Printables to share

Well, I am quite happy to say that the new router has been installed (YAY!) and now the list is smaller.  We need a new VOIP phone, and to find the Mac OS disks for my upgrade, and my geek-squad in the states need to sort our why the mail server is being so flakey. In the meantime I thought I would share a set of ATC-sized spots that I made for myself.  I love red and cream so I made them to suit me but perhaps someone else might find a use for them.

I’ve added them as both a PDF for printing and cutting, and as a .png in case any digital scrappers might grab them. 

Some of them have meaning for me outside the words themselves.  Insanely Great will be obvious to Mac fans.  Forever and a Day is how my dad always signed his cards to my mom,  I love you forever and a day.  Life is Sweet is both a saying and a favourite movie title.  Lucky Lucky Me is a line from one of DDs favourite Charlie and Lola episodes.

They look nice printed on cream cardstock.  Most have a nice open area for layering or even little bits of journaling. They could be trimmed down and added to the corner of a photo then used in a Project Life sleeve, if the photo had a big enough open area or something unsightly you wanted to hide.

Have fun, while I am browbeating my poor DH into dragging his unwell self to the office to find those bl**dy disks…. well, I did make him soup for lunch after all.  It’s the least he can do….

WOYWW 147 – fabric galore.

One thing about a dodgy connection and computer problems is you actually sometimes get a lot more done.  My desk is full of nifty little fabric squares destined for a quilt.

The really interesting thing is that just by arranging the blocks in a certain way it produces some patterns that are totally appropriate for the recipient.  I’ll say no more for now – mums the word LOL! It’s looks quite chaotic in the photo and the colours are a bit off the real ones so it’s better IRL.  My mate finally made it round for lunch (the downside of a dodgy connection – you think someone got your email confirming lunch on Friday and it’s only dinnertime when you finally discover they didn’t just not show up, they never knew they were supposed to! DOH!)  and gave me some welcome input on sashing colours so a quick trip to the fabric store is required.  The method is explained here but as usual I went my own way with it. My previous attempt at a quilt was flawed – While I was determined to use the flannel as the backing it was simply too stretchy and I ended up with some slightly misshapen blocks that made neat intersections impossible.  I’ll have another go a the Fun & Done method, although I think the actual tool would help as much as cotton fabric.  Live and learn, live and learn…

I am homing in on the computer issues.  The internet connectivity seems to be a faulty router – a new one has been ordered.  DH is (or should I say WAS) feeling better so I had high hopes for my upgrade this weekend.  He’s relapsed so now I am not sure. So while my commenting on WOYWW hasn’t been as good as I would like, I am managing to do a reasonable portion each week – it just takes me hours, with regular clearing of my font name cache and a re-boot every so often.  But I wouldn’t miss my travels across Blogland and inspirational desks around the globe.  You shouldn’t either so stop by Julia’s for the linky list.

Happy WOYWW!

BIG CARDS – Ace of Diamonds!

Yay!  I have completed a suit.  The final Diamond is DONE.  As I implied last week I did use the wax paper resist OVER paint and I love how it turned out.

I started by blobbing some different shades of red paint on paper.  There is a very cherry red, a slightly orange-y red and a darker almost maroon colour.

With my brayer I skipped over the surface to distribute the paint a bit….

Before brayering in earnest! Once that had dried, I took my crumpled sheet of waxed paper and the piece to the iron.  What I found was that if the iron was too hot, or if the waxed paper was placed OVER the paper, with the protective sheet (and for me that was a Teflon cooking sheet, £1 from the £ Store) the wax migrates towards the heat source, as you would expect, and doesn’t adhere as well as it does if you do it wax paper on the Teflon sheet (or craft mat, or scrap paper) paper, painted side DOWN on the waxed surface, then iron applied to the back of the paper.  I think it gives it an almost leather-like look, especially with the Raisin colourwash over it. It’s very hard to capture the detail in a photo but this shows it OK.

