Altered Cards Week 5

Hi everyone. This is already week five of the altered cards challenge. For  me this week was indeed a challenge.  Here is what Claudine did this week.

And this is what I came up with:

Like Claudine I did a paper collage background. Since I don't really have a lot of patterned paper and nothing that would work with the photo I went and in Studio drew rectangles and filled them in pattern. Alas I tried to turn a music sketch file into a print and cut and the music printed too light to really show up. Also the background ended up being an orange color which was not exactly what I had in mind.  I tore my rectangles into pieces and glued them onto the card. Then I coated the card with Vintage Creative Medium to try to pull things together. I glued the photo of the girl down and put another coat of Creative Medium over everything. I then stamped dream on a piece of white tissue paper and adhered it with the Creative Medium. The butterflies were painted with Pickled Raspberries and Wild Honey Distress paint. They ended up darker than I had planned. Then I used a quote stamp and stamped on them using Stazon Timber Brown the same color I had used to stamp dream. I edged the card with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Because in places there was gesso which took the color darker it does indeed look distressed.

Claudine;s stenciled circles are more subtle than mine.  I used Cafe Au Lait by Apple Barrel for the base.  Then using a plaid stencil and a "spouncer" I pounced a light green paint with the name  Sorbet over the stencil. Then I mixed Ivy Green with folk art glaze.  Using a "spouncer" I pounced most of the paint off on a towel. Then I pounced just around the edges of the circles on the stencil. When the paint was dry I didn't like the Sorbet color  also I noticed some places where I missed with the base paint so the gesso showed through. I brushed on Vintage Creative Medium. which toned down the Sorbet and blended in more where the gesso showed. Alas I did not like the resulting strokes.  There was a plastic bag on my desk and I thought why not see what happens if I place this crinkled bag on top of the wet Creative Medium.  The result was this wonderful texture.

I decided it would be too busy to add all the detail that Claudine did to her imagination card. I did not have any butterfly tape so went with a cut out butterfly that I colored with Antique linen Distress ink and stamped on using Peeled Paint distress ink which is the same color of ink I used to edge the word  tags as well as the playing card.

The lady is from Dover clip art. Because of the background she was on I could not trace her for cutting with my machine. I could have traced around her with a black fine tip pen and scanned her and probably could have traced her that way. However, I thought it was quicker to just cut her out by hand. I did turn the wing image into a print and cut. I embossed the wing with kaleidoscope embossing powder and then glued it onto the lady. Then she was pop dotted onto the card.

I can't wait to see what the themes and what techniques are used next week. This is a fun challenge even if it took me all day Monday before I came up with how to do the imagination card.

Besides doing these two cards I was also experimenting with using Distress Paint on plastic. I hope soon to put together a card with a painted plastic panel.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving comments. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Dance To Your Own Music

Today I have a fun card to show using Distress Paint. for a background. Recently I was able to buy some Distress Paints on sale. They have been on my wishlist for a long time.

I had cut out an extra window card and was going to use a lattice for this card but changed my mind. I took Pickled Raspberry,Wild Honey, and Broken China to make my background.  I randomly daubed the  different colors of paint and then spritzed the paint to run together. 

I painted the frame with copper paint. I love how with paint I can change paper to look like metal.

The image is from Graphic Fairy. It is printed on semi-gloss photo paper. I edged the fairy with a black glaze pen. Then brushed with a cosmetic wedge Creative Medium Shimmer after the glaze had dried.. The fairy is pop dotted onto the card.

I don't know what the name of the set is that the sentiment is from. I used Teal Stazon ink.

This is the inside of the card. The paint bled through to the other side of the card stock but I like the softness of the look. I debated about which side to use but thought the more vivid colors went with the image.  I will probably cut out another frame to use inside with a quote.

I have not tried stamping with the Distress Paint yet and I have more experimenting I want to do. I do like the fact that unlike some products once it is is dry it no longer reacts with water. I can see lots of possibilities using it in mixed media projects.

