Faux Water Colour Postage Due

When I made the card I showed you yesterday I really liked how it looked before I heat embossed it so I thought it would be a great technique to do for my swap cards at Julie's training.  The card I showed you yesterday did have a link to a tutorial but I thought I'd do a quick one here as I didn't have time to write the instructions on the back of my swaps.
This is one of my swaps, they were all a bit different and I tried a few different colour combinations but this looks like island indigo pool party, wisteria wonder and calypso coral.

First choose three or four re-inkers and put a few swirls of each onto a plastic wallet. 

Then spritz with some water, the colours may mingle a bit.: 

 Use this to ink up your stamp, (mines from postage due):

 Stamp onto whisper white card, sometimes the first one or two images are very inky like the one below, if it is too blurry you can either stamp over with versa mark and heat emboss like I showed you yesterday or stamp over again with one of the darker inks you used to give more definition, (tomorrow I will show you a card where I did this). 

Here is a card I made using this technique:

 I stamped the image in island indigo and cut and layered a triangle for the middle section.

This technique is great for making a few cards quickly as, depending on how much re-inker you used, you can usually get 6 or 7 images stamped from it. If you haven't got any re-inkers or only want one image you can ink your stamp using stampin write markers (lightest to darkest) then spritz stamp with water.  This will give you a similar effect and you can be a bit more precise with your colours.

Faux Watercolour and Embossed Postage Due

I saw this card on the internet and thought I would give it a go. You squirt some re-inkers onto a plastic sheet, (I used a plastic wallet) and spritz with water. Use this to stamp your image onto whisper white card then allow to dry. Ink the stamp up again in versa mark ink use a stamp-a-ma-jig to line up your stamp and stamp over the inky image, heat emboss with white embossing powder. There is a little tutorial on the link to show you how to do it.
Here is my card:

 It is a few weeks since I made it but I think my re-inkers where, island indigo, calypso coral, pool party and wisteria wonder, the stamp set is postage due.  Here is a close up.

I really like this effect, what do you think?

Faux Chalkboard Technique #2

As  I promised, better late than never, here is the other method we used to do the faux chalkboard technique.  It is exactly the same as method 1 but stamp the image in whisper white pigment ink and smudge it, no heat embossing. It gives a more faded look so we made a more shabby looking card, the stamp set is Vintage Verses from SAB and the colour scheme is raspberry ripple and summer starfruit with some speciality DSP thrown in for good measure.

 Here are the two methods together, which do you prefer?

Faux Chalkboard Technique #1

The faux chalkboard technique is everywhere on blogland so I thought we would do it in our technique class.  It is really easy to do, there are lots of tutorials out there if you have a look.  We had a go at two different methods.

• Method one, swipe the black card with the embossing buddy to get rid of static, (it doesn't matter if it leaves any white marks/dust for this technique).
• Draw  lines about 1/8" away from the edge of the card using a white gel pen, I smudged each line with some tissue before drawing the next line. You could use a white pencil.
• Stamp the image in versa mark (or you could use whisper white pigment ink) and heat emboss with white embossing powder.
• Use a sponge or tissue to smudge whisper white ink onto the black card.

I used the Pursuit of Happiness and pennant party stamp sets. Here is my card:

 We also decorated a little memo book to match, this would make a great teacher gift, it looks like a card in this photo though!

 Here is the set together?

As always we made a little ATC technique card to go in our ATC holder as a reminder of the technique.  I will show you the other method we used tomorrow.

Direct to Paper Technique

The last card we made at the class used the direct to paper technique as well as a bit of sponging. This is a case from the amazing talented Michelle Zindorf's blog. If you haven't been to Michelle's blog then you need to hop over (after you've read my post!) as she has some fantastic tutorials.  This is the first time I have tried this technique and I was really pleased with the results. The sky was made by dragging the so saffron ink pad across the card, (I dragged it back and forth a few times), then the water was made using the pool party ink pad. Then a bit of sponging. Have a look at Michelle's blog for the tutorial.

 The sentiment is from the pursuit of happiness stamp set, (again). I put some dazzling detail on the flowers, I'm not sure this shows on the photo though.

Reverse Masking Technique

Another card from our sponging techniques class.  This one is called reverse masking, sounds technical but it is really easy! All you do is punch or die cut (or even hand cut) a shape out of scrap paper, put the punched/diecut shape to one side and use the paper with the hole in as a mask/stencil - see not difficult at all! Secure your mask onto your card stock -I used some post it notes, then sponge and stamp through it. Then remove you mask.
This is what we ended up with:

 I used a label framelit to cut out the shape and sponged with melon mambo then tempting turquoise ink, it goes purple where the colours meet. I then stamped the birds from Serene Silhouettes in black Stazon ink before removing the mask. I then stamped the saying from the pursuit of happiness stamp set. We also made an ATC to go in the ATC holder, this time I used the extra large oval punch to make the mask.

 I had a play around and made a card by sponging around the die cut label, removing it and then stamping. 

Sponged Doilies

We had another technique class last week and did some sponging and masking. We tried a few different techniques and sponged on different types of card. The first card we made I have already shown you here, we used a heart from the more amore speciality papers to sponge through on very vanilla card stock. For the next card we used the paper doilies from the new seasonal catalogue and sponged using bashful blue ink onto glossy card.

 It is a really simple but effective technique, here is a close up. The sentiment is from the curly cute stamp set.

After I had finished with the doilie I cut out the middle and used it as trim, waste not want not! The card was topped off with some butterflies, stamped using papillon  popourri set and punched out with the bitty and elegant butterfly punches, so quick and easy.

If you would like to learn some new techniques and get the most out of your supplies, as well as have some fun and meet new people why not join one of my classes?

Using your embossing folder as a stamp!

Here is a great way to get more out of your embossing folders and you don't even need a big shot.

• Ink up your brayer
• Brayer the ink over the raised side of the embossing folder
• Place your card on the other side of the embossing folder
• Carefully close your embossing folder
• Wash and dry your brayer
• Firmly brayer over the top of your folder
• Open up folder and you should have a flat image of your embossing folder design
• Wash and dry your folder!

You could also try this using the other side of the image. I have even used versa mark ink then heat embossed.  This is a great way to give your embossing folders a whole new lease of life.

This is another card we made in the faux mother of pearl/elements of style class. I inked the honey comb folder in raspberry ripple ink and used pretty in pink card. I used shimmer paint to ink up the hummingbird stamp.

I sponged over the card as well to give a more vintage look. 

Faux Mother of Pearl Technique

A few weeks ago we made an ATC holder. The idea being that if we learned a technique in class then we would make an ATC, (artistic trading card) with the technique on to keep in our holder. On Wednesday we did the faux mother of pearl technique, this is simple but really effective. 

• Put a little bit of frost white shimmer paint in a little lid/saucer.
• Scrunch up a piece of cling film and dip it into the paint
• Dab excess paint off onto the side of the lid.
• Dab shimmer paint onto very vanilla card, make sure you leave some bits without paint.
• Leave to dry - it shouldn't take long.
• Use a sponge or sponge dauber to sponge some ink on the card, you could use baja breeze, crumb cake, pretty in pint etc... dependent on the colours in your card.
• Stamp on your image using black stazon ink
• Colour in your image, I used aqua painter and ink pads

Here are some ATC's I made using the Elements of Style stamp set.

sponged with Baja breeze ink

sponged with crumb cake ink

It gives a lovely effect doesn't it? This is one of the cards we made, the colour scheme is pretty in pink and raspberry ripple so I used pretty in pink ink to sponge.