Simple kraft-card / Allsorts #217 and Simon Says Wednesday

I've been following the amazing Kristina Werner on YouTube for some time now, and she makes the most beautiful cards that are deceptively simple. I love her style and tried for the first time some of the things she's shown in her videos, like die cutting the actual cardstock, rounded corners and doing dashlines.

Allsorts Challenge for week 217 called for "Kraft It" and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is "anything goes", so here is my combined entry:

I used Ranger Kraft -cardstock and made a 4x5 inch cardbase. The butterfly is die cut with Simon Says exclusive Chrissy butterfly -die (can't add this in the Inlinkz because I have a free account there) and embossed with Couture Creations Intrinsic -embossing folder. One of the little wing ends came off as the embossing folder "ate" it, so I cut both off and you can see the white backing paper I glued on the inside of the card. The embossed pattern is shaded with DI in Victorian Velvet. The paper is from old Basic Grey "Urban Prairie" 6x6 stack and punched with equally old EK border punch. The paper is distressed with Victorian Velvet as well, and the white dashlines are made with my brand spanking new Uni-Ball Signo that everyone raves over. Yeah, it IS a lot better than Sakura Gelly Roller, the ink flows out much smoother. Finally the corners are rounded with the 1/2 inch corner chomper.

Oh s....

Sorry, no project this time, I've been traveling the past week back home in Finland. However, today I went back to my crafty stuffs and took out my brand spanking new Lindy's Stamp Gang -sprays to fill them. I didn't know before I got my first 2 from Simon Says Stamp that they actually don't come filled. This makes sense, it saves a lot in postage, as there's just the necessary pigments in the bottle, and you add water yourself.

HOWEVER. 

That means that you have to pour hot water into the small plastic bottle and then stir in the shimmer, as I could not get it to mix by just shaking the bottle. 

I'm sure you can guess what comes next:

That is half of my Moonshadow Mist on my craft mat. Thankfully I DID have a craft mat, as it holds the liquid on top and I managed to save most of it back into the bottle. 

I'll leave you with a picture from my visit to my grandparents. I'll try to calm down by looking at the scenery.

12 tags of 2013 - July

July's tag with Tim Holtz is an American independence-themed one, so my interpretation is somewhat different of the original.

I don't have any size 8 manila tags, so last time I cut my tag from heavy watercolor paper. However, the brayer technique used this month required a smooth surface, as my first try ended up really blotchy because of the surface structure of the watercolor paper. I cut my final tag from Fabriano Tecnico 6 240 g/m2 technical drawing paper, which has a surface structure very similar to that of the manila tags, as far as I could determine.

I don't really own that many stains, actually just 2 - Vintage Photo and Antiqued Bronze. I made some tests with using my Distress reinkers, and I ended up doing the front side of my tag with Vintage Photo stain and Tattered Rose reinker (forgot to take a photo before I started distressing the edges):

Just like last time, what became the back of my tag was the first try. Antiqued Bronze with the Tattered Rose. This was too light combination in my opinion. I ended up blotting the leftovers of the Vintage Photo stain from my craft mat here:

As my diecuts I used the wings from the Heart Wings - Bigz die and the middle sized gear from the Gadget Gears -Bigz die, all cut from Tim's grunge board. First I gessoed all the diecuts white, since I used clear crackle paint and didn't want the grey of the grunge board to be my underlining color. After the clear crackle paint had dried, I stained the wings with the Antiqued Bronze and the cog with both, Vintage Photo and Antiqued Bronze. I shaded the edges with diverse brown DIs.

Then the fun part! Diverse stamping on the background with Archival Coffee and the Visible Image Grunge polka dot -pattern in Rusty Hinge Distress ink. The edges are distressed in Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain.

I used black and white polka dot -washitape and then ripped a banner from French Industrial 12x12 leftovers that were laying on my table and distressed it with Rusty Hinge. The "flight" is a Chitchat-sticker distressed with Walnut Stain. I tried some charms to the top of the tag like Tim did in his original, but the background in itself is so busy it didn't really look good.

The furries / Karvakaverit

Recently I've only been posting craft-related things, but here's a couple of furry-pics too... I've gotten too accustomed to using my phone for taking photos of the boys, so I very rarely take out my Canon for them. 

Viime aikoina on tullut postailtua vain askartelu/käsityökuvia, joten tässäpä pari karvakuvaa sekaan. Tulee nykyään nuo tilannekuvat otettua useammin kännykällä, eikä tuo parempi kamera ole niin usein käden ulottuvilla.

Boyd has never in his life liked rubber or plastic toys. He loves the ones that squeak, but hates to bite on the rubber. However, Ike doesn't care one way or the other, as long as it squeaks. Ike got a new rubber hedgehog on Saturday and suddenly Boyd figured he would love it too. So he stole the ting and managed to break the squeaky! That's usually Ike's job. On the background our top mattress, which suffered from a dog pee -related accident. We are still unsure how that happened as the dogs don't really get to roam free in the bedroom.

Boyd ei ole ikänään tykännyt kumi- tai muovileluista. Vinkulelut ovat kivoja, mutta kumin pureminen on sen mielestä ikävää. Ikelle ei ole väliä materiaalilla, kunhan tavara vinkuu. Ike sai lauantaina uuden kumisen vinkusiilin, ja yhtäkkiä Boyd päätti rakastua siihen myös. Boyd varasti koko lelun itselleen ja onnistui rikkomaan vingun alta aikayksikön. Se on yleensä Iken hommia... Taustalla kuivuu meidän petari, joka koki koiranpissa-onnettomuuden. Ei me kyllä vieläkään ymmärretä missä välissä sille ehdittiin kusasta, kun koirilla ei ole vapaata pääsyä makkariin.

Mojo Monday #300

Another Mojo Monday-challenge, this time an even 300.

I hadn't played with my lovely KaiserCraft Sears & Son -clear stamp set yet, so here was a great opportunity! I stamped the old automobile on watercolor paper with black Versafine and distressed the edges with Rusty hinge and Vintage photo. The papers are from Tim Holtz 12x12 French Industrial stack and from 7 Gypsies Off The Wall 6x6 stack. Added a movers & shapers mustache cut from left over Core'dinations and a gear from the Sprocket gears collection.