Thank you for stopping by and do come back as I will this week hopefully be posting another week of altered cards. I have no idea what the theme is or what supplies or techniques are being used this week. So it will be a surprise for me. Hopefully my mojo won't desert me just when I need it. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Lattice Talk About Using Lattice On Projects ( two cards)

Today I have two lattice cards for you. The lattice cutting file was designed by Debbie  of Paper Pulse who so generously shared the file when I first got my cutting machine. I love this file because it always cuts out so nicely.  I don't cut out lattice much because I hate having to do the weeding. however this file is not as bad as some of the other files I have. However, having said that lattice whether cut using a cutting machine or cut from a die can add a lot to a card and you can create an elegant looking card in no time at all. Depending on how you finish your lattice it can even look like metal. Although for these two cards I went more for a wood look.

I have not decided yet whether to keep this for the front or have this for the inside. For now I kept it for the front to show you that you can glue your lattice inside and have it show through a cut window. I love this card base I made using a Silhouette frame cutting file for the opening. For this card I inked the opening with copper ink.

I don't know if you can see all that clearly in the photo but the lattice really looks like wood. I painted  nutmeg color paint on it and then painted a walnut gel stain over it. I took a dry bristle brush and removed some of the gel paint so that the nutmeg paint shows. Gel paint is normally used for antiquing wood but also works great for making a faux wood look. Because my lattice is painted a dark color it shows through the cardstock even though I used a heavy cardstock.

After I cut out the snowflakes I used a pouncer  brush which is stiff to pounce on gesso. While the gesso was still wet I sprinkled glitterd to give some sparkle.  I attached one snowflake with  round adhesive foam and then the other snowflake on the other side of the lattice. I decided to not line the snowflakes up.

This is the inside for now. Which side would you use for the front and which for the inside?

For this card I decided to play with my Kaleidoscope Kreator software. I took a photo that I had taken last winter of trees covered with snow. After playing with the different templates I picked this one as it looked like a large snowflake to me. I printed it on semi-gloss photo paper so that I would get more intense colors and a bit of a shine. The snowflake was cut out of the same photo paper.

Originally I cut the lattice out for another card. I painted it yellow and it was all wrong. Then I painted it hunter green and it was too dark. I then painted it cafe which since the green was still wet it gave me this nice green.  When I saw the photo next to it I decided to go ahead and use it for this card.

I am using up my stash of gem stars.but when I saw this star I knew it would be perfect for the center of the snowflake.

I just glued the lattice around the edges so that I can tie a tag with a sentiment on the card if I decide to at a later date.

There you have it two quick cards using lattice other than waiting for the paint to dry. ;-) Other ways to use lattice would be to use lattice as a stencil and then use a color mist or ink. If you are painting your lattice like I did you could paint it on another piece of cardstock and then use that piece  for a card. Lattices also make good good borders for cards or scrapbook pages. A lot of times design-wise they can keep a layout from looking cluttered. They are great for adding texture by weaving ribbon or rickrack  through the holes.  Now if I haven't convinced you yet to use lattice another reason to use it is because you can quickly create an elegant looking card.

Thank you for stopping by and do come back. I am almost done with creating a card using Distress Paint for the background for my focal point. Distress Paints have been on my wishlist for a long time and when I found them on sale for 40% off I had to grab a bunch. Sometimes it pays to wait. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Altered Playing Cards Week 4

Hi everyone! Right now I'm having an Indian Summer and just bought a second hand bike in better condition than the one I had so I'm enjoying the weather. However, I committed myself to the altered cards challenge so put together two cards yesterday using the theme home and shopping. The home card did not turn out like I wanted but at least I got to play with positioning my blade on my Cameo to cut where I want on some gelli prints. I also got to play with some painting techniques which were at least new to me.

The background on this card was made by coating the playing card with gesso and then placing in the wet gesso bits and pieces of wrapping paper tissue. I broke down and finally bought some Distress paint. After all I was able to get them using a 30% coupon. Only wish there would have been more of a selection of colors. I rubbed across the card Broken China. Then spritzed the card. I got it too wet but no problem I blotted up the excess moisture with a paper towel and got this beautiful sky.

