It's a Creative World

Have you heard of the Fiskar's Fuse?

It's the latest die cutting machine available, not only does it die cut but it Letter Presses too.

Here's a demonstration video of the machine:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vnqRMJ2ZE4

It's a really versatile machine and has a 12" cutting area and will cut any other make of die.

 

If you happen to have a fuse or are thinking of buying one then there's a great competition to win some extras here :

http://campaigns.fiskars.eu/fusecompetition/

There are demonstrations at Hobbycraft Stores all over the country

http://www.fiskars.co.uk/Customer-Service/News

I've had my machine for a while and absolutely love it. It will cut so much, drinks cans, fabric (including stretchy), leather, chipboard, mountboard, felt, corrugated cardboard, cork etc.

Do pop along to a demonstration and try the machine for yourself.

Lynne x

Easy Gilding

Have you heard of Flitter-glu?

My friend Lisa bought some at the NEC last November and showed me how to use it.

I absolutely LOVE the stuff, it takes your stamping to another dimension, particularly if you're like me and love glitter and sparkle.

Basically you ink your stamp with the Flitter-glu using a piece of cut and dry foam.

You then put your gilding flakes on to the image, press gently and leave for a few seconds before rubbing them off with a sponge.

A close up of the card

You can also use the Flitter-glu for glitter.

Here's the same heart stamp with red glitter.

The possibilities are endless.

Flitter-glu is made by Indigo Blu and they also make wonderful stamps and sell great blends of gilding flakes with great names like Yorkshire Dales and Brighton Pier.

 

Happy stamping Lynne x

Altered Mirror

Over the summer a friend told me about a class at The Craft Barn with Andy Skinner , so we signed up for it.

I've never been to The Craft Barn before and WOW, it is an amazing shop!  It was like an Aladdin's Cave of stash, I love to use.  I've never seen so many things to alter in one place before, along with lots of lovely stamps, dies, inks etc. If you're in the area do pop in and have a look.  The staff are really helpful and made me very welcome. 

Here is what I made:

 Andy is a fantastic laid back easy to understand tutor, even when I was struggling to get to grips with a paint technique. If you get a chance to take one of his classes do. I'd certainly like to do another class with Andy.

 Thanks for looking.

Lynne x

 

Altered Tin

I always think it's hard for chidren who have Birthdays very close to Christmas.  My friends' daughters' Birthday is the 27th December so I always try and do something different for her.

 

I stuck a chipboard initial to the top of the tin and then covered the top with self adhesive aluminium foil.  (You can find it on the roll at most DIY or hardware shops).

Using an embossing tool gently press the foil down around the initial. 

Cover with alcohol inks (I used wild plum, stream and a touch of denim)

Dip a cotton bud in blending solution and carefully remove the ink from the initial. ( You can also swipe a Stazon (solvent based) inkpad across the top and achieve a similar effect.)

 

Cover the inside of the tin with patterned paper.

Make an accordian book slightly smaller than the tin and decorate it to suit the recipient  (in this case a 13 year old)  decorate both sides. I added tags to some of the pockets.

Stick some ribbon to the base of the tin, it needs to be long enough to tie the accordian book in place.

Stick the back of the accordian book to the base of the tin and tie with the ribbon.

 

a close up.

 
some pages

Unfortunately I stuck the animal paper on the wrong way round, it was my last piece:(

I'm sure she'll understand. 

Lynne x

An altered canvas

Hiya Claireliz here with a canvas I've been staring at for some time, actually 2 canvases a 6x6 inch & a 2x2 inch one, however I finally decided what to do with them & here it is...

 

I inked the canvas, half with Milled Lavender Distress Ink & Half with Dusty Concorde Distress ink, then used a chalk ink pad to stamp the corner flourishes.

The birdcage & birdie are cut from grungeboard using Tim Holtz's Alteration die. The Birdcage was painted silver & heat embossed with Black Soot Distress Embossing powder, the bird is inked with Victorian Velvet Distress ink.

I glued the 2x2 inch canvas onto the corner of the larger canvas with Glossy Accents...

