DivaRed Workshop - Saturday 1st June 2013

As always we had lots of fun last Saturday, we did miss Janet though, who was off on a visit to her sister in Switzerland.  Because I was demonstrating all the cards I wanted to do four cards that were completely different, so I did, on occasion wander right out of my comfort zone!

This is quite a simple card, but the use of a liquid glaze and pearly paints gives it way more interest, and makes the colours in the flowers much more vibrant.

I made this card 7 x 7 inches square, but there is no reason it could not be any size you wish.

• Cut a square of white card to 6 1/4 inches square, and piece of darker colour card 6 1/2 inches square to layer onto.
• Punch a decoration on the corners and then using a blending tool, ink the edges with a water based ink (ie Distress or Adirondac) I used Stonewash Adirondac. If you start inking at the corners and work down the edge, you will get a darker colour on the punched area which is a nice effect.
• Stamp your flowers with a non-solvent based ink (ie Memento) allow it to dry and then colour in your flowers with Pro-markers. 
• Stamp and emboss your sentiment onto a spare piece of white card and mat it onto a piece of your dark card.
• Stamp and emboss your butterfly onto the card.
• Choose two or three colours of the pearl paint and sponge in splodges onto a piece of white card, leave this to one side for about 10 minutes and then using a clean dry piece of sponge, gently blend the colours using a dabbing motion (don't swirl or you will end up with a muddy butterfly, and you really don't want that!)
• Dry the paint with a heat gun. I would recommend that you pop off and have a coffee at this point because the paint needs to be completely dry before you move onto the next stage.
• Stamp and emboss the butterfly two or three times, depending on the stamp you are using (I used Stamp Addicts cloth butterfly, which is one of my favourites because the layers are really defined and very easy to cut out, which is always a bonus). Cut out your butterfly layers.
• Mat and layer your main image onto the card base, mat and layer the sentiment and use 3d foam pads to stick it to the card. 
• Stick your butterfly layers on top of the butterfly image already stamped onto the card.
• Now that everything is stuck together - the final flourish!  Using a liquid glaze  (I like the one that Ranger makes because it dry quite quickly) go over the foremost flower heads and leaves, leaving the ones in the background unglazed, this gives you a real perception of depth in the image.
• LEAVE TO DRY ---- DO NOT POKE AT IT TO SEE IF IT'S READY YET!  After all that work you don't want to ruin it with a CSI type trace!

This is my favourite card from Saturday, partly because I have a bit of thing for owls, and partly because it's red!

You can buy this shape card pre-scored and pre-cut, I am planning on a separate page on this blog with instructions for fancy fold cards, but for now, I recommend a look round Craftwork Cards web site, I am sure they do this type of card.

• Firstly resist the temptation to fold your card, leave it flat, it is much easier to deal with.
• To mat and layer I used gold and a patterned card from the Taj Mahal card pad. It is a bit of a faff to measure all the various areas, but as you can see, it is worth it in the end. I cut my gold mat 1/2 cm smaller than the actual area, and then cut the patterned card 1/2 cm smaller than the gold. You need to measure the strip across the bottom of the card, both the pillars, and the bit where your owl is going to sit.
• I strongly recommend that you use wet glue to stick all your layers to the card so you can slide it around as it looks most odd if it isn't straight.
• The owl stamp I used is from Woodware, I actually got it free with a magazine, but I think it is available to buy. I stamped it three times onto different coloured papers, and stamped the wings and beak in the red. 
• Cut out and layer up the owl.
• Die cut a cream oval and stick it to the base card, this is because you need something plain behind your owl to make him stand out.
• Stamp the branch in brown and leaves in green (these are with the stamp set). The branch is actually straight, but you can manipulate it on the acrylic block so it has a bit of a bend if you wish.
• Cut out the branch and leaves and stick them onto the base card, then sit the owl onto the branch - to do this I cut off his legs ..sorry!
• Die cut or punch out some swirls and either punch out or stamp and cut out some flowers and decorate around the two pillars, allowing the swirls to go over the edges, this will give you a sense of dimension when the card is folded. My flowers are from Tonic Studio's perfect partners flower punches.
• I found that the easiest way to fold the card was to slide my fingers behind the two pillars and then through the slits, so they were behind the pillars but infront of the owl, move them to the bottom of the card and push the fold downwards, the card will then naturally take shape and you can firm up the folds with a bone folder.
• Cut a piece of white or cream card to fit the back of the card and stick it in place so you have somewhere to write your message, and you are done!

