store Clarity stamps to keep them safe, but accessible?  Mine are still stuffed in the box and the paper they came in.  Not good as I cannot remember what I have, so if I want anything, they all come out.  Any ideas gratefully received.