Robin's Nest: Valentine with those Crazy Birds

  Today I have a video over on  RobinsNestScrap YouTube Channel.  I love all the interactive cards and the various dies out there to create them. But I don't particularly want to buy a die for every different card style.  Years ago there were instructions on how to make these, then life got easier and dies appeared.
I decided to revisit the era of templates (pre-die) and create the stair step card base.  This Video of Stair Step Card Base is a demonstration of the actual card base.  Little discussion is given on how I created the embellishments, so this post will give those instructions.

Once the base is prepared, it is just a matter of attaching the papers and focal image.  

So lets start with the basic info:

Card base:  6"X 11". 

 Make a cut 1" from Top and Sides 51/2" long.  Do this on both long sides.  See video to watch how this is done.

Score on edge, along long side at 1", 2", and 6.5".

Lastly score in middle between the cuts   at 5.5" (Center).

Fold along score lines to create the Card Base.  

Now onto the fun part.  

Let's start with the sides.  The sides measure 1" x 4.5".  I cut a solid paper 1/8 inch smaller all around, so: 7/8" x 4 3/8".  I cut 2 of these.  Then I fussy cut the strip, so I had 2 sections that were identical and trimmed them to 1/4 inch smaller than the mat, so:  5/8" X 4 1/8".  

The strip in the front measures: 6" X 1" so, solid was cut at  7/8" X 5 7/8".  The heart paper measures:

5/8" X 5 3/8".  Pay attention to the direction of the hearts or other directional paper.  

Center panel:  is 4" x 5 1/2".  Solid measured 3 7/8" X 5 3/8" and Strip was cut at 3 5/8 X 5 1/8".  Rounded the corners with a corner rounder.  

All of these were layered and glued together.  I used score tape, but an ATG or wet glue would be fine.

To embelish:  I prepared glitter paper with score tape on the back and die cut several heart shapes, including a heart banner.  

A white mat was cut.  I chose a mat that was slightly smaller than the center panel and adhered it onto the panel.  I used a square die as the center is nearly square.

For the Bird:  Using Tim Holtz Crazy Bird stamp and dies, stamped, die cut and colored the bird using distress markers and wink of stella.  The heart candy box was also from the Crazy Things set and was also colored with distress markers. This was fussy cut, placed onto 3D foam squares, added a bit of DMC gold thread and attached to the corner of the card.  The bird was mounted using mounting tape.  I chose 2 different mounting mediums as they are a different height and gives some additional dimension.  

The sentiment was stamped using versa fine black Onyx and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  This was cut out using my trimmer and attached with mounting tape.

Finally the hearts were added and as a final touch,  Dew Drops in Red and Siilver were added as well as a bow that I made from Seam Tape and dyed with Candied Apple distress re-inker.  

This seems like a lot of fiddling but the end result was worth it.  I love this card.  The Bird and the papers are perfect.  

Thank you for stopping by, be sure to check out the YouTube Video,
Happy Crafting,
Josette
Supplies and Links: Visit: Robin's Nest for Dew Drops and Paper
Valentine Stripe Paper
Valentine Heart Paper
Metallic Silver Dew Drops
Primary Dew Drops
Gold Glitter Cardstock
Neenah Solar White  card stock and Ranger water color paper
Distres Markers and Ink
Wink Of Stella, clear
Crazy Birds stamps, Dies and Crazy Things, this link is for Amazon.
Assorted dies from Various Manufacturers and Sentiment Stamp: Gina K designs.

Halloween Cards!!! With Those Crazy Birds!

I have not posted just for me in forever.  I am not a fan of Halloween as a holiday for a very personal reason, but I love Halloween Cards.  I know that sounds crazy, but it is what it is.
So, I made some Halloween cards and thought I would like to show them off.

Now I am just saying, I am in love with Tim Holtz Crazy Birds and these cards have those "Crazy Birds" front and center with assesories by Crazy Things.

Card one a "Witch Bird".

Let us start with the background.  This is a fun technique.  Distress reacts with water so I used that property to create the background.  I started with Brown Card Stock.  Inked a Map stamp by Hero Arts with Distress Stain in Antique Bronze stain and then sprayed with with a glimmer mist.  In this case I used ColourArte Radiant Rain in Pearl Gold.  The spray activates the ink, and then this was stamped onto the card stock.  The more water you add, the more "watery" the back ground will appear.
This technique works with a background that has been solidly inked with distress.

