Love is caught in crystal

Love is caught in crystal

The February challenge for Creative Loops is hearts– perfect for a Valantine’s Day card. I decided to attempt the caught in crystal technique for the first time and although I was happy with the results there is room for improvement on my next try!

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I used my Indigo Blu poppy heart stamp and Blazing Poppies stamp with Versamark Watermark Ink
on Heat Resistant Acetate and I heat embossed using WOW! Blue Pearl Embossing Powder. I then started painting from light to dark on the images. I started with the highlights on the poppy using Acrylic Pearl Liquid in Volcano Red.
I then mixed two shades of Daler Rowney acrylic redsto paint the mid and shadow areas. The lighter areas are more sparkly in real life and of course the acetate adds some shine. Although I used the mid shade behind the edges of the pearlescent areas I would have liked to achieve a more subtle blend so I’ll have to play further to see if that is possible. I used Pebeo pearlescent green and Daler Rowney Graduate Acrylics for the leaves and am happier with the blending I achieved here.

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Once dried I added Pledge Klear Multi-surface waxand used Spectrum Noir Aquatints to get a blend of colours. I also added some Glamour Dust Glitter which is difficult to see in the photos. I went for shades of red but the differences were quite subtle once they all mixed and didn’t show up as well as I’d have liked. Greens or contrasting colours may have been better. I also wonder if I used too much of everything.

I crumpled up my tissue paper and splodged it on to the Pledge paint mix making sure it was saturated. I left it to dry overnight.

I attached it to the metallic blue mat using Screw Brads. I embossed the sentiments from the Phill Martin Baroque Every Day Corner range onto the mat corners. I coloured the card edges with Peeled Paint distress ink and then embossed metallic green card with my Tattered Lace Fretwork Lace embossing folder.

Heartcaughtincrystal1I would like to enter the following challenges

Creative Loops challenge– Hearts, love etc.

Creative Playground Challenge– Show us your heart

Pattie’s Creations Challenge– Love is in the air

Cuttlebig mania– I {heart} you

Stampin’ Royalty Challenge– Sparkle and shine


 

 

 

Using a scrapbook layout to make a picture.

Using a scrapbook layout to make a picture.

Something a bit different from me today. My brother recently married and I wanted to make a scrapbook photoframe with a couple of the photos for our house. I’ve blurred several items for privacy reasons.
Since I don’t do much scrapbooking I thought I’d find a challenge layout to help. This one from Stick It Down was perfect as it had a couple of photos on it and the DT layouts sparked off lots of ideas.

This is what I came up with. The title and subtitle are the names of the married couple and the wedding date. Additional embellishments include a couple of our mementos of the day- the heart from the table setting and the wine glass charms we had with our names on them.
The initial photos are taken without the frame- I edged the backing board and edge of the paper with white Acrylic Paint using my fingers. The backing board looks a bit dodgy but there was no point adding another coat as you can’t see it with the frame on.

The 4 main images and papers were made using Craft Artist 2. The backing paper is a scan of the decopage paper my SIL had used for wedding decor.

The papers I used  for the rest of the layout are Hobbycraft Love Collection. I used Barn Door Distress ink on the edges of all my layers. I used red and white Molotow acrylic paint marker pens for my fake stitching + and to write the title and subtitle. I have just bought these and I LOVE them. I am sick and tired of buying pens to use for white writing that are so useless I can’t use them and they end up in the bin. A complete waste of money! The only ones I have that are ok are my Sakura ones but they don’t give me a solid enough effect for many projects. These Molotow ones are amazing- write really well, beautiful for drawing and work on pretty much anything so great for my mixed media work. Sorry I’m gushing but it has been tough doing chalkboard effects without a decent white pen for it!

The large jewel accents were from Hobbycraft but I can’t find a link. I used foam pads on lots of the elements to give some variations in height. One of the papers had this perfect element to use. I used my Sakura Metallic and Stardust pens to go over several elements on the papers to make them pop more….like the frame for this element.

I took a 12 by 12 deep box wood frame and painted it with white acrylic paint (I know….should have just bought a white one!!). I then sponged various shades of teal (using Desert Turquoise and Bahama Blue) on it (some with texture paste added). I then sanded back to give a distressed look.

Not bad considering I don’t tend to scrap much!

I was inspired by the following challenges which I would like to enter
Stick It Down- scrapbook layout challenge.
Divas by Design- anything but a card
Through The Craft Door- anything goes