Sara Jane's Studio

Playing with Stencils

So, I was working on a holiday card using some of the great Definitely Decorative Stencils from Stampin' Up!.  I wanted to use the Vintage Ornaments set, and was determined to recreate the look of some of my own favorite "vintage" ornaments passed down from my mom.  You may know the ones:  a richly jewel-colored, satin-finished glass ornament that has an embellishment of glitter. 

That led me to a play date with different inks and paints and different orders of application.  And the results of my playtime are below.

 

For this image, I stenciled the flourish using Golden-brand Heavy Gel Medium first.  After removing the stencil, I applied glitter, let it dry, and then swirled on Cherry Cobbler ink.

I did not like the result.  It removed lots of glitter, the edges of the flourish were not clean.  On to the next attempt.

 

 

 

Here, I stenciled the ornament with Cherry Cobbler first.  Then I stenciled the flourish with gel medium, and added glitter.

Nope.  The gel medium is too transparent, and the image of the flourish disappears into the ornament.

 

 

 

Sticking with stenciling the ornament image first, I did this one with Real Red.  Then I stenclied the flourish with Frost shimmer paint.  After it dried, I stenciled gel medium over it, and added glitter.

Unh-unh.  This one is also too transparent - and the fourish does not stand out.

 

 

After stenciling the ornament, I used a stiff stencil brush to apply a pearl-colored oil-based paint stick.  After adding gel medium on top, and glitter, I STILL wasn't satisfied.

The image is still too transparent for my liking.  On to acrylic paint.

 

 

 

Ick!  My acrylic paint was too fluid, and my stencil brush was too wet.  I might have done better with a drier brush, but decided to try a sponge instead to apply the paint.

 

 

 

 

Okay, better.  The acrylic paint is the most opaque (although still not as much as I'd like).  And I used a sponge to apply it over the stencil, making sure that the sponge was relatively dry.  Then gel medium, then glitter.

But it was still not the look that I was going for.  So, I gave up. 

 

BUT not completely.  I did abandon using glitter, and went for gold pigment ink and gold embossing powder, containing glitter, instead.

 
And while I did not completely replicate my mom's ornaments, I still love the look.  And I made my cards for my newsletter.  Phew!!

(If you did not see the stenciled ornament card that was part of the 12 Weeks of Holidays, just sign up for my newsletter, and request the past issues for 2010!)

A Special Invitation

A very dear family friend of mine (I've known her since 1977, when she was 11 years old!!) is getting married this October.  She and her partner have insisted that this is a "no gifts" wedding event, since they both have had established households.

However, for her brother's wedding, I made the happy couple a Star Book which commemorated the event, held in Ireland.  (You can see the Star Book here.)  So I couldn't possibly not give a gift to this set of soon-to-be newly-weds!  Thus, I offered to make their wedding invitations, and they delighted me by accepting.  They live in the midwest, and I am on the East coast, so all of the planning happened via email.  But it worked, and the end result is shown below.  This is a long post, with lots of helpful hints, so go grab a cuppa, and settle in!

In this post I go through all of the steps to make the invitations, which included;

• Heat embossing
• Gold leaf
• Dry embossing (with the Big Shot)
• Using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig
• and of course, plain old rubber stamping!

A framed copy of the wedding invitation, shown above.  

We started the process with my sending along pictures of potential designs - some were my own and some were made by the wonderfully talented people who share their work on SplitCoastStampers.  They chose the overall design, and a few other design elements, from those photos, and gave me an idea of the colors they wanted to use.  So I made up a handful of samples, and mailed them off for their input.  They made some selections from the options I sent (what color brown; heat embossed or not; gold edging or not, etc), and very emphatically indicated that there were to be no bows on these invitations.  :) 

