Saturday, September 26, 2015

If it's immobile, foil it!

Hello friends!  If you remember my last post about foiling and daily discussions with myself about not going off the foil deep end.  Well, I lost.  I'm hooked!  I bought a laminator and we've been getting to know one another.

This card uses Jamie Cripps' Happy Birthday Card Two Ways and her flower that can be found on the 3D Sliding Bow Box,  I cut the sentiment from Heidi Swapp's toner sheets.  It cut beautifully from the Cameo, but didn't foil perfectly with my laminator.  It may be that I didn't have hot enough, the foil was from the WRMK Heatwave pen and it may be below average or because Heidi Swapp's toner paper must be exclusively designed to be used only in the Minc machine.  I'm not unhappy with the results - and my sister is going to love it.




This card is Jamie Cripps' Wishing You Well A2 card.  This time I used Silhouette's Double Sided Adhesive sheets.  I cut the sentiment out from that and it worked really well.  I just had a hard time getting the side of the release paper off that I wanted off.  But this technique is no-heat required and works really well.




Lastly, here is Jamie Cripps' 3D Haunted House gift box and a couple of ghosts from various other files by Jamie.  So I didn't do much foiling on this one, but if you look closely, you can see the ghost coming out the center window.  I used Self-Adhesive Vellum that I picked up at Michaels, it's their Recollections brand and it cut very well in the Silhouette.  Take a look at the ghost at the top, I adhered another ghost on the back so it would cover up the sticky part.  Well, dummy me, I didn't think to do mirror image, so it doesn't quite match up but it left sticky eyes/mouth openings on the front so I used Ranger Foil (Vintage) to fill those in.  I love the look!




Now, this photos are on the darker side and not what I really like, but honestly, it's the best way to pick up the foil.

I hope you like my projects and they inspire you.  Also, please scroll down to my Tuesday Morning Sketches post so see another foiling technique using embossing powder.  Thank you for stopping by.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Tuesday Morning Sketches #319

Good Morning!  We're off to a great start this week.  The sun is shining, the weather has been beautiful in Florida because now it only rains every other day.  The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and it's an awesome one by Debbie.  I think you're going to like it.  We're sponsored by Sami Stamps.

I cannot wait to show you my card!  I wish you can see this in real life - it's so cool!  As you know, I've been bitten pretty hard by the foil rage bug.  I got my laminator on Monday and I finally played with it over the weekend.  Love it!!

So all the videos I've watched on foiling always has a mention in it about toner...laser printer... etc.  Well, I don't have a laser printer, nor the inclination or funds to buy one.  Staples will let me do copies for $0.11 a copy.  But!  Did you know that you can use heat embossing, too?  You can and I am so super stoked that I figured out how to do it with digital stamps, too.


Here's my card using Web Veil by Sami Stamps.  I printed it out with my ink jet printer onto some glossy card stock. That's key!  Let me say this, be ready with your heat tool and some clear, fine embossing powder.  The ink will stay wet for a bit on glossy card stock.  Apply the embossing powder and heat as normal.

Now, my first attempt, I thought I should run it through the laminator twice.  It wasn't a good idea.  I lost a lot of detail.  So I did it again and this time only running through once and I got some beautiful results.  However, I did get some specks on my finished piece after foiling because there were grains of embossing powder still stuck in places.  (I didn't use an embossing buddy or powder tool because I wasn't sure how that would react with the ink.)  But you know what - I actually loved how that turned out, too.  Sometimes artists flick ink or watercolor to get those spatters - well, I did it with foil and embossing powder.


Pretty cool, huh?  I love how this turned out!  So yes, Virginia, you can foil a digital image without a laser printer and you probably have glossy card stock in your stash!

Now, head on over to the TMS blog and join in the fun.

