die-cutting

Tips on Tuesday | 100DayProject Day 31

100DayProject Day 31

Nothing to report on my Altenew courses and the assignments of making cards. Still busy working on a few totally different craft projects for a friend’s birthday which I can report on a bit later.

One of my crafty projects.
Another of my crafty projects; putting a lot of accumulated decorative boxes that I’ve made to good use.

My idea for tips on Tuesday is to give some cardmaking tips for techniques and design but I don’t have many to pass along today. The class I gave did enjoy colouring with watercolour markers. One of the class participants mentioned that you can also use a regular marker along with a wet brush to blend out the ink from a regular marker. I will give that a try with some of my regular markers soon. Actually I couldn’t resist so I went down to try it out before posting this. I think it will work best with brush-tipped markers rather than fine tipped, but I guess it depends on how much colour you want to put down in a particular area. And the type of paper as well as the type of marker likely will make a big difference in the success of this technique. It definitely doesn’t work well if the markers are too dried out (I had to throw out a few markers from my stash). I will eventually try a few other brands of markers but so far I am still very taken with watercolour brush markers. Or I like to use a few drops of ink with a bit of water. Which I couldn’t resist going to try. This is what happens when I have a nap in the afternoon because I’m so tired. And have chocolate tuxedo cake for dessert. Fortunately I’ve already decided to skip pickleball in the morning to focus on a few crafty projects. And to bring Luna for her 10:50 mani-pedi appointment.

I prefer to just mix a few drops of ink with a few drops of water. These flowers and leaves are still wet; I’m curious how they’ll look in the morning when they are dry. I did try to apply a few layers in some spots to see if those areas come out a bit darker. I don’t think this paper is the best for trying to blend colours. I may try to blend a few different colours on watercolour paper,

I forgot to take some photos of the cards that the participants made in my class this afternoon or I would have shared some of their finished projects.

Tips on Tuesday

I was on the search for some evidence of spring bulbs starting to peek out from the frozen earth on my walk with Luna this morning. And a garden on the street behind our house didn’t disappoint. Sure enough, there were some leaves starting to poke their brave tips out. I expect it won’t be long before there are a few blooms popping up in gardens around the neighbourhood. My spring bulbs of choice are daffodils but every spring when I see the crocuses and other tiny flowers I think that I should try to add some of them into my garden as well.

I got in my morning swim with Flora this morning. Soon I’ll be heading out to Canadian Mental Health Association to lead a card making workshop in their 11:45 Arts for All program. A bit of further prep work is still required for that which I’m off to do now.

Soup on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 29

Back to taking photos of the beautiful bright red gerbia daisies.

100DayProject Day 29

I have mostly been working on a few other crafty projects today instead of either my 100DayProject or any kit assembly for my upcoming Dementia Society and Canadian Mental Health Association classes.

Part of my crafty project. I’ll share more about it in a few days.

I did select a ‘hello’ die and created several layers of it which I glued together. Some I cut with adhesive-backed cardstock and the others I cut from 80 lb. cardstock. I glued the layers together and ran them through my die-cutter.

I started to cut out a few different die cuts, but finally got more realistic, put away the extras and focused on the hello die!

I tried a few different settings. I did a few trial runs through without inking the bottom vellum layer with ink. There was quite a bit of pressure required to make a good indentation. I eventually ran a few through after inking the bottom. I noticed that the layers shifted a bit from the pressure. I will have to investigate to see if they shifted under the adhesive-backed cardstock or under the glued layers; somehow I think it was the adhesive-backed layers that shifted.

Some of the layers that I cut out to build up a thick die cut image. I tried some from 80 lb white cardstock which I adhered together with glue. I also cut some from adhesive-backed cardstock. And the bottom layer is vellum which I adhered together with glue. I think the glue layers adhered better under the pressure of running them through the die cut machine for the faux letterpress effect.