I made a second set of samples for their final choices, and as soon as I heard from them, we were off and running!  The most challenging part of the selection process was not the long geographic distance, but the availability of enough brown cardstock!  Their first choice was a Stampin' UP! color which retired as part of the SU "Color Renovation".  In and of itself this wasn't so bad, except that Stampin' UP! ran out of that brown even before the official date of the transition.  So I had to turn to another manufacturer for another brown.  And wouldn't you know it:  once my friends made their choice, it turned out I could only get half of the number of sheets that I needed in that particular shade!!!!  Yikes.  Fortunately, my friends are fairly easy going, and we did have a second choice color that they were happy with.  In fact, I ended up with one half of the invitations using one shade of brown, and the other half using a second shade of brown. (Since guests only get one invitation apiece, who will know? :) )

Lesson learned?  Start your design process early, and be ready for surprises!  AND, the more flexible you can be, the better off you will be.  I also knew that I created a bit of a monster, in that there are a TON of steps required to make this invitation.  I hired a young friend of mine to help where she could, scoring and taping and using the heat gun.  But I also made sure I set aside many evenings to accomplish things in small bites so the project did not overwhelm me.  (BTW- in case you were wondering, I made 67 invitations.  Only 5 of which were "seconds.")

The body of the invitation is a full 8-1/2" X 11" piece of textured brown cardstock.  But it required one additional piece of the same cardstock, because we wanted to create a pocket to hold the RSVP card, and other cards with additional information for the wedding guests.

This is how the invitation will arrive.  It is a 8-1/2" X 11" sheet, folded in thirds.  The leading edge is shaped:  I made a template from a piece of cardboard (leftover from a used-up pad of paper), and cut each piece of cardstock by hand with my hobby knife. 

Yes, it was tedious.  But I put on a movie and just got in a groove...

This is a close-up of the flourish and the gold foil on the leading edge.  The flourish (Victorine Originals) was stamped with SU's Chocolate Chip Craft ink, and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.   When I get in production mode with embossing, I have the best luck if I stamp, sprinkle on the powder, dust off the excess, and then set it aside.  When all the pieces are covered with embossing powder, then I turn on my heat gun and hit them all at the same time. 

For the gold foil, I opted NOT to use the Krylon gold leaf pen.  I find that you cannot count 100% on it staying put in every single situation.  So, instead of risking a smudge, I used leafing adhesive (Duo Embellishing Adhesive) and gold leaf (Mona Lisa Products, Houston Art, Inc).  I had the best luck using a Fine Line Calligraphy Pen from US ArtQuest. 

 This pen works by capillary action:  you fill the tiny reservoir with adhesive or thinned paint, and can draw very fine lines.  I found it the most reliable way to apply the leafing adhesive.  Once it dried tacky, I applied by gold leaf and burnished it down until no more leaf flaked off.

I found that the adhesive remains tacky until you attach something to it, so there was no need to rush through these steps.  I could apply the adhesive to all of the pieces, and then go back and apply the leaf to all the pieces. 

Tedious?  Yes.  Worth it? Absolutely.

The couple also wanted their initials on the lower corner of the invitation, so I stamped "K & K" using Monogram Sweet from Stampin' UP! (their choice).  Again, this simple step ended up being quite the process, because I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to make sure each character was correctly placed.  But when doing that, you have to make certain each character is dry, or you risk smudging with the image sheet from your Stamp-A-Ma-Jig.  So, as with the flourish, I stamped, sprinkled, and dusted off the excess for the first letter, and set it aside.  When all invitations had the first letter, I heat embossed.  Then I started the process all over again.

Next came the inside, with the actual language for the invitation.  They provided me with the language and chose the font.  I laid it out, and printed on Very Vanilla cardstock on my home HP printer, using the CMYK codes for Chocolate Chip ink color.  Three invitations fit nicely on one sheet of cardstock.  I used my guillotine-style paper cutter to then trim them to size. 

You may have noticed in the photo at the top that the left side of the invitation is dry embossed.  This is the step that came next, after printing and trimming to size.  I used the ProvoCraft "D'Vine Swirl" embossing folder and practiced a lot before I started on the printed invitations.  Practicing on scrap cardstock first allowed me to discover the best way to position the cardstock, and only emboss part-way on the invitation.  I also discovered that I could emboss two at a time, which saved me about thirty passes through the Big Shot machine...

