Holiday Card Keeper - Part 3

I hope you are having fun!  I would love to hear from you or see what you are doing if you work on this project!

Day 3

Day Three

We are going to continue our metal embossing today. Today is going to be a tough day. Depending on how much you stamp, there could be a lot of tracing and refining. If you need to, take breaks. Your wrists and hands will thank you for it.

For today, you’ll need to dig out…

• Your aluminum piece from yesterday.
• Stamps, any of your favorite images will work. Don’t use ones with words for your first design.
• Staz On or Archival Ink, any color is fine although a dark color is best.
• Paper Stump - or popsicle stick
• Refiner tool – or empty ball point pen
• Ball and Cup tool – or medium sized stylus
• Thin Mat - or mouse pad
• Acrylic Mat - or glass cutting mat
• Small Wheel Tool – I use the ones by Ten Seconds Studio but Merc Art makes some and there are even some that quilters use. This past Halloween we bought a pumpkin carving set and it had a wheel tool in it that will work too!
• Lightweight Spackle

 Choose your stamp set and let’s start inking…

REMEMBER!  When stamping on metal, use only a hard surface under your metal.

Choose the placement of your stamps and on the back of the metal, with just the acrylic (smooth cutting mat) underneath your metal, stamp your images. I used Staz On ink for this.

Complete your design. If you make a mistake or decide that you put in one too many trees or snowflakes, no worries! You can either ignore it or you can ‘erase it’ with a little blending solution or rubbing alcohol on a paper towel. Remember this is all done on the BACK of the metal. You won’t see this part in the end. 

On the thin mat (mouse pad) with the refiner (ball point pen), place the waxed paper over the stamped on metal (this is optional) and trace the stamped lines. Be careful with close lines; remember you don’t want to ‘blur’ the lines. If you can leave out some lines on your image and keep the basic design, I would recommend for your first try. You can always add more detail in later if needed.

Once you have completely traced all of the stamped images, flip over your metal and place on just the acrylic mat (smooth cutting mat) and refine all your edges. This might take a while. Be patient!

If you have some areas that have a lot of details, such as the trees in the above photo, consider just tracing the outside lines. The when you are on the front of the metal refining, add in some squiggly lines. The lines will be slightly debossed in to the metal, but it’ll add a little bit of texture to your design.

On the acrylic mat (smooth cutting mat), take your paper stump (or popsicle stick) and on the front of the metal flatten any areas that are slightly puffy. You’ll add some dimension to just the area you want after this step.

On the back of the metal, place a thin mat (mouse pad) under the metal and select a few areas to ‘puff’ the metal. You’re just going to rub over a small area and stretch the metal outward.

Above is a photo of the ‘puffed’ area. You can see it’s slightly raised from the other metal surrounding it.

Let’s add a little bit more detail to your work. If you own a wheel tool, run the tool over the metal with the thin mat (mouse pad) under the metal. I did this on the front side of the metal. In my design, I only ran the wheel on the bottom – to look like a road, but feel free to use as you need for your own design.


Now we need to protect our embossed design from being flattened by normal use.

I use a cheap Lightweight Spackle and an old gift card.

It might take a little bit of scraping but slather on your spackle and then scrape off any extra. It's easiest to remove any spackle that's onyour gift card before cleaning up the metal.  Spackle likes to attach itself to itself so if your gift card is scraped it will work better.

When you are done, you should see mostly metal but you need to make sure that the puffed areas are mostly filled in.  The piece above is still not completely done.  You should make sure that any excess spackle is removed - even if you use your fingers to do it.  The better your spackling job on the back, the better the finished piece will look!


Let the spackle dry completely. Tomorrow we will finish up with some painting!

Holiday Card Keeper - Part 2

Thanks for coming back!

Here's day two of the Holiday Card Keeper:

Today we are going to get started on our metal embossing! For today, you’ll need to dig out…


 Your aluminum metal. This can be a piece of 36-40 gauge metal from Amaco, Merc Art, Ten Seconds Studio or you can even use a disposable top to an aluminum party pan.