Definitely some more experimentation required. I think it may work better onto thicker cardstock for a few reasons – the first being that it would be easier to make an indentation – and second being that the ink likely wouldn’t show through. However, I’m going to go ahead and finish the card that I started with 80 lb paper in which the ink shows through; perhaps I’ll add two inner layers – one on each side of the cardbase.

My first trial using ink on a scrap piece of paper. I may turn it into a card front. You can’t see the impression effect very well in the photo.

I think a few late nights combined with way too much recent experimentation with the foiling have left me with little energy or inclination to further experiment with the faux letterpress technique at this time. So I’ll move on and come back to it eventually.

I think I moved the stacked hello die cut a bit before or as I ran it through my diecutting machine. I don’t think this second impression came out as well as my first impression, although I do think I got better ink coverage on the vellum bottom layer.

There is special letterpress paper and apparently it works better with pigment than dye based inks so there is certainly a lot of things for me to try out. Maybe I’ll even find someone who has a for home use letterpress machine that will let me try it out. I will eventually research the real and faux techniques because the look is so nice.

I used too thin (80 lb) cardstock for this technique. You can see the impression from the inside of the card. i will add an inner layer on to cover it up.
You can see how the layers of the stacked hello die cuts started to shift under the pressure of being run through my die cut machine. Further experimentation with the glue / adhesive as well as the number of layers of cardstock, and the weight and type of cardstock for the faux letterpress technique will happen sometime in the future. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get the card finished and move onto the next lesson. This one is the fourth lesson in the Altenew Clean & Simple Boutique Cards class.

Soup on Sunday

The soup I made on Sunday. But we’ll be eating soup for supper tomorrow instead of today.

I made a potroast for dinner. I recently found some horseradish in the fridge that I had bought quite a long time ago and developed a craving for roast beef. Wow, is it ever crazy expensive these days. So we bought a less expensive cut and made a pot roast with dumplings. It turned out reasonably well. It’s nice to have some leftovers. I also went grocery shopping for Heidi and made some soup. She’s trying to eat quite healthy this week in anticipation of ringette Nationals which start on Monday 31 March.

I used pork instead of turkey sausages but pretty much followed the rest of the recipe from the Yum and Yummer cookbook. I really like a lot of the recipes in the book and even bought an extra copy for the cottage. This is the first time trying this soup. It is easier to see what is in the clear containers that using sour cream and cottage cheese containers, but it’s still helpful to write a label on each.

Sweeping Saturday | 100DayProject Day 28 | Card 17

Card 17 | Altenew Clean & Simple Boutique Cards Lesson 3 Foiling Metallic Details

Card 17

I’m quite pleased with how my card front as well as the coordinating envelope, back of card and card inside turned out using the techniques from class. I actually ended up using gold embossing powder rather than gold foil but believe that it would have turned out quite similarly had I used foil. There were a few simple techniques that added a bit extra to the card as well. First the scoring of a few lines with the scoreboard to add a bit of texture to the card front. And then adding a wee bit of water to some ink and using a paint brush to splatter a bit of ink on the card front. I also did some spattering on my coordinating areas. I didn’t take a photo of the stamping portion, but I did have to use masks when creating the images since the flowers and leaves overlapped. Even though I didn’t end up using foiling on this card I did a lot of experimentation and will definitely be finishing a lot of cards using the backgrounds that I made using that technique.

After stamping the outline images with versamark ink I used gold embossing powder. I really like the simplicity, ease and look of this technique.
I watered down a bit of ink with a bit of water from a mini spritzer and used a paint brush to splatter it. This seems to work a lot better than the white and black sprays that I have tried recently, so I can foresee a lot more splatters happening on some upcoming cards now that I have a technique to do it that I find easier to use.
The coordinating envelope, back of card and insert for the inside of the card turned out well. I do like how the small black inked sentiment adds a pop of contrast on the card front.
You can see how nice the gold embossing looks coupled with one layer of colour that just highlights a bit of the flower.

