Easter on my mind.

Due to various circumstances, I hardly crafted the last 7 weeks. I managed to dabble a bit half an hour here or there, but I made myself finish this one Easter lantern just in time.

I used the Tim Holtz Illuminary Bigz XL die by Sizzix to cut the lantern, and stained it with crushed olive distress stain. Then glued Easter Parade embossing powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies on it with collage matte medium. As I used acetate for the windows, I didn't want to heat emboss the powder.

I stamped the bunny, a stamp from Tim Holtz, with antique linen distress ink, on water color card stock and coloured it with various colours of distress markers and a water brush. After it dried I covered it with distress collage crazing medium to get the crazing effect. After that dried, I covered it with walnut stain distress crayon and a little water. That accentuates the crazing more.

I found these miniature plastic eggs at a specialist shop for bird breeding. They were white, so I stained them with alcohol inks in zip lock baggies. 

The little chicks I found at our local supermarket lol. They were meant as table decoration, but they are perfect for my lantern.

The nest I stamped is also a Tim Holtz stamp, not a surprise as 90% of my stamp collection is his! I stamped it twice and cut the whole nest out and the other cut out is just the front, so I could give it a 3D look with mounting foam.

I stamped the nest on watercolour card stock with brown stazon ink and scribbled over it with every brown distress marker in the collection lol.

And here the complete lantern. And I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all Happy Easter!

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie

xxx

Embossing paste tutorial part 2

As promised another embossing paste tutorial, this time with white embosing paste.

 I spread the white embossing paste over parts of the stencil that was on top of my tag. The only downside of playing with embossing paste, is that you have to wait for it to dry. You can use a heat tool, but it will make the embossing paste go all puffy. 

After the paste is dry I ink over it with  distress ink and an ink blending tool. 

I always ink the edges of my tags with walnut stain distress ink. It adds interest and draws the eye to the middle of the tag.

 As soon as I saw the colour of the tag develop, I knew I would turn it into a beach themed tag. I stamped the shell, that is an Emerald Creek Craft Supply stamp, with Perfect Medium on black card stock. Then coloured it with various colours of Perfect Pearls, and cut it out. I mounted it and added the stamped sentiment. The brads are also from Emerald Creek as well as

 the "pebbles" on the bottom. They are from the Quarry Range. 

Here is a closer look of the Perfect Pearl  shell and the Quarry stones. 

Thank you for stepping by and I hope you visit again :-)

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie

xxx

Embossing paste tutorial part 1

I was asked to do a tutorial about embossing paste for a facebook group I am in, and I decided to combine a few challenges into two tutorials. This one is with clear embossing paste, the second one is with white embossing paste.

One of the challenges is about april showers, so I used my raindrop stencil from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies and distress ink to make the blue drops on the background. It is so subtle that it just inspires me to make rain themed tags and cards!

Over the background I used another rain drop stencil and clear embossing paste. With a pallette knife I smear it over parts of the stencil.

Here you see the embossing paste as tiny shiny droplets.

I inked slightly over the tag with the same blue, tumbled glass distress ink, to make the embossed droplets pop more. The embossed drops resiste the ink as they dry up smooth. It lacked something, so I stamped rain drops over the tag. This stamp is by Designsbyryn. I love my droplet stamps. I want to add a sentiment, so I stamped it on some white card stock and distressed it. And also stamped the drops on that in the same blue as the tag. I also inked the edge of the tag with walnut stain distress ink.

I stained a piece of crinkle ribbon with Tumbled Glass distress stain, threaded it through the hole and my tag is finished.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. 

Have a fabulous day and keep your craft on :-)

Take care,

Freddie

xxx

Emerald creek embossing powders

I know it has been a while, but I wanted to share a few projects I made with some heat embossed accents, made with the incredible embossing enamels by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I have a vast collection of powders, from Tim Holtz' distress powders to Lindy's stamp gang iridescent powders, but the effects from the Emerald Creek ones just are like no other!

On this card I not only used the charred gold embossing powder on the corners and to age the double heart charm, but I also used a stamp by Emerald Creek. It is of a single rose and a rosebud. I added a second rose to give it more dimension. Oh who am I kidding ... I dropped the sentiment stamp on the card when I wanted to stamp it.... as seen below... and I managed to salvage the card by adding the second rose.

