It's Spring and Time for a Frantage Video Tutorial

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Morning Crafters,

Warning - Long Post, grab a coffee, sit back and chill

I am a little excited today and a little nervous, well actually a lot nervous, lol.  Sandy and the Team have been receiving quite a few emails about the frantage that we have all been using, so I have made a little tutorial.  It's my first video, so please go easy on me, although I would really love to read your thoughts on it, but before you do I would like to show you my DT card for this week's theme with is "Spring". To me Spring signifies daffodils so I have done my card using yellow and blue for bluebells. 

I have used the new Maja Designs Spring Basics 12x12, 1st, 2nd and 3rd April and the little calendar is from the Maja Designs Spring Basics 6x6 pad. I have used an image from one of my favourite artists, Sarah Kay, I just love Sarah's images, and yes I have have frantaged this card too, lol. All products used on my card and on the video are on the thumbnails at the bottom of the post, just click and you'll be directed to the product within the Live and Love Crafts Store.

Here's a close up of the floral display and you can just see in the corner one of the metal corners which I have also frantaged along with the beads, check them out, they are sooooo cool, well not at first when you melt them, lol.  Isn't the Penny Farthing just awesome, I absolutely love it!

You can see that I have cut out a magnolia corner and also added a little frantage.  The little peg had a dose of gesso, another favourite of mine. All the edges have been distressed with walnut stain distress ink.  Again, you can see the beads clearly in this image.

And wow look at this wooden butterfly that I have frantaged and the beautiful mottley effect that it gives.  Love, love, love it.

 Lastly a close up of the image, coloured in distress inks.

O.K. now it's time to show you how I made all these embellishments using the FRANTAGE. Hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear what you think of my first video.

If you have made it to the end then thank you.  The time just flew.  Just for a recap for you I have put some of the colours below.

And here's the products, all frantaged in their glory.  You will see in the bottom right hand corner one of the new prima clocks, doesn't it look fab frantaged, lol.

 Hope I have inspired you and I look forward to popping back to see what you thought of my card and the video.

Hugs Tracy x

 

Girlycard and a little treat!

Hello ladies, and maybe gentlemen too!

Elin with you today, bringing you a girly card which I have made for my niece's 8th birthday.

She's a mix between tough and absolute cute, so that's how my card ended up as well.

 

But before giving you any more details of my card, I have got a little treat for you!

As I have been getting rather many questions about my "Paperbag" cards, asking how I do it, I figured I'd give you a "mini - tutorial". So here comes Elin's Paperbagcard:

 

For those of you who wonder how it looks like in the beginning, here are the 4 types of bags I use the most. They got their opening on the top. The two on the left are flat on the bottom, so similar to a pocket. The two on the right can stand on their own if opened. 

 When I have chosen my bag, I cut it on top to the length I want and then I punch it. Keep in mind that some punches are sharper then others, and loads of details makes the punching harder. Also keep in mind that the thickness of the paperbag counts, mine are thin!

 When punched, I find a piece of kraft or bazzill and measure it so that it fits into the bag, to make a big tag inside it. Then I punch the top of the tag and cut at the bottom until I get the length I want.
Now you can use the same punch as on the bag, or any other punch you might like :)

When the tag is in the bag, it's time to decorate! And that is of course up to you;)
If you want to make a third border on the top, as I often do, just punch your design paper as well.

So there ya' go, my secret has now been revealed. :-) Haha! Not so hard, is it?!
As you can see on my card today, I used a star punch on the bag and the tag, and chose not to punch the design paper:

 It's not often you get to see cards with coloured images from me, but today I could not resist!
This motive from Kenny K was perfect for my niece, so I dusted my Promarkers and voilà .... LOL

I'm not going to brag as I am still learning and playing with my markers, but it's fun and that's what counts, isnt it?!!!
Now some details from my card and then I'll stop throwing pictures at you guys:

STARS! As that's the new hot thing, I had to buy myself a new set of dies yesterday.
Typically my Big Shot, bless him, gave up on me last night before I had the chance to try the new star dies, so these are HANDMADE :D The pearls are also kinda' handmade, as I used the Melissa Frances pearls and gave them a go with my promarkers to get the same color as my image.

Thank you for taking your time, if you did read all the way to the end?!

Hugs & Kisses

Elin

 

Coffee-Tags Tutorial

Hello everyone:)

 It's me, Elin, with some new ideas for you. This week we are playing with brown and can you think of anything more brown than coffee? I find myself using tags for almost all of my projects, but almost everytime I'm about to use one I find it too white for my project. As you all know, the vintage style is all about the "old look", so I figured some coffee would do the trick.

So here's what you need to make coffee-tags at home:

Some sort of plastic container to put everything in, powder coffee (doesn't have to be an expensive one), the tags you want to colour, an old newspaper to spill on and some hot water.

The first thing I do is to fill up the container with hot water and then I sprinkle on some coffee powder. The amount of coffee depends on how deep colour you want on your tags. You can also adjust this with the time you leave the tags in the coffee bath.

Then you put all your tags in the bath; you can colour quite a lot of them at the same time. If they tend to float up, I use a fork or a knife to push them down again.
And now we wait...

I usually leave them over night, but then again it comes down to what colour you are after.
Check them every now and then, and take them out when satisfied.

This is my result when I pull them out. While still wet, I sprinkle some coffee powder over them to get the "stained look". When they are dry, the colour has faded a bit and they don't look this intense anymore.

And here they are, all dried up and ready.
If they are very curly when they have dried, you can pull out your iron and flatten them on high temperature.

Now what's left is the fun part; decorating!
Here are a few simple ideas on how to decorate:

For the tag above I only used stamps. It is the backside of the tags below, which I'll attach to wine bottles for two of my girlfriends ;)

For the front I used the stunning papers from Riddersholm Design: Mill Truck from the Fleamarket Collection and Songbird from the Huntington Garden Collection. The mini tags are from the Fleamarket and Huntington cut out sheets. I stamped my papers with this gorgeus vintage stamp from Inkido, called Carte Postale.

 Other than the papers, I also used heart brads, memo pins, a painted Love Hanger, some Cheese cloth and natural jute fabric.

For my bows, I used Shabby Seam Bindings; these colours are "Sky Blue" and "English Lavender". Combined with the natural Jute Twine, it completed my task for this week :)

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial and got some ideas from this.

With Love