I saw at a store a pack of Spouncers and for under a dollar decided to buy them. They were sitting on my worktable so I decided to see how they might work to make leaves with acrylic  paint. I also wanted to see if the look of acrylic paint could be softened like the Distress Paints by spritzing water. It can be done and the effect will determine on how wet the paint still is when you spritz. As well as how heavily you have used the paint.

I did not have a tree cutting file so took a cherry blossom branch  Replicating, welding, pruning off some branches with the knife tool in Studio as well as editing some pesky points and I finally had a tree. Lol! I think searching for a tree file already made would have been quicker. After the tree was cut out I painted it with a  Walnut gel stain.  Glued the tree on the background and added leaves with paint.

I found this free shopping image online. I traced it in Studio to make a cutting file. For some reason my printer does not print as shown in Studio so the detail of her glasses got lost. I tried to do a little bit of offset to lose the white but ended up losing some of her features.  I cut  her out with the margin showing and edged with ink but alas I got ink on her jacket so it was back to cutting out again. I decided to leave the white showing. You can't see in the photo but I took the end of a plastic paint brush and dipped it in dimensional magic and then placed a dot on the glasses for a lens. I was unable to capture the steam in the image so I took a piece of crotchet thread and dipped it  in glue. Then wrapped it around the handle of a paint brush. When it was dry I stretched out the curl and glued it to the back of the image. Then pop dotted her on the card.

The sentiment was printed using a Brother's label maker. I'm thinking I should have gone over it with a clear mat coating so it would not have been so shiny.

Claudine used printed tissue paper for her home card. I didn't have printed tissue paper so I decided to stamp on tissue paper with Stazon ink.  After I got my paper stamped I tore pieces and glued on the card.  Then since I wanted the stamped image to show through I added glaze to my paint. Only problem is when I applied the paint there was a chemical reaction and the ink bleed making a mess. Also it was darker than I wanted. I added a light blue to my glaze mixture and taking a credit card applied it. Not only did it lighten the background but the brown from the ink turned more ta sunset pink. I didn't realize that the Moss Green paint was a metallic paint until I had squeezed some out.. I decided to go ahead and use it for grass. Then when it was dry I  pounced over it some Forest Green Stazon ink so it was not so yellowish color nor so flat looking.

While looking for my cloud file which I ended up not using I found a house cutting file. I have no idea where I got it from so alas am unable to credit the creator. All the pieces were cut out using some gelli prints I had previously made. After the pieces were cut and glued I took a black and a clear glaze pen. I used the black for the door frame and handle as well as the window mullions. I was going to use Dimensional Magic for the glass but decided to use the clear. Although it doesn't really show in the picture there is a shine like glass. Instead of using a cloud I decided to use crotchet thread as smoke coming out of the chimney.  Lol! that is suppose to be a heart smoke shape. Drawing with string is a little bit harder than I thought. Here again though my drawing skills are pre-school level.

Using Silver with Gold tape I printed the sentiment with my Brother's label maker. I had originally bought this tape for my sister to print out for her wedding album but she decided to go with the clear with the black print. I thought since I had the gold color path to use it here instead of the clear black tape.

Now that I know how to cut a shape out of a certain part of a gelli print I'll be using the prints I have stashed away more often. Especially the ones I weren't so thrilled about.

It has rained and the air is fresh smelling  It is turning out to be another tee shirt day so I'm off to enjoy the sun. As soon as I create a second card using lattice I'll be posting those here so stay tuned.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Love Came Down At Christmas Card

I finished this card this morning but decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and went exploring. My two four legged boys were getting antsy as it has been awhile since they have been in new territory with different smells. Of course I could not find  where the easy trail  with picnic area was only  further down the road a picnic area with a trail that I swear goes straight up to the sky.