100DayProject Day 28

I haven’t done any actually cardmaking today, but I did spend over an hour talking with Shelli about making cards. And I did get the card I made yesterday posted today. Maybe I’ll pick the die that I’m going to use tomorrow to try a faux letterpress technique before heading up to bed.

So many options to choose from to try out a new-to-me technique for Lesson 4 (Faux Letterpress / Embossing) of Altenew Clean & Simple Boutique Cards course. The class card uses a beautiful ‘Happy’ die cut to make a Happy Everything card. My Happy die is nice but perhaps not as nice as some of the other dies I pulled from my stash as potentIials. I may end up experimenting with a few.
It’s kind of crazy the photos we can take with our phones these days. I love this close up of the centre of one of the orchid blossoms on the plant that Louise game me about 6 weeks ago on the day of my mom’s Celebration of Life. It’s also kind of crazy how long orchid blossoms last. I am glad that I have a few friends that will take my orchid plants once they eventually lose their blossoms. While I love flowers and plants I don’t actually love tending to them that much (or as much as I like some other things so my poor plants get neglected).

Sweeping Saturday

We left home about 7:40 for the Rideau Curling club for our three 5-end game Bonspiel. No early morning walk with Luna today. The first game was at 8:30 then 11:45 then 2:00. We stayed for quite a while after the final game since the prizes were awarded after the 2nd draw finished. We placed 8th of the 20 teams with a win, a loss and a tie. We zipped out between our first 2 games to pick my car up from the garage where it had regular scheduled maintenance yesterday but we didn’t have time to actually pick it up yesterday. I called Shelli on the phone on my way home about 7:20 and just finished the call about 8:40. Lots of fun crafty talk. She’s busy working on some SCT C&C cards. It’s going to be a while before I can work my way through those classes. We spoke about a fun colour scheme system called Color Cube which Vicki recently bought. I think we’ll start doing the weekly Color Throwdown Challenge together. I’m going to quickly finish this post and head to bed, hopefully before I get overtired.

Wayward Wednesday | 100DayProject Day 25

100DayProject Day 25

Foiling is such a fun technique!

I finally used my foiling machine. I started with the easiest way: using a polyglaze sheet that already had a pattern on it. I ran two of those through and they worked out well, particularly the one that I used heat setting 4 rather than 3 for. I then tried to create some full cardfront panels covered with DecoFoil Due transfer gel. Once it dried I ran it through with the remaining foil to create the opposite pattern. I also created a few card fronts with polka dots stenciled with the transfer gel. Those came out very well. I’m going to create some more card front panels fully covered with the transfer gel tomorrow – ideally once I find my brayers – because I found that it was difficult to get a smooth layer of transfer gel when using a palette knife to spread the transfer gel. The resulting ridges show up because the foil didn’t always transfer quite correctly along the ridges, and even where it did, you can notice the ridges when you angle the card front in a certain way. I did some ink blending on the 2 swirled card fronts which turned out well. I meant to try to ink blend on a full card front before applying the transfer gel but forgot until after I had already cleaned off my tools and worksurface so I’ll try that tomorrow when a few friends are coming over for lunch and a crafternoon. I will also try ink blending on the dotted cardfronts. And will also try to run the opposite patterned ones through with another colour of foil – because that looked like an interesting technique when I watched a foiling video several months ago.

Heat setting 4 worked better than heat setting 3

I also tried using a few different types of embossing powder (Ranger clear as well as two types of sticky embossing powder – one Stampin’ Up! and the other Ranger) with a few different types of sentiments. I’m not thrilled with the results so far but will do some more experimenting tomorrow. My first attempt with the clear embossing powder didn’t work, perhaps because I double stamped the versamark which perhaps resulted in too much adhesive so too much foil stuck. Maybe I used too hot of a heat setting? The sticky embossing powder didn’t seem to get adequate coverage and too little foil transferred. I can’t remember if I used put down 2 layers of versamark first or not. Maybe the heat wasn’t hot enough? I do want to try stamping with the transfer gel as well – I think having an even coat of transfer gel using a brayer will lead to a better impression of the stamped image. So hopefully I can find those wayward brayers.