 Tracing paper or words printed backwards.

 Paper Stump - or popsicle stick

 Refiner tool – or empty ball point pen

 Ball and Cup tool – or medium sized stylus

 Thin Mat - or mouse pad

 Acrylic Mat - or glass cutting mat

Here’s a few photos for reference…

Holiday Card Keeper - Part 1

Welcome Back! 

Today I'm starting a three part/day blog post.  I'm hosting a FREE blog presentation on how to make a Holiday Card Keeper.  You can view the Supply List for what you'll need the next three days here.

If you have any questions, post them as a comment and I'll answer them in another post for everyone to see.

Enjoy!

Supply List for today: **

• Box with lid – I’m using a cigar box, it measures 8 ¼ x 7 ¾ x 3, any paper Mache box will work too.
• Holiday papers
• Gel Medium, Mod Podge or other favorite wet adhesive
• Paints with Brushes, I’m using the new Claudine Paints by Ranger but any acrylic paints will do.
• Sand Paper and Sanding Block
• Aluminum Metal Foil – about 36-40 gauges will work well.

**See my tips in yesterday's post.

I’m working with a cigar box as my card keeper. Any paper mache box will do and use your imagination, you don’t have to make a card keeper either. A journal, a clock, a photo frame, almost anything can be covered in metal.

Today we are going to prep our Cigar box.  I used Gesso to cover the wood grain look on my box. If you are using a paper mache box, you may not need this step.

Once completely dry, I sanded off an area that was bumpy. You’ll want to make sure that the top part of your box, the area that’s going to have the metal embossing on it is as flat as you can get it. If you have bumps, it might show through on your metal when you lay it down.

Once the outside was dry, I painted the inside edges. I’m going to place Holiday paper in the top recess and the bottom recess but I need to paint the edges first. I painted the flat edge and the inside edge of the inside of the box. I used Ranger's Studio Paint in Sable Brown. It’s nice and creamy and thick. Any acrylic paint will do for this step. The key is to cover completely any areas you want covered. Some paints will take several coats. Before painting the bottom, I did remove some cedar planks that were fitted into the box. Your box may or may not have these. Removing them is your choice as well.

I painted the inside edge of the bottom with Ranger's Studio Paint in Modern Red. Once dry, I measured my inside edges and cut some Holiday paper to cover the top and bottom edges.

I used the Studio Multi-medium in Matte to ‘glue’ the paper to the top and the bottom and then I also used it as a glaze over the paper. I did have a few bubbles in my project but I’m happy to say, when they dried, they dried flat. The key is to add thin layers of multi medium.

*Not pictured, I painted the top lid of the box the same Modern red and I added Holiday papers to the bottom outside edge. I adhered the paper with the Multi Medium and I then added a thin layer of multi medium over the paper too.

I used one of the left over cedar planks to keep propped open. I left this to dry overnight.


Tomorrow, we’ll emboss our metal. I used a piece of aluminum metal that just fit the top of my cigar box…

While I used a piece of Copper colored Art Metal from 10 Seconds Studio as well as their tools, remember you can use a top to a large disposable aluminum party pan and some basic supplies you might have at home. Here’s a photo for reference…

That’s a cutting mat, a disposable aluminum pan cover, a mouse pad, several stylus’ and an empty ball point pen.

A new tutorial! - Colored Spackle

OK, so I came up with this idea last year and I've used it a couple of times on some projects. I created it out of necessity, isn't that the Mother of invention!! See I wanted to create an album from the Maya Road Sheers and I wanted to accent it with some metal - of course! But if you know anything about metal, you know that when you emboss it, you should fill it with spackle. And then when you fill with spackle, you can't then just use it on the Sheers album, you'd see white spackle on the back. Yuck!

So, here's my solution...

Run your piece of metal through the Cuttlebug, using an embossing folder.

When it's done, the piece of metal will look like this. Pretty, huh! By the way this is Rock Star Black 40 gauge metal from Ten Seconds Studios.