I finished the inside portion by stamping twice in Old Olive ink with a small flourish stamp (Hero Arts), and adding a piece of 1/4" Old Olive grosgrain ribbon at the interface of the embossed and non-embossed portions of the invitation.  For the framed invitation, this whole piece was then mounted on Old Olive cardstock (which was edged with the Krylon Gold Leaf pen), and then again on a piece of More Mustard cardstock.

The actual invitation, opened, is shown at left.  The pocket on the bottom had to be added as a separate piece because the entire length was greater than 12", so I could not even use scrapbook-sized cardstock.  The pocket was attached using Sticky Strip, to help assure that it would hold together.

The three cards in the pocket include the RSVP card,  information about hotel accommodations, and addresses for the church and the reception.  Again, the couple chose the colors in keeping with their autumn wedding:  More Mustard, Old Olive and Really Rust (now retired).  I laid the text out for each card using Microsoft Publisher, used the same font as the invitation, and added a narrow line along each edge in the color of the cardstock.  My printer will not print on the colored cardstock, so I took the electronic files to Kinko's, together with my cardstock, and had them print the cards.  My guillotine cutter came in handy again at home, saving me at least from having to pay Kinko's to cut them!

Closer view of the whole invitation. 

 

And of course I could not resist framing one invitation as a small additional gift to them.  The photo is at the top of the post.  Given the way the invitation was designed, it did not lend itself to framing.  So I took the vanilla portion of the invitation, mounted it on the colors of the additional information cards, placed all of these on brown cardstock, and added some embossed flourishes like those on the outside of the invitation.

Finally, I found the perfect sized frame, but it was in a black metal finish.  Because it was the perfect size (and the perfect price!) I decided to make it suit my needs by gold-leafing the entire frame.

This time I used some decorative gold leaf that had a variety of colors in it, and I was able to brush on the leafing adhesive.  

 

Close-up of gold leafing applied to metal frame.

And there we have it!  Truly a labor of love all the way around, and not something I would do for just any body.  But my friends have something special, and I have the warm fuzzies knowing that I made it for them!

Keep creating!!

Two Stepping into Spring

This month, Stampin' UP! has had a sneak-peek of a stamp set that will be new to the next Idea Book and Catalog.  It is a 2-step stamp set, called Awash with Flowers.  [BTW Two-step stamping simply means that there are two companion images.  One is a solid, block image, and the second is a line image.  The two are used together to create a unique and artful look in your stamping.)

Images in Awash with Flowers Stamp Set (copyright Stampin' Up!)

 

The special runs through April 30.  You can purchase Awash with Flowers, or earn it free by hosting a $350 workshop.  AND you can also get a 20% discount on four other spring-themed 2-step stamp sets from the current catalog.  So check it out!  But order before April 30.

ANYWAY, this is a long way of saying that I have been playing around with 2-step stamping over the last few weeks, and will be sharing the results here over the next few days in the form of Stamping 101 tutorials, and the finished projects, of course.

Here is a sampler of some of the techniques that can be used with two-step stamps sets of all kinds.  Each one results in a slightly different look, and the techniques are all fun to experiment with.

 

Twinkling H2Os (Direct to Rubber)- Twinkling H2Os are beautiful watercolor paints with a mica shimmer. You can paint them directly on your rubber stamp, and then stamp as usual.  It's hard to see the shimmer here, but it is beautiful.  Subtle, but beautiful.

Marker (Direct to Rubber) - Scribble your marker directly on the rubber stamp. Use a couple of colors if you like to create more depth. And give a light spritz of water before stamping. Check out my tutorial here on direct-to-rubber.

Watercolor Crayon (Direct to to Rubber) - Just like markers, you can use your watercolor crayong directly on the rubber stamp itself. This technique gives the softest, most painterly look. Check back later for more details on this technique.