 

The smaller canvas was also inked with Dusty Concorde Distress Ink, with Grungeboard butterfly & keyhole & metal corners & a key. I covered the butterfly in Purple Stickles to make it glittery.

Thats all from me for now, I'll be back soon. Thanks for stopping by IACW to visit & hope to see you soon

Claireliz

xx

Alcohol Ink Colour Swatch Book...

Hi, Mandy here.

I've made myself a 'Colour Swatch Book' for my new collection of Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks, using a CD holder...

 

I  was really blessed to get several bottles of alcohol ink from ebay as a birthday present  (I am a very lucky girl).  They came in sets of three with names like 'Rustic Lodge' & 'Tuscan Garden' .  I decided to make a 'swatch' of the inks because it's a bit hard to tell from the bottle, or their names, what the colour looks like exactly (take 'mushroom' for example!?!)   I'm also keen on inking onto see-through acetate at the moment to make my own scrapbook embellishments, so I wanted to know the exact colour when it's see-through.  This needed to be a really simple system, nothing fancy, so my swatch pages look like this...

 
The pages are made from CD envelopes.  First off I dabbed an ink swatch onto the outside of the see-through plastic envelope.  I wrote the name of the ink onto a piece of white paper & slipped it into the envelope together with the name of the set of inks (the above set is 'Cottage Path').   Then I inked a 'Rummikub' tile which are cream not white.  Into the back of the CD envelope I am going to store the felt pads for each colour...

 
Next I used my cropodile to punch each page in the top left corner & threaded the pages onto a large jump ring.  I want to be able to swivel the pages to compare the colours from different sets...

The cover of the CD book was black fabric and I wanted to somehow use alcohol inks to decorate it.  Well, I had already been playing about with the inks, seeing how they looked on metal & had made the sample below. It's made from a flattened out aluminium drinks can.  

 
As you might expect it was extremely sharp as I was cutting it out but I do like the effect. So, for the book cover I cut out a heart shape and decided to sew it to the cover by punching a few holes with my cropodile...

 
  ...and setting eyelets into the holes.  I then used embroidery floss to sew the heart on...

 

Next, I wanted to have a title on the book saying 'Alcohol Ink' but I'd already rejected the idea of stamping letters onto the inked metal because it didn't show up very well when I tried it (even with my fave black STAZON ink).  So I thought about sewing letter beads onto the cover, which actually ended up threaded onto wire, hanging from the jump ring.  I coloured the white letter beads with some matching alcohol ink holding them with tweezers...

 
I used some old Making Memories turquoise wire & threaded up the letters with other glass beads...  

Here's a close up of the hanging beads and ribbon tied to the jump ring...

I'm know I will use this colour swatch book and I tell you what....alcohol inks are fabulous fun! 

Bye now,

Mandy.

Faux Crackle Paint

Hi Lynne here

I was given a biscuit tin at a local crop  with the challenge to decorate it for the next crop.  There would be a vote and the best decorated tin would win a prize.  I don't know about you but when a prize is mentioned I always get excited.

I'd heard about a cheap way to get a crackle effect so thought I'd try it.

I painted the tin with yellow acrylic paint and left it to dry overnight.  (It needs to be dry for the technique to work.)

Put some dries clear PVA glue in a dish and spray several times with water.

In another dish have your second colour of acrylic paint, (I used Adirondack lemonade.)  You also need two brushes.

Cover the tin in the watered PVA mixture as quickly as possible.

Immediately paint over with the lemonade acrylic. (You need to paint with the second colour before the PVA glue has dried.)

I then sprinkled ultrafine glitter in places, while the paint was still wet.

You can see some paint has been scraped off the top, this was because the lid wouldn't fit! (I should have thought about it before painting)

It looked a little plain for my taste, so I decided to add some stamped images.

To stamp the image I put the stamp on the table and rolled the tin across it.

As a final touch I put a crystal in the cente of each large dandelion clock.

I then coated the tin with decopatch glue to seal it.

I didn't win the prize, the one that won was beautiful, but had great fun trying a new technique, which I will use again.

Thanks for looking, do try this yourself, it's great fun.

Lynne x