The background is embossed plastic. The folder is called "Little Stars" but I'm not sure of the manufacture other than it is  not Sizzix or Cuddlebug. After the plastic was embossed I painted DecoArt blue metallic paint on the embossed side. Then used a dry bristle brush to remove some of the paint. By hand  using scissors I rounded a couple of the corners.

The large star was created in Kaleidoscope Kreator and then converted to a cutting file in Studio. After it was printed and cut I edged it with blue ink. Then wrapped crotchet thread and gold metallic thread around it. I don't think I've ever wrapped a shape with thread or yarn before. But I like the texture that it adds.

I've always loved the poem that is printed on the smaller star. I used the inner star from a star frame which at one time was a freebie.  I filled the star with color. After the sentiment was printed I edged the star with a dark blue Glaze pen. The whole edge is dark. I guess it was reflection from the overhead light that washed a section out in the photo.

I didn't realize that I had a little bit of moisture on a finger when I went to move the star out of  my way and the water bleached the ink. I decided to get the finger wet again and randomly touched the star. I was too lazy to print and cut another star and edge with a Glaze pen again. I used foam squares to pop it up on the card.

I bought a pack of star gems years ago at a dollar store never knowing what I was going to do with them. Slowly I've been using them up. Hopefully I'll be lucky and soon find more. ;-) Otherwise I may have to cut stars out of  silver card stock and then use transparent embossing powder to make my own.

September is halfway over and dare I mention that the holidays will soon be upon us. Have you started making holiday cards if you give them out?

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Altered Playing Cards Week 3

Another week has begun and another playing card challenge. I decided I was going to use the playing card challenges as a time to experiment and this week that is what I did. I was playing with backgrounds. Using distress ink and copper watercolor paint I got a neat background on the one card. Using Alcohol ink on foil created a stunning background for the other card. :-) Here are the my altered cards for the week.

For this card I coated the card with  gesso and placed torn pieces of wrinkled kraft paper into the wet gesso. This was paper that came in the mail as packing paper. I then lightly gessoed over leaving some of the original brown color of the paper showing but making sure that all the pieces were down tight.

I used a cotton ball and Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I also used an off brand yellow and Lady Bug Memento ink. After using the ink it still seemed like not enough contrast for the leaf and sentiment so I used Simply Art copper water color paint which I lightly brushed on. Then went back over with the yellow and Painted Peel ink.

I read a quote about leaves being full of color and light as they grew old and decided to modified it. The quote was done in Studio the software for my electronic cutting machine. I love how I can fill with gradient colors.  After cutting the sentiment out it was edged with Timber Brown Stazon ink.

The leaf is a print and cut. Because it is printed on an inkjet printer I knew it was going to fade when it got wet which is exactly what I wanted. I sprayed my leaf with Butterscotch Alcohol ink mixed in water. Crumpled the wet leaf up and then carefully unfolded it. Stamped using a Recollection music background stamp with Timber Brown Stazon ink.  Any music stamp would work.

If you look closely you may be able to see water drops on the leaf. Those were created by stamping the leaf with embossing ink and lightly sprinkling clear embossing enamel over the leaf. Then heating it up.It is a neat way to get the appearance of water droplets. I have not tried this with clear embossing powder as I don't own any. The lighter the sprinkling the finer the droplets will be.

I like dimension on my projects. The leaf was popped up on the card using a foam square. I also decided to leave the ragged edges of the kraft paper over the card instead of trimming them.

I was totally blown away with the way the background turned out for this card. After playing with pieces of kraft paper on the previous card I decided to see if a full sheet of foil would stick to the gesso. I discovered that a thick coating of gesso is needed for this technique.. I crumpled the foil and then smoothed it out. I pressed the foil into the wet foil making sure with my fingers that it was securely embedded in the gesso.

I have colored embossed foil in the past with permanent markers and Stazon Ink. However, when I saw that Claudine used alcohol ink drops on one of her cards I decided to give it a dry.  I used Stream,Wild Plum and Butterscotch ink. I randomly dropped drops of the different colors and then used a cosmetic sponge to blot them.I was surprised at how fast the alcohol ink dried as I've had to wait for the markers or Stazon ink to dry for up to an hour.

