Challenge Yourself With IndigoBlu- Master Board Technique

Hello everyone, have you missed me?

I have been busy with the family over the last couple of months with my daughters wedding and my other two moving away from home but now I'm back and to start off blogging again I have a tutorial to share with you on how to make up a batch of  cards creating a master board with paint as the background for cards. This blog post came about as an inspiration piece for the 'I Love IndigoBlu' unofficial fan page for the monthly challenges we run. This time the Theme is 'Christmas/ Winter and I'm going to make up a master board using shades of blue and the focus of the cards will one of the New Christmas Stamp A5 sets from IndigoBlu called Tree Dressing. 

Check out the 'I love IndigoBlu' Facebook page for details of the new 'Challenge yourself Event'. 

You of course don't have to make more than one card or project. My contribution was to give you some ideas xx

Kay and Alfie from IndigoBlu are very generous and give us fab prizes for the winner! Why not pop over and join in! 

IndigoBlu Items used

Stamp sets -Tree Dressing & Vintage Frame

Stencils -  Stars , Snow and Spirit of Christmas

English Cottage Artist Acrylic Paint - Sleeping Beauty, Purple Rain, Townhouse Teal and Snow White.

IB Watercolour card, Rice Paper and Super Thick Slap it On, Slap it on (matt), Unicorn Sparkles and Phat Foam (These items are all on the website)!

Water spray bottle, Spatula, White & coloured card, Card Blanks or make your own.

Whats next

Step 1. Using a spatula  put small dabs of paint onto your glass mat or a piece of plastic and spray with water. Carefully spread out the paint without mixing the colours together to much, spray again with water.

Lay the watercolour card down onto the paint and press. (There was enough paint left so I managed to use two pieces of card). Mop up any remaining paint with the rice paper. Leave the card and rice paper to dry or speed it up by using your heat tool.

 

2. Once the watercolour card is dry, use a piece of phat foam to add Sleeping Beauty paint through 'Star' stencil and then without cleaning the stencil use some of  the Snow White paint to create a pale blue colour through the stencil. Now fill in any gaps with the 'Snow' stencil and the Snow White paint. Spread some Purple Rain onto a piece of phat foam working it in to make a ink pad to use on the smaller circle frame from the Vintage Frame set and stamp across the master board. Use the side of a coffee stirrer or credit card to create lines of Town Teal across the MasterCard. Once dry cut up into different sizes and use to create a job lot of card fronts.

3. Onto the Rice Paper. I used the paint pad and circle frame stamp again and randomly stamped across the paper. Then using a dark blue ink I stamped 'Happy Holiday' from the Vintage Frame set in the centre of the round frames. Stars from the Tree Dressing set were stamped over the rice paper.

3.Now decide how you want to use the Master board. Here are some ideas from me. 

Stamping out images onto the master board panels or onto white card and cut out and colour.

Changing or highlighting some of the colours on the master board by using a weak solution of  bleach and water.

Using 'Super thick Slap it On' mixed with Paint and Unicorn Sparkles and using it through the word stencil.

Card 1.

Starting off with the Rice Paper, I cut off a piece that would cover a piece of 5 1/2" x  51/2" piece of card and used slap it on to stick it down and seal it. This was mounted onto a slightly bigger piece of black card then mounted onto a white card base. A square of the master board was matted onto black card and glued to the card front with a stamped sentiment from the Vintage frame set.

Card 2. 

Stamping straight onto a master board panel with the stockings and taking some of the colour out to highlight the stockings.Finish off the panel by sponging purple paint around the boarder. Using Thick Slap in on mixed with blue paint and Unicorn sparkles through the stencil. Mounted on green card then a card base.

Card 3. 

Stamping out the trees with green ink and using the same stencil and colour as above. The Reindeer and Stockings were stamped, cut out and coloured. These were then mounted on foam dots to give some dimension. The panel was finished off using some white puffy paint for snow dots and mounted as the card above.

Card 4.

