Time Workshop/Tutorial Part 1 - Shrink Plastic Cogs/Gears

I'm going to work through all the individual elements for the card first.  As I said in my intro post, there are lots of different elements/techniques to get through.  There will be wrong bits, flaws, confessions and some don't do this' along the way, I'm just warning you now not to expect total perfection! 

The card is actually for Ian, The Stamp Man's birthday, of course he's already seen it but there you go.  It's an apt theme for me as I'm alway late, especially with cards for the family (yes Mum!!).  For once this one is early, I may just give it to him late so he won't have any surprises!

Anyway, the photo above shows a selection of just some cogs/gears I made for the card (there's more on cogs/gears another time though).  I have used Tim's new Gears Alteration Sissix die to make  them.  Some that are shown here are made from card and some with shrink plastic.  I'll talk about the card ones another time.

The cogs/gears are quite large, so as well as using them as they are, they are perfect for using  with shrink plastic.

Materials
White, frosted and black Shrink Plastic
Sanding block
Brilliance ink - Starlight Silver
Tim Holtz Gadget Gears

I thought I'd make a start on a fun bit first, I LOVE shrink plastic!  Firstly, I'll mention sizes, (which are approximate), the frosted piece is the smallest cog unshrunk 4cms or 1 1/2", the black has been shrunk and is 1.5cms or 1/2".  I haven't coloured or messed with these at all, I wanted them raw so they are just cut out and shrunk.

The next 2 are the large size, the frosted one is unshrunk and is approx.  3" or 8cms, the shrunk piece is 1 1/4" or 3cms

The medium size is 2 1/4" or 6cms unshrunk or 1 1/4" or 3mm. When shrunk 3/4" or  2cms

I gave the black shrink plastic a light sanding then covered it completely with ink from a Brilliance Starlight Silver ink pad (picture above). 

Brilliance ink becomes permanent when heated so is an ideal ink to use on shrink plastic.  It is a pearlescent ink and gives a lovely galvanised metal effect, especially on the frosted shrink plastic (picture below).

I left some pieces just as they are

These are the completed pieces. I'll be explaining more about shrink plastic in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

I hope you have a Happy Easter weekend!

Jill

AOD 63 Alluring Ladies with Brilliance ink

How different does this card look to yesterdays.  I used purple and lavender Brilliance ink this time. 

I randomly stamped the circle border design and all of the different individual circles to create the background.  Of course I also had to add some bling!

We are off to Harrogate tomorrow to set up ready for the GNPE show at the showground on Saturday.  If you are visiting the show, please come and say hello.  I'll be the one with the messy hands!!

Jill

More Nestie shrink plastic

Just a quick post today with more Nestie Shrink Plastic from last Monday's telly show used with a scalloped oval card mount.  This time I stamped the flower (from Kay's Funky Flowers stamp sheet) with black Archival ink over the white Brilliance flourish background on the shrink plastic.  I left it to dry before colouring with the Sakura stardust pens.

I ran the pink vellum through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss dots folder, which cracked the vellum to create white dots.  A few paper flowers and ribbon have been added as finishing touches.

New blog look and more Nestie Shrink Plastic

Another card with a shrink plastic button along with a large piece that I used as a platform/mount for paper flowers.

I decided to have a play yesterday evening and decorate my blog page.  I may have another play and change it.  What do you think so far?  or, do you like it as it is? 

When I started my blog I didn't really know what to do for decoration so just left it. 

Tracey having started her new blog has spured me on to have a play with it.  I did try to help Tracey with her new blog and managed to loose her lovely background so I thought I needed to learn a little more about it myself!!

Talking of Tracey, she is working on new stamp designs to add to the ones we already have in hand but she has asked if there are any stamp designs you would like to her to draw.  Do pop over to her new blog with any suggestions you have.

Jill

Shrink plastic buttons from last Monday's show

Same basic idea and instructions as the previous 2 cards but on this one I made use of some of the Shrink Plastic scraps to make buttons, well you can't waste it can you? So use your punches or nesties to make them. If the buttons are for embellishments, so what if they are square, triangle, octagonal or oval!

I meant to mention this before, you may find that you get little shreads of plastic around the edges when you cut a shape with a punch or die cutting machine. That was what I was doing on the show when I stood there sanding the edges, but didn't explain. When I watched the show back I saw it was still a bit tatty, but Shrink Plastic is very forgiving though and it does hide a lot of imperfections when shrunk. If you do have a sanding block then it doesn't hurt to tidy it up a little.

