Purrrfect Kitties

 

 Hi! Hope your Tuesday is going well. I've some puurrfectly formed little kitties to show you today.

You would be forgiven for wondering where the hula hoops are in this set.. you've not seen them before? Check out the set...

See the hoop? It's the mat!
People ask sometimes how to have ideas that are different from the norm. The secret?
Look at the set in a broad way.
Don't try and match up the different elements initially; i.e. the mat is for the cats to go on top of.. simply look at the shapes. When I saw the elongated oval...I thought 'hula hoop'!
Obviously, she is a smart kitty to hula 3 at once, so the sentiment fits perfectly.
Now, as the cats are unmarked, it's easy to change them... add in new colours of alcohol marker and a little fun with a blending pen and the cat looks so different.

 See the splat.. you can create something similar with this Paper Smooches set

plus some of the gorgeous Silver Deco Foil

I've simply added mats at unusual angles and made sure there was enough of the grey card touching the ground so the card remained balanced. I also added some eyelashes and slight lips to the mouth with a fine liner so it creates a female kitty!

 Add sequins onto both cards to complete them.

Two very different ways to use the same cat stamp- without even touching the extras that go to create cute scenes for the cats.

I've picked this set as there are enough to go around. I'll leave the pampered pets alone for a week or two!

Which pets would you like to see in a stamp set?
Keren xx

Experiments with DecoFoil

Good Morning and Happy Easter!    Hope you're all making the most of the extra time to craft if you're not at work this long weekend.

I was really hoping to have my video on the many varied and exciting uses of our new foils ready for you today but as I'm new to video making I have hit a number of technical hitches along the way and now I need to buy another bit of kit and as all the stores are closed today I can't go and get what I need so I'll try again later.  Sorry - it is coming I promise (can't promise it will be worth the wait but it will probably be worth a giggle!)   Anyhow - I thought I'd tackle a couple of things in print today that aren't too complex to show that they need a video.

Foil Application No 1 - Die Cutting

OK - so this is probably the easiest of all the applications for the foil and the one you probably already have everything you need to play already.  You just need some kind of flat adhesive and you're good to go - you could use the foam sheets that thermoweb designed to work with their foils or, as I have done in my example, you could also use Stick-It.

For this card I used some oldie-but-goodies from Wplus9 - the Whole Lotta Happy range (the happy trio dies are currently oos but will be back this week).   I thought the centre p in the die looked like it was being lifted by balloons so that was my inspiration.

I die cut the happy from thick white card that I covered on both sides with stick-it 4 times to get some dimension - using stick-it makes it soooo quick and easy to stack your die-cuts up.  Once I got to the top layer I just removed the backing sheet and laid a piece of rainbow foil over the top and rubbed it gently and hey presto - a foiled die cut!

The balloons were done in pretty much the same way, but this time I cut 3 squares of foil from the turquoise, pink melon and lime green colours and stuck them onto one layer of card covered with stick-it before I did the die cutting.  In this case I didn't peel the plastic away from the foil until after I did the die cutting so that it didn't damage the foil.  I wanted to experiment to see which method was best and to be honest - both work equally well so whichever suits you best would be fine.

I finished the card by attaching the die cuts to a panel cut with a stitched rectangle using some sewing thread to attach the balloons to the die cut and adding a little white highlight to each balloon using a gel pen which worked over the foil surprisingly well.

Foil Application No2 - Using Texture Paste!

Now I'm quite proud of this one as I thought it up myself whilst I was experimenting.  You can basically use the foils with anything "tacky" so for example a two-way glue pen which "dries sticky" is great for freehand drawing or lettering.   So I thought that texture paste might just work - and it does!

I decided to try the look with one of new Hero Arts stencils - Repeating Loops on black with the rainbow foil for a dramatic effect.

Applying the foil gently so you don't squash the texture paste and then leaving it to dry full is the key to this technique.  If the paste is still wet then it will pull away with the foil and leave white gaps (ask me how I know.........)

As you can see - I was a little to eager to do the reveal - so there are one or two gaps in this that shouldn't be there - but if that happens - let it dry fully and then use a two way glue pen to do any touch ups - this is a trick you can apply to whatever method of foiling you use ;-)

It's also quite hard to photograph foils in their full glory but trust me - in real life the effect is VERY dramatic.  You can do lots of of exciting things with this technique so I do hope you give it a try!

I will be showing lots of other uses for foil as soon as I get my technical issues with videoing sorted.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• We got a new brand this week - Art Impressions Inc which have some great stamps and dies for people looking for cards with a sense of humour!
• We will be getting Wplus9's latest release this week along with lots of restocks (but sorry quite a few of the more popular items like the elephants were out of stock when I ordered so I will have to get them next time)
• We will be getting some Hero Arts restocks this week and hope to have the ombre ink pads back in a couple of weeks
• We are also getting another new brand - Echo Park - I've always loved their papers but they are now adding stamps, dies, embossing folders and stencils to their range and we are getting them too!  They will be here in a week or so.
• We also have the latest releases from Waffle Flower and Reverse Confetti which will be available to buy mid-April.

Hey Foxy Lady

Good afternoon - sorry I'm a bit late posting today but I had to revise my plans on what I was posting today.  I had planned an extensive demonstration of all the exciting things you can do with our new foils from Thermoweb but I hit a few snags (they are new to me too!) and rather than post something which won't help you understand what they can do or help you avoid the pitfalls I found (and therefore waste foil - better that I do that so it doesn't cost you!) I thought I'd postpone it until I try some tips I found.  My issues were related to the printing and foiling with a laminator - it seems that because I have a colour laser rather than a black and white one, it can cause some issues so I want to try a black and white one to compare before I show you what to do.   I am also trying to video it, not something I have ever done before so bear with me (and don't laugh when you see and here me!) and I will try and have it sorted for next week.

So, for today I decided to do a little bit of foil but also to show off my favourite new stamp and die set that has just arrived from Lil' Inker Designs.

I adore this fox - it is such a versatile set as the stamps that match the die have different sets of eyes so you can do girls, boys and different experssions.    I die cut her from orange and white card and simply used 3 pencils to add a little shading a furry texture.  Stamp the face and stick him together (I added stick-it to the back of the card before I started to make it super quick and easy!)

I wanted to sit her on a little hill so I die cut a blue back ground using the rectangle dies.  For the green hill I wanted to add foil so I covered a strip of green card with Stick-it and then simply pressed the lime foil onto the sticky surface and it you get super shiny foiled card -yummy!  To make it hill shaped I die cut with the rectangle to get the stitched edge and then rather than using the standard grassy border die I used the grassy cupcake die and sat the bottom edge just inside so it wouldn't cut the bottom but cut a slightly curved top to make a hill shape.

The sentiment comes as two lines but I did a little stamp surgery and cut in between the lines with very sharp scissors so I could stamp it as one long banner across the card.  This isn't as scary as it sounds and it just goes back together as originally intended but gives you more scope from your stamps.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Lil Inker Designs are live in store
• Thermoweb ICraft foils are in store and some colours are already selling out
• Altenew have FINALLY shipped the order I placed around 10 weeks ago and I hope it will be in store by Tuesday.
• Mama Elephant's latest release and massive restocks will also be here this week

 Catch you next week