I got some transfer gel onto the back of my card fronts which ended up sticking onto my carrier sheet.
You can see the how the foil didn’t transfer as well where the ridges in the transfer gel formed when I tried to spread it over the full surface of the card front using a palette knife. I think using a brayer may give more even coverage.
In this photo you can see how the ridges show up when the light hits the foil in a certain way.
The two cardfront will definitely be usable even if there are a few spots where the foil didn’t transfer. Some ridges it still transferred fine (but you can see the ridges at certain angles of light) and some others the foil didn’t transfer.
The polka dots transferred the foil very well. I’m looking foward to seeing how it looks once I’ve ink blended.

Clearly I need to do some more experimenting. And recording what works so that I will remember it when I come back to these techniques in the future.

You can see how some of the cardstock stuck to my carrier sheet because I got some of the transfer gel onto the back of the card stock when I was stenciling the gel onto the card front. Perhaps I should have put a bit of parchment paper behind. I’ll try to see if I can clean off the carrier sheet with some soap and water. I’ll definitely have to buy some extra carrier sheets to have on hand when I wreck some other carrier sheets with wayward transfer gel.

There was definitely some wayward foil in my foiling experimentation today. And some wayward transfer gel. And I expect there will be some more in my continued experimentation tomorrow.

Card 17 (partial)

I ink blended onto the cardfronts after foiling the swirls. I also created a ink blended card front which I haven’t yet put transfer gel onto but I will try that tomorrow. And I will try to turn at least one of these foiled card fronts into an actual card!

But I won’t experiment too much because I want to move onto getting at least one card finished tomorrow for my Card 17 for The Foiling Metallic Details class which is lesson 3 of the Clean and Simple Boutique Cards course.

Some of my samples of trying foiling using clear embossing powder as well as some sticky embossing powder. Tomorrow I will label them and make some notes about what worked and what didn’t to keep for future reference and future experimentation. I also made a few samples which turned out fine just using clear and gold embossing powder (not foiling on top of it) so that you can see the sentiments more clearly for comparison purposes.

Wayward Wednesday

Just when we were almost back home my theme for today came to me: wayward. This was because the Canada Geese overhead (a sure sign of spring) seemed to be heading more east than north so not exactly the direction that I was expecting. But I was happy to hear their honking regardless of their somewhat sloppy formation and wayward direction.

I skipped Pickleball today. Roland wasn’t going since his Achilles has been bothering him. I opted to stay home and tackle the huge mess that is on my desk in the family room. That desk seems to be the spot that so many of my wayward items accumulate. Which makes the desk completely unusable and means that my wayward items spread onto the kitchen table and counter and dining room table. So spending some time to try to reign in my wayward items and redirect them to more appropriate places in the house seemed like a better use of my time this morning than playing Pickleball. Here’s to hoping the desk stays clear and usuable for a long time. I shall endevour to keep it clear of wayward items so I can use it to work on my laptop, to send out cards (a habit which will be much easier to implement if I have a dedicated, clutter-free (okay, let’s be real, a tolerably-cluttered) space) and to pick back up some Spanish studying (which will also be much more likely to happen if I have a dedicated spot to work on it – although I do need to figure out how to have some time to dedicate to it as well – it might have to wait until after I’m finished my 100DayProject.

Kevin came over for lunch which was great. I also enjoyed an hour playing virtual golf at The Bunker with Louise. Definitely some wayward balls! A very fun evening out. We have another golf night with a larger group of ladies next Wednesday as well. Which reminds me that I need to send out a reminder email.

