Card making meets jewelry making

I spent last night working on an idea for a metal clay necklace.  Unfortunately, as I lifted the piece from the drying rack I had it on, I dropped it an broke it.  Luckily, I discovered that the clay can be re-hydrated and used again. So I did that tonight with all my dried up bits, and now it's resting and absorbing water so I can use it maybe tomorrow..

In the meantime, with the clay taht was still workable, I made another necklace that I'd had an idea for.  It kind of reminds me of the wreaths I used to make back in the 80s.  The fun part was that I used my card making punches to punch out the flower shapes.  How cool is that?  Of course, I'll probably have to scrub the punches now so that the olive oil I had to rub on them doesn't get on my card stock.  But I love that my crafting supplies that I already have can perform another function.

I have another pendant in the works, but I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow or Wednesday because it's done in layers.  So here's the one I made tonight.

 I don't know why the second photo keeps turning sideways!  But you can at least see the necklace!  The photo on the left helps show a little more contrast  between the flowers.  Some are shiny smooth and some are brushed metal.  I'm hoping my son remembers to get his dremmel back from his girlfriend tomorrow so I can use it to polish with.  Then I'll be able to make a greater differentiation between the flowers.

Using this clay is so much fun.  It's like magic every time I turn something from clay into silver!

More Embossing Folder Cards

I mentioned last week that I'd try the technique of coloring the raised parts of an embossing folder with markers on some more designs. You can see my originals here. I loved the roses, but it was a bit time consuming.  I decided to give some border folders a try.  I liked the results a lot.  Here's the first one with a button design:

I like the way this came out, mostly.  I probably wasn't as careful as I should be with this, so it ran a little bit. The buttons are just embossed cardboard.  I should have glazed them, too, to make them more realistic.  Overall, it's cute, but not to my usual quality.

So, the next one is border design.    I like the way it came out.  All the white space is perfect to add a sentiment, or just leave blank for a note card.

Finally, my third attempt.  This hasn't actually made it into "card state" yet.  It's just a front.The black isn't part of the card, it's just how I had to back it in my scanner to get the whole image instead of just the edge.  My scanner is funny with what it likes to crop automatically.  For this one, instead of coloring it, I ran it lightly over my ink pad, then just used marker for the red berries.  I tried using a Q-tip to remove the green from the berries before coloring, and just coloring over the green.   I didn't notice an appreciable difference, so I'm inclined to forego the extra step!

A couple of tips for using this technique:

1. Keep Q-tips handy to wipe up areas you overshoot when coloring.  And clean really well.  Even if it looks like the color is gone, often it's not completely removed.
2. Use a scrap piece of white paper to use as a background.  When you are finished coloring. hold the embossing folder with the white paper behind it.  It really helps to be able to see if there are areas that need to be cleaned.
3. Spritz very lightly.  Too much water and you get bleed, like in my buttons.
4. Clean the embossing folder really well.  It will look like it's clean after you use it just once, but if you spritz it again, you'll see a lot of color.  Maybe enough for a second impression if you're lucky!

Before I go, I want to mention a new book by one of my favorite stamp designers.  Melanie Muenchinger has a book out using her A Year of Flowers stamp set.  The set is available at Gina K Designs.  I have it and it is one of my go-to sets.  Because I am copic challenged, I also have the Pressed Flowers set, which makes it a 2 step stamping process.  I love Melanie's designs, and I really love these 2 sets.  Now I want the book, and I'm really being pulled toward her newest state flowers sets. You can see all her sets for GKD here.  So many stamps, so little money time!

Not a card (gasp!)

O.k.  I always post about my cards, but I've tried a new craft, and I love the results so much I just had to share. This summer I attended a day-long class to learn how to use my Theresa Collins Stampmaker (thanks to my hubby for getting it for me for our anniversary, followed by the class 3 days later!).  There were a number of things on display that had been made with the resulting stamps.  Including jewelry.  Metal jewelry.

Are you like me, scratching your head at that one?  Stamping into metal? Of course I couldn't just look at it and wonder, I had to KNOW!  So I asked (I'm good at that, even when it comes to getting directions, like to the room where the class was being held.  Three times!). The pieces were made with metal clay.

Huh?  I know.  I'd never heard of it either.  Turns out there is this really cool clay (a couple of different brands, PMC and Art Clay) that you can work with like clay, then fire with a torch to end up with silver pieces.  Almost like magic!  Well, I looked at it briefly, then put it in the back of my mind for months.  Then a couple of weeks ago I somehow managed to stumble on this great starter kit at Fire Mountain Gems.  Then I stumbled on a link to someone who would get it for me at the lowest price offered by Fire Mountain--Jet Beads.  I was very pleased with the service and the price!  I seemed to have done quite a bit of stumbling that day.  Good thing I was seated while doing it!