Smaller panel of the master board was stamped with just the top of the tree. A Reindeer and string of lights were stamped, coloured and cut out. Mounted using the same technique as above.

Card 5.

Strings of lights were stamped and coloured at the top of a piece of white card then cut down to measure an 5"x8" card panel. A piece of the master board was cut into a panel of 4 1/2" by 2" and mounted onto green card and had "Christmas Wishes" stencilled across it with Super Thick Slap it on mixed with blue paint.This was then mounted onto black card and a white card base.

Card 6. 

Using my stamping platform I positioned the Reindeer to fit just to the right, bottom part of a 6"x6" piece of white card and inked up the stamp with black ink. Once the image was stamped  I glued in place a square of the master board into the centre of the white card. The Reindeer was still in place on the stamping platform and the image of the Reindeer lined up perfectly over the master board piece. I then stamped out stars and painted them in with a wash of purple and stamped a couple of the small stars out in green ink. Super thick slap it on was mixed with Unicorn sparkles and put through the stencil. The string of light bulbs were stamped out coloured and cut out. The card panel was then mounted onto green card and a card blank.

I still have more of the master board pieces left so I can make up some more cards in the same style as above.

These are my ideas and I hope it has given you some of your own and inspired you to start on your own cards and of course join in with the challenge. I look forwards to seeing what you create. 

Need some more inspiration then you really have to check out what Julie has created for this challenge.

Thank you for stopping by. Happy Crafting xx

Cheesecloth flowers- A quick Tutorial!

Hello to you,

Today I would like to share how I make my cheesecloth flowers. 

I recently made a card using them as an embellishment and have had a couple of requests on how I made them so here we go.

The 1st card was the one I posted on FB, the 2nd card is one I made to show you how to make your own cheesecloth Flower.

What you need

Fine Cheesecloth

Slap-it-on

White Card- used to make your own card blank, layered piece to stencil on, base for the flower, leaves and sentiment.

Punch or circle die

Leaves Die (I used Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves)

Double sided tape

Black Ink pad

Stamp (IndigoBlu Word Blocks #2)

Luscious Powder or your choice of paints, inks, pens, to colour the flower.

How to make a Flower

Cut a strip of cheesecloth and cover with Slap-It-On. I found the best way to do this was to put a little (you can always add more if its not enough)  SIO onto your craft mat and work the cheesecloth onto it until it has been covered but not totally saturated. Gently pull the cheesecloth back into shape and leave to dry. (about 10 mins) This process stiffens the cheesecloth making it easier to work with and gives a better shape to the blooms.

 

While waiting for the cloth to dry out, make the base for the flower. I punched out a piece of thick card then covered it with double sided tape. 

At this stage I folded the cloth in half, length ways so when you have attached it to the tape base you can pull the cloth out slightly to give the flower more definition.
Remove the backing from the double sided tape on your circle and starting from one end of your cloth, press it into the middle and work it around the circle keeping the folded part on top.

Once you have finished winding the cloth around the circle and you can't see any more of the base, finish off by cutting off any extra cloth and sticking this end under the flower.

When you have finished this part, gently pull out the cheesecloth to make a fuller bloom.

I used two colours of Luscious powders to colour my flower. I mixed up the powder into thin paint.

Lightly paint your flower. If you want to darken the colour wait until the first coat is dry before adding more paint.

Add your choice of embellishment to the middle. Gems, beads or old pieces of jewellery are great for decorating these flowers.

I then stamped out the word 'Beauty' and die cut it out into a leaf shape. I also cut out a plain white leaf to layer under the word leaf.

The leaves were layered up, slightly off center to each other then glued to the underside of the flower.

Just using one flower was the perfect size for a little note card. I used a stencil to make a background to the flower, stamped and punched out a sentiment and the card was finished.
I had lots of fun making these flowers, I hope you have a go for yourself.
Happy Crafting xx

Diamond Card Folding Tutorial

I would like to show you a different card folding technique today!

This Diamond Fold can be made out of a 12" x 12" piece of card stock!