Pancake maker /shrink plastic

Me thinks this is going to be a long post.

                                    

 I have been experimenting with shrink plastic the last couple of days. In the past I haven't had a lot of joy producing anything worth keeping, but I recently saw a video where you shrink the plastic in a  mini pancake maker. Yes you read that right a pancake maker. I wasn't entirely convinced this would improve my experiences with shrink plastic. I found a mini pancake maker for £14.99 So I thought I'd give it ago. It's Good!! no more having to hold the plastic down with a tool to stop it blowing away, no more worrying that its going to stick together as it curls and twist during heating and no indentation left but the tool holding it down. You just shove it in the hot pancake maker on a piece of baking paper, and leave it for 20 -30 seconds take it out and press a stamping block on top to flatten it out...  Job done.

My biggest problem in the past has been finding a suitable product that colours evenly , not streaky and doesn't rub off or wash off.  This post is going to be about the products I have been trying out and the pro's and con's I ve discovered along the way.

I die cut some tags and circles and punched a small hole in each piece so I can add a jump ring after shrinking.

Shrink plastic is glossy on one side and matt on the other. I  have heard people saying you can  you can work on either side, although this is true it's more usual to work on the matt side. The matt side is a lot easier to work on. It's easier to stamp on as it's not as slippery so the stamps don't slide around as much, and it traps in  the colour better, especially if you are are using pastels or crayons. the glossy side is far too smooth for crayons and pastels to adhere to.

But which products work best.  Well, Stazon  ink is a great product for stamping on non porous surfaces like shrink plastic. But if you're wanting to use polymer stamps, solvent based ink pads  are NOT recommended. Although I have at times, (but not on my favourite stamps) and  I make sure I clean my stamps immediately after use.

For my first attempt I used Stampin' up dye based inks to blend a light and airy background on the matt side of the plastic. They went on beautifully.

Then I stamped the rabbit and trees in using the forbidden Stazon.

 The purple trees in s.u. ink.  For the foreground I used Versafine clair ink and a few  highlight dots using a Posca pen.

  Time to shrink... pop a circle of baking paper in the base of the pancake maker to keep it clean and to make it easier to remove the hot plastic after shrinking.

A tip I would like to share is before you get any colouring products near your shrink plastic cover the glossy backside of you cut out shapes with painters tape to keep the back clean. If you leave some tape overhanging you can use this excess tape to hold and move your project around so you don't get your finger in the wet ink and spoil your work.

As you can see during the shrinking process the colours intensified considerably, making it almost too intense and  dark.  I recommend using lighter colours initially, until you know just how intense your chosen colours are after shrinking.

See the photo above, of the pieces before and after shrinking.

My next test was to wash the piece in soapy water to see if the inks stayed on. My reasoning for this is because I wanted to turn these pieces into earrings  and I don't tend to take my earrings out when I have a shower so these pieces needed to stand up to shampoo and shower gels.

Sadly, They didn't all pass the test. the background colours have washed away.  Therefore I am not going to recommend S.U inks on shrink plastic as they have almost completely disappeared. The Stazon lived up to it's name and stayed on.  Versfine ink and posca pens did ok. 

Next was to try out distress oxide, Versafine clair and polychromos pencils on some shrink plastic offcuts.  

I repeated the process on the test pieces and found the S.U ink  lost most of it's colour, distress oxides lost some, Versafine clair and polychromos  pencils stood up to the soapy water test and even scrubbing. 

Above is the photo of the samples before shrinking and washing and below is the photo of the inks after shrinking and washing. 

You can see the S.U ink has lost most of it's colour and the distress oxide has lost a little colour but the Polychromos pencils and the Versafine clair have stayed on and intensified.

I decided to try out a couple more products, water colour pencils, normal colouring crayons, and pan pastels. I really wasn't much from the pan pastels but I was really impressed with the result.

Water colour pencils with and without water. Normal crayons, posca pens  neat and diluted.  

After shrinking, you can see the colours have intensified and stayed on.

All stood up to the tests. Although  the water colour pencils puddled a bit leaving an unevenness I didn't like, and it took longer to dry. 

 

Posca pens neat and diluted stayed on well as did the normal crayons.

