Craft Club Cards from Sunday - bit of a new technique!

Good morning everyone, once again it is a grey old day in East Anglia, so another day in the craft room planned. Selling my and Janet's cards at Harleston Farmers Market at the Swan Hotel in Harleston on Saturday, do pop in and say hello if you are in the area.
These two cards are what we did at the Sundae Club last Sunday.  I hope you like the tweaking that I have done on a Barbara Gray technique...... read on.....

I did this card 7x7 inches, but there is no reason why you shouldn't use smaller flowers and make the card any size or shape you wish. The original inspiration was from a card made by one of Sheena Douglass's design team, but it was done with the hibiscus flowers and  film and fibre, but given how many flowers there are, and how many of us there were at the club on Sunday, that would have been an awful lot of film and fibre, so I experimented!  When I watched Barbara Gray a little while ago, she did a technique with a laminate sheet and alcohol inks, and it occurred to me that if you can put a laminate sheet through a machine that heats it up enough to melt the adhesive inside it, you might be able to heat emboss on it, guess what?...................you can! (if you are careful!!)

So this is how you do it:

• The basic card is just matted and layered with gold and cream cardstock, and the corners decorated with a corner punch (corner peel-offs would be just as good)
• Because I get panicky if I have to do shapes free-hand, I die cut a circle out of smooth cream card and stamped and embossed the sentiment onto it, then stuck it in the centre of the card, that way I had an outline to follow to form a circle of flowers.

Making the flowers.

• Open your laminate sheet and drip alcohol inks randomly onto the inside of the sheet, the ink will spread into the adhesive coating.  I used Sail boat blue, butterscotch and a red that looks like you've had a nose bleed, (but persevere, once it's done it looks lovely), try to avoid getting the ink near the edges of the laminate sheet, or it will all squidge out and mark your laminating machine.  Leave these colours to dry for a couple of minutes.
• Add some drips of gold or other metallic alcohol ink and blend it a little using an ink blender and a dabbing motion.
• Sprinkle on a few gilding flakes, close the laminate sheet and put it through the laminating machine in the usual way.
• When your sheet comes out it will be warm and very static - put it onto a cool surface and leave it for a few minutes. The heat and also the static will dissipate.
• Once the sheet is cold to the touch, stamp your flowers in Versamark.
• It is important to use an embossing powder that has a low melt point like Wow powders or I used Aurora Black  from Cosmic Shimmer. Tip your powder over the image, and give it a sharp tap, and use a paint brush to clean up any stray bits of powder.
• I have only done this with my heat gun, which is quite fierce, but it seems that the trick is to heat the powder quickly. Allow your heat gun to heat up before you try to emboss with it, hold it quite close and move away as soon as the powder has melted.  The laminate sheet will buckle slightly, but it really just adds to the look of the flowers.
• Cut out your flowers (I used Sheena's Fantasy flower stamps in the middle two sizes) and stick them in a circle around the sentiment (Glossy Accents was my glue of choice for this as it is completely clear). I also 3D'd a couple of the small flowers with Pinflair glue gel. 
• Decorate the flower centres with gems, and you are done.
• A word of warning.. leave your card flat until the glue has dried!

Continuing the minimalist theme that appeared at our last workshop, we also this little card.  It is just a very simple stamped image really.

• Base card is 5x5 inches, looks best if you use textured card.
• Cut a 4 inch square of the same cardstock. and three squares of 1.5 centimetres.
• Stamp the image in black and emboss with clear embossing powder (the panda is a very old Stampendous stamp).
• Colour in the leaves and bamboo stem.
• Stamp, emboss and colour the top three leaves three times, and cut them out.
• Layer your stamped image onto black card, and stick it to the base card.
• Stick the three small squares in a line onto the card with 3D foam pads and stick the cut out bamboo leaves onto the them.
• Again, beware of marks and blobs, there is no room for error on a minimalist card!

Thank you for taking the time to have a look at this blog entry, I hope you like what you have seen. Feel free to leave a comment if you wish.  

Do try the flowers if you have a laminating machine, the photo doesn't really do them justice.