Sunday 8 February 2015

Glitter and Babies

No not two things that normally go together I'll grant you, but sometimes things just conspire in life and this weekend has been one of those!  Grab a cuppa and settle in - this is going to be a long post!

Firstly I was inspired this week by the current Lawn Fawn challenge which is Clean and Simple which as you probably know by now is my preferred style and I was immediately inspired to play with their love word die and lots of lovely glitter!!!!!


There is a trick to doing the main panel on this card so I thought I'd do a mini tutorial to save you making the mistake I made when I did it first time around....

Firstly, stick some double-sided adhesive sheet onto thick card stock and die cut a circle from it - I used the Lawn Fawn large stitched circle die although the stitched detail is lost under the glitter.   You may need to run it through your die cut machine a couple of times to make sure it cuts all 3 layers (backing, adhesive and card).  Arrange your die cuts within it - in this case scripty love, a heart and a U from Finley's alphabet all from Lawn Fawn naturally and secure them with a scrap of washi tape and run it through your machine again but this time only once so you don't cut the thick card. 


Carefully remove the backing just from the heart, the word and letter U, leaving the inner bits and main circle in place.   Cover with red glitter and use a bone folder or your finger nail to buff it once you've shaken off the excess.   What you mustn't do is do it the other way round, no that would be STUPID, if you do the clear/white glitter first and then do the darker colour after you WILL get red showing in your clear, OK - don't do that.  I did it so you don't have to!!!



What you should do at this stage is gently wipe off the excess glitter before peeling the rest of the backing from the adhesive, again I didn't (hits self in head) and so there is a little bit of red showing in my clear where it "splashed" when I lifted it off.  Having already done it once, I decided to just go with it as it looks OK and much better than the first one that went in the bin!   Then just add a thick layer of clear glitter, shake off the excess, and again buff it into the adhesive with a bone folder or your nail.


To finish the card I simply mounted it on a white base with a couple of strips of washi tape and finished with a dash line around just one side of the mounted panel.

So there's the glitter.   Now onto the babies.  See, I had this post all planned but then my niece went and had a baby so I needed to make another card and the card inspired me to make something else, so hence the longer blog post as I couldn't wait to share it with you.   Here's the card using the fabulous Balloon Letter and Balloon Etc sets from Mama Elephant and Pandamonium (currently oos again but more are already on their way)  I added more die cutting using Finley's alphabet from Lawn Fawn as it was already on my desk.  The balloons were anchored with some thin silver thread.


What is really brilliant about the Balloon sets from Mama Elephant is that the little "bit" that makes all the items into balloons is a separate stamp, so you can use the letters just as a deliciously plump alphabet without them actually having to be balloons (same goes for the numbers etc in the other set too)  So I decided to make a personalised gift for baby Ollie to match his card and it was super easy!


You can see here I used the letters without the "bit" and added the elephant underneath - same stamp totally different look.   What I made was a personalised baby-grow, just by stamping with versafine ink onto a plain white cotton one and heat setting it with an iron to make it "washable at a low temperature".

This is easy to do but there are a couple of tricks to remember.   Firstly - you MUST put a sheet of card inside the onesie before you start to stamp to stop the ink going through to the back (it also gives a better stamping surface).  If you use stazon ink that will definitely be wash-proof.  I have tried other inks with less success but given the number of t-shirts I have with permanent ink stains, I am pretty sure that lots of inks will work.  Once you have completed your stamping, use a sheet of clean typing paper and iron it on full heat for a couple of minutes without steam.  Once it is heat set you should find no more ink is transferred the typing paper - you can see here I got a little transfer to begin with so did it a couple of times until nothing came off anymore.  If you wanted something more fancy you could even stamp an outline image and colour with copics as they are wash proof on fabric too.


Then you get a super cute, personalised baby-grow that any new parent is sure to love and you can pretty much guarantee no-one else will show up with the same gift!


Right, I'm sure you've got something better to do with your Sunday than listen to me waffle any longer so I'll leave you with a short news update and see you next weekend.

STORE NEWS:
  • To make room for lots of new exciting products coming your way this year we are looking at ranges that aren't as popular as others, and sadly this means that we will no longer be stocking CAS-ual Friday stamps and dies.  The remaining stock has been moved to our Discontinued Brands section and the entire range has been reduced by 20% so now's the time to grab a bargain whilst you still can.    CAS-ual Friday's still continues to release new material in their own store.
  • Wplus9's latest release has arrived in the UK but has yet to clear customs - hopefully it will be here next week.
  • We have the latest release from Winnie and Walter winging it's way to us and that should be here in around a week to 10 days.
  • Paper Smooches latest release has just left the States so should be here in a fortnight.
  •  We have restocks from Mama Elephant on their way, and the new release is following about a week behind that too.
  • Avery Elle's CHA release has been posted to me ahead of release at the end of the month so customs willing we should be able to release as that same time as they do Stateside ;-)
  • Lawn's Fawn's CHA release should be shipping next week so will be here by the end of February.

1 comment:

Samantha Mann said...

oh i LOVE that glitter and the inlaid die is just awesome!! such a great way to add interest and detail! thank you for playing along with the Lawnscaping Challenge! :D