Jack-o-lantern card

 The other day I made a Jack-o-lantern shaped card, and I want to share how it made it. 

This is the card....

 

You can use this technique with any larger shaped die. Tim Holtz showed this technique a few times in the past, and it is always fun to create "odd" shaped cards like this. 

You need a larger simple outline die, I used the Pumpkin Jack one. 

I am fortunate enough to still have a stash of the kraft core nostalgic collection and I used the orange for my Jack. For the stem I use a brown cardstock and for the face the blackout kraft core.

I fold the card in half and cut to fit my sizzix machine. This is the trick to make the card. This is how you cut the front and back at the same time. 

To create the card make sure that you don't cut the card all the way around. Leave a bit of the blade exposed on the left side, this way the front and back stay attached.

Here you see where I left the "hinge" of the card.

See? A pumpkin shaped card!

I cut the stem in brown and used this mover and shaper set to cut the face.

I scored some lines on my pumpkin with a bonefolder, this to creates some dimension and interest.

To give it a nice distressed look I sanded all the elements. This is where kraft core shines!

See what I mean? This is when kraft core comes alive.

I use a finger dauber to ink up my scored lines, this to emphasize the shape of a pumpkin.

Inking the edges of all the elements warms it up and gives it a nice nostalgic look.

To finish it off I stamped my sentiments and the card is ready.

Thank you so much for stepping by and taking the time to read it. It has been a while since I blogged as inspiration was a bit absent. But I hope to do it a bit more again.

Take care and keep your craft on.

Freddie

Foiling with glue pen

Hello there,

My latest obsession is foiling. I was introduced to it a while back and was experimenting, but wasn't very successful :-(. I kept looking for ways to add foil accents to cards and tags but I don't have a foiling machine.
Then I found a technique that totally works for me! I use a two way glue pen. This means that the glue stays tacky after it dries. This way you can add foil to anything you want!

All you need is a two way glue pen and some transfer foil. I always cut my foil in pieces to size, I find it easier to work with and I waste less of it. 

I just "write" where I want my foil. Here you see the wet glue. It dries clear and tacky. 

You see the shiny glue. It is dry and ready to foil. Make sure the glue is completely dry. I always use my heat tool to dry it. Make sure you don't overheat it, because it will bubble. 

Just place the piece of foil with the coloured side up on the glue and start rubbing. I just use my fingers, the cheapest tools I have ;-)

Tadaaaaa. That is it! Isn't it super easy? You can add foil accents to any card or project this way. 

Here you see that the foil only transfers where the glue is. The rest stays in tact. I use these "leftovers" for other projects. If I need some red for tiny holly berries or things like that, this will be perfect!

Here I covered the whole text with various colours. Just add a mat and a card blank and you are done :-)

And there you have a finished christmas card. For international mail I prefer this type of cards as the chance of it not arriving is smaller. Somehow cards with embellishments and such seem to disappear more often... :-(

I hope you have a great day and take care,
Keep your craft on :-)

Freddie
xox

Background stamp and embossing folder

Welcome to my blog,

In this post I want to share how you can use background stamps with matching embossing folders. There are so many techniques, I just want to share one of mine. This is a twist on a technique that Tim Holtz shared on his blog years ago. 

Here you can find his original post.

This is the original tag made by Tim. He uses a custom made stamp pad to stamp this. I am going to show a way that is kind of cheating a little. 

Here we go:

I went for the christmas theme as I am making christmas cards at the moment. Tim has several background stamp and embossing folder combos. These make great vintage looking cards 

This technique works best when you use a stamping tool, as we need to stamp the stamp several times in the same position. To make sure my paper stays in place, I always have a piece of Sizzix Sticky Grid on my platform. It is like double sided Post It. A must have for your craft room!!

This way I can stick my card away from the edge as I want a nice print all over my card. 

My trick is... Distress Markers! Instead of creating a giant stamp pad, I colour the stamp in various colours and stamp!

I colour the desired part of the stamp with my marker. Here you see I coloured the numbers with fosselized amber distress marker. Before I stamp, I breathe a few times on my stamp to moisten the ink. And yes I have accidentally touched my stamp with my lips and had distress lipstick that way lol. Just add new colour and huff and stamp. This is why it really only works with a stamping platform.

Here you see that I already stamped with barn door and fosselized amber. You do this with all the different colours. 

Here you see the finished stamped background. Now we need to vintage this up ;-)

I always use frayed burlap distress ink to give my cards a vintage feel. There is something about that colour that makes everything look warmer.

The next step is embossing the card to give it some dimension and interested. You line up the words with the embossing folder and run it through your machine. 

Don't be shocked when you find out that the top is perfectly lined up, and the bottom is totally offset... this is normal and has a logical explanation... the top runs through the machine first and pulls up the paper a bit when embossing. You just have to embrace that imperfection ;-)

This is the bottom of the card and you see the text is not aligned with the folder anymore. The only way to kind of prevent that is to wet the paper before embossing, but that would make your ink run. I don't mind this offset look, it all adds to the vintage feel in my eyes :-)

To complete the look I ink the edges with walnut stain distress ink. Mind you, no craft item leaves my desk without walnut stain ink hahaha.

These are my tag and cards that I made using this technique. The middle one has some foil on it. I will do a tutorial on that technique tomorrow ;-)

Thanks for stepping by and taking the time to read through my post.

Have a wonderful day, take care and...

Keep your craft on!

Freddie

xox

Pirate chest out of paper tutorial

Hello,

I hope you are having a wonderful day. A while back I made a treasure chest for my altered coins (see my previous post), all out of paper. Below you find a step by step tutorial.

I started out with an Eileen Hull Bigx XL die called Candy Drawer. I used two cuts of the circled part. I taped them together to make a wider box. This is the base I made the chest from.

This is the two parts taped together. As you can see I scored the top, as that needs to have the shape of the lid of the treasure chest. The rest of the scores are done by the die itself.

I am not holding this in quite the right angle, but you get the idea. I looked at how I want the shape to be and traced that and cut the sides out.

I cut the sides and made sure to add tabs for glueing it all together. I covered the "lid" with some weathered leather looking paper from an older TH paper pad. The rest of the chest I will paint black.

Here the box partly put together. One more side to glue, and then the outside can be decorated.

I want to cover the outside with wooden planks. So I stained a piece of watercolor cardstock with tea dye distress stain and embossed it with the 3D Lumber texture fade. This will be the base for making my planks.

I cut quite a few planks with the TH planks die, and also cut trim to size out of grunge board. Those will be the studded parts of the chest.

I used almost all my brows of the Distress ink palette to add depth to my planks. I used my ink blending tools and my fingers. Sometimes fingers are the best tools around ;-)

Apperantly I missed taking pics of how I made the trim. It is pieces of grungeboard that I painted with tarnished brass and antique bronze. Then sanded it a bit and inked it with ground espresso Distress ink. Then added the square brads and glued them over the planks that I already glued on the lid. I added a "lock" so I can close the chest.

I inked up some TH hinges with Mushroom alcohol ink to give them an aged look, and fastened them to the lid with brads.

Just above the lock I stuck a Jolly Roger from Ideaology, after I inked it with Mushroom ink. This completes the pirate look!

I forgot to mention that I cut the lid off from the base, this makes it easier to add the hinges. Here you see the base, with the planks added and the studded trim. 

This is the finished chest after I added two handles and four box corners. They are also inked with mushroom ink to age them.

And here it is, the pirate treasure chest filled with gems and coins. How I made those, I will reveal in the next tutorial ;-)

Thank you so much for stepping by.

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie 

xox