Supplies:
Card stock:  Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Black (Recollections),
  Metallic Embossed card stock (Walmart)
Paper:  Halloween Basics (Recollections)
Dies (unknown), Spider Web border (Silhouette Online Store)
Silver Deco-Foil, Clear Embossing Powder (Ranger)

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Tuesday Morning Sketches #318

Good Morning!  Happy Tuesday.  The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and our sponsor is Patti Rowe, CTMH Independent Demonstrator.

I do hope your week is off to a great start.  My Monday was awesome!  I spent the entire day at Universal Studios with my kids and a few of their friends.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous - no rain and it wasn't that hot.  I rode a few rides but enjoyed the street shows that they had.  I even danced in one of the shows - I made a fool of myself, but it was fun!  My kids missed it, thank God, otherwise it would have been video taped.

Anyway - enough about my day.  I have been bitten by the foil bug really bad!  I love it!  I have a WRMK Heatwave pen that I shared a card I used it on the other day.  All I can say is... meh.  It's OK but I wish I can send it back.  Maybe I can.  Anyway, I treated myself to a trip to Hobby Lobby the other day.  It's a little ways away, I was by myself - cranking up the tunes and perused the aisles to a happy contentment.  I purchased some foil by Ranger that requires no heat.  I LOVE THIS stuff.  So gorgeous.  I got the vintage pack....


I created this card by cutting some leaves that I found on the Silhouette Online store.  I used the Silhouette double sided adhesive.  The maple leaf I foiled with a bronze foil and the little leaf I foiled with gold.  I should've moved them over a little more to the right, but once it was stuck - it was stuck.  I added some metal leaves and wood letters from Freckled Fawn.


Now you can see the bronze foil a little better in this view.

Thank you for stopping by and we'll see you over at the TMS blog.

Friday, September 11, 2015

A touch of gold

Hello everyone!  I have a really easy card to share with you today.  I am featuring Hello Bird 7x5 papercut card by Nic Squirrell.  These cards are so super easy to put together.  You simply cut and adhere the inside piece behind the front and that's it!



But I had to embellish a little bit more.  Foiling is all the rage right now.  And believe me when I say it's a daily talkin' to that I have to give myself to not run right now and buy a Minc and all the pretty foils and a laser printer.  But for my birthday, I gave myself a Heatwave Pen by WR Memory Keepers.  It was really fun using the pen and foil to highlight some details on the card.  I think it adds the perfect, shiny touch.

I found the Heatwave pen on Amazon and it's not a bad deal for $27 and free shipping (Prime Members) but I'm not so sure I like it.  I mean it did fine on the card above because I was basically just doodling.  But if you look at the "Hello" part of the card - I truly wanted this beautiful, flowing gold lettering and it turned out splotchy and broken.  Now, there are a couple of reasons this happened.  One - it's going to happen because you can't exactly see through the foil, so you do need to trace what you want onto vellum and then sandwich (bottom up) card, foil and vellum.  If it's not exactly, you can "fall off" the lettering.  Two - make sure you have only 1 piece of foil.  I didn't find out until I was really annoyed that I was trying to foil with two pieces.

I think this will take some practice unless you really just want it to add touches here and there.  That's the reason I got it, but was hoping for just a bit more.

Thank you for stopping by!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Tuesday Morning Sketches #317

Good Morning!  Happy Tuesday and the newest sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches.  I really love this one, lots of layers and it was created by Debbie.

This week we're sponsored by Sherri Baldy Designs - everyone knows her big eyed characters.  They are so sweet and really a lot of fun to color once you get past them being a little intimidating.  My card features a image called Ella and PINKles Happy Day.  My card does not have PINKles on it.  I guess I really didn't understand the little frog.  She's cute - but just not for me, I guess.  Here's what the image really looks like....


And here's what I did with it....


I imported the image into my word program (as usual) and then I drew little white boxes over the frog image to omit it.  Then I created the card.  My original idea was to color that little frog and place her in the circle element - but in the end she was too small for me to color correctly and I just didn't connect with the image.  So a flower became that circle element.

Please, head on over to TMS and play along with us.  Thank you for stopping by.