The Bird was stamped and cut out on Water Color Paper.  It was colored with Twinkling H20's, die cut and then glued down in layers.  The hat was colored with distress markers. and glued onto the head.  The Broom was glued under the wing.  I did cut off the legs to reposition them so they looked like they were moving backwards.

Closer view of WitchBird.  The sentiment was stamped in Brilliance Gold ink and them covered in Ranger Princes Gold embossing powder and heat set.  Cut out and popped up on 3d foam squares.
This is an A-2 top folding card.  Mat was cut from platinum paper and mounted onto a brown card base.  The image was directly mounted onto the mat.  The bird and image is all that is popped up.
Silver ribbon and an brad finished the look.

Card 2: RabbitChick

I used a left over background from a Club Scrap posting.  It was created with Distress ink and a stencil (September Blog Hop, Club Scrap, instructions for background).

The bird was colored with Twinkling H20 and glued together.  The Rabbit ears and pumpkin basket were also stamped, colored, fussy cut and glued into place with the aide of dimensional.  The area branch was free cut from brown paper and a green leaf glued on.  This was popped up on 3d foam.  A banner was stamped and attached to bottom.

Wondering how I created those Question Marks.  This is a great trick!!  I took Heidi Swap glitter tape that she uses for her Marque signs, and die cut it with a die from sizzix.  They have glue on the back, so I just stuck them down.  Fun!!    

Close up of the Rabbit chicken.  Note he has a string holding on the bonnet!! Cute.

The next card is one from the year before.  I love this card and reproduce it whenever, with many themes, but the Hearse is my Favorite.  Details on how to make this is too complicated for a blog posting, so I am including it here for EyeCandy.

Closed the skeleton is driving the car.  As the card is opened, the coffin and the skeleton pop out.  

The original mechanism and creation can be found on Sizzix web site, Karen Burniston, Jalopy  She popped out a surf board on her card.  I am not sure of the date, but googling will quickly locate it.  

I made one additional card but the photos did not come out well.  It is an exploding box card.  The directions were found on SplitCoast Stampers.

I used my MINC to create the gold images.  These had been cut out using Mover and Shaper dies by Sizzix. I had created a black sheet of paper on my my computer.  This was cut then the the foil applied to the images.  On my first card series for Club Scrap (august) I show how to make the image paper and use the MINC to create a foil card.  This is the same principle but applied to a die cut.  The back panel was stamped and colored with Copics.

That is all for today.  Join me next week for the Club Scrap Blog Hop.

Happy Crafting,

Josette

Supples:

Crazy Birds by Tim Holtz

Crazy Things

Crazy Bird Framlits 

Twinkling H20 and Radiant Rain

Distress Inks:  Mowed Lawn, Abandoned Coral, Mustard Seed

Distress Stain: Antique Brass

Brilliance Ink: Gold

Momento: Tuxedo Black

Archival Ink: Black

Embossing Powder: Ranger Princess Gold

Backgrounds, backgrounds and experimentation

It has been a busy week.  Ready for an update?

Multi layered Grunge Card

As you know I am a design team member for Flossy Scrapper.  My role is mixed media.  Well, what does that mean.  To me it means, canvas and layer and more layers, using different media.  How to apply that concept to cards?  This my first dilemma.   This required me to redefine what Mixed Media means to me and perhaps to a larger audience.  So I spent the week searching web sites and viewing different types of art, paper crafting, Art Journaling,  After much reserarch I concluded that mixed media is technically layering, texture and color.  All this must be readable and in the case of a card on a small scale. Possibly mail able?

Insight!
I have made those cards!  I called  this grunge but I was using the same concept,  layer, texture, and color. but I defined it differently.  So what I needed to do, was define a mixed media style that was not grunge?  But how. . . . . . . well, play. Truth is the only way to define a new style or explore a media, is to simply play with it.  So today I am going to share my process and examine the results.

A simple Mixed media "grunge card"

Mixed media canvas

The process:

1) Oh where do I start?  Well paper is a good guess.  I decided to try 3 types, an 80# card stock, a #110 card stock, both in white and a cold press water color paper (140# Canson).  These were all cut down to a 4.25"X 5.5" (A2) size.  I made 3 stacks.  All were going to receive the same treatment.

2) Texture:  Decided to start with embossing: both with texture paste and heat embossed.

3) application:  stencil, stamps, direct application (just smear it on).