When I'm using the Cuttlebug Folders, I like to sand the metal right on the folder itself. This will help keep the design rigid so that you don't sand the open areas of the design accidentally.

After Sanding, you want to be sure you wipe off the sanded dust. I use a cotton cloth - the infamous 'inky binkie', a term coined by Tim Holtz when I attended Ranger University.

Flip the metal over and spackle the back. Remember, spackle likes to attach to itself, so slather on a good amount, then wipe off the plastic scraper so you don't continue to 'pick up' more spackle with the spackle on the plastic scraper.

Smooth it out and clean up the spackle. It takes some practice but if you have a flexible enough scraper and some smooth spackle (always cover when not in use), you can achieve a perfect spackle job. What you want is to be able to see the image clearly. Just like above.

Now... let your spackle completely dry!!!

And then....

Here's the key ingredient. Colorwash. Or glimmer Mist. Or Memory Mist or any other kind of spray mist you can spray. The reason behind the spray is two-fold. One, it's not going to rewet the spackle too much. And two, you're not rubbing the spackle.


You can add a little or a lot - depending on what color you'd like to achieve!

Then with a cloth, wipe the colorwash off in a horizontal motion. Almost the same way you'd sand the metal, you want to remove the colorwash. You'll notice a few things happen. One, if you had any spackle on the metal that wasn't in the design, the colorwash will wet it enough that it's removed pretty easily. And, if you wipe cleanly you'll see that it creates a pretty mirror like finish. Now, remember! Do NOT wipe hard. Gently remove the excess colorwash. The spackle will be slightly damp and you could easily put a dent into it or pop it out if you are too rough with it. But if done correctly, you can easily achieve this next look...

Nice, huh!

Let this dry and you're ready for your project!

Add some Humungo (or red line) adhesive. The beauty of this adhesive is that it's crystal clear! So not only is it the stickiest stuff on earth, it's clear as well so you can use this technique and see the beautiful coloring job you did underneath!

Here you can see I've attached the piece to a piece of a Maya Road Sheer Album. The Sheer Album has a slight color to it, so it's obvious to say it's not as vibrant and as mirror like as it would be if you used it on a clear acrylic album but for the project I've created, this is the look I'm aiming for.

So, I hope you enjoyed today's new technique. I'd love to hear what you think about it. And if you use it, please let me know and tell people where you saw it!

Enjoy!

Coloring in that Ten Seconds Technique...

I'm usually much better at posting. Only twice in 2 weeks isn't my style. I've been busy here but it's mostly family stuff this week. My Sister is getting married next week and I'm matron of honor so later today, I learn to bustle the dress. But for now, I thought I'd show you some up close pictures of the Ten Seconds Technique that I colored in...

This is a top to the box I created here. But I really wanted to show some more details. The "Secret Treasures" I spelled out was just sanded using a sanding block. ~I've been buying my Lucky Squirrel Sanding blocks through my friend who sells TAC (The Angel Company) but I understand that now you can get them directly through Ten Seconds Studio. YAH!! While these sanding blocks last quite a while, it's always best (IMHO) to use a fresh one with the Pearl or Pink Metal. Especially the Pearl. I've noticed that using a dirty sanding block on it stains the Pearl a bit. So keep your Pearl fresh and use a clean side of the block!

Anyhow, you can see that I just sanded the letters to Secret Treasures. The Leaves and Rose were lightly sanded as well. Once I was done with the leaves, I went over them lightly with some Oregano Alcohol Ink by Ranger.

Here's what I did... I squirted a small amount of Oregano Alcohol Ink out on my Craft Mat. Then I used my H2O pen with the Ranger Blending Solution inside and I picked up some alcohol ink with the tip of the pen and brush it on. If you go lightly, you can prevent the alcohol ink from picking up the metal color (as you may have seen in the Ten Seconds Studio video).

Something to remember... if you are starting to pick up the metal color and you don't want to... STOP! and let it dry. The metal color will dry in the place you left it and then you can resume adding or taking away more alcohol ink.

