Metallic Masculine Card

Today's card is a VERY masculine card. It's for my brother who celebrated his 32nd birthday this week. He's really into all things metal - he's always tinkering with cars in the garage and he likes everything to be 'just so' - hence the card I've created for him is very balanced/symmetrical, very metallic and no-frills. It's not necessarily my kind of card (if I'm truly honest, it's really not my thing!) but it just know he'll love it. I hope you will like it too, but I understand if you don't as this is not everyone's cup of tea ;0)

The card incorporates real metal, from a Pepsi can I (very carefully!) cut up, flattened, punched out several squares and cuttlebugged using the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I've used thin chipboard squares to create a chess board effect alongside the metal squares. I stapled the chipboard squares in a cross just to add to the metal theme. I then had to run these through the Cuttlebug to flatten the staples to allow me to adhere them down to the project. I did this by stacking my A plate, an embossing folder (with nothing inside it - this is just to pad out the stack), then a B plate (embossing plate), a piece of card to cushion the staples and a final B plate (cutting plate).

Sounds complicated, but essentially all I've done is create a stack thick enough to compress the staples, without causing damage to my machine ;0) You may need to vary this stack as each machine may differ. DON'T FORCE your machine, just remove a layer of c.s. if it's too difficult to turn the handle.

The sentiment part of the card uses a Fun Doodle Tags stamp set from MyGrafico.com (no longer available from MG, the link to the designer's website, Pixels&IceCream, can be found here). I just *HEART* this stamp set! It has so many uses! I'm always flapping around trying to find something suitable to stamp my sentiment onto, so this a great stamp set that's a must-have for everyone's crafting stash. And don't forget, as it's digital, you can resize any of the 8 tags to fit any width of sentiment, and therefore to suit any project - so that makes it great for scrapbooking too.

So, the video is below. I hope you enjoy watching me make this card - if you do, please hop over to YT to rate and subscribe. Your comments are always appreciated and I hope it inspires you to be ever more creative with those pesky masculine cards!! ;0)

Join the fun at MyGrafico!

 

Don’t forget to visit the MyGrafico shop to claim your 40% discount tomorrow! NB: they’re 4 hours behind us in the UK, so the sale won’t start here until 11pm…a little late, but well worth the wait ;0)

Seriously Amazing Blog Candy!!

Wow – this has got to be the most generous blog candy ever!!!

Do you want one of these?:

What a ridiculous question. Of course you do!!!! So go to this post and follow the instructions…this is a UK only blog candy (hurrah for us!) but even if you’re not signing up for this scrumptious candy, Jak’s blog is definitely worth a look around.

I am now back from my wonderful holiday and have finally caught up with myself, so I’ll be back tomorrow with a new project and tutorial, so watch this space…;0)

How to cut out foam-backed rubber stamps

Hi – I just wanted to share with you my eagerly awaited “Miss Anya” stamps and I thought I’d film the process of me cutting them out as a quick tutorial for you all. They don’t come with instructions on how to prepare the stamps, so I thought it’d be a great opportunity to show you how I recommend you do it…
This is a popular new way of selling rubber stamps to save on precious craft storage/space, so it's important we know how to prepare them for the best stamping experience!! This technique uses stamps that come prepared on mounting foam such as 'EZ Mount', which is perfect for temporarily adhering to acrylic blocks in a similar way that acrylic stamps do. If your stamps just come as just the rubber, you can easily adhere them to something like EZ Mount then follow this same process. DO NOT CUT OUT your rubber stamps until they are fully adhered to some sort of mounting foam such as EZ Mount. Trust me, you’ll be in a world of pain if you do…
I hope you find this tutorial informative - please pop over to my YT channel to rate & subscribe. Thanks for watching!

Butterfly Garden

I wanted to have a play around with something 3d for this card…so I used vellum to create this really vibrant colourful butterfly. I’ve used some digital stamps and clipart from MyGrafico. First off, I prepared the vellum with 4 or 5 layers of acrylic matte gel medium. This was to strengthen the vellum, so it would be able to stand up to being the 3d focal point of this card without going flat/creased or (worse still) tearing, due to the vellum being so delicate. I used gel medium because it dries matte and clear. If you’re on a budget, you can always use PVA glue on the reverse of the design as this will do the same thing, but of course it will dry shiny not matte.

I used clear embossing powder to ‘set’ the digital print out on the vellum, but then I re-heated the clear embossing powder and whacked some black e.p. over the top. Doing it this way instead of hitting it with the black e.p. first off, gives you a much messier, splotchy effect.

Depending on what you’re going for depends which way you approach this. I liked the effect – after all, butterflies don’t tend to be subtle, pastel coloured things – they’re usually vibrant and gorgeous in their brilliance. I like the fact that this butterfly STANDS OUT but doesn’t overpower the card. Shame I forget its antennae…was going to add some twisted wire, but I forgot. Oops!

The video below shows you the card from start to finish. I hope it’s informative and shows you how great the digi stamps and clip arts can be when combined in a project. I just love playing about with them – in fact the only thing that is holding me back now is my printer’s run out of ink! ;0)

Please hop over to YT to rate and subscribe…thanks for watching!