Now I have some idea on how things are going to work, it's  time to play  on some real projects...fingers crossed.

You maybe confused by my side notes, I've written Versamark, that should read Versafine Clair.

If you get a missed patches when stamping, load a small paintbrush with the same ink and fill in the misses.

You may notice some faint leaves at the top and toadstools at the bottom . 

 I  just wanted to map out their position and paint them in with posca pens. so I took a clean dry stamp and stamped where I wanted them to go.  The dry stamp removed enough ink from the plastic for me to see where to paint them.

Note the overhanging painters tape at the top of the witch.

I did several post box scenes. 

These ended up as a zip pulls.

Golden Rocking Horse

I love the simplicity of this card, the contrast between the gold embossing paste on the really black card works a treat and it really sparkles.  Not unlike the diamonds in a jewellers display case.  

Hubby wasn't quite so sure about it  though....Eww... that's different for you, not sure about that.  I told him, I loved it and that it was made a long time ago,  I just hadn't turned the card front into a card until just now. He walked away totally unimpressed and said no more.  Which was probably just as well.

A tip I would like to offer now,  is to use a smooth really intense black card, this wouldn't have turned out nearly so nice if I had used the... umm.... black card  on sale in most craft shops that's pretending to be black.

I think this was a card I made using a sweet poppy brass stencil, which I picked up at a craft show some years ago, it retailed at around the £7.00 mark at the time. 

I used a gold embossing paste through the stencil to create this golden rocking horse, (after removing the stencil from the paste and dropping the stencil into a bowl of warm soapy water immediately to soak)  

 I sprinkled some ultrafine diamond glitter over the wet paste and let it set overnight. The glitter stuck well to the paste  and  many years later its still sticking well.

Once the paste was completely dry and had hardened off  I add a small red bow to the horses harness for a pop of colour. Then mounted the black panel onto a matching red paper and gave  it a very fine  1 /16th  of an inch border of red before adding it to my cream 7 x 5 inch  base card.

As much as I like the look and simplicity of these embossing paste cards, I do not have a lot of patience or space to spare when it comes to waiting for things to dry or set hard,  the consequences have usually been a total disaster so I mostly refrain from working with these types of products . Having said that...I am tempted to give it another whirl , that is, if my embossing paste hasn't hardened in the pot!

DSP Bereavement cards

I have found myself needing to make a few bereavement cards this month, We've lost three family members rather suddenly and unexpectedly in the last three weeks.  For these two cards, I chose to use a pretty DSP from Stampin' up! and combined it with a suitable sentiment  from the kindness and Compassion stamp set again from Stampin up!

 

A discovery too good not to share

I think the picture says it all really... But just in case you don't know what this gadget is I will tell you. Its called  a "Sticky Buddy" it is designed to be a clothes brush, it's great for getting dog hair off your clothes and off the furniture. You just run the roller over the area and it picks up hair crumbs and all sorts of bits. Once it's full and no longer sticky you run it under warm water  and gently wipe the debris off the roller, dry it and it's ready to go again.
We have had this one for a few years and one of the disc s at the end of the roller is broken so it's not so good on clothes these days.
I decided to put it in the craftroom to be fixed, but I haven't got round to it yet.
Last week,  I celebrated my birthday and one of my pressies were two intricate lace dies. Now we all know that some intricate dies can be a real pain to clean, even with those expensive rotating brushes designed for the purpose.
Seeing this broken sticky buddy  lying around in my craft room,  I decided to see if it would remove all those little pieces left in the die.......................IT DID  BRILLIANTLY!!!..... two rolls over the die and it was completely clean.

I then rolled it over the back of the die cuts and it collected all the little pieces left in the die cuts brilliantly.
Once the roller is full it will need rinsing to remove all the pieces of card and to restore the stickiness of the roller. I will say,  it may not be advisable  to do this in the sink as the small pieces of card will probably block your drains after a while.
 I think, I will be rinsing my sticky buddy off in a small bowl of water and then strain the water through a tea strainer to remove the pieces of card. This may seem like a bit of a faff, but I still think it will be quicker than poking through every single hole in the back of the dies,  then having to clean all those tiny pieces from the floor.