Now this one is not like anything I would normally do, but I really liked it when I had finished it.

I was inspired by Eileen Godwin's white circle card. You can find the original on Eileen's blog Eileens crafty zone. Do go and have a look you will be she is amazing!

• This card works best if you use textured cardstock, I used one that I got from my local craft shop, but Eileen buys hers from Papermill Direct.  This is a 5 inch square card which I made up from an A4 sheet of card. The most important thing with a minimalist card like this is to avoid inky fingers, drops of coffee (read my Facebook page!!) and other random marks.
• I die cut my squares using the largest square and the smallest square from the regular size nesties. You need one large and three small.
• Stamp the Allium (I used the one from Clarity Stamps, but anyone will do) using a permanent ink (Stazon, Archival, or Versafine) in black.
• Attach it to the card using 3D foam tape.
• Then using the small 3D foam squares attach the tiny squares in a line and put a small black gem in the centre of each.
• To make the Allium stand out I used a clear glaze over the top of it. Again do not touch it until it is dry.

This was my final effort. It is meant to represent the view from the front of our house. We have a couple of deer who live in our garden, so when I saw this Memory Box die, I just had to have it.

• The card is A5 and I have trimmed it to 14.5cm x 20.5cm. Because the front is bowed it needs to be trimmed or it won't fit into a standard envelope. If you are going to box it, you can leave it the standard size. Again I have used textured card for the base card and the aperture, but plain for the background.
• First cut your layers, gold 14x20cm , textured card 13.5 x 19.75 cm, plain white 13 x 19cm.
• Die cut the aperture from the middle of your textured card. I used a fancy shape from Go-Create, which I bought from the Stamp Hut.
• Using the plain white card create a scene. I stamped the trees from a very old stamp I bought from QVC in Vintage Sepia Versafine,  but any tree stamp will do. My stamp has a few lines on it to ground the trees and I just extended them to make fields using a fine tip brown pen. Do this using dots and dashes instead of block lines - its a lot less scary.
• The sun was already on my stamp, so I masked that off with a piece of sticky note, and used my blending tool to put some blue on the sky area and green on the grass area. Then I coloured in the trees and highlighted the fields with promarkers. Coloured in the sun, then extended the yellow out a bit and blended the colour out with alcohol ink blending solution which I applied to the back of the image and then just left it to bleed into the sky, this will only work if you colour your sky with water based ink. If you use promarkers on the sky and the sun they will merge into a green haze rather than the sunny mist you are aiming for.
• I thought it looked a bit flat, so I used a quickie glue pen and dotted round the tops of trees and drew along the field lines then added a bit of crystal glitter which lifted the whole thing and made it look like a dewy dawn, which is what I was aiming for.
• Mat your scene onto the gold card and stick it onto the card base.
• Die cut your deer in a brown card, separate them and stick them onto the back of the aperture so that they are peering out.
• Stick a piece of acetate on the back of the aperture- it's easier to cut the acetate larger than necessary and trim around the edges.
• Put a strip of double sided tape down the two short sides of the aperture. Stick one side to your card, then stick the other side allowing the aperture to bow slightly.
• Decorate with card candy.
• Finally, put a few white dots on the fawn's bottom (they have spotty botties!)

So all done, it has taken me nearly as long to write this as it did to make the cards in the first place. Hope you like them. Working on a plan for Sunday's craft club now. 

Thank you for taking the time to have a look at this.  Please feel free to leave a comment if you wish, it is an open forum, I will only change that if I get really nasty or obscene comments.