Good afternoon,
Over the last few days I have been playing a lot more at making a mess and learning that inky painty fingers are okay and to let it go. And, oh boy, is this lesson taking a long time to sink in. I started with wiping my hands every couple of minutes and then 10mins and now I can go on for a couple of hours before I run into the kitchen to scrub my hands.
Today Maria is on Hochanda showcasing the new Groovi Christmas Cracker plate that Pat Murphy designed for Claritystamp. I am rubbish at creating 3D items because my brain just doesn't work like that so I decided to pick a few elements from the plate and create a card. Seeing as I still have not got 'lets make a mess and scare the children' thing out of my system, I decided to do stencilling and use my new mini circle gelli plate (a new obsession) on the parchment as a background.
So here is a step by step (lots of photos because I remembered) to this card:-
1.) Stick the Jo's Bubble Stencil on A4 parchment paper using masking tape on all 4 sides. I love love love this stencil.
To put colour on the parchment I am using Distress stamp pads Peacock feathers and Broken China and a Clarity stencil brush.
2.) Starting with the Peacock Feathers ink pad and brush the colour on with the brush by sweeping back and forth from left to right and vice versa. Once you are happy with the colour, repeat with the Broken China ink pad but from just one side of the stencil. I went from right to left. This will be the back of your work where all the embossing and colouring is done on.
3.) Time for the mini circle gelli plate (of course, you can skip this step but I just wanted to play with mine) to add a little starry background on the largest circle. I brayered the Chipped Sapphire onto the mini circle gelli plate.
Placed the 4x4 Stars stencil over the large circle.
And pressed the mini circle gelli plate on the stencil quite firmly as I need to go through 2 layers of parchment. Because this ink pad is dye based, let it dry (or blot with tissue paper).
4.) Using the A5 Nesting Square, emboss the outmost square, leaving out the circle areas.
5.) From the Christmas Cracker plate, emboss 3 scallop circles from the plate in the large circle.
6.) Emboss snowflakes, stars, lights, trees in the circles and frame from the plate so it looks something like this. This is what mine looks on the front so far. I think I may have got carried away a bit with the snowflakes and stars because I liked doing them.
7.) Using the A4 square Alphabet Picture Frame, I embossed 'NOEL' in the frame.
8.) In the smaller circles I perforated on the front the flower design from the Diagonal Border Grid Piercing Pattern Plate1 as seen between the masking tape. You don't need to pierce the middle hole as we are going to cut out between these holes to make stars.
9) The square border was looking a little plain so I embossed between the double outside the border on Christmas Cracker plate
10.) Colour on the back the trees and between the double outline of the square and frame with green and brown felt pens (or colour pencils).
11.) Emboss the lights, stars and snowflakes.
12.) On the back, using the A5 Straight grid, I embossed a few random dots on the trees and some of the tiny stencilled circles.
13.) Using the parchment craft scissors (or snips) cut between the perforations to get the cut out stars.
14.) Add a little gold sparkle on the stars and the tops of the tree sand lights with a Sakura quickie glue pen Gold Glamour Dust.
15.) Repeat with the Diamond Glamour Dust on the snowflakes, lights, and dots on the trees. I think I love glitter.
Cut the piece to size and mount on coloured card stock using brads before sticking it on a white folded square card to finish.
Two other cards I did for the Maria's shows were a bit quicker but lots of fun to do.
That's it for today ... I better go clear up the mess on my workspace so I am ready for the chaos I may create tomorrow. Everything on here today is available from www.claritystamp.co.uk.
Enjoy.
Love and Laughter
Tina Cox