Initially I wanted to stamp the sentiment in the upper right corner. My hands were cold and I lost grip on my block and boom..... a bright blue print where it was not intended.... In hindsight I like the one with two roses better! I guess the proverbial "Everything happens for a reason" applies here. 

The double heart charm that hangs from the bow is also from Emerald Creek. I dipped it in embossing ink and then in the jar of charred gold embossing powder. It gives and awesome antique look!

I was playing with embossing paste and distress crayons. Sometimes you need to experiment to see what happens. After the embossing paste dried, I smeared distress crayons mixed with water all over the tag. I love the soft colours it creates. I wanted the butterfly to pop, so I heat embossed it with Northern Lights embossing powder by Emerald Creek. It is a gorgeous mix of blue, green, yellow and more, with a metallic sheen. I think it is sooooo pretty!

Again a tag with embossing paste and distress crayons. This time I smeared the crayons directly over the dried up paste and tag and spread it aroubd with my fingers. It created a much deeper colour. I wondered what would happen if I sprayed over it with distress stain....OMG I am so glad I took that risk! I looooooove how the brushed corduroy (my absolute favourite distress stain) made this tag look totally different. 

The die cut word is heatembossed with Soft fallen Snow embossing powder. It is a white with a teeny tiny metallic blue glitter. And when you heat set it, it pufs up a tiny bit. Such a nice contrast to the bold and dark background.  

And that is it for now. I will be back very soon, with more heat embossed goodness.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and I hope to see you again.

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie

xxx

Perfect pearls tutorial

Wow.... this has been an exciting couple of days. Not only did I win a mixed media challenge, but Ranger Ink has been reposting my Instagram post, of a work in progress with perfect pearls. On their post on facebook quite a few ladies asked for a tutorial.....so here it goes!

This is the unfinished tag in question, as I only have this pic and the one of the finished tag, I decided to do the whole process again with another tag, and make sure to take pics at every step.

This is the finished shell tag. I love this stamp by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. The little semi precious stones are from the Quarry range, also by Emerald Creek. 

This is how I made a similar tag:

You need a stamp, your surface, I prefer tags, some colors of Perfect Pearls, Perfect Medium, a fine brush and a broader brush, a spray bottle of water and I finish off with hair spray. Just to make sure nothing rubbs off when I send it in the mail.

I stamped my image with Perfect Medium. No need to use black Perfect Medium as your surface is already black. I do use black Medium when stamping on lighter surfaces, that way the Perfect Pearls shine even more. 

Then I color the image with different colors. I leave the excess powder there, as when you brush it away at this stage, you brush it only areas you want to give another color. And once the powder is stuck.... it is stuck!

All colors are done, the whole image is colored. Now the real magic will happen......brushing away the exces powder, to reveal the crisp image.....

Tadaaaaaa. It is fine as it is, but ever since the release of the distress oxides, I have been quite obessed with them. And their chalky finish, once oxidised, makes the pearlescence of the perfect pearls pop even more. So this is what I did......

I surrounded it with broken china Oxide. I left a bit of a black border around the image, just so it stands out even more.

This is the finished tag. I did not add any embellishments at this stage, as I might want to add a banner with a sentiment at some point. Not sure yet.

Thank you so much for your visit and have a wonderful day :-)

Keep your craft on and take care.

Freddie

xxx

Gone fishin'

Today I want to share something completely different than my "regular" work. I like to push my creative boundaries every now and again. And today I decided to create a scene with stamps. I am a big fan of outdoor programmes on tv, about Alaska and Canada, and my dad is a hobby fisherman, so I wanted to create a fishing scene to give to him for Fathers Day. I thought I would practice a few first though.

All the stamps I used are by and from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies.
I am rather new to stamping scapes and watercolouring, but I quite like how this turned out. I love colouring with my waterbrush and distress inks and markers. It make it so easy.....well a lot easier hahaha.

These are the supplies I used.

And this is the end result. Not sure if I am going to make it into a card, or frame it and give it like a little painting...

Thank you for stepping by.

Take care and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

Rocking the red

February is the month of luuuuurve. So a lot of challenges are about hearts or red. As I was asked to participate in two mixed media challenges, one for red, the Emerald Creek Dare and one for hearts and wings, I decided to combine the two.

I took a mixed media tag from Ranger and inked it with fired brick distress ink. I then too the flourish stencil from Tim Holtz and inked again with fired brick. I wanted the heart to be on top so I inked through that stencil with fired brick distress Oxide.... Oh how I love the oxides!! I stamped the background and the sentiment with the oxide also. It stamps amazing!

