Tag Card

This month for my Letraset post I have  made an oversized tag card. I cut a double width tag, and punched holes in the top, adding hole reinforcers. I then scribbled onto my non porous paint palette with Aquamarkers. I spritzed the ink with a little water and then started to colour the tags. You can see I used several shades of blue. 

I added each colour, staritng with the palest in the middle, and added them in a circular motion. To finish I dabbed on some of the darker blue at the edges with a paper towel. 

Next I added several greens to the bottom, again scribbled ink onto a non porous surface, spritzing with water and picking up with a brush to transfer to the card. 

I then added some thin lines of darker green using a fan brush, and just quickly flicking the brush upwards from the base of the card.

Next I masked off half a rubber stamp, EM08 then scribbled directly over the stamp with a black aquamarker. I then stamped this on the lower edge of what will be the front of the card. 

I continued to use my stamps as focal images,firstly adding the tree from EDY06  colouring  in with the Aquamarkers.

I also stamped and coloured in the lollipop flower heads, remember the book covers I made in this post ? well I had some small pieces left over. I stamped over the previously made backgrounds, and cut them out. 

I continued to add stamped images, and then edged the tags with some watery brown aquamarker, again spritzed and picked up with a brush. 

Inside, I first coloured both halves with watery blues, then i added a darker blue through a great stencil, before adding a matted journalling space for a greeting. I doodled around the edge with a fineliner. 

To finish the tags I dipped some sheer ribbons into some watery blue Aquamarker and left them to dry. 

Here is the outside all finished, I also used one of my little house stamps, EM07

and the spotty inside.. 

and one more of the outside, you can see how the images wrap around both the back and front. 

I have a set of Aquamarkers to give away. 

If you would like to enter them please do TWO things for me. 

1. Add your name to the linky here

2. Go to the Letraset blog and leave a comment ( ON THIS POST)

Only names that appear in both places will be entered. 

Be my Valentine

Here is my January post for Letraset, just in time for those needing a romantic card. 

I started with a printout of this cute bunny image, drawn by Jay. 

I printed it out onto watercolour paper and then used Aquamarkers and a fineliner to colour it in. I find the best way to use Aquamarkers is to scribble onto a non porous sheet, spritz that with water and then pick up the ink with a brush. 

I built up washes of colour this way, dabbing the ink on rather than using smooth strokes. I wanted the bunnies to look like worn toys from a child's playroom. Who says the toys can't come to life and fall in love?

Once the bunnies were done, I used the wide nib to dab on colour for the background flowers. Using the nib direct to paper makes for a vibrant colour, so i gently spritzed the flowers with water to soften them. I then used a fineliner to write the sentiment onto deli paper. 

Would you like to win some Aquamarkers? i have this set of 6 colours to give away. 

To win you must do TWO things,

 first add your name to the linky below,

 then go to the Letraset blog and leave a comment on my post over there. (THIS LINK)

Only names that appear in both places will be entered. 

I will announce the winner on Mon 3rd Feb

Patchwork Diary

So this is not a new technique, I have shown it a couple of times before, using the pieces to make book covers and to cover boxes for storage, but as I am always asked how I made them i shall show you the latest bookcovers using this technique. 

Previously I had used acrylic paint to colour my patchwork pieces, but this time I used my Letraset markers. 

To start with I scribbled on a craft mat with Aquamarkers, I spritzed this with water. 

then I ripped up some pieces of cheap cartridge paper, and dragged them through the ink. 

next, and still using the Aquamarkers, I scribbled onto some stamps and then stamped the edges of all the pieces. I used complementary colours, so that the edge stamping becomes part of the background. 

To create the focal decoration on the pieces I used the Sara Naumann journal stamps from paperArtsy, I switched to the Limited Edition Promarkers and chose colours that would stand out against the background. So on the green background I used a red and on the purple I used a yellow and so on. 

Now to assemble all the pieces. I took another piece of cheap cartridge paper and cut it to size, measuring it around the diary. It needs to be slightly bigger in height than the diary and long enough to go around the front and back covers, and also enough to fold over inside. 

once the backing paper is cut to size you can start to add the patchwork pieces, I always dab a little glue stick on the back of each one. You don't need to glue the whole piece, just a dab in the middle to hold it in place while you sew. Make sure to slightly overlap each of the pieces. 

thread up your machine with a nice coloured thread and set it to zig zag. Now stitched over all the raw edges to hold them down. 

