Altered Playing Cards Week 19

Greetings from the banana belt. O.K. maybe not the banana belt but still it was above freezing today so I didn't freeze when I went and did errands today. Nor when I entered the car did I feel like I had just walked into my refrigerator.

Yesterday was the start of a new week and you know what that means. A new altered playing card challenge. This week Claudine picked the theme of Steam Punk. I love Steam Punk but really don't do it enough. Anyway this was a fun challenge for me.

Here is what Claudine did:

I started by covering my card with a black metallic piece of paper. Then I took my hexagon stencil and using liquid embossing ink did heat embossing with copper embossing powder.  Then I cut my cogs and gears off of a card base file I have and re-sized in Studio. After they were cut out  of Kraft card I heat embossed with Antique Gold embossing enamel. My embossing ink pad is dirty with eggplant embossing powder due to an accident. In this case it gave me this nice rusty look. In places the embossing ink did not take so the color of the card shows through. I think it gives it more of a distress aged look. I didn't get my paper on straight and part of the playing card was showing I decided to experiment and took a Fancy Pants antique text stamp and stamped on electrician tape using embossing ink. Then heat embossed with silver. Who knew you could heat emboss electrician tape. Now I'll have to see if I can heat emboss on duct tape or transparent tape. I used my label maker for my sentiment and tore a piece of  old typewriting paper to place it on. I decided to go with this sentiment because too often I don't think people see the beauty in old things and old people.

Claudine used drywall mesh for her card. Alas I have not seen mine since my last move. It is probably in a box which I have not gone through. I can't imagine I would get rid of it but it is a possibility. I improvised and cut some netting which garlic had come in. I applied gesso on my card and embedded the netting in the gesso. In a few places the netting is not down tight but I think it gives the card charm. When the gesso was dry I was going to drag my card through watered down paint. However it did not work and I had to use a brush. I mixed on my mat ivy green, copper, and ivory paint. Using a bristle brush which ended up with all those colors although the ivy green mixed more with the ivory I painted my card. The frame piece is one I turned into a cutting file from a jpg image. I heat embossed it with the antique gold embossing enamel. Normally when I use this file I print and cut a pocket watch to adhere where what looks like a watch is. The girl is a Dover clipart image that I converted to Sepia. I was going to use her on another project and changed my mind. I found her when sorting through a bunch of papers yesterday. I really need to get organized. The Live, Love, Laugh was printed once again with the label maker. In this case I wanted the background to show through.

There you have it my altered cards for this week. I can't wait to see what next week will bring.

I will have workmen the rest of the week so my boys and I will be holed up in my craft room. I will continue the organizing and rearranging I've been doing as well as playing. I bought some glitter markers on clearance and can't wait to play with my air brush. I also have some techniques I want to try.

Thank you for stopping by and do stop on by again to see what I am doing. :-) I also will be doing reviews of products . Right now I'm thinking the fourth Friday of the month. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Bits And Pieces Card

Hi Everyone! I've been busy organizing my "playroom" the last couple of days. Today a friend helped me do some rearranging of the heavy file cabinet and my sewing machine table. I love now how so many of the things I use all the time are now close at hand. While doing the organizing and cleaning I keep coming across bits and pieces. I've decided that at least once a week I'll do a bits and pieces card. Here is my first one.

The aquamarine panel is a piece of scrap card stock which I used to mop up some extra paint on my crafting mat. No sense wasting perfectly good acrylic paint. ;-) The scallop panel was cut out of gray card stock. I had cut out a bunch of panels in different card stock for my sister and she decided she didn't want them.  I had also cut out a bunch of these flowers only to have my sister tell me she is not a flower person. Although she did color a few with gelatos. The butterfly is one I stamped on plastic but smeared the ink a little bit. It is backed with a scrap of card stock.

For the scallop panel I used a stencil and stamped my embossing pad over it. Then I sprinkled Eggplant Recollection embossing powder. I did not realize that I had  small flecks of embossing powder on the back of the stencil from previous play. That gave me the specks. After removing the stencil and heat embossing I put the stencil back down slightly off. This time I used my Raspberry Recollection embossing powder. Then I took my eBrush and airbrushed the background. I didn't like the edges of the scallops as they were too dark against the painted background so I took the blender marker and used it with the eBrush.

I had colored the flower with a gelato to show my sister how to do it. I took a silver Sharpie and holding it high in the air speckled my flower. Then I used Liquid Pearl for the center.

For the butterfly I used the eBrush with Spectrum Noir markers on the back. I also used the silver Sharpie like on the flower. I thought the butterfly was too dark so used the blender pen on the back. Then switched to the silver Sharpie and speckled the front., Adhered  to a scrap of card stock and cut it out. Both the flower and butterfly are adhered with foam adhesive.

Many years ago I bought at a dollar store alphabet stickers. When I went up to the check stand I thought the clerk was going to divide the packages but he did not. I got over twenty packages of alphabet stickers and although I shared many of them with people I still have a lot. Since pink is not a color I use a lot I took my Sharpie and colored it using my eBrush. 

Do you save bits and pieces thinking some day you will use them? How do you save them? I saw a neat idea where they are adhered using temporary adhesive inside a page protector. I will be doing that then I won't have to be looking through an envelope or accordion file folder.

Tomorrow is a new week in the Altered Playing Card challenge. Not sure what the theme will be but it will fun. Especially now that my "playroom" is more organized. Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Quick Butterfly Watercolor Card

Greetings on this overcast Thursday. At least it is not Eskimo weather.  When I saw a card in the February 2015 issue of Paper Crafts and Scrapbooking using water color pencils I knew it was time to dust mine off. Alas this is the last issue as there will be no more Paper Crafts and Scrapbooking.

The card I made is a quick card especially since the water colors dries fast. I did not have the butterfly stamps which were used so used my butterfly quote stamp. Normally I don't like to stamp directly because I seem to mess it up. In fact I thought I had messed up until I looked at the stamp.

I scribble water color pencils on watercolor paper. I will be glad when I use up the generic watercolor paper I bought on sale as it has a tendency to buckle even if it is not that wet. Maybe that is why it was on sale. LOL! Using my water brush over my scribbles I didn't even get the paper that wet. I used Stazon Timber brown ink for my stamp.  The stamp is by Stampabilities and as far as I can tell is still available at least online at Hobby Lobby. It may be available at other places I don't know.

I used orange chalk to color the butterflies. I felt like they needed a  little bit of bright color to pop.

I need more practice using my airbrush to airbrush borders. At least my mess doesn't show as it is under the panel. Lol! I did use adhesive foam to pop the watercolor panel up. There you have it my quick card. It has actually taken me longer to type this post than to make the card. Lol!

O.K. I'm off to play with crayons and rubbing alcohol. Hope you are having a great week!

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!