So, on each of the 3 card stocks, I first used a stencil and daubed embossing ink on to the card-stock using an ink blending tool.  I used several different stencils, and 2 inks:  Versamark and Ranger Distress and then applied a clear (regular grain size) embossing powder and heat set.  Conclusion:  Distress is Thicker and the result was there is a   "more organic" impression.  The Versamark retained more of the fine detail of the image.  This was better for stamping or when I needed a cleaner image, but when I just wanted texture the Distress proved better.  This became more apparent as I added the color.  No appreciable difference between papers.

This photo shows several examples.  All of these were created using the distress ink.  All were colored using sprays. 

Next was to try the same with stamping.  I simple used one of the 2 inks on each of the papers and stamped a background.  Repeated with the second ink.  Here the answer was clear, use the veramark, as Distress blurs the stamped image.  

Last step was to go back to the stencils and apply texture paste.  I used the same paste as in the video "A latte for you" Ranger, texture paste and applied to each of the 2 card-stock papers.  I did not apply to Watercolor paper.

4) coloring  This was the most enlightening.  The 80# did not hold up well and was quickly abandoned, This left  me with only the 110# card-stock and the Water color paper.   I chose a limited palette: Distress: Abandoned Coral, Cracked Pistachio, Fossilized Amber, and Walnut stain.  I used: stain, reinkers, and ink pads.  For the sprays: Distress but I used only the new colors (no Walnut Stain).  I also used: Heidi Swapp: Gold, Bronze, Cherry, Chartreuse, and Orange. Decided to limit it to a single manufacturer, but in the end added Dylusions in a beautiful yellow I did not have a yellow in  Heidi Swapp spray.  First,  I started with the ranger sprays.  Much to my surprise they were pale and almost pastel, on the card-stock and only slightly more colorful on the water color paper. Made sense as they start out diluted, but I was still surprised.   So I quickly moved onto the inks and re-inkers.  This gave me the more vibrant colors I was after and clearly the water color paper showed the best result.  Here are 2 examples of these:  These also demonstrate the difference in the embossing.  The first is with Versamark on Watercolor paper.  The Second, Ranger Distress embossing on Card-stock.

The first is cleaner and more vibrant, the second more rough and organic.  Both nice but different.  In person the difference is more apparent.

This has been stamped with Stampers Anonymous Fresh Brewed Blueprints mini on the background and on the insert.

The stamping here is from the larger Fresh Brewed Blue print and was colored with water colored pencils to keep with the more "pastel nature of the background.  The background is a combination of a coffee stencil and Tim Holtz Star Stencils. 

I then switched to the other sprays,  First sprayed the embossed papers, they are represented in the very first photo and then moved onto plain paper, both 110# and water color.   In the end the samples all had a softer, mistier feel from the metallic layering. When I left out the metallic or used a very minimal spritz, the color was more vibrant, but not as interesting.  Generally, in this exercise  I had used both the gold and bronze on the same papers.  Wish I had stuck to more color and less metal, but 2 of the backgrounds ended up as cards and they both were more "metallized".  Decision: perhaps one manufacture is not best the best for variety.  Less metal if want bolder colors, paper choice little difference other than the color difference and texture between the papers.  I  preferred the card stock, probably because it was white. 

Time to make cards and stop experimenting:

I still had some embossed samples left over.  So I attacked these with my preferred "media" (re-inkers and pads) but switched up the color to Mowed Lawn and Broken China.  

The hexagon stencil had spoken  to me from the beginning, and I had an idea to use them with a Bird Theme.  Thus, I had embossed several of these, hoping to have a few with the right color combinations.  None of the experiments fit the bill, but I had 2 left .  These were going to become the background for those Crazy Birds by Tim Holtz.  Both were on water color paper with Distress embossing ink and heat embossing regular clear powder. They were  colored with re-reinkers that had been applied to a craft sheet and spritzed with water. Careful placing gave me a sky and grassy area..  I had came up with this idea because they have the look of  chicken wire.

Mowed Lawn and Broken China reinkers, colored with Water Colors (tube type)

Full version.  The birds were matted and popped up and then attached to a blue note card

Similar background, but very "little grass", so I created a Barnyard effect.  This bird was colored with Copics.

As you noticed I did not include my experiments with the texture paste.  There was little sampling necessary as I had used the paste and Distress products on the canvas.  I planned on using the texture paste panel to explore using mixed media  in an elegant, antiqued style.  That style will include a video.  I am most happy with vintage, understated elegance and METAL!!!    So, until next time,

Happy Crafting,

Josette