An attempt at painting.

No tutorial today, I am a complete novice when it comes to painting so I couldn't possibly give a tutorial on it.
Hubby says I should share this pic, but I am feeling very reluctant and hugely embarrassed about doing so.  I think that's because I know things are not  quite right. I will never be an artist but I have had fun playing.

As a complete beginner, I was ill equipped  and should never have even started painting without some basic tools.   I mean.... a  1"  paint brush meant for painting woodwork and a couple of small, soft brushes for water colours were really not suitable and made applying the acrylic paint hard work.

So I had to invest in a small set of brushes for acrylics.  Hubby (bless him) bought me a second set of brushes from  B&M,  I wasn't expecting much from these inexpensive brushes, but they're not bad at all.
 I bought  set of  large round brushes from Lidls with a view to trying them out as ink dusters. but they were far too scruffy for that, but they made fantastic brushes for dabbing on the paint for the foliage on the trees.

The paints I used were a small starter kit made by  Daler Rowney.   I  used six colours  black, yellow, light blue, green, white and brown.

I want to share a little tip with anyone that is thinking about trying their hand at painting and that is, when you think your painting is awful and  you just want to bin it..... DON'T,  just keep painting.
You will  end up with something you are happy with it eventually. It may not be technically perfect but you will end up with something you can live with and you will have learnt a lot about your brushes and paints and gained some experience.  I think, I must have painted and re painted this  half a dozen times for one reason or another.

Youtube is a great source of information. Some artists make real time  video tutorials  and others do time lapse videos.  The real time videos would be great if  you want to paint along with the artist. Jason Bowen does some great real time videos and he's easy on the eye too...Bonus.
Lisa of Lachri fine arts creates beautiful  animal paintings in time lapse. She talks almost as fast as her videos but they are  still great videos.
There are some fabulous one stroke painting tutorials for that shabby chic/folk art look.

MY New Toy

The day before my birthday  ( last Saturday) My Bigshot started to get a bit cranky and hard to use,  I was gutted, especially as I had asked for dies for birthday presents. 
How could I try out the new dies without a my Bigshot.

Out came my old spellbinder wizard......Ummm I had forgotten just how much hard work that machine is.
I had also forgotten that the cutting plates tend to fly out very fast and always managed to hit my pubic bone with some force as they do.
(Yes, you're smiling to yourself now,aren't you)
I can tell you it's not that funny, Especially when you've had to cut 
out the alphabet a dozen times and been hit by these brutish flying plates a few times you start to feels a bit bruised and uncomfortable.

So I decided to order the Bigshot Pro with the hope it will last longer than three years. Which is exactly how old my last one was when it died.

So here is my new Bigshot Pro in situ, I don't mind telling you this thing is the weight of a small child at 44lb. 
I have to say, I had some concerns when I read how heavy it is and wondered if the craft room floor could sustain the extra weight. 
I found myself subconsciously scanning the craft room looking for stuff I could get rid of that would add up to a total of 44LB.
So while waiting for the arrival of this beasty,  I had a bit of a clear out to make space for it and the extra desk. (That's why my room is looking relatively tidy)
I have only had a little play with it  so I am still learning all the different sandwiches.

One thing that surprised me about buying the Bigshot pro is that it doesn't come with the platforms for cutting the thinner dies or for using embossing folders. You have to buy the solo pack to go with it or you can't use  any of the thin dies or embossing folders.
Basically all you can use are the Bigz dies unless you buy the  extra plates. So if you are considering  upgrading to one of these remember to buy the Solo Platform kit too.
The advantage with this is , that I can still use all the cutting plates and accessories I had with the smaller bigshot so none of my spare plates will go to waste.... BONUS!

Santa's List

My second post today is this 6 X 6 card using the Stamp set, Santa's  List. I stamped Santa, coloured him in using two different reds from the Stampin' up marker range.  I love these markers as you don't get the lines you get when you overlap the strokes as you get when colouring with normal felt tip pens.
I  then cut him out using a circular die.I cut out  black and red circles using various size dies to mount Santa on.
 I  cut a circular frame in the gorgeous glimmer paper  from S.U.
Stamped and mounted my greeting and stuck it on using sticky foam pads to give a little more dimension.
The Holly sprig was from a cheap foam set of stamps square in shape. That I have owned for years,  but could never get on with until I cut it down to just the image.
Th embossed background created using  a Spellbinder double embossing folder. It has swirls and stars on one side and Christmas baubles on the other.