I printed out my sentiment and edged it with Vintage Photo Distress ink. The pocket watch was a black and white image but I converted it to a sepia tone, I used a black Glaze pen to add dimension to the hands. It was also edged with the Distress ink and then popped up with a foam square. The steam punk image I also converted to a sepia image as well as circle cropped it as I did not want the whole image which was an advertisement. I also distressed it with the Vintage Photo Distress ink. I like inking edges as I feel it gives more dimension plus if a print and cut is not perfect. I learned this trick when I would cut things out by hand. Perhaps I could not get as close as I wanted when cutting.

Do you use alcohol inks? How have you used the inks?

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Altered Playing Cards Week 2

For those who have been reading this blog you probably know that I have joined the Altered Playing Card challenge. Click on the icon on the right for details. You still have time to join us and have fun.

Last week the assignment was to prep the cards either by sanding or using gesso. Shh! Don't tell anyone but I'm not done yet. I decided to experiment with stencils and gesso as well as other things like bubble wrap, scrunched up plastic bags, etc. You know me I like to experiment.

Yesterday I did two cards. The assignment is to put together two cards a week until the entire deck has been altered.

My friend Myrna will recognize the image here as sent me both images to turn into one for her. The primrose fairy is from The Graphic Fairy. I don't know where she got the other image from. After putting the two images together I turned it into a cutting file. She is pop dotted to the card to give her dimension.

The words were done in Studio. I love how easy it is to do text as print and cut.

For the background I used a stencil from Plaid and gesso. I first coated gesso on the card and then my stencil and then more gesso.  I love the way the gesso streaked when I removed the stencil. When dry I mixed Apple Barrel Blue Sky and Extreme Glitter Aqua together. I applied with a damp foam stamp. Then when the paint was dried I randomly painted more of the Extreme Glitter

I did not like the way this background turned out with the stencil so decided to experiment. I thought if I don't like it I can always gesso over..  I rubbed Stazon Teal Blue over the card. Then brushed on with a bristle brush to get the strokes Glazon. When the Glazon was dry I rubbed on Stazon Royal Purple and then brushed on another coat of Glazon. I used Original Glazon which is glossy.

The sentiment had a doodle around it and was a file I put together three years ago. I was organizing files and saw it and thought it would be perfect. Alas the doodle printed really light even though I had changed the line color to a dark blue. I took my Glaze pen to doodle over it but got blobs so just drew circles with the pen all around making a border.

The butterfly is a freebie from the library or at least at one time it was. I painted the solid with metallic paint. The cut out with Antique Gold paint. I used Creative Shimmer to glue the two together. Then added a black Glaze pen for the body and antennae. Folded the butterfly and attached with a foam square.

The scallop border was at one time a freebie at Silhouette.  I painted it with the purple metallic paint but didn't like it so painted over with turquoise and aqua Extreme Glitter.

That is it for today! I'm off to see what I can do with gesso on the rest of the cards. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again.

I Want To Always Remember Cover

Hi my dear readers! I hope your September is starting out good. Originally I was going to make a card but after watching a Scrapbook Soup rerun on the internet I decided to make a mini album using this as the cover. I have tons of photos both on my camera and on my cell phone of times spent with my granddaughters so although I'm not a scrapbooker I thought it would be fun to use some of the photos in a small album. For me a large album with layouts is too intimidating. Just making the decisions alone of what papers and how to do the layout makes my head spin.

This is one of the few pictures I have where I'm in the photo. Usually I'm on the other side of the camera. This was the first image I created with Kaleidoscope Kreator. I traced the image in Studio and then made a copy of the cutting line and resized to make my scallop circles.

I will be placing the photo used to make the Kaleidoscope on the other side with information of when the picture was taken. In fact the back of all the pages will have information of when, where,etc. Perhaps even in my own handwriting. I will also be punching a hole at the top so I can use a binder ring. That way I can add pages as the years go by.

I practiced stenciling with color mist on the circles but then ended up spraying over my stenciling. I found out the best way to stencil with color mist is to hold the spray bottle far away and lightly spray. After the circles were dry I used "Stickles" on the edge and when that was dry I cut slits.  Then using a tape runner put everything together to make my flower. I was going to put a small gem in the middle but could not find them so perhaps later I'll add one.

The background was made using Brilliance ink and a Plaid stencil. I found some Plaid stencils which are small and there is something like three patterns per sheet of stencils. Because the stencil was so small I had to move it in order to fill the background with pattern. I used a cotton ball in a circular motion which I had dabbed onto the ink pad. Of course I found my blending tool after I was all done. If anyone sees the cleaning /organizing fairy will you please send her my way.

I stamped on the sentiment using Ranger Archival black ink. The stamp is from Teresa Collin's Everyday Moment stamp set which has all kinds of neat stamps in the set. The stamp set is available through Amazon and may be available at other places. I won this set a couple of years ago.

Did I mention that the cleaning/organizing fairy really needs to come my way. I was looking for a set of playing cards so I could start the Altered Playing Card challenge. Alas I could not find them so while I was out running errands yesterday I bought a set at a Dollar store. Now I'm off to start gessoing the cards. For information about the challenge please click on the icon on the right hand side.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Kaleidoscope Christmas Card

Hi readers well the long three day weekend is almost over. I spent a quiet weekend playing with software and created one card with another in the works.

With September here the holidays will soon be upon us. I won't be creating a lot of Christmas cards as I have some left over from last year but thought it would be fun to make one different from most cards. Here is my kaleidoscope Christmas card. I love how it turned out even though it took me the whole weekend. Some of it was waiting for paint to dry and waiting for the power to come back on.

The background that the flower and sentiment are on is embossed plastic. Alas the Sizzix ornament embossing folder has been retired but you could probably find a Christmas folder that would work. After I embossed the plastic I painted it with watered down Extreme Glitter paint and a sponge brush on the debossed side. That is also the side I decided to use. Once the paint was dry I coated the embossed side with Shimmer Creative Medium using a cosmetic sponge wedge and adhered it to my card base.

The sentiment is from the same vintage image I used for my kaleidoscope flower. It was easy to open the image in Studio and draw my rectangle and then crop. I inked the edges of the sentiment as well as the mat I adhered the sentiment to.

For the flower I started by opening Kaleidoscope Kreator. I used to use a plug in for Photoshop which allowed me to create Kaleidoscope images. Alas my version was too outdated to use with my new laptop and I didn't use Photoshop that much to justify the expensive. I will be honest Kaleidoscope Kreator is a little expensive but so much can be done with it. Also it is really easy to use. In my old age that is a plus.  I will be making some ornaments using it and it is something my grandchildren can have fun playing with.


I decided to use a vintage image from a Victorian postcard with Santa emptying his bag of toys and a flower along with the sentiment that I used on this card. If you were to look carefully at the flower you might be able to see the toys that were spilling out of Santa's sack.

The program comes with several different templates and I decided to use one of the lotus ones. After I got my lotus petal like I wanted it I saved the image and took it into Studio. If you don't have a cutting machine of course you could hand cut the printed images. I could have easily resized my petals in Kaleidoscope and  then printed it. But then I would have had to scan that into Studio. So instead I replicated the petals and sized them to the sizes I wanted in Studio. After the petals were printed and Cameron my Cameo cut them out I used "stickles" on the edges. After the "stickles" was dry I used glue only in the center of the petals to form my flower and using my fingers carefully shaped the petals so they would be curled upwards. Then I adhered my flower with adhesive foam squares to the front of the card.

Now on another note Claudine has started an altered playing card challenge. Click on the  button on the right for details. There will prizes and all you need to do to be entered in the running for the finale prize is to comment twice a month. Of course if you want you could play along. I think the altered cards would be fun to use on cards or even a scrapbook layout. O.K. I'm off to find a deck of playing cards to alter. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!