Since the show I have been asked which colour Shrink Plastic I used, it was translucent.

Stamp the swirl stamps onto the Shrink Plastic with white Briliance ink for a nice elegant look then use an office hole punch size to make the holes (1/4"). Using anything smaller will make it difficult to thread ribbon, threads or cord through, and life's too short to spend 1/2 an hour threading ribbon!

Of course, you can stamp in any colour for the buttons that will match your project, just remember they will be darker once shrunk, so don't apply too much colour. If I want to make a coloured background to simply stamp over, I wipe the pad, direct-to-shrink style, then wipe a lot of the ink off with tissue before I stamp on it, it really needs to be very pale.  You may wish to try just sponging a little ink here and there on.

For this button I doubled up the ribbon, tied a knot at the fold, then threaded each end through the button holes to the back. I fixed the ends inside the card. It makes a nice knot with no loose ends.

Again I was Cuttlebug obsessed on the show, I just love the white embossed effect, has had me hooked for years, but it is SO much easier to do than dry embossing using a stencil and takes the blandness away from a plain piece of card.

This wasn't one of my favourite cards I made for the show, it was one of the last I got together and why I stuck that bow on I'll never know!

Anyhow, I can't hide it as it does show how you can use a Shrink Plastic button or in fact any button. Maybe if I make the picture of the button big, and the picture of the card small, you won't notice how bad it is.

I decided it is about time I decorated the blog, I hope you like the changes.

I think I've waffled on enough, thanks again for reading!

Jill

Shrink Plastic platform card with Nestabilities

Same idea as yesterday for this card. I stamped the flourish design onto pale blue vellum with white Brilliance ink and left it to dry.

I stamped the same flourish onto a large scalloped edge square of translucent shrink plastic that I cut with a Nestability and shrunk it straightaway, no need to wait for it to dry.

The largest dragonfly on Kay's Funky Frames stamp sheet was stamped with black archival ink onto another piece of shrink plastic that had been cut from a large label Nestability.

I edged the piece with the black ink so that there would be a contrast between the dragonfly piece and the scalloped platform.

I left it to dry for 30 minutes before colouring with Sakura stardust pens as I explained on yesterday's card.

I shrank it down and glued it onto the platform.

Remember not to panic when shrinking!!

Jill Boulton held a workshop with us here today, but I didn't get to play:(   In amongst serving customers, I must have made quite a lot of cups of tea and coffee, dozens I think, plus Ian and I made a start getting product samples decided and together for a new live show we are doing on Create and Craft TV on 28th November (12pm).

We have been asked to go back to film another show with Tracey's stamps that featured at the beginning of last month. We will have different accessories this time so I made up the envelopes today for the new design team members to have a play. Quite a challenge for them as there isn't much time and again, there are restrictions on what we can use.

So no chance to take a breather at the moment, it's straight onto the next show. Somewhere in between I really must start my Christmas cards!  I have ideas in my head that keep changing so by the time I get to actually make them I'm hoping I'll have decided what I'm finally doing!

The ladies at today's workshop used a variety of Ranger products, distress inks, cut 'n dry foam, grunge paper, alcohol inks, acrylic dabbers and this afternoon metal embossing with Walnut Hollow products.

The Cuttlebug came in handy on and off all day and last thing this afternoon I poked my nose in with something to try, embossing the Moonglow filigrees onto metal and then working on them with tools. I'd tried it in the week but hadn't made a note of the order for the sandwich, and it proved illogical to figure out again! But we got there in the end and they looked good. Another thing I will show you once I get a chance to make something with them!

Jill

Brilliance ink card from Monday's show

I thought I'd start with this card from Monday's show first. I made it with the Brilliance ink pads featured in the show, I'll explain how it was made shortly, but first a bit about our day.

We normally only get to show 3 demos but on Monday they wanted extras, it caught me out as the floor manager had moved my demo crate to the other end of the set. I had told the producer I could do some demos on the hop if needed, when I looked down my crate wasn't there!

I always try to keep it near me just in case I've forgotten to get something out and only have to reach down, it was way too far down the counter for me to even grab when Joanne was at the other end, so the floor manager came behind us on his hands and knees to grab it back, better him than me, as you'd have probably seen my head bobbing up and down as I went along!! He couldn't even drag it in case it made a noise so he had to lift and carry it back while still on his knees. That'll teach him to move the guests things too far away from them:)

I hadn't worked with Joanne before but I found her good to work with, she is a lovely lady, I felt she let me talk and get on with it.

We had a meeting at Ideal World before we set off on our journey back home and found that the sign we saw first thing in the day about the A1 north being closed still stood, it was quite foggy in the morning and we thought that it was maybe an accident or fog that would have cleared by the time we headed home, but no, it was completely closed into the afternoon with a huge back log of traffic on the small roads in the diversion (to Newark).

Thank goodness for Sally traffic who said the junction was open so we turned around. The junction wasn't open as stated but we followed the other cars that had listened to Sally and obviously knew an alternative route and hey, we turned up at the next junction to a nice clear road! All was OK until we hit the M62. Sorry, I seem to be getting obsessed with traffic, I'll shut up about it now.... so more about Monday....

I think they were quite taken with this card and Joanne kept going back to it. I wasn't expecting to demo it but it was a nice simple idea and definitely my kind of thing.



In case you missed the show, I applied the Brilliance ink pads direct-to-craft sheet, just randomly using the crimson, ivy, gold and white ink pads (they are all pearlescent inks). I hadn't taken my spray bottle so I had to sacrifice my drinking water by flicking it onto the ink splodges, I did most of that off screen, not a glamorous way to do it, much better to use a spray bottle if you have one!

I then placed my card on top of the inky mess and swished it, lifted it, swished it, lifted it etc, until I was happy with the pattern. You can always add more colour and if you find it is getting a little dark, just apply more of the white. The card I made has more of a pink tone to it than the darker crimson as I had used more white on that piece. I used more gold in the demo, but as I say, it doesn't really matter as you can adjust it.

I stamped over the background with the black archival ink pad when it was dry. I did add some colour to the leaves on the finished card with the Stardust pens and also added the brads to the flower centres so basically a very quick card to make, but it does have a lovely pearlescent finish to it.

I'm not sure if the show will be repeated at the weekend, but if it is I will post the details as soon as I know. I'll show another card from the show tomorrow, it'll be a shrink plastic one, didn't Joanne do well with her first piece of shrink plastic, I think she was really pleased with it. You didn't see us doing it on screen, but we did a high five after it!

Thank you for the comments and messages you have left here or emailed, they are always lovely to receive.

Jill

Shrink Plastic Funky Flowers card

I'm still enjoying using Kay's new stamp sheets, here is another I made recently.

I sanded and coloured translucent shrink plastic using a Brilliance lavender ink pad. I put the ink pad directly onto the shrink plastic (direct to paper style) making random blobs all over. I then worked the ink over the whole sheet lifting some away to leave it fairly pale. As the shade will intensify when shrunk, it needs to be very pale.

I stamped the design using Stazon black ink and then painted the flower with the Brilliance ink that I had pressed onto my non stick sheet, and a detail paint brush. I also used coloured pencils for the leaves, then heated the piece with my heat gun to shrink. Use wooden dowling, or lolly sticks to hold it down as shrink plastic doesn't stick to wood and it is also less likely to spoil the plastic than using tweezers (that can also get very hot). When it looks like it won't shrink anymore, splat it with the back something solid that won't spoil such as an acrylic block. This will give a nice flat finish. If you call into the shop you may see this card, the photo shows the piece quite dark but it is a lot lighter in real life.

I punched out a flower and made 2 holes in it to make it into a button. I shrank the piece completely and while still really hot, I stamped one of Kay's flourish stamps into it with black Stazon ink and attached the ribbon when it was cool. Oh, nearly forgot to mention that I reheated the flower a little after stamping, just enough to make it curl upward to give it dimension.

I stamped over the pre-printed dragonfly background paper with the Brilliance ink pad, then stamped over again randomly with the black Stazon.

I added mauve brads to the corners and added some Magenta mesh style ribbon that I attached to the back before mounting onto a square base card.

I used silicone glue to attach the shrink plastic to the card.

I'll add appropriate words to the card before sending.

Aspects of Design 47 Wedding 1 Stamp Sheet

I thought I'd show you a couple of Wedding cards using one of the two wedding sheets in our collection, I included wording other than the usual Wedding Invitation etc. If you have 100's of invites to make you want to keep it simple so I stamped using Brilliance ink pads and then pulled the colour from the outlines with a waterbrush to create shading.