I had had this idea since I saw the jewelry at the stamp making class and couldn't wait to try it.  I had my BF, Lisa, stamp a foot of each of her two dogs.  One of the dogs only has three toes on one of his paws, so I made sure she got that one.  I did the same with my daughter's cat.  (Trivia time!  Did you know that a cat's paw print and a dog's paw print differ in that one shows toes and the other doesn't?  A cat can retract its claws, so you only see the pad and toes.  A dog can't retract its claws, so you see those, too.  Impress your friends and family with this next time you see prints in the mud or snow!)

Where was I?  Oh yes.  So, after stamping, I scanned the prints into my computer and used a photo program to clean them up.  Actually, the dog prints were so fuzzy from all that fur that I had to white-out around them before I could even scan them or I would've spent a whole day just working on the images!  Anyway, after cleaning them up, I turned them into negatives to use in the Stampmaker.  Oh, I made them really tiny, too, since I wanted them to fit on something about the size of a dime.  Here is what they looked like in the different stages: (quick!  Which set is from a cat?!)

Once I had these turned into stamps, it was time to work on the jewelry.  I didn't know if Lisa or my daughter would prefer charms or pendants, so I made what I thought would work either way.  I worked the clay and cut out little circles.  Then I stamped it with the paw print stamps. On my daughter's I was able to add some texture to the back as well.  After it dried I fired it with the torch  (it was so cool!!!). The clay shrinks about 8-10%, so I started out with pieces a little bigger than a penny and ended up with finished pieces a little bigger than a dime.  I wanted to darken the silver a little since my skills aren't yet good enough to make nice, smooth, bright silver.  Found out that liver of sulfur is usually used to do this, and of course I didn't happen to have any on hand!  Go figure--I have every other craft supply known to woman.  No place carried it locally, either, and being the wonderfully patient person I am (not!), I didn't want to wait for an order to come in.  Looking online I saw that it might be possible to darken the metal with--drum roll please--hard boiled eggs!  So I hard boiled the last egg I had in the house (who can shop for groceries when there is jewelry to be made?! Actually, I had just finished making Christmas cookies with my younger daughter and Lisa's daughter, so I had a good reason other than crafting obsession for being out of eggs!). I stuck the charms in the egg for about an hour or so. Once they had darkened, I polished them up a bit.Then I jazzed each piece up with some extra beads and even smaller charms I had lying around.  Lisa loves green and Heather, my daughter, loves purple, so I used those colors.  Here are the final results:

Of course, I loved doing this so much that I decided I needed some more things to work on, so I ordered some molds and liver of sulfur.  And I made myself a pendant.

I love it, despite the fact that it's full of mistakes!  I had so much fun that my husband ended up buying me some tools and a book on metal clay jewelry for Christmas.  I just ordered some more clay so that I can make more things and practice getting things really smooth and shiny.  I can't wait for it to get here!

Now, the inspiration for posting these instead of cards came from I Gotta Create.   She is having a "Linky Party" where people can show off their creations.  So I started thinking about what I could show off other than my cards.  Since I had so much fun making the jewelry and needed to show it off somewhere besides Facebook, I decided this would be the perfect place.  I'll get back to my cards soon, I promise!

Flower Power

Saw a couple of great ideas recently while looking around the internet while at work home the last few days. So I had to try them, of course.  Before I share, though, I have to plug Pinterest.  A friend turned me on to it a few months ago.  I absolutely love it for helping me keep track of things I see to give me ideas for cards, or clothes, or recipes, or....Anyway, I didn't use it for these because one I saw pre-Pinterest, and the other one I just knew I'd remember.  So I'm afraid I don't know where the second one came from to give credit...probably Splitcoast Stampers ultimately.  Ok.  Now to the cards...

These stamps are by Melanie Muenchinger for Gina K. Designs.    I was looking at Melanie's blog for ways to use her great set, A Year of Flowers.  I just love Melanie's designs!  Anyway, she showed how she made coneflowers out of her daisy stamp by using just a part of it.  How brilliant is that?  Versatility of stamps makes me very happy!  So, I stamped the flowers on my cs, and colored them with my Bic markers (can't afford copics, and if you check out Gina K's site, StampTV, she does a video on using the Bic markers instead.)  The background is done using my airbrush tool (an often forgotten tool) and my Stampin Up! markers. In the process, I made a mask for the flowers and liked the look so much that I colored in the masks and popped them off the base a little.  I also trimmed out the sections for the back petals so that the bottom layer shows them instead, creating a little more depth.  Then I used my swiss dots cuttlebug folder to emboss both the purple layer and part of my base.  I layered everything together, added some bling, and there you have it.

