Sunday, December 21, 2014

My Winter Wonderland Blog Hop Winner

Congratulations to
Sheila
Thank you for sharing the different techniques/materials used. 
 You've won one of our new mounted rubber stamps!
Please send me your snailmail address privately.  My contact info is in the sidebar where it says Contact Me!
Happy creating! 

Thanks to everyone who left wonderful comments and we'll see you back here for our Queen of Hearts Blog Hop next month!

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Quietfire Design Winter Wonderland Blog Hop - Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of our Winter Wonderland Blog Hop. If this is your first stop, make sure you check back to the other blogs and leave comments to be eligible to win prizes.  Their links are at the bottom of this post.  The details for this blog hop are available on this blog post.

Now I have to start by apologizing!  I designed this stamp for the doodlers, the tanglers, the adventurers.  I'm not any of those!  But I decided to give it the old college try and here is what happened.... (This stamp is called JOY- Fill 'er Up and is similar to our Thanks - Fill 'er Up T stamp.)



The idea was to gild the inside of the letters.  Of course gilding is notoriously hard to photograph, so there is nothing like setting yourself up to fail!  Ultimately, I opted for painting in the gold and used Schminke Tro-Col Pale Gold gouache.

After stamping and thermal embossing, the first thing I did was spatter the gold onto the project.  Oh, well. Let's do it again! And again! And now it's a technique and essential element to the project.  And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

The Tro-Col is easy to use, just mix it with a little water and spread it with a brush.  It flattens to a smooth surface and any indiscretions made by painting the embossed lines may be removed afterward with a brush dampened with fresh water. As for the spatters, well they helped disguise the other flaw - wayward embossing powder.  (Note to self: Wipe paper with dryer sheet before sprinkling embossing powder)


This project definitely needed some colour, so I popped in some red with a Tombow marker.



My first experiment with this project was using gold composition leaf.  It has potential, but I need to do some more work.  I'm used to using real gold leaf and can predict it better, but I know it's easier for crafters to get the composition leaf. It does behave differently.  Here are my results.  It looks better the more I drink.  Kidding, I'm virtually a teetotaler. (And yes, I had to look up the spelling of teetotaler.)


Another thing about this card was that I was originally thinking icy snow, and the card looked like this:



What do you like better?  I'm torn!

So that's about it for my project (the supplies are listed below).  I hope you enjoy this blog hop and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and holiday season!

Just a reminder that all Quietfire rubber stamps are 25% off their regular price during the hop. 



Here is the blog hop schedule because we don't want you to miss an opportunity to win!  Go to each of the blogs and leave a nice comment on their Winter Wonderland Blog Hop posts. You have until midnight Friday, December 19th to comment.  Good luck!


Monday: Diana 
Tuesday: RobynYvonne  
Wednesday: WandaTeresa  
Thursday: Kathy Jo, Suzanne (you're here!)
Friday: SherryYogi


Here are the ingredients for making this card with thumbnail links to the Quietfire website:
Arches 140lb HP Watercolour paper
Schminke Tro-Col Pale Gold gouache
Coloured cardstock for card base
Foam adhesives for dimension