Christmas Lodge in soft suede

Today's posts are quick and easy  Christmas cards using the Christmas lodge from Stampin' up! This stamp set has been retired.
I distress the edges of all the images and inked them using a sponge dauber and soft suede ink.

The central panel of all these cards are pretty much the same,  the only things I have really changed are the backgrounds. 
On the first card I used  Stampin' up's crumb cake DSP and soft suede card stock as the backing.

 For the background of the second card I used soft suede card stock  stamped with a polka dot  background stamp and white craft ink and finished it off with a bow in soft suede ribbon and some dazzling diamonds glitter. 
You just have to have glitter at Christmas.

The third and final card was even simpler.
 I mounted the central panel onto gold card and and stuck that onto a piece of soft suede card stock which I had stamped using the  Serene  Snowflakes stamp set again from S.U and I am sad to say  this set has also been retired.
Again I used white craft ink to stamp the snow flakes.
The greeting was stamped onto a second scrap of whisper white card stock and cut to the length of the central panel and I rounded the corners with a non S.U. corner rounding punch.
I hope you like today's posts if so,  let me know by ticking one of the reaction boxes below or leave a comment.  Thanks  for visiting.

Gift Wrapping with Bigz Bow Die.

A very quick post on the Bigz Bow Die.
 My sister wrapped up MY birthday present in the wrapping paper you see here. 
I thought  it was too pretty to throw away so I have  recycled it by wrapping her birthday present in it, I figure she liked the paper enough to buy it for me so she'll love to get a present wrapped in it  :~)  

There are some beautiful images on this wrapping paper.
That would make fantastic stamps sets.

I have added  a big bow to this parcel using  the long since retired Sage Shadow card stock. It seemed to go with this paper better than any other colour in my vast stock of card And the Bigz Bow Die from Stampin' Up!

 First I cut 4 strips 3/4" wide and I inked the edges of the strips  slightly, then  the edges of the bow to make the card strips look as though it has the edges of a real ribbon. 

I added the bow to the centre of my faux ribbons and using a hot glue gun I applied the shank-less button to the centre of the bow,  just for a little glitz.

P.S If you want to know what's in the parcel...... I 'll only say it's a new S.U. product she'll love using.

Stamp Waste Idea

 Ever wondered what to do with the waste  from your S.U stamp sets. Well here's one idea you may find useful.

Cut them up to make simple silhouette stamps.

I wanted a couple of hills for a sunset scene and was fed up with sponging them in.
 Then it occurred to me to make a stamp from the rubber waste.
With my rubber snips,  I chopped  (and I mean chopped) out some rough shapes resembling hills and stuck them to an acrylic block. 
They are probably there for all time now. I may ask hubby to  cut some small wooden blocks for me when he's feeling a little better,  then I will transfer them to wood.
But to be honest I don't mind sacrificing that acrylic block. I  found it very useful  having them on the acrylic block as I could actually stamp exactly over  my hill a second time,  after I found I hadn't applied enough ink to the stamp first time round, because there is no edging round the stamp.

For this post only,    I prepared a very badly sponged sunset just to demo the home made rocky hill/ mountain stamps.










I can promise you the colours are NOT really this vivid and it's not quite as patchy as it     looks here . My camera really is reacting badly to these colours.



Inking Up the stamps with Stazon I stamped the images onto my sunset. 
Wow! it's improved that mess no end.

If you don't like the shape you have cut out you can always trim bits off or  fill in the area you want to hide with a marker pen the same colour as the ink pad you used to stamp the hill.

I went on to add a few more silhouette images, using the tree stamp  from the Serene Silhouette stamp set from S.U.
                                                                                   
                                                                                  With a white gel pen I added some spots and dashed  in a very slap dash, hap hazard way and smudged them  a little with my finger. I kept adding and smudging until  I was happy with the effect.
                                                                             
Once the white ink has dried I dabbed over the white ink with a sponge and  Apricot Appeal ink to take some of  the brightness of the white away. As the hightlights would be a golden colour not  a bright white.
Next mission......... to find a golden colour gel pen.