Soggy Sunday | 100DayProject Day 22 | Cards 14, 15a and 15b (partial)

100DayProject Day 22

I finished Card 14 this morning at the cottage before heading to Heidi’s ringette game. And then I did some more card making at home in the late afternoon and evening around taking Luna out for a walk and having some dinner. Card 14 was the last project for the All About Layering 4 class. So I’m moving onto making the cards for the 6 lessons in the Clean and Simple Boutique Cards class. Like the lessons for All About Layering 3 and All About Layering 4, I had watched the videos quite a while ago. But I rewatched Lesson 1 of this new class and will also rewatch the other videos as well.

Card 14

I am quite pleased with how the card came out. I didn’t have any diagonal striped patterned paper like the sample card from class had but I did find a diagonal stripe on the packaging of a pack of patterned paper. I quite like the bit of extra contrast that it adds.
As usual, I like to have the image from the cardfront featured on the envelope, on the inside of the card as well as on the back of the card. It’s definitely a lot more work, but makes for a very nice look for the finished card.
Having a coordinating die makes it so much easier than fussy cutting out the floral spray.
I inkblended the light aqua colour to help ‘ground’ the floral image that I was adding to the card.
I often like to use old cardboard (rather than foam squares or craft foam) for dimension behind elements of the card.
The card before the sentiment was added.
All ABout Layering 4 Lesson 6b – This was the design inspiration for today’s card

Card 15a

This card is actually not at all like the card sample from Altenew Clean and Simple Boutique Cards Lesson 1 (Simple Styling), but I was trying to get the effect of a mix of colour and black outline that was in the sample card. I do like how my set came out. I later got started on making Card 15b which is using the technique from Lesson. I’m not totally loving my card 15b so may restart that card tomorrow.

I created 6 cards. 2 with this purple wine colour as well as one each of turquoise, crimson, sunkissed. The first card I created was a mix of purple wine and crimson which I didn’t really like, so I changed it to just crimson.
I also decorated the back of the card, the inside of the card and the envelope.

Card 15b

This technique involves somewhat random stamping of mostly solid image flowers (a few with an extra layer) and leaves, then going in with a black marker around the leaf images. The class sample is very nice. I’m hoping I can achieve a bit of a better design when I have a few more tries tomorrow. Once I add a sentiment it will likely look a bit better. I think it makes a big difference if you have a nice variety of flower and leaf images; I may dig into some of my non-Altenew stamps to give me just a bit more variety of images. And I may do some masking.

The black stetch lines definitely help the look of the the card. Adding in a sentiment tomorrow will also help. But I think that I will try a new one using a few more flower and leaf stamps as well as some masking.

Soggy Sunday

As forecast, a lot of rain arrived today. Which meant no walk for Luna. A lot of other potential themes for the day arose starting with sleepy and slumber. It was definitely a tough morning to get going. I was feeling quite sloth-like. There were lots of splashes as the rain hit the deck and the roof and as we drove to the Slush Puppie Centre in Gatineau for Heidi’s final regular season game. The first week of April will be Nationals which are here in Ottawa this year. There were definitely some slippery spots on the sidewalks where the ice hadn’t yet melted. My boots that need repair have squeaky soles which let in water leading to stinky socks. I’m going to throw them in the washing machine then bring them in for repair. Because it was a feature weekend, there were some young ringette players out on the ice with Heidi’s teammates for the singing of the national anthem as well as lots of players in the stands. I love it when there are young players around. Of course there was lots of skating, shooting and scoring by Heidi’s Gatineau team. It’s nice that their goalie, Stephanie, got a shut out against Nepean. I hope you’ve enjoyed all the S words I tried to include. I just had a snack even though it’s 9:50 p.m. Not a good idea from a sleep-perspective but the left-over cake that Chris brought for dinner last night called out to me when I peeked in the fridge.

Not the best photo of me trying to get the image of Heidi that is on the big sign on the side of the Slush Puppie Centre featuring Heidi and 2 other of her teammates. It is always neat to see that sign when we go to watch her games.
Roland took this photo of the very soggy lake this morning.
It was my turn to get my photo taken with Hieid’s sign today. I was envious of the photos that Roland and Stefan had taken with Heidi’s sign yesterday.