Here's another tip... the wetter your H2o pen tip is with blending solution the easier it's going to be to remove the metal color. Keep it nice and juicy if you are looking to create a mirror like finish by wiping it away or keep it only slightly damp if you are coloring in with alcohol inks.

You'll notice on the leaves there's still some brown metal and it's got a nice feathery effect. I LOVE how the vein of the leaves stayed brown. This is AWESOME with leaves! Now here's a closer picture of the rose...

By the way, all these designs were using the new Kabukas from Ten Seconds Studio.

The Rose was sanded lightly but, well you can't really get into the inside of the Rose and I didn't want a brown rose on my beautiful box, so I used the H2O Pen filled with Ranger's Blending Solution and really filled the inside of the rose with solution so I could wipe away the brown color. I left whatever brown color stayed in there. You can see under the color the brown still hanging on. I thought it left a little bit of character to to the rose, especially the leaves of the rose.

I first used Wild Plum alcohol ink on my rose and decided it wasn't the right choice, so I filled in the middle with some Red Pepper Alcohol ink and blended it with the Wild Plum. I really like the results. A little 3 dimensional flower! All I need now was to add some scent. (Don't worry, I didn't!).

So while you are wiating for those Alcohol Ink pens to ship to your Local Scrapbook/Paper Arts Store, give this a try with your handy dandy H2O pen.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I have a tutorial for all of you! A beautiful Valentine's Card, with some metal of course!

Ten Seconds Tutorial

OK, this technique literally takes Ten Seconds to do! I've been experimenting with the metal and came up with this cool technique. I taught it in my class last Friday and they loved it! So, here you go...

Here are the supplies you'll need...

I cut my metal using a regular paper trimmer, then I used a paper stump, the large refiner, Kabuka Number 1, Acrylic Mat and thin Mat, Plum Metal, Sanding Block, Inky Binky (or paper towels) and an H2O pen filled with Ranger's Blending Solution.

Rub the design of the Kabuka out on the metal using the paper stump...

Then refine, if you'd like:


Sanding is optional for this technique too...

So this is what it looks like before the actual technique...

Very nice. But let's add a little more contrast, huh?!

Grab your H2O Brush Pen and add blending solution. If you add Blending Solution to a pen, be sure to clearly mark it that way. You won't be able to use it for water again, small quantities of blending solution will always remain in the pen.

OK, here's the Ten Second Technique! Once you get the blending solution running in the pen (just squeeze it), rub it over a colored portion of the metal...



Then rub the area with the Inky Binky (or paper towel)...


And Viola!

Take a look, it comes right off!



Now, just think about the possibilities...

You can get into those recessed areas or even create a nice smooth mirror-like finish. You can even take some of the color, swirl it around and let it dry. This creates a nice patterned look!

Remember, if your H2O pen gets colorful, run it off on the paper towel to clean it. The H2O pen is nice because it's got a nice thin point to get into some of the smaller areas.

So here's a look at the project after the technique...

And a closer look...

Isn't that nice! A nice glossy finish with a hint of color and some shading created by the original sanding.

Now, take a look at this card I created for an upcoming class... Can you see where I used this technique?


So, if you try it, I'd love to see what you came up with. Don't worry, it'll only take you 10 Seconds!

Stencil Tutorial!

First, let me say that I had a wonderful class tonight at Blue Hills. I met some wonderful women and their wooden keys all came out wonderfully. I believe they are all hooked on metal now! (maybe there should be a support group!) Our next meeting is next month where they are going to cover a Maya Road chipboard journal. Thanks ladies, for a great class. I'm so happy that you all had fun.

Now, I had a couple people ask me about the card in the previous post. So I decided a tutorial was in order. I've tried uploading it as a slide show. I hope it works...

Let me tell you what I used... RockStar Black Metal, Dream Weaver Naked Tree Stencil, Cuttlebug, Spellbinder Charm Mat Set, Sanding Block, Humungo Adhesive, Inky Binky (or paper towel), alcohol ink applicator, ginger applicator, cardstock, distress ink.

If you have any questions about this tutorial, let me know. And let me know if you try it. I'd love to see what you did!