I am not loading these cards with technique, mostly focusing on one or two per card, so IRL I would most probably combine this with an already painted surface, but one that had a lot more going on than just a coat of paint, to add texture and depth.  And I might do more OVER it as well, although I do like the finish as is.

Last additions were the white paint spatters and a stamped flourish to complete my card!

I am annoyed that the card soaked up a bit of something over there  on the right, but can’t moan too much as it was most probably my own fault for being careless and working amidst chaos.

So next I get to move on and really explore B&W.  But I’m still dithering – spades or clubs, clubs or spades…..??

Sunday-someplace-else ( Terada Mokei)

Totally awesome paper model of a New York street scene by Japanese artist Terada Mokei that you can purchase and assemble.  Loving the intense colour.

There is much cuteness on the site.  I am gobsmacked by this orchestra model:

And check out this sweet little greeting card! No assembly required.

The figures are tiny but adorable. Did I say tiny?  I meant teeny tiny! Check out the movie here!

Paper city

I stumbled across this paper city printout set and was enchanted.  Not 100% sure how I will use it but I know I will – it’s too cool.  I only wish there were a London!  The paris one of just so full of whimsy.  I wish I had some free available space to display it but the surfaces in my room are just too full of papercrafts!

I’m working on a set of printables but have a full day ahead and may not get them finished in time to post today.  There’s quilting, tidying, shopping, a friend coming for lunch, admin stuff for UKS and probably a handful of things I’ve already forgotten!

But maybe you will have a fabulous idea for these printables while I get mine sorted!

Oops – Fun and Done trial

I’ve been researching a quilt-as-you-go method called Fun and Done.  Like it.  I don’t have the tool, which is a set of templates, a square that nests in a frame, but have managed  a reasonable facsimile with just a ruler. I really feel the best way to learn something is to do it, so I had a rummage in my scraps and came up with this combo:

I pinned a quilt on Pinterest the other day, saying how I love B&W and brights so this fits perfectly. I won’t say too much about it because I don’t know if a certain someone might be reading.  I WILL say that the backing is pink flannel (which is why it’s fraying a bit) and that I only had a VERY limited amount of the B&W swirl and the tiny green dotty material.  My design choices were dictated my the amounts. I haven’t yet sewn down the backing (just folded over and pinned) but I am liking it so far.  I def. learned a few things even from making the first block.

I have another row almost ready to add so the overall pattern will be more like this:

but I may play around with the placement before I decide finally.

The turnaround time on this is VERY FAST.  I’ll share more when it’s done.

It’s so bright and cheerful it makes me smile….

WOYWW 146 – arty play

Time for another WOYWW hop around the net!

I’m having a bit of a play date with my waxed paper.  I had a few ideas I wanted to test out.  But first a bit of a play with modelling paste.

I tried mixing the paste with spray ink, and it worked.  The stencil I used was quite thin, perhaps too thin,  as the paste, which wasn’t actually super runny even with the ink added, drifted under the edges.  Fine for a very arty application but not if you want it really precise.

Now the waxed paper.  I thought I might be able to iron on the wax (using the traditional resist technique often seen with Distress Ink over it) onto paper painted with acrylic paint.  Worked a treat. I used a brayer to apply the paint, which gave it a super smooth finish and the thin coating dried fairly quickly.

I crumpled the waxed paper then opened it out and ironed the wax onto the surface.  Then it got a spritz of spray ink and that got daubed with a baby wipe.  You can just about see the two-tone colouring here in the lower right.

Maybe better here?

Then similar, ironing the wax onto a plain bit of white card, and again, spray ink over it.  Love this one.

I have a few more ideas that I will be testing out – one of them may very well appear on Monday for the Ace of Diamonds, my last in the suit of my BIG CARD project.

So that is what I am playing with today.  As you can see in the first photo my “desk” is till my small folding table. At the moment my actual desk is covered with stuff that I haven’t had the time to tidy away as I try to sort out my computer issues.  Now that DH is seriously unwell with some nasty virus, it looks like I may have to wait a little longer for my upgrade, and hopefully an eventual resolution to my issues. Poo.

