Altered Playing Cards Week 16

Hi everyone! Can you believe that this is the last day of the year or that we are already in week 16 for the altered card challenge. This week there did not appear to be a theme but I did use Claudine's technique even though I had to improvise once again. Of course like usual I also put my own spin on things.

Claudine used Tim Holtz tissue but I don't have any so I used wrapping tissue paper and Ranger Archive black ink which is waterproof with background stamps.

For this card I painted my gessoed card with metallic turquoise and metallic copper paint to give it the look of old metal.. I used a checkerboard stamp I bought at a thrift store for this card. When the card was dry I took my stamped tissue paper crumpled it and then glued it down. When the glue was dry I took gel walnut stain and rubbed over it  with that and then with a paper towel dabbed some of the stain up. The sentiment was done with my Brother's label maker. I like using the clear tape.

The flower was the fun part of this project. It was an experiment in making my own paper clay from clean toilet paper.  I cut my petals out of card stock and then put the paper clay over the card stock covering it and shaping as I went. I made the three balls for the center. When the paper clay was dry I used my airbrush to color my flower and glued the balls in the center. I used a foam adhesive square on the back of the smaller petal to give the flower a little bit of dimension. Then I took a scrap of green ribbon to make my stem and a leaf.

This was a fun card to do and now I know that Ranger's Archival ink will work with my gel stain as well as glaze paints. :-)

For this card I painted turquoise metalic paint on it. Even with the sequin tissue paper on it was still really bright. I stamped with my music background stamp and once again did what I did on the first card. When the glue was dry I took Powder Blue Paint and mixed it with  glaze medium. This gives color but still allows the paint to have some transparency depending on how much glaze you mix in.

The image I found on the internet when I put a search in for free New Year's clipart. After I printed and my machine cut it out I used Dimensional Magic for my bubbles. Glossy Accent would work also but Dimensional Magic just happens to be what I have.

Once again the sentiment was done with the label maker. This time I printed it with the letters vertical and overlapped the two labels.

There you have my two altered playing cards for this week. If you would like to try to make your own paper clay it is really easy.  This is a good way to play with clay without investing a lot of money. I used Mod Podge in mine but you can use regular white glue if you wish:

10 sheets double play toilet tissue paper shredded

1 Tablespoon of collage adhesive

1/4 cup of water

Put all ingredients in a ziplock bag  close it and knead. until you have a smooth consistency. Open the bag a little bit and squeeze excess water out. Store the clay in the bag between uses. This clay can be painted, colored with markers, sprayed with color mist, etc. You could even replace some of the water with food coloring.

This is all I have for this year. Wishing you a Happy New Year and Frugal Crafting till we meet again. I plan to do some tutorials and other fun things in 2015. See you then!

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Altered Playing Cards Week 15

Hi everyone I hope if you celebrate Christmas that you had a good one. Luckily when I moved I kept my cell phone number as I received a phone call from a brother I had lost contact with. That made my Christmas. As well as the fact that my oldest granddaughter loved her gift of colored pencils and sketching pencils. The youngest immediately opened her gift and started coloring and adding stickers where they belonged.

We are now on week 15. There didn't really appear to be a theme but the technique was using stencils with embossing paste. I don't have any embossing paste and was too lazy to make my own with flour and glue. Instead I experimented with coloring "moulding paste" which normally dries clear. When I bought the moulding paste I was trying to fill out an order so I would not have to pay postage. I was looking for embossing paste but the "moulding paste" was cheaper and the manufacture said it could be used for transfer. I wasn't able to use it successfully for transfers but have been having fun experimenting.

Here are Claudine's cards. I just love that carrot.

When I saw the angel with the heart  on Claudine's card I thought of the fact that it would have been my anniversary on Monday. So I made my card with a stamp I must confess which I have never used in memory of the incredible love which I shared with Bill..

I wanted to stencil gold hearts but alas Metallic Mixative did not dry gold. However because of the light color the alcohol ink from my markers when I airbrushed colored them some. After the "moulding paste" dried I used a stamp with Stazon ink on the large hearts.  For the smaller hearts I used a Glaze pen to make random dots.I also used a Glaze pen to draw around the stenciled hearts.

I heat embossed my heart with wings using Lilac Vintage embossing powder. Then colored the heart with a Spectrum, Noir marker. Although I used glitter glue on the wings they didn't really end up being that glittery. I folded the wings up so it would look like the heart was flying to heaven. 

Like always it is a learning experience. I wanted to stamp my sentiment on ribbon but didn't have the color of ribbon I wanted. I discovered that I needed to color the ribbon first with the airbrush and then stamp.This is the back side of the ribbon and I loved the uncolored border so decided to use that side.