With an embossing pen I traced the left side of the stenciled hearts and heat embossed that with Chinese New Year embossing powder by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. It is a gorgeous deep red with a gold glitter in it.

I assembled various embellishments and painted them with a few different browns, greens and turquoise to age it all. On the heart I glued a "diamond" in the hole and colored the centre of the heart with red pepper alcohol ink. And also glued a bigger "diamond" in there. I cut a little stitched banner from some manila card with a Simonsaysstamp die and ibked it and put a remnant rub on it. Some rings make it possible to hang it from the arrow.

I glued it all to the tag and coloured the crinkle ribbon with fired brick distress ink and made my fluffy bow to finish it all off.

Thank you for stepping by.
Keep your craft on :-)

Freddie
xxx

Distress stain dabber splatter

A while back I made a christmas card with this technique, and quite a few people asked for a turorial. So here the step by step on how to make cards and tags with this technique.

This is the christmas card in question. It makes very colorful and fun cards and is incredibly easy.

For this tutorial I used a mixed media tag and I selected a few colours of distress stains to start with.

All I did was splat the stain, with a little bit of force, on the tag. Some create bigger splats than others. Sometimes a drop of one colour will land in the other. Of you don't want these to mix, heat set the individual colours in between splats.

I finished my splats and stamped a sentiment over it after the splatters were dry. I stained a piece of crinkle ribbon with distress stain, and will thread that through the hole of the tag.

I inked the edges with a tiny bit of walnut stain distress ink to give it a bit of depth and as a finishing touch I added the fluffy bow.

The stamp set is by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies . For more inspiration look on blog.emeraldcreek.org.

Thank you so much for taking time to have a peek. 

Take care and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

Valentine's Day tag

I made this tag with the heart stencil by Tim Holtz and various embossing enamels by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. The top rows are Oh Canada red, the second red is Sweet Valentine embossing powder and the last red I used is Chinese New Year. I love the variety of reds.
I was inspired by the Emerald Creek Dare blog.
I didn't want to cover the background too much with any embellishments, so I kept it simple. Just a few tickets and some roses I made from paper clay.

Thank you for stepping by :-)

Freddie
xxx

Ombre cards

The other day Jennifer McGuire shared a video tutorial on how to make easy but very pretty ombre cards with white heatembossed images and distress inks.

To watch the video click here.

These are the cards I made with that technique...

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. 

Take xare and keep your craft on :-)

Freddie

xxx

A dirty mind...

A naughty birthday tag for a man with a dirty mind hahaha.

Image coloured with spun sugar, festive berries, gathered twigs and faded jeans distress markers, ribbon stained with faded jeans distress stain, edge inked with vintage photo distress ink and splattered with festive berries, fosselised amber and forest moss. Shadow around image is pumice stone distress ink painted with a waterbrush...

Thanks for stepping by :-)

Take care and keep your craft on!

Freddie
xxx

Altered wooden block

My husband brought home a load of wooden blocks of various sizes a while back. We heat the house mainly with a wood burner, so they were initially for that purpose.

But some of them just whispered to me, they need to be altered :-)

So I started with one, got inspired, and will make more.

 I covered the block with patterned paper by Tim Holtz. The person I made this for is into movies, shows and theatre, so I made a block representing all that. I added some washi tape to create layers and die cut the letters from card board. I heat embossed them with hammered metal embossing powder by Emerald Creek Craft Supplies. I loooove their specialty powders.

I added a little piece of the film strip also from Tim Holtz and stamped various tickets and either cut them to size or stamped them on ticket strip die cuts.

Here you see some of the tickets I stamped on the ticket strip die cuts, the Paris ticket is a vintage one I was given by a friend. It just needed to be added.

I coloured the tickets with distress inks and distressed them.

More ticket stubs on top of the block. The recipient of the name block, as I decided to call it, is a ticket collector so this is right up her alley.

I quite enjoyed making thise! I am planning to start a junk journal and will.make some to put in there :-)

Last but not least the final side of the block. Stay tuned for other versions ;-)

Keep your craft on and take care.

Freddie

xxx

Sympathy card

Always sad to make a sympathy card... I clear embossed the flourish on white linen cardstock and inked over it with blending tool and Hickory Smoke distress ink. Stamped sentiment in black archival ink and mounted on a very dark blue card blank.

Thank you for stepping by and have a wonderful day.

Freddie
xxx