I've called these Manhattan Flowers because they are from the Stampin Up! Manhattan Flower embossing folder.  I know, I know, my creativity for naming has you overwhelmed.  :)

This was done by coloring the raised portions of the folder with markers (water based). When finished, you need to spritz it with water:  more like spritzing the air and waving the folder through the mist.  This is more effective than trying to huff an entire folder! Then run it through your embossing machine.

I did find this to be rather time consuming, so if I were to do it again, I'd use a folder with less surface area.  I'm thinking maybe I should try this with some of my border folders. Ooh, since I just thought of that, I know what I'll be playing around with today!

Go create your own garden, now!

Hanukkah CASE

So, in my last post, I talked about CASEing.  I decided to do it again with my Hanukkah cards for this year.  Although I am not Jewish, I work at a Jewish temple, and my sister converted to Judaism about 8 or 9 years ago.  Thus I have a need for Hanukkah cards.  Last year I made several different designs to sell on my website and to give away.  This year I decided to just make multiples of the one.  This being back to work full time nonsense has made my crafting a little more difficult the last 6 or 8 months, so I haven't had time to play with my own ideas as much as I'd like.  Thus the need for CASEing.

I CASEd (o.k., borrowed, purloined, stole, flat out-copied) this idea from one I'd seen on the Rubber Cafe blog.  The blogger had gotten her idea from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas (although I still fail to see the relationship between hers and his...).  I basically took her idea and turned it from a tag into a card.
(<----Rubber Cafe)


                              (Mine ---->)

The image stamps were all  from royalty-free, copyright free images and made with my Theresa Collins Stampmaker.    The Happy Hanukkah is one I picked up at a local craft store last year, I think.   The background stamp is from Club Scrap.  The menorah was stamped using silver ink to ink the menorah itself, and blue marker for the candles.  Gold glitter glue was used for the flames.  The silver glitter embellishments were made using the Scribbles,Swirls Sizzlit die and glitter paper from Stampin'Up!.   The card stock and all the inks, except for the silver, were also from SU!.   The rest is probably pretty self-explanatory.  The insides were stamped with one of the following sayings: (my son's first reaction: "Ugh! Papyrus!"  My kids insist that the papyrus font is for old people!  Too bad, that's how I found the sentiments, so that's how I used them!)

CASEing a Card

CASE stands for "Copy and Share Everything".  Generally when you CASE a card, you change something slightly: the color, the size, the stamps used, the embellishments.  I like to CASE because I am better at adapting a design than creating my own.

I recently saw this card online.  I thought it was beautiful.  So last night I CASEd it. Here is my result:
I wish the colors showed better.  They're really closer to the colors in the original.  But you get the idea.

I thought the colors would be good for a winter card.  I used my snowflake embossing folder and inked it up, then embossed, giving the snowflakes a light blue color.  The second layer is a snowflake/flower stamp.  On the sentiment I used blue gems instead of pearls. I'm going to have to try this with other colors now.  I'm thinking maybe grey, black, and red.

Here's one I made a few days later in black and ivory.  Elegant!

Time flies

Can't believe it's been so long since I posted!  Guess that's what getting a job does to one!

I have been steadily stamping, just not posting.  For our wedding anniversary, my husband got me a Theresa Collins stamp maker, which I love!  I'll post some samples of things I've made with that in another post.

Right now, there's a chill in the air that makes me realize autumn is right around the corner.  Here is a card I've made a number of times.  It's beautiful and fun!

The  leaves for this card are made with....bleach!  I started with a  greenish colored paper.  From Stampin' Up, but I don't remember for sure what color.  Then, using a paper towel wet, but not dripping, with bleach, plop it down on the paper.  Pick it up and plop it again.  Do this until you're satisfied with the amount of color left showing.  Then apply ink direct to paper.  I used SU! Dusty Durango and Pumpkin Pie. Using a maple leaf template I downloaded years ago, cut the leaves out, then used my scoring tool to give them veins.  To make the viens more prominent, I used a colored pencil to go over them just a bit.  The leaf stems are from left over paper, cut very thin, then folded in half.



That's all for now.  I'll have to go back through things I've made in the last 6 months, as well as finish some of my projects from my homemade stamps, and get them posted.  Hopefully it won't take another 6 months to do that!