Here is the finished sunset along with two others using different shaped hills.
Over did the white  a little I think.

Serene Silhouettes

Here is another card inspired by  a video by Brenda Keenan on You Tube.
This is a quick card.... providing you constantly check your hands are clean before handling your work.  
I am not good at that so the consequences are that I usually have  three or four attempts before I finally learn to check my hands.
The colours I used on this one are Marina mist and pacific point. 
Mask off the moon  and  the area in which you want to the sky.

I started sponging  with Marina Mist beginning in the centre of the moon mask  and working outwards towards the edges of the card.  

Once this step was completed I added pacific point ink this time working in from the edge of the card towards the moon mask. 

When  I felt the colour was  intense enough I removed the moon mask and stamped the image using black stazon ink.  If I remember rightly this stamp is from the Serene Silhouettes stamp set.
 For a demo on making this card pop over to You Tube and watch Brenda's video.

Wetlands Sunset Card

Today's post is a sunset card.  I love sunsets so I thought it would be  good to have a go at creating one with sponges.
The inks I used were Sunset Yellow, Real Red, Cherry Cobbler, Chocolate Chip and black Stazon.
I started by sponging over the top section of the card with yellow, then masked off a circle for the sun and the horizon. Working on the sky  I sponged on more yellow until the colour was quite intense.

 Then I applied the real red ink  gently working in from the edges of the card.   To finish the sky I added a touch of cherry cobbler in the  top corners. 
Once I was happy with the sky I removed the horizon mask (leaving the sun mask on) turned it  around, stuck it back down where the sky line finished and began working on the water.

First I applied yellow to the centre foreground.
I then applied the real red to the horizon line and worked down the card until the red and yellow met and then softly blending the two colours until I had the depth of orange I wanted.

 Using the Cherry Cobbler ink  I added a touch more colour to the horizon.
The Chocolate Chip was sponged on to the bottom two corners  and then I removed the Mask from the sun and stamped the image along the lower edge of the card using black Stazon , Making sure I  varied the height of the foliage.
Finally I stamped the Greeting using the Stamp-a-ma jig to get the position just right.
Warning : 
Do make sure your hands are clean after each step and before touching your work. 
I must have inked  this  scene about five times before this one, because I didn't 
I  totally ruined some nice sunset picture with my inky fingers.

Wetlands Goose Card

I occasionally   Google  Stampin Up cards (images) to gain some inspiration from other demonstrators. I came across  a card very similar to this created by the amazing Michelle Zindorf.

Michelle's cards seem to jump out at you from the  screen.
There is something about Michelle's a cards that put them in a league of their own. 
I have never tried to CASE one of her cards before because I didn't think,  I would be able to do it justice as brayering is not one of my strong points.
But Michelle has very kindly put a tutorial on her blog showing us all how to reproduce this card.
So I thought I would have a go.
I don't have the ink pad colours she used so I used Marina mist and a touch of pacific point to do the brayering.  I don't think this has come out to bad on the whole.
I have also changed the colour the bottom layer to crumb cake and I stamped feathers on it from the fine feathers stamp set before putting it all together.
Another thing I did differently was stamp the goose and masked it off before brayering  to keep the white area s white.  I also used white craft ink and a  small  damp paintbrush to go over the goose's breast as my white gel pen is very scratchy, so I only use it for fine lines not to cover large areas.  I  also used the blender pen to blend in the edged of the white ink into the sahara sands ink.
 I also added a greeting.

 If you want to have a go at this card go to Michelle's blog for the tutorial.  While your there take a good look at her cards they are truly amazing and you'll see what I mean about them jumping out the screen at you.   If She can't inspire you.... Nobody can.

Swallowtail Card

This is just a quicky as it's very late and I need to get some sleep.
When I got in from work today I thought I would have a leisurely look on You Tube and see if there were any video' s that might inspire me to get off my backside and in my craft room  to clean it up and get creating again.