To finish it off and to cover all the backing threads, glue a piece of thin paper onto the inside of the cover. I used black wrapping paper. 

As soon as this is dry, you can stitch all around the outside edge, again with zigzag, then fold in the 2 short ends and stitch those into place, creating 2 end pockets. Now you can slip the front and back covers of the diary into the cover. 

I finished mine off with a little artwork on the front cover, again using the limited edition promarkers. 

I loved it so much I ended up making 3 of them, I will show you them all in another blog post on Weds. 

in the meantime how would you like to win some of the Aquamarkers. 

To win I need you to do TWO things for me, please do BOTH otherwise I cannot enter you. 

1. go to my post on the Letraset blog and leave a comment there.  LETRASET BLOG LINK

2. come back here and add your name to the link up tool.            

I will announce the winner on Monday 6th January. 

Gift Tag Challenge and Winners..

Thankyou so much to everyone who joined in with the card challenge last week. There were some really fantastic cards made.I was so impressed, and thoroughly enjoyed looking at them and seeing all the different techniques.

So first up the winners from last week.

Em and Claire

You will each win one of my xmas stamp plates. Please get in touch with your details.

Tag Challenge

Now for the next challenge. I have a 2nd set of xmas stamps to give away. So i need 2 more winners.

Keeping with the xmas theme, and hopefully producing end pieces that you can actually use/give away I decided that this week we would make tags.

Not the huge, ginormous,hang on the wall tags lol i wouldn't be that cruel, making you do several of those lol

No, I am talking proper gift label size, this way you can actually use them on gifts at xmas.

Of course you can use whatever size you want, just remember the bigger the tag the longer it will take to make a few of them. My tags measured 4 and 1/4 inches by 2 and 1/8 inches.

Tag 1.
 I used distress inks blended on the background. over this I stamped the single snowflake from EDY04. I then scraped some GRUNGE PASTE onto smoothy card, then I stamped the holly leaves into the grunge paste and left it to dry. I finished it off by working in a few shades of TREASURE GOLD

Finished tag..  with jute string and sizzix cut  letters. 

Tag. 2. This is a super simple one. I randomly stamped the holly using Fern Green Archival ink. Then I took a bronze metallic pen and doodled between the leaves.

Finished tag.. 

Tag.3. 

I painted the tag with PEWTER FRESCO paint, then used Crackle Glaze, and then Little Black Dress Fresco. i then rubbed some away to distress it. 

On smoothy card I painted several green Frescos, I then embossed the holly using Ebony UTEE. I embossed the berries in silver over orange and red Fresco. 

Finished card. it needed a little more, so I stamped the trunk from the tree on EDY04 onto leftover painted card. i then punched out the small tree.

Tag.4.

I painted several strips of tissue tape with Fresco paints. i then stamped the holly randomly. Next I peeled off the backing and covered the tag, trimming off the overlap. 

I stamped the leaves onto METAL CARD

Finished card..

Tag.5.

This time I stamped the leaves onto cotton fabric using Fern Green Archival ink. I layered this onto hand dyed silk, and stapled on a ribbon.

Finished tag.. I layered the fabrics onto corrugated card and added beads. 

Tag.6. I stamped the berries all over the tag and coloured them with promarkers and a gold pen. I then took a scrap of gessoed fabric, painted it green, and added the holly leaf. I stitched around the edge with gold thread. 

Finished tag..

So here they are ONE STAMP (mostly) and 6 tags. 

over to you... come and join in again to be in with another chance to win my xmas stamps. 

Same rules as last week.. 

1.Take one stamp and make several different tags, doesn't have to be six, just do as many as you can. 

2.Try different mediums, colour combos,techniques... maybe try things you have never done before?

3.Take photos and blog them or add to Flickr,Tumblr etc, anywhere public where I can see them

4. Please don't link up tags that you made ages ago and have already blogged, do some new ones that have been inspired by this post. 

5. Add your link to the linky below and next Sunday, 17th November I will randomly draw 2 winners. 

6. You don't have to use my stamps, or even PaperArtsy stamps/paints, but it would be great if you did.

7. Once blogged and entered, feel free to enter your tags into any other challenges that you see. 

I look forward to seeing your tags, remember small is beautiful. Don't make things hard on yourself by making huge tags. 

Darcy x