Classic Ink Pad - Just as the name says, you ink your stamp the good ol' fashioned way, with an ink pad!

Versamark plus Pastel - Also called the Poppin' Pastels technique. The stamp is inked with clear Versamark (watermark) ink, and stamped on the page. Then you apply pastels where desired with a cotton swab. More details to follow on this technique, too.

So check back again for some tutorials on the techniques described, as well as the final projects that I put together.  AND you'll see some ways that you can use black cardstock as your base!! 

Keep creating!

A Year of Collage - April 2010

One of the things I love about April is daffodils.  I love daffodils.  I'm not wild about other yellow flowers, but there is something about daffodils that just get me.  So it seemed only fitting that an image used for the April year of collage is that of daffodils.  And I had fun with an image transfer technique using Oil of Wintergreen.

I found an image of daffodils in a gardening catalog,  scanned it, and then printed it with my laser printer.  (You can also photocopy it on a machine that uses toner.  The key is the toner- inkjet ink won't work for this method.)

I placed the image print-side down on a piece of white cardstock, and using a cotton ball, dampened the image with Oil of Wintergreen.  (You can find Oil of Wintergreen at your local drugstore.)  It does not take a whole lot, and you can use too much and smear the image.  So start with a light hand, and keep lifting up an edge to see how your transfer is proceeding.  When you are happy with it, remove the remains of the image and throw it away, and allow your new image to dry.  The aroma of wintergreen will linger for a while; I love it so it does not bother me.  But if you are bothered by it, be assured that it will fade away in a few days.

To assemble the calendar, I tore the edges of the daffodil image, and then mounted on Soft Suede cardstock.  In my collection of stamps, I had one from Wordsworth Rubber Stamps, which is a poem by William Wordsworth on daffodils!  I stamped it on vellum, and attached it with brads on top of the daffodil image.  The whole was mounted on Brodade Blue cardstock, together with the month of April calendar.

BTW - if you are interested in the whole poem, here it is.  (My heart dances with the daffodils, too!)  Welcome spring!!             

     I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
     That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
     When all at once I saw a crowd,
     A host, of golden daffodils;
     Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
     Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

     Continuous as the stars that shine
     And twinkle on the milky way,
     They stretched in never-ending line
     Along the margin of a bay:                 10
     Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
     Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

     The waves beside them danced; but they
     Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
     A poet could not but be gay,
     In such a jocund company:
     I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
     What wealth the show to me had brought:

     For oft, when on my couch I lie
     In vacant or in pensive mood,                20
     They flash upon that inward eye
     Which is the bliss of solitude;
     And then my heart with pleasure fills,
     And dances with the daffodils.
                          W. Wordsworth 1804.

A Year of Collage - March 2010

As part of my ongoing Year of Collage, I am happy to share the month of March.

This month is only a little bit collage, and relies on the technique called Faux Silk - which is  ridiculously simple, but gives a great textured effect.

On plain white tissue paper, I stamped the Medallion background stamp using Bermuda Bay ink.  After giving it a moment to dry, the image was crumpled up in my hand.  Then without smoothing out the wrinkles, the tissue paper is glued to a piece or cardstock.  If you use white glue, use it sparingly, because the ink will bleed a bit as you might be able to see on mine.  Trim the tissue paper slightly larger than the cardstock, fold the edges to the back and glue them down.  This gives the cleanest edge - but you can also simply trim the tissue to the edge of the cardstock.

I added a large clear rhinestone brad to the center of the medallion, and added some pearlized highlights to the medallion with Glass Effect Gel by Viva.  (But you could reproduce this look by mixing some Frost White Shimmer Paint mixed with Crystal Effects, and applying small drops with a paper piercer or end of a paintbrush.)

The saying was from Penny Black, stamped after the piece was thoroughly dry, wtih StazOn Jet Black ink.  After everything was complete, I mounted the whole on a piece of Bermuda Bay cardstock, trimmed 1/8" larger all around.

For all of the months, I created a table template in Word, and printed each month out on Whisper White cardstock.