Wow! was I in for a surprise I came across a video for making this card,  after watching it,  I immediately rushed upstairs and cleared a space on my work bench to have ago. 
It was very quick and easy and I was pleased with the result. Why Not Pop over to You Tube and check out her videos for yourself.

The lady who made the video is called Brenda Keenan. (Keenan Kreations)
She has made a few videos and they are worth watching. Believe me.... She managed to get me off my butt and into my craft room after watching only one video .

 I have since watched a few more of Brenda s videos  and I definitely  will be attempting to case several of Brenda's beautiful cards. But for now it's off to bed.

Baby Card Instructions.

Add caption

 Okay, I have been asked for the instructions for this card so many times I thought I would  make it again. This time I would  photograph each step  so that I can share the instructions with you.
 The original card was sent  to  the happy parents before I had even thought of writing down  the instructions.
 This has taken several attempts to get it right and to make sure the instructions are as clear and concise as I can make them.

So here goes....
You 'll need a cutting mat and knife,
Scoreboard  useful
a metal rule, 
a pencil,
adhesive of your choice,
1 sheet of A4 card.

 Score the A4 sheet  exactly in half.   (land scape)

Turn card to portrait  and measure 3 cms from the top of  the card  and mark the 3 cms Do this twice about 7 cms in from the sides,  this will enable you to mark the ends of the cuttings line more accurately.  
Repeat this at the bottom edge of the card.

Join up the markings length ways down the card and cut  the whole length of the lines. 
(See photo 2.)
In photo 4 you will see I have  numbered the strips 1, 2  & 3 
Strip one is left as is... no work required on this yet.

Strip two is the centre panel that folds in on its self.

Working on the centre strip only.
Measure 3 cms  up from the bottom edge of the card score a line between the cutting lines only.
Measure 3 cms up from the last score line or 6 cms up from the bottom edge of the card score another line.



Repeat this process at the top end of the card.
 Both ends should match.
(See photos  3 & 4)








Clicking on any of the photos  should bring up a larger picture, which can also be enlarged if you want to inspect my photos closer.

On Photo 4
Red lines equal score lines.
Green lines equal cutting lines.

On photo 5 

Strip three not terribly difficult to do  but measuring has to be accurate or it can go horribly wrong and it won't fold flat.

Measure 12 cms from the top & the bottom of the card  ( in portrait position) and score a line across  at 12 cm mark on one side  and a cutting line on the other.

 NB. My  template has both lines marked as score lines  But one is a cutting line.

See Photo 6

you can see I have concentrated  purely on this section and have deliberately missed out some of the other score lines so  that they will not confuse.


On photo 6   

From one end of the card  only  measure 13 cms and  mark it at each side join the the markings. 
This is a cutting line.
In my photo this is the broken 
line in dark blue. 
This will be the adhesive tab.

OR you could just  Measure 1cm on  from one of the red score lines in this picture.






Cut away the section marked 
and lightly fold  all the score lines.


Don't crease them in firmly yet
you may need to make minor adjustments which is easier to
 do before using the bone folder.











When you are sure everything  folds flat and lines up add adhesive to the upper surface of the tab  and stick the front & the back of strip 3 together so the tab is inside the card.












Now you can use the bone folder to make all those score lines sharp. 
This is important as it will help the finished card stand up.

The base card is now  ready for you to decorated any way you choose.

If you find this useful  please leave a comment.  
I have spent many hours working this one out and I'd like to know how you get on with it better still I'd love to see what you do with it.
If you need further advice  please contact me through the hotmail address on the side bar.
Thank you

 A couple of additional photos from different angles.

It's nicer if you decorate the inside too.
I suggest you decorate each panel in a different ways .  Trying to  do all the panels in the same paper may result in it looking like you didn't have enough paper or skill to cover it all in one. So vary the papers even if                                                                                     you stick to the same colour paper.  



The unfinished inside of this card 

I stamped greetings and flourishes on to one panel a verse on another,  the baby s birth details on another,  I left one panel  plain for the sender to write his greeting and added  pretty papers to other panels.

To do this one well takes a good deal of time... Don't rush it and
Have fun.