Be sure to stop of at Julia’s to see the whole linky list of worldwide workdesks.  You will be inspired for sure!

 

BIG CARDS – 2 of Diamonds

I have one corner of the binding of my quilt to finish but that will have to wait till tomorrow. Today, I am carrying on with my BIG CARD project.  This is the Two of Diamonds.

A couple of interesting things today.  I was intrigued by the effect of the metallic paint when combined with spray inks last week.  I didn’t think the ink and surgical spirit dripping was what I wanted for this card, but I knew I wanted to lay more with the resist effect.  I first embossed the strip of cardstock, using a dotty Sizzix folder.

After that, I painted the entire thing with metallic silver.  I made sure to get the paint into the lower areas. when it was well and truly dry I sanded the embossing to reveal the white cardstock.

Adding both spritzed and dripped red ink, I smeared that over the whole strip.  The spray ink saturated the raised dots that were revealed by the sanding, but was resisted by the metallic paint. I think it gave a cool effect.

Can you see how the dots are pretty vivid red and the background has a subtle sheen of silver?

I wanted to add a stamped image but I knew the raised areas were going to cause issues and perhaps prevent a clean impression.  But by using a foam stamp and pigment ink, over a soft stamping base (my fave cork tile in a big plastic bag) the foam squished down into the depressions and gave a better image than I hoped for!

To finish off I used my newly powered Cricut (it only took about 6 months to get that new power cord!) and SCAL to cut the word, first in white, which I spritzed and smeared with the same red ink, then in black.  I slightly off-set the letters to give a sort of shadow effect.

And that’s the Two done!  Now only the Ace left and I can move on to playing with black – spades or clubs next? I haven’t decided yet!

My computer issues have expanded to include problems with our mail server, which lives usually quite happily in my parents basement in the USA.  But this weekend it’s been acting up.  The yesterday the internet went down, probably out UK ISP, which has been rubbish since a series of purchases lost Bulldog for us.  And I am STILL having problems with my Mac insisting on verifying every font before it will load a blog for me, so one usual weekly task, compiling BlogBits for UKS, was taking me upwards of 4 HOURS to complete.  That MAY get resolved if I upgrade to a slightly newer OS (one that keeps Appleworks working, but sorts  the ATS Server issue with fonts) but DH tells me that is not as quick to do as I thought, especially if I want to dual-boot after the upgrade and boot both in the OLD OS as well as the new one, just in case there are any problems.  So my life online is severely limited at the moment. I know, I know, I’m just moaning now.  But what else can I do?

To you:  Have a happy, and fully connected Monday!

Sunday-someplace-else (Jen Stark)

Jen Stark does the most amazing paper sculptures.  Just stunning.

In addition, she does fabulous drawings, very doodle-y and colourful:

And her animations, which I have to guess are stop-action visions of her work as it progresses, are short and mesmerizing.  Check them out here.

Some printables I’ve been playing with

I have a few printables that I started, then, for one reason or another, never went further with them.  Either I planned on a fuller set, or I wanted to tweak them in some way.  I tweaked, where needed and decided I’d just throw them out there.  If you like them, feel free to grab them and use them.  The first is a set of boy- and girl-coloured journaling spots.  There is plenty of room inside for the kids to write their own words.  I thought that might be a nice idea.  They cut just shy of 4 x 6 so should work fine for PL book projects.

The pink is a more dusty rose IRL.  You can get that single page PDF here.

Next, another set of journaling blocks with a companion circle to punch with a 2″ circle punch.  But I though I would mention that if you switch the colour setting in your printer to B&W or grayscale (and I know how to do so for MY printer, but no idea how you will need to do it – if you look at the print settings it SHOULD be obvious, under one of the colour management menus) you can get a gray version.  It’s not intensely coloured but if you prefer it to my choice of colours it may be an option for you.

The colour version is a sort of dusty blue and lime.  You can get that PDF here.

I have a few more that are in the same state – just waiting for me to finish them off – a bit like the quilt LOL!  Just need to read up on binding a little bit more then I can call that done.

Have a great Saturday!