March:  out like a lion, in like a lamb.  Let's hope so!!

Live and Learn

OK- this is another one of my posts where I confess my mistakes.  Hopefully, as I live and learn, you can too!

About one year ago, I was playing with Petal Pots from Create & Treasure.  I used crackle glaze over a dark green base, and put on a top coat of a Jacquard Lumiere paint in gold.  Then, I over stamped with StazOn solvent-based ink in Forest Green.  Finally, I added some highlights in the bight green Citrine color of Lumiere.

This is what it looked like last year:

The other day, I pulled it out of my inventory to take it to an event as an example of one of the many things you can do with rubber stamping. 

Much to my surprise, this is what it looks like now:

 

Close up of one side.

The dark green StazOn ink has faded to a golden brown color.  It's either because this color has no particular staying power, or it's due to some kind of interaction with the Jacquard paint.  I have never seen StazOn fade like this before, but I have mostly used black.

The good news is that it still looks okay in real-life.  Phew!  At the same time, I am glad this is not something I had given as a gift!!  Next time, I would stamp with a dark colored acrylic paint on top of the Lumiere if I want to be sure it holds its color over time.

But, now I know, and so do you!

Keep creating!

 
 
 

Stamping 101 - Stippling

Next in the Stamping 101 series is a lovely background technique:  stippling.

This is a simple but effective technique for filling in your backgrounds with any color of your choice.  Depending on which technique you choose, and how much color you apply, it can take on the look of a soft watercolor wash, or be more intense, like an impressionistic painting.

Stipple brushes are dense, round brushes with a lightly curved top and a long handle.  It is good to buy a set of them, because you can dedicate them to color families and not worry about washing them in-between uses.  You can see mine, below, are quite stained from previous use with inks.  I have one for yellows and oranges, one for reds and pinks, and one for greens and blues. 

   

The first step is to pick up fresh color from an dye ink pad by swirling the brush against the pad surface.  The dye ink will dry almost immediately which is what you want for this technique.

You then have two choices for how to apply the color:  you can swirl the color on, or you can pounce it.  Each results in a different look. n Swirling gives a very soft, blended appearance.  Pouncing results in more intense pinpoints of color.

For swirling, start off your surface, on some scrap paper.  This let's you avoid an overly intense application of color at the start.  Start swirling and moving your brush onto your surface.

Keep swirling until you have the intensity of color that you desire.

Here, I am using Pacific Point ink from Stampin' Up!, which is a saturated, medium blue shade.

For pouncing, load up your brush with ink, and then start bouncing it up and down on your cardstock surface.  Move it around as you pounce to help control how much color you are applying.  You can always go over a previous application to make it darker.  But, like adding salt to food, you can't remove it once it's there!

In this photo, the pounced application is in the center, and the swirled application is on the upper right.

This photo shows the same two techniques using a paler shade of blue, Baja Breeze.

And finally, you can mix colors.  This photo shows Pacific Point with the addition of Regal Rose (on the left).  You can see how the two colors blend softly.

And that's it!  A simple but beautiful technique to fill in with color.  Play around with it so you can get a feeling for how much pressure you want to apply with the two techniques, and for the various effects you get with different colors.

Below is a finished project in which I used Sage Shadow, Bashful Blue, and Almost Amethyst to fill in the background.  You can see the whole project by clicking here.

Have fun with this technique, and let me know how it goes for you!

Comparing Die Cut Machines

If you are considering purchasing a die cut machine, check out a comparison of four machines that I wrote for Craft Critique.  You can read the whole article here.

In the article, I compared my personal experience with the Spellbinders Wizard, the Cuttelbug from ProvoCraft, the BigShot by Sizzix, and the Cricut Expression (a digital cutter) by ProvoCraft.

My overall recommendation?  The BigShot. 

• It works easily and well
• it is sturdy and stable during use
• it has a Multi-Purpose Platform which makes it easy to figure out which mats to use with which dies
• it cuts all manner of materials, AND
• it embosses. 

