Reminder: C & C live show today at 12pm (noon)

Yes, yet another reminder about the Create & Craft show today, (Sky 671 and Freeview 36). I do hope you can watch it, we have lovely products on the show as well as Kay's yummy stamps!

Here's a look at the stamp sheets we are using, you'll find them on our website here. Most of the other products used are in their own sections on the website.

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It's been a busy week so I haven't had a chance to find out which cards Karen and Rachel made, but here's the last one, made with Tracey's Classical Instrument stamps and Moonglow pigment powders.Now, three more cards from meI hope this scheduled post works OK! I will be back tomorrow!!

Jill

Classical Instruments and mica pigments

Here's another of the cards I made for the Harrogate show. I used the Outback Moonglow Mica Pigment Powders for the main image, if you would like some instructions for this technique, please click HERE.

The base card has been sprayed with Moonshadow Mist. The side gold panel is a background made with one of the gold Moonshadow Inks which I Cuttlebug'd with the swirl folder. The words are on the same stamp sheet, I just cut them up and mounted them on copper mirri card.

More Nautical combined with Moonglow Pigment Powders

Had a fab day today playing with the French Country Starburst Stains. Also, played with a new idea I tried a few weeks ago that I will share when I have a photo to show. As I've mentioned before my camera is broken so when Debbie comes back from her holiday I'll ask if she can take one to show you. I'm really grateful for her doing this for me, but I know she enjoys photography and believe me her photos are much better than any I can take!

I have another couple of tag books on the go now, that makes 4 unfinished atm, as 2 other books are work in progress too.

Today's nautical card is slightly different from the others shown but another idea for Father's Day. Sorry the photo isn't very good but I hope you get the idea. It appeared in one of our first Create and Craft TV shows (more from The Stamp Man), must be a good 5 or 6 years ago now, how time flies...

I have embossed the image onto black card then painted inside with Moonglow Pigment Powders mixed with a little water. Once dry it has been sprayed with hairspray to seal. Try not to over spray as if too much is sprayed the pigment powders may run.

For the background, the black card was completely covered with a versamark ink (direct to paper style), by putting the pad to the card. I then dusted dry pigment powder all over with a dry brush to make a matching mount. Spray with hairspray to seal. The pigment powder set used is Milky Way and this technique gives another use for the powders that will coordinate with the other techniques.

Oh dear, time to go, Hamish has opened the poppers on his bed and has his head buried inside the cover and is starting to shake his bed all over the place, time to stop this game, of course it's his favourite game at the moment!

More tomorrow...

Jill

What a wonderful gift!

Wow! Look what Debbie made over the weekend!

I set Debbie a bit of a challenge and asked her if she could make something with the Moonglow Mica Pigment Powders, Debbie has the Milky Way set and the blues and purples. These have been used with some of Kay's designs.

I popped over to have a look at her blog yesterday and caught a sneaky peek, I nearly sneaked away so as not to spoil the surprise! But I did stay and left a message.

I was puzzled as to what it could be, it certainly wasn't a card, I expected it to be a card when I set the challenge. It is absolutely fantastic and must have taken hours to make. I bet it WAS very fiddly to make too! To give you an idea of the size, the alcohol ink painted shrink plastic buttons are only about 1" wide, so it is a small box, perhaps 3" tall! The butterflies are attached with acetate and exploded out when I removed the lid, this is certainly an exploding box with a difference!

It really is so pretty and well made. I've asked permission to show it here on The Stamp Man blog too. Isn't blogging wonderful when you can share stuff like this. I'll leave it to Debbie to tell you more about it on her blog Made with Love, the link is on the RHS.

Thank you SO much Debbie!

Jill x

More Moonglow Mica Pigment Powders

Had a great day today, feeling lots better, it was brilliant in fact as I sat and played all day as we held a workshop today with Jill Boulton as teacher, it was nice to be told what to do rather than running the workshop. There were 3 Jills in the class which was unusual! We played with the cuttlebug, spotlight stamping , colouring with bleach, made a puzzle card with alcohol inks (the new lights colours) and decorated a frame with foil and alcohol inks.

I thought you may like to see some other cards made with mica pigment powders so here are more made with Aspects of Design stamps and the Moonglow powders that featured in some of our earlier Create & Craft shows.

Jill x

Moonglow Mica Pigment Cards

I separated the 6 colours in the Outback set into 2 sets, using the lime green, green and blue together and the yellow, rust and browny copper to give a metallic finish. As I mentioned in the instructions, I've reduced the price of this set for a while so you can try it at a good price. Click here to go straight to the page on our website. The other items I have used are available on our website too. Pop over to Debbie's Blog (Made With Love, link on RHS) she has made a beautiful tag with mica powders.

Mica Pigment Powder Instructions

I'm starting with a cold urgh! I've been feeling it coming on all week and I'm battling with my sore throat and woolly head, so been a bad day and I should have just stayed in bed. I have just lost a long email order that will need retyping (thanks BT!) I had printed it out before hitting the send button but it's only printed half a page so I'll have to rethink the whole order again. Rant over, (unless I end up loosing this as well, then I'll really scream!). I'm going to post the cards separately just in case...

OK, here we go with those mica pigment powder instructions I mentioned yesterday. I demonstrated this at a show last weekend, it is not a new technique but one I decided to revisit and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with this technique again, it is very quick to do, so instant gratification! Unfortunately my camera is still broken so I cannot give step by step photos. Thanks to Debbie for taking these.

This is what I used and a few notes to help

Versamark ink pad - it's a nice sticky pad for this technique, a normal embossing pad normally won't work.

Mica Pigment powders - I've used Moonglow The Outback set - I've reduced the price of this set only, (from £19.20 to £10.00) for the time being here if you want to try them.

Black card - also works well on vellum and glossy white paper, but really pops out on black card.

Anti-static pad - (optional) - this will make sure the powder doesn't stick to any marks/fingerprints you may have on the card.

Dry detail paint brush - using a smaller brush to apply the powder will give you more control over where you put the colours, if you want to use just one colour then it is quicker to use a large brush

Soft blusher type brush - to swipe of excess powder

Anti-static cloth - to remove the little bits of powder left on the card. If you don't have one then dry out a baby wipe completely and you will have a nice soft cloth to use.

Cheap hairspray - Moonglow needs a quick squirt to fix it, (Perfect Pearls doesn't need spraying)

Stamps - solid stamps are probably a better choice than thin lined stamps as you get more of an impact of the technique

METHOD
Rub the anti-static bag over the card.

Ink the stamp with Versamark ink and stamp onto the card.

Take a small amount of powder from the jar with the dry detail paint brush and very gently lay it onto the wet image. It needs a very gentle touch as you don't want to smear the ink, I prefer to think of it as gliding over the card, pushing it lightly over the image. Tap any excess on the brush back into the jar and try another colour.

If your brush is too loaded with powder then dot some of the excess on another part of the image.

Once the image is covered, very gently and lightly swipe the blusher type brush over the image to ensure that all the ink is covered and the colours have blended.

Tap off any excess in the bin. I did try saving the excess bits in a tub once and all you end up with is brown, so basically try not to use too much powder when applying it, you really don't need much at all.

Remove any loose bits of mica by again gently passing the anti-static cloth over the card until there are no bits left around the image.

Give the card a short spray with hairspray, you don't need much at all and if you spray too much it makes the colours run.

Allow a few seconds to dry and that's it!