Gilding Flakes & Acetate - Wednesday 28th August

Good morning friends!

I hope you all had a super sunny weekend: I know it already seems ages ago, but it was back to work yesterday and I missed posting! We had gorgeous weather here - six of us went to Westonbirt Arboretun Sunday for the annual Tree Fest show and to have a picnic and it was just such a wonderful day. There is always a lot there - wood sculpting, crafts, falconry - we visited the show, walked in the woods and had a super picnic, I'll post some photos of the crafts people tomorrow when they are sorted out on my Mac!

Today as promised is a short tutorial on using the gilding flakes with acetate and double sided adhesive sheets

 For this technique I used black stazon ink, the Indigo Blu bare trees 1 stamp, lancashire rose gilding flakes, double-sided adhesive (Creative Expressions) and stamp-able acetate. The  baby powder is just something I like to rub on my hands when using flakes as it goes some way to stopping so many of them sticking. There are other ways to do this, but this is a simple and effective way...

 First of all stamp the image on the rough side of the acetate, then set aside a few minutes being careful not to touch the wet ink

Peel away one side from the adhesive sheet and stick your stamped image to it, stamped side facing down.

Coat the sheet with the gilding flakes, making sure that you have a complete coating and remove excess, then smooth across and press down lightly with the palm of your hand

Using the scoochie wipe away all the excel flakes (which can be returned to the container for using again), until you have a smooth surface as in the second photo below.

Turn over and you will reveal your sunlit forest!

This is the card I made with this image..photos just don't do the effect justice, you really need to give it a go!

 I made the background by colouring some card with Vintage Photo and Wild Honey distress inks, laying a mask on top and embossing it through my Grand Calibur. Then I sanded it back, which took the ink away from the debossed areas. Finally I inked the white areas with bundled sage. To finish I stamped the large leaves from the Indigo Blu Roccocco set using Vintage Photo on some of the left over inked card and added a little bronze mica powder, which I heat set. The little leaves were die cut.

Thanks for stopping by!
Love and hugs,
Carole X

Gilded Bird - Sunday 5th May

Good Morning Friends,

I hope you are all enjoying the Holiday weekend?! We spent most of yesterday in Cirencester, just looking around the shops and the Arts Centre.

When we got back in the afternoon I headed for the craft room  to 'play'..plenty else to do, such as commissions and  kits for next week's craft work shop, but I just felt the need to try and make another plaque: of course it just kept going wrong, so I'll have to revisit over the weekend sometime.

Today I am sharing one of the cards I made for my large commission for small cards with no greetings..

The stamp is Crafty Individuals CI-180 and I just thought I'd give it a go with gilding flakes on black card. I backed a card blank with musical notes paper from stash and then cut a strip of craft card, used a Martha Stewart Edger punch and then inked with Vintage Photo distress ink. The only part of this card that took a little time was the gilding, but I've been using the flakes so much lately that I'm getting quite speedy.

After we got home and a little crafting was completed, I went out into the garden to check on our hens..now the weather is starting to improve and the days longer, they are getting into an evening routine...they have a couple of little plastic balls, which I fill with corn - they then knock them around the garden with their beaks and claws to make the corn come out, they seem to enjoy it! After that, I will sit on our bench and our Buff Orpington, Penny comes up for a cuddle - bless her, she's too big to just jump on my lap, so she comes over, acts all excited and I have to lift her up!

Speaking of the 'girls', as I was writing this post today Tom called me to look out of the window..I just had to share these photos of what three of them were up to...poor Penny, she SO wanted to jump up too, but she's just too big! When she thinks that Bella and Lacey (the two on the swing) are up to no good (which is quite usual!), our 'head hen' Cara, stays out of the way, whilst still keeping one eye on them - she's discreetly hiding behind the swing!

Happy Sunday!

Love Carole X

Flitterglu & Gilding Flake workshop - Friday 19th April

Good Morning Friends!

Thank you for all your comments yesterday - I am so pleased you approved of my changing anemones to poppies!

A quick post today - it's funny how even a short holiday can throw you out of  synch so I'm sorry if I haven't visited your blog this week as it's been rather hectic. As soon as I finish this post, before I start my own work I'm going to do a blog hop!

Last night Amy and I had an Indigo Blu evening for our craft group and I'm pleased to report it's success - totally fabby!!! Only one of the ladies on my group had ever tried the gilding flakes before, but they all really enjoyed getting well messy last night. The nice people at Indigo Blu do have a loan scheme for retail customers, so Amy was able to borrow some extra stamps as well, which was great.

Here are my photos of my groups cards from last night...

That's all for today..now I'm off for a blog hop!

Love,
Carole