But read the whole article to see if you agree!

Stamping 101 - The Polished Stone Technique

This is a great technique for backgrounds.  The name "Polished Stone" comes from the final appearance:  it can look like a piece of polished granite or marble or turquoise or malachite (you get the idea!), depending on the colors you choose.  And it is done on glossy surfaces, so it has a shiny, "hard" sort of look to it.  You can use alcohol inks in re-inker bottles, or you can use dye ink refill bottles together with rubbing alcohol.   On the card above, a resist technique was used in addition to the Polished Stone background.  First, I stamped my image in Versamark ink on glossy white cardstock, and then I embossed with clear powder.  The Polished Stone technique was one on top of this.  The embossed image resists the inks, and you get a beautiful white image popping out.

To create the look, choose two or three colors of ink (alcohol or dye ink) in reinker bottles.

Choose compatible ink colors- colors close to each other on the color wheel work best. because they blend with each other.  (If you use colors opposite each other on the color wheel, you will get muddy, unattractive color.) 

 

The instructions here are for dye inks plus rubbing alcohol.  (If you use alcohol inks, you don't need the additional rubbing alcohol, but you might want to use a blender fluid of the same brand as your inks.)  You will need to purchase Rubbing Alcohol and cotton balls from your local pharmacy. 

 

The technique only works on glossy cardstock, or on non-porous surfaces, such as dominoes.  Glossy cardstock has a finish to it which prevents the ink from penetrating the surface, and thus allows the ink to flow and mix before drying. 

 

Take a cotton ball, and saturate it with rubbing alcohol.  (You might want to put on a latex glove for this part, too!)  Take your two or three dye Ink refills (here, I used Tempting Turquoise and Brilliant Blue) and generously dot the surface of the cotton ball with each color.  The colors should be right next to each other on the cotton ball. 

Now, pounce the cotton ball on the glossy cardstock, turning it slightly with each pounce to vary the position of each color.  Poune, pounce, pounce, all over until you are happy with how it looks.  You can refill the cotton ball with alcohol and ink if you need to. You can pounce over previously colored area as well with fresh ink and alcohol to reactivate it and make it move.

 

 

   

If you use the resist technique, you can give your embossed image a little blast with your heat gun when you are done pounging on your color.  This will evaporate any remaining ink over the embossing, and will make the image pop even more.

The above examples were made using two colors of dye ink, plus rubbing alcohol.  More examples are shown below, using alcohol ink (either Adirondack or the Pinata brand).  You can also add a dot of metallic color with a Krylon leaving pen.  To do this, place the pen tip directly on the card stock, and press down until you leave a little puddle.  Then start pouncing to move the metallic ink around with your colors.  I find this technique works best with alcohol inks.

 Above: WIld Plum, Denim and Eggplant inks with Gold Krylon

 

  Above:  Denim, Lettuce, and Stream inks with Silver Krylon

 

  Above:  Denim, Lettuce and Stream (with less Lettuce) inks and Gold Krlyon

 

Above: Butterscoth, Terra Cotta and Espresso inks with Gold Krylon

Aren't they beautiful?!?  As with many techniques, once you get started, you dont' want to stop.  Some afternoon, sit down at your crafting table, and just play with different combinations of colors on glossy cardstock.  When you find ones you like, cover an entire sheet of cardstock.  Keep it on hand for when you need just the right background for your next project.

And, keep creating!

Quick Tips

• Want to have a rubber stamp made?  Check this out.
  
• Acrylic versus rubber stamps - Which one should you buy?  Learn more here.
  
• What's my favorite tool for embellishing? 
  
• Trouble threading fibers or ribbons through beads?  Here is a cool trick!
  
• Don't use baby wipes to clean your stamps.  Why?  Find out here.
  
• Read "All About Ink" here - tips on the best ink to use for each surface.
  
• Read "All About Paper and Cardstock" here-
  
• And if you want to locate a local stamp or scrap store in New England, check out this listing!