Craft Stamper Blog Hop

Craft Stamper Blog Hop: Looking Back

Welcome to this stop on the Craft Stamper Hop! If you don't know about the Hop then be sure to pop over to the Craft Stamper Blog to join in, as there are lots of prizes to be won!

I’m Helen and I've been on the Craft Stamper Design Team for more years than I can remember. My style's kind of eclectic and quirky, and I love to experiment with textures, surfaces and new products.
I looked back at all the stuff I'd done for Craft Stamper in 2012 and did have trouble choosing, but eventually decided to do a project using bleach and edge embossing. 

The bleaching method is a really quick and easy way to add highlights to your artwork and the embossing round the edge of a card just opened up a whole new world for me as far as embossing folders were concerned (and a good excuse to buy more!) I've chosen to use a couple of collages from Crafty Individuals.

Stamp the image CI-297 in black StazOn onto white linen card (you MUST use StazOn with the bleach):

Spritz the card with water and then spray with the green, pink and turquoise Dylusions spray inks (available from the Craft Barn):

Let it dry and then paint on the bleach (it won't affect the StazOn) and watch the colour fade out:

 Choose your embossing folders (available from the Craft Barn):

and then start embossing round the edges. Start with the dots:

 Add the floral border next and then the flourish to the bottom left:

Finish off by highlighting the embossed areas with White Fire Treasure Gold (available from PaperArtsy) and mount onto a white card:

Here's an alternative card using the same techniques:

The letter to collect from me is: D

I hope you enjoyed this post. The next person on the Hop is Kate Bentley

If you get stuck go back to http://www.craftstamper.blogspot.co.uk/ for the full list of those taking part.

Thanks for looking!

Helen

Note: Am adding this as several people have commented on it: one embossing folder will cancel out the other to a certain extent (you can see that the dots under the floral flourish have disappeared.) So, you need to work out which pattern you want to dominate and emboss with that last. 

Don't forget, you can always re-emboss an area if you need to by slotting the embossed pattern back into the folder.

Some folders are great for filling in the odd space and diagonally across corners (random dots are great). 

I found any patterns that are very straight or aligned (such as squares) are more difficult to line up - they tend to go wonky which annoyed me! But I would suggest just getting all your folders out and having a go!

PS Thank you for all the lovely comments.

For these cards I've used:

Crafty Individuals stamps: CI-297 Mallard Duck Pair; CI-343 Patriotic London
Dylusions spray inks: Fresh Lime; Bubblegum Pink;Vibrant Turquoise; London Blue; Crushed Grape
Sizzix embossing folders: Dots, Floral Frame; Flourish from Tim Holtz French Connection set; Pocket Watches; Collage
Treasure Gold: White Fire
Good old, bog standard, thick bleach! 

Valentines already!

It's Valentines week over on the Craft Barn Blog and I made a bright pink and red card using Crafty Individuals stamps. This is how it started off:

Go on over to their blog to see how it ended up!

Thanks for looking!

Helen

Demoing

I'm demoing at the Craft Barn this Saturday 2 February. I have promised to behave myself this time and not cause general chaos!
I'm going to be using the Crafty Individuals Alice Palace stamps both with other CI stamps::

and with patterned papers:

Haven't finished this card yet - thought I'd do that on Saturday with some stamping in black and perhaps a tiny bit of a contrasting colour.

So, if you can, come along and see what I get up to!

Thanks for looking!

Helen

PaperArtsy Day 4

This is the sneak peek for Day 4 on the PaperArtsy blog:

More techniques with the Portfolios and then  I'll show you how I finished off this project.

That will be my last post for this month, so thank you so much for joining me this week and go on over and take part in the PaperArtsy challenge.

Thanks for looking!

Helen

PaperArtsy Day 3

I'm showing you how I finished off the first two projects on the PaperArstsy blog with a couple more techniques thrown in! Here's some pics:

Thanks for looking and don't forget to have a go at the challenge - you could win some lovely goodies!

I'll be back tomorrow with some more ideas.

Thanks for looking!

Helen

PaperArtsy Day 2

Change of colour today, but still working with the Portfolio oil pastels and the wonderful Lynne Perrella stamps. here's a sneak peek:

Head on over to the PaperArtsy blog!

Thanks for looking!

Helen

PaperArtsy Day no. 1!

Yep, that's what that badge is at the right hand side there - I'm one of the PaperArtsy Guest Designers this year and my first post is scheduled to go out any minute now, so get your Portfolio oil pastels out and hop on over to their blog.
Here's a little sneak peek of one of the projects - bright, bright colours!

There will be things to win over on their site so join in with the challenges and have fun!

Thanks, as always, for looking!

Helen