A furry farewell

This is the last DT post I'll be doing for The Crafting Cafe, and I think I have the honour of being the last to post a DT image on The Crafting Cafe blog too! The image and sentiment are from our sponsors this month, Inky Impressions, and I've sized and printed the images onto my favourite coated card stock and coloured in with ProMarkers before cutting to shape and mounting on an 8x8" card, matting onto black card and embellishing with some Deco ribbon.

To all the friends I've got to know along the way, happy crafting, and enjoy The Crafting Cafe as it moves to its new Facebook home. I'm still going to be crafting away elsewhere, and if you wish to, you can follow me at my blog, or at my Facebook page.

TTFN

Neil

Iridescence with ProMarkers

It's a bit of a stretch of the 'Around The World' theme this month, but we're off to the Americas to where the hummingbirds do their amazing flying, hovering and most particularly their colour and iridescence. How to capture that on paper? This image from our sponsors this month, Bugaboo Stamps, needed bright colours, as well as delicate shading, and ProMarkers were my first choice. A light touch with some Star Dust Stickles added the iridescence that I wanted - it also helps to use more than one colour on the plumage.

Pens used:
Sky: Arctic Blue/Pastel Blue
Bird: Lavender (wings), Denim Blue/Turquoise/Bright Green
Flowers: Maroon/Magenta/Hot Pink/Carmine, Gold/Canary
Leaves: Pear Green/Bright Green

The sentiment is a die cut from Craftwork Cards.

Until next time, which will be my last time on this fabulous DT,

Neil

Out of this world!

I think it's the first time I have used our design team images to create a digital project. Our sponsors this month for our 'Flights of Fancy' theme, Dr. Digi's House of Stamps, allow their images (in this case, Moon and Cosmo-nut) to be resized, coloured and adapted as long as any posted projects are no longer in line format - which makes them great for digital work.

I imported the line art into Photoshop and added the colour using the gradient tool (line gradients and radial), overlaid the asteroid texture onto the moon, imported a space image for the background before finally adding the text. Then it was just a case of printing out, chomping the corners and matting onto a 5x7" kraft card and adding the Royal Blue Liquid Pearl dots.

Until next time,

Neil

Chameleons on Noah's Ark

I've used the Noah's Ark image from The Stamping Boutique (our wonderful sponsors this month) for my 'Welcome, Little One' card. The colouring uses my deluxe pack of Chameleon Pens - if you'd like to read my review and recommendations for these 'new' alcohol markers then pop across to my blog. I've used EK Success corner punches to round the corners (half and whole inch) and metallic blue thick card from Conqueror (via Creative Expressions) as my mat. The text is cut from the same card using a Silhouette Cameo (blade setting 5, double cut). Oh, and it's all on an 8" square card that I've also lopped the corners from.

My current favourite technique

To be completely honest, I'm glad I'm not working with my allocated Squigglefly image as it was an 'animal totem pole'. Um... right. It's a shame they are no longer open though :(

So - back to the topic at hand, my favourite technique. It's difficult to pin such a thing down as a mixed media artist, but here's my current one: Chameleon Pens. I've seen loads of comments for and against these newcomers to the alcohol pens, but I have to say I'm smitten. I think they save so much time, and once you've gone through a couple of the online tutorial videos, they are quick to work with. Here's my card for this month, featuring the Cling Vase Bouquet from Stampendous.

Pens used:
PK3 Bubble Gum for the roses
PR4 Purple Grape for rose shading and on tabletop
YG3 Spring Meadow for the leaves and stems
BL3 Sky Blue for the background
Blending Pen
Image stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black.

Lots of layers... must be time to do some decoupage!

'Lots of layers' has a very strong association with decoupage for me, as I'm still getting to grips with how to make a card front heavy with layers without it falling over! The 'BBrat Girl Balloon Sitter' image from our sponsors this month, Bugaboo Digi Stamps, is perfect for creating a layered decoupage. I printed four copies to an A4 sheet of my favourite coated card, and cut out and layered up each part of the image based on the foreground/background position of each element. Once everything was assembled, I coloured in with ProMarkers. Doing it this way made sure I didn't waste time and ink colouring in things that would be covered by the next layer. I then matted onto an 8x8" card blank.

With a straight on view, there's just an emphasis of the shading I did with the colour, but top down you can see the   layers a bit better. Oh, and I've learnt a bit more about matting layers without the card toppling forward - a couple of the mats are paper rather than card ;)

Until next month, happy crafting!

Neil

My 2014 faves...- Neil

It's been a busy first year of self-employment as a bona fide artist working from my home studio, complete with life's normal ups and downs. One constant has been crafting and sharing my enjoyment of all the different techniques and media with others - a great diversion and a true therapy!

Here are my favourite makes of 2014:

White on white is a classic - and this layered decoupage adapted from

a sponsor digistamp was one of the first uses of my new Silhouette Cameo.

The project still has pride of place on the hall chimney breast!

I thought this digistamp image was just so beautiful - I wanted to colour it sensitively and delicately, and thought the AquaMarkers helped me achieve that wonderfully.

And my final favourite is really the technique that ruled the ether during the year - tarmacing.

Who'd have thought a bit of bitumen could be so versatile for ageing acrylic paintings.

I've also immensely enjoyed working on the Design Team for Craftwork Cards - if you've not had chance to see some of my makes for their TV shows on Create & Craft, be sure to go over to their blog for some serious browsing!

As for 2015 - it promises to be just as busy, with demonstrations already in the diary, workshops planned in the studio and a whole set of online classes to plan, film and broadcast. Oh, and a monthly post for The Crafting Cafe - can't forget that!

I hope you've had a great Christmas, and wish you a crafty and successful New Year.

Neil

Canvas, wreath and post box - anything but a card!

It's another double sponsor month, and I've enjoyed making anything but a card with each of my design team images.

First up is the fabulous 'Snow Kissed Snowman' from artbymiran. Laser printed in reverse onto copy paper, and then image transferred onto 2½x3½" canvas using a lot of matte multi-medium so that the dips in the canvas are filled. Coloured with ProMarkers, embellished with Star Dust Stickles and sealed with Krylon Triple Thick Clear Glaze:

Next up is another gorgeous image from Delicious Doodles, 'Holly+Rosehip Wreath'. This works so well as the shading is already done, and by colouring with ProMarkers which are translucent, there's no need for complicated techniques. I've layered up several copies, decoupage style, and added accents with a white ink gel pen before using Glossy Accents to cover the berries and hips. Ideal for hanging decorations on a bit of ribbon - try reversing the image before printing to make a double sided wreath.

And this is the delightfully rural 'Jolly Holly Postbox'. Though I consider tags just a card without a hinge bit, with a bit of matting and embellishment I've created a fancy gift tag to frame my final image for this month:

Until next month, happy crafting!

Neil

Thinking Pink

'Thinking Pink' by Neil Burley

I guess it might not be a surprise that pink is not my first go-to colour, so this month's challenge theme took me a little out of my comfort zone. Having said that, the fabulous image from our sponsors for the month, Aurora Wings, was lovely to work with, and immediately invited the addition of colour.

I managed to print the image onto watercolour paper, but ended up heat setting the toner with my heat tool as my laser printer didn't quