Brayer with Plastic Wrap, aka Baraba Gray! Oriental Butterfly Swap

{Full post on illuminated work, click link here - thank you so much!}

 Hullo everyone - well some inky mess here today! Oo YUM!
Quite a few weeks back here, Maggie Silvercrafter, was talking of Barbara Gray's method of Brayer Ink with Cling wrap, and she kindly sent the summary of it to me - so here is my take on it!! I have also found out from Arty Andrea on WOYWW there is Create and Craft TV Classroom which you can watch and here is the post with this method on it:
http://www.createandcraft.tv/in-the-classroom-lesson-10.aspx

You need good quality Gloss card like Glosskote or SU Glossy card, brayer and good brayer alcohol ink eg Adirondack etc (and it does not need perfect brayering as you can see below).

Step 1: I brayered on some Big and Juicy Hydangrea -colours from either end

Step 2: Spritz with tad of Diamond Dust Glimmer mist - not added on Barbara's design.

Step 3: Take a length of cling or plastic wrap, crumple up, uncrumple - spray inside of plastic wrap with light water spray, crinkle again. Then roughly untangle it and stretch it out wet side down. Lay over the shiny brayered card, pressing to desired shape.

Step 4: When happy with pattern leave them aside to dry overnight or however long it takes.
Once inky cardstock underneath is dry, remove plastic cling wrap to reveal the surprise, oooh!

Step 5: Hey presto! all different sorts of sheets some of them I used glimmermist and some did not - and like both. {Frugal me, saved the cling wrap for future use, and have used it again when ran out of the colured card}

Made four  of these the same, for Butterfly Swap with OSA (Oriental Stamp Art).

Here it is made up with some lovely washi paper bought with in Manchester at Paperchase (thanks Neet). Stamped in Ranger Archival Jet black with Art Neko Stamps - Shaft of Grain - this gorgeous, finely detailed stamp is on sale $1! and the Signature Chop, on sale too. Added the three wee butterflies from "Wildflower Sprigs" by Stampendous (clear stamps), with a Spellbinder Butterfly in same card stock, and inked up with black with in embossed die. These were made, and photographed about two weeks ago before event in PS below.

Well, thanks so much everyone for popping over for peek and chat.. and may God bless your day wherever you may be..  Shaz in Oz.x

P.S. For those wondering about that problem tooth it is G.O.N.E, after five infections :)

 I am currently recovering from the troublesome thing. 
Thanks so much for all your prayers. I know it was miracle when was seeing the Dental surgeon one day, and having it out the next with day surgery - usually have to wait months for such things!! God is merciful indeed. 
Thank you SO much, dear kind bloggers in blogland, for your kind thoughts and most of all your prayers.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Frosted Designs; Be bold. (Bold colours & patterns - Thurs 28/2)

Oldie but a Goodie. Bright colour (Wednesday 5/3)

Alphabet Challenge: Anything with Wings (Friday 1/3)

All Sorts: Things with wings. (Sat 23/2)

Created with Love: Things that Fly. ( Mon 25th)    

Stampscapes ~ More Lakes for Finland!

Hullo there every one!
Way back here on this WOYWW post - see here, I showed you the beginning of this Stampscapes card ( stamps are - Lakeside Cabin small 147F, Gulls 302A, Reeds 067B). 

Sunset is with brayer work and Stampscapes images ~ done with the colours of Adirondack that Sandy Hulsart used on her You-tube video (now deleted), to see how it is done see my video at the bottom of this post.(inks are Purple Twilight, Mountain Rose and Peach Bellini)

Also I showed how made the framed corners, on this WOYWW post HERE, with Fleur De Lis square Spellbinders in black card, cut largest die and then separated into four.

The embossing folder is supposedly called "Ripples" (but not found anywhere online, so no idea really - any ideas out there?).  
{Edit added: -  is called Japanese Scales and based on a typical Japanese pattern - thanks Anne :D, sending big blog hugs, see in comments!}

I bought it on eBay, it was listed as "Ripples". I didn't know it hadn't a cover and thus proper name on it (it had it in tiny print on eBay listing) - I really like to have them. It has Cuttlebug stamped on it, nought else.
Printed the greeting first of all on the computer

I extended the embossing as usual, and double scored at base of embossing. 

Coloured edge of purple card to match with the Purple Twilight, as had none to match it.
I would like to enter it in the following challenges (apart from Di's above):
1. Charisma Cards Challenges  -  Clean and Simple
2. Cards Galore Challenges - Anything Goes!
3. Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Favourite things.
Spending time with family and friends is definitely a favourite thing; to be in this place (see below) was rather a dream. Plus adore this Stampscape image it is favourite stamp as my blog posts show shows!!

This card is a thank you to send to the folks in Finland. My family and I stayed with on a visit there. They're great friends of family and the time chosen to catch up happened to be while I was over.
SOOOO they took me over as a great BIG surprise!
I found out the night before we were to fly out to Helsinki to stay with them on the lake (hence the Lakeside card). We arrived at midnight their time (think it is two or three hours behind UK) and it was like a magic place as there was still snow on the ground in parts. That seemed too incredibly exciting to me! God was very good to me and my family were incredibly kind, as were the folks with whom we stayed!
I will share you a few of the magic shots of God's glorious creation down below, so you can see how beautiful it was - this was mid April and first day was 7C max but second day was 15C, and so lovely!  
They made us so welcome - I loved it.

This was the only fish caught that day, when Rob and Bastion went fishing! they had me tricked - I thought it was a fish till they landed it! yes, the water was still partly icy...but melting.

Some flowers on my walk- aren't they beautiful?? it was spring time :D

Sun setting on the lake, one of the 188,000 in Finland - near  Vihti.

And the night sky!! WOW - I finally saw a decent night sky.

Here in Oz, we are so very blessed to see these awesome starry nights all the time.. so sparkly and bright compared to yours in UK. 
However up to this point had seen some only one night in Manchester - that was in three visits of five weeks per visit!

Such and awesome time - wont say how many photos I took, but show just a few!! my first trip photos, apart from WOYWW ones are over here!!

Thanks so much for popping over for a peek and chat, and may God bless your day wherever you may be!

Shaz in Oz.x 
PS. I want to welcome my latest Wonderful Encourager, Aussie Annie, see her blog here! Annie, thank  YOU so very much for encouraging me and making my day! :D
PPS. Oh and Di, card was made pre-op in case you think these are super quickly recovered eyes :D and post done mostly before too..

To see how I made the background for this card, you can see it here:

Great ideas, WOYWW + Christmas Card Challenges - Recycled + Anything Goes!

Hullo there everyone - well nothing much to show you this week as it was cleaned up - I have done things, but cant show them. However there are heaps more interesting desks on our exciting learning time at the neatest blog hop around - join us over at Julia's Stamping Ground!

Hoping to make up for my desk, I am to share some great ideas I have just seen .. just back from my friends blog - Jocelyn of Instead of Ironing blog and do take a look at her card over at her amazing blog and the great idea for stars with glitz that does not fall off!! the mind boggles at the ideas this can lead too... tone on tone, etc.

Next is paper storage!

Any crafter out there with a problem in paper storage?
Here is another amazing idea from a fellow blogger who I met some time back. Like me, she is a Christian calligrapher and makes cards so you could say we kinda clicked - here is the link to her blog Crafty Quills or here more specifically.

Now to quote her "Not being able to justify spending £7.95 per acrylic tray I wanted it to be cheap....So, for the princely sum of 71 pence each (per tray) I have my storage." If you want to know what she used - take a peek it is really truly brilliant!

Okay now to share a card or two from last week's WOYWW post as promised (see here).  I have only just managed to photograph some of them, and these are six of them, supposedly the same.

Do you ever make a card exactly the same? I rarely do - as you can see. This is going in the Recycling challenge over at Hazel's Christmascard blog - as the baubles here are all made with recycled wrapping paper (which were baubles on the wrapping paper) - but I adapted it a little! I used the Martha Stewart Pine Branch punch which you can also see on last weeks desk. it had just arrived. I had seen used to great effect on Kittie's blog (Kittie Kraft - see here) - are you familiar with her amazing flowers? and so Kittie kindly helped me to find a place on eBay where I could buy it - talk about one kind lady! Thank you, Kittie!

Anyway I was merrily punching the lovely detailed green leaves out with the punch when  I though how great it would look as a border down the side of the card -so that is how I came to use it that way!

I did make other cards using the punch the way you are supposed to - but will show you those another time. This card has a gift card from my nephew on it - and recycled on this card.

The last card has a recycled greeting and a cut-out from another card on it (one which did not come off)- doubly recycled! It is a little off centre as it was stamped on a piece of paper slightly too small for the Marianne die! So might as well enter these in Hazel’s challenge and this last one in the ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything goes! (Frame is Designables Cut & Emboss Folder 908)

Sorry my desk is super boring but hopefully this will make up for it – and last a pickie of my sister first lily as shown on her desk - she picked it from her garden while I was visiting her last week - amazing beauty in God’s creation? And this is her Maiden hair fern behind it - it is huge. Not that you can really tell from the photo.

Blessings on you all and thanks for all your wonderful comments and a big welcome to all the new Wonderful Encouragers of this blog. A special welcome to some Newbie bloggers - Anne, Marleen, Victoria and Mariette.
Thank you long-time and new ones - you are such an encouragement.

Thanks for taking a peek and chat, and may God bless you where ever you may be,

Shaz in Oz.x