I decided to mix black acrylic paint in the "moulding paste" to color it.  I stenciled over a gesso card but since I had left over paste I decided to stencil over a card back which had not been prepped.

When the paste was dried I airbrushed with my eBrush and Spectrum Noir markers. I love how although there is color the blue background shows through. I  accidentally used my white Glaze pen on the squares  thinking it was my gelly pen but it dried clear. I then took my gelly pen and drew around the circles.

The bullfrog is ancient. It was one of the first stamps I bought and the copyright is 1983. Alas he has been sitting on the shelf gathering dust. When I was trying to decide what to use for this card I saw him and decided to use him. He is heat embossed with some green glitter embossing powder which was given to me. Then colored with Spectrum Noir markers. I used Dimensional Magic on the eyes. He is pop dotted on the card.

I decided to print my sentiment with my Brother Label Marker using clear tape. I went through different ideas of what to put the label on and finally went with a sheer ribbon. 

My goal this year has been to use stamps that I haven't used for awhile as well as other supplies which I have not used a lot. Both of these cards meet that goal with the stamps used and the ribbon. My other goal has been to experiment and that goal was also met. :-)

Do you make any crafting goals? If you don't are you going to make some for 2015?

Thank you for stopping by during this busy time of the year. Although I don't know what I'm going to be doing next do come back. Wishing you a Happy New Year and Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Altered Playing Cards Week 14

Hi everyone! I can not believe that we are already halfway through altering our deck of cards. As always you can jump in anytime. Click on the icon on the right for details.

Last week the theme was reindeer and I just happened to have a couple of reindeer stamps. :-) I had forgotten how much fun it was to heat emboss as well as cut stamped images out by hand. However, now I need to ask Santa for a pair of small scissors. Don't worry Cameron my trusty cutting machine you are not being replaced.

Here are Claudine's cards:

This was a really fun challenge but I must confess that I spent more time on my altered playing cards than I did on most of the Christmas cards I made. However, now I have some ideas for cards for next year. :-)

I started out by experimenting with my background. Since I had not prepped all my cards with gesso yet I went ahead and sprinkled Martha Stewart Coarse Crystal glitter in my wet gesso. When the gesso was dry I went then and used my airbrush with a blue marker. I was afraid it was going to change the color of the glitter but it did not.

Then I took a snowflake stamp and one with swirling snow and stamped with blue pigment ink.  I figured I might not get crisp images but figured since it was snow it was all right. 

Then I stamped my images on scrap card stock. I have lots of white scraps from doing print and cut as well as cutting out card bases. Rudolph was a stamp I picked up this year at a thrift store for under a dollar. At the time I didn't know what I was going to do. I heat embossed with copped embossing powder. Colore with Spectrum Noir markers and tied crotchet thread in a bow around his neck.  The tree and sentiment came in a package of G studio stamps which were under a dollar. I heat embossed the tree but the glitter embossing powder was too transparent so I didn't get the sparkle with the garland like I had wanted. I colored the tree and used a gold Sharpie on the star and the bronze one on the trunk. I used a hot pink glaze pen on the garland. Because of the black ink I had stamped with it became a dark purple. I then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment. I won't tell you how long I've had this silver embossing powder but the store has not been in business for several years.  Then I cut my sentiment out also. The tree and reindeer are pop dotted. I used the same blue ink as I used for the snowflakes around the edges.

Claudine used a die along with a matching stamp on her card. Since I don't have a die with matching stamp I had to improvise. I first stamped with blue pigment ink my snow swirl and heat embossed with Winter Wonderland embossing powder. Then I ran my cardstock through my embossing machine using a Darice embossing folder I bought this fall.

A good friend sent me a few years back a set of stamps with the reindeer. I heat embossed with copper embossing powder but decided to not color.  He is pop dotted on the card. Did I mention that I own stock in the company that makes those foam dots. Lol!

The Merry Christmas is a stamp I've had for awhile. I stamped once again with blue and the Winter Wonderland. I colored and cut it out. Alas my blue marker is brand new and was really juicy so it bled some on the Christmas. I cut the sentiment out free style.

I took a scrap of copy paper and tore it and then used my air brush with markers. I used a scrap from cutting out a scalloped shape to get my snow drifts.

Talk about being frugal both cards were made using scraps I love it when I can use some of my scraps up. Do you save scraps to use in your crafting?

Today started a new challenge using embossing paste. I'm hoping I'll be able to get my cards done this week. I still don't have my energy back but I am feeling better. I hope that everyone reading this is staying healthy. There are some nasty bugs out this year. :-(

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!