Iris Thank You CardS

Hi Everyone I hope all is well your way. March did not go out like a lamb instead the weather is blustery and cold with intermittent rain thrown in. Needless to say my boys quickly do their business when we go out and are ready to come back in where it is toasty warm.

 It is good weather for playing in my playroom and experimenting. I won't say how long the unopened package of cheesecloth has been sitting on my desk waiting for me to use my airbrush on it. Also my inkjet printer is under used in my crafting so it was time to see what I could do with that. Alas I fell off the wagon and bought myself a monochromatic laser printer so I had to play with that as well. Since I first started doing research into laser printers they have really come down in price. In fact for some printers anymore the toner costs as much as the printer.

Here is the card I created this week:

I started out by using my eBrush (airbrush using markers) on my card base. I wanted a speckle look so used the lowest setting and held my airbrush up higher than I normally do. Once I had it airbrushed to my satisfaction I went and edged it using a blending tool and Memento Paris Dusk dye ink. 

I then cut a piece of cheesecloth slightly larger than the panel I was going to place it on.  I placed it on a piece of paper and used my eBrush to color it. I did discover that the metallic ink did not really show up until after I glued ithe cheesecloth onto my card stock and used the metallic markers again. Unfortunately the photo doesn't show the metallic speckles. If you want you could spray your cheesecloth on a piece of paper and make a really neat background as the cheesecloth makes a wonderful stencil. I bought my package at a dollar store so it is an inexpensive way to add texture. Lol! I'll probably have some still around at Halloween to make ghosts from.

While organizing and putting things into my paper sorter I discovered I have tons of backgrounds I have created in the past including several scraps leftover from previous projects. The tag shape is from one of those scraps. This is card that I had directly stamped onto card stock with dye inks and then sprayed homemade color mist. While still wet I took plastic wrap and laid on top. I could have used my Cameo to cut the tag out but in this case I took a template I won as a prize and traced with a pencil and cut it out. That way I was able to cut it out exactly where I wanted to. It was a lot quicker doing it this way. As much as I love my Cameo sometimes doing things quicker becomes my priority.  Once again I edged the tag with the Paris Dusk dye ink.

The iris image is one I downloaded from Dover when it was offered as a sample. I had turned it into a  print and cut a few years back so it was quickly resizing which is simple to do in Studio. This is where the fun came in. First without using registration marks I printed the image out  using my inkjet printer then I used masking tape to tape tissue wrapping paper shiny side up on my copy paper. If you try printing on tissue paper make sure you have the paper down tight.with no wrinkles. My inkjet printer feeds from both a cassette tray and a rear tray. For this I used the rear tray which is used for printing photos as the paper goes straight through. That means less chance of the paper tearing. After it was printed but still taped down I used a Spellbinder die to cut it out. Now I also have the copy paper image to use on something else. When I was reading tutorials some people place a full sheet of the tissue paper on the copy paper folded the wrapping paper around to the back and taping it. I felt like there would be less waste by printing first and then taping just over where the printed image was. I printed in the normal mode but next time I'll print in the draft mode. Less chance of  the ink smearing. To glue on my panel I used my finger to spread glue on the backside. There was the mention of spraying a fixative over the printed image before adhering. If you are going to print  and use something like Mod Podge over it I would definitely use some kind of a fixative. 

For my sentiment I opened up my word processing program and picked my font. I'm not sure where this font came from but it was listed as AR Decode. I chose the Bold option and printed with my new laser printer on card stock. I don't know the particular brand of this card stock but it did curl some so I'm not going to be using this for printing directly onto card bases with the laser printer.  Although the video using Deco Foil stated not to re-use the foil once it had been run through the laminater I went ahead and placed the unused portion over my printing. Then I wasn't sure what setting to use so used the highest heat setting. The video never mentioned what heat setting to use. Since I was using a scrap from a previous experiment I figured I really wan't out if it didn't work. Once it was ejected I once again used a Spellbinder die to cut it out. Then I edged using once again the Paris Dusk dye ink. I can't wait to try this with line drawings and even other heat activated foils. Just so you know the transfer foils work only with a toner based printer. Some people create a dummy file so they can run the printed image again with the foil covering the printing but I did not want to take a chance of ruining my new printer. Besides for the most part my laminater just sits there gathering dust.


For some reason Michaels had the Deco Foil I bought on clearance even though it is a brand new product. If you are interested the Deco Foil can be found here: http://www.thermowebonline.com/c/new-products_icraft-deco%E2%80%88foil Yeah! The adhesive to use with it is finally available. I tried some others but they did not work. I did get some alright  stamped images using Stick and Stamp glue pad along with my laminater but think I'll try a bonding powder like what Fab Foil uses a product from the UK.

How do you use your printer in crafting? Also do you ever use kitchen things like cheesecloth. By the way do any of you remember the cheesecloth shirts which were popular in the late sixties and early 70's. I wore mine in the Summer time over sleeveless tops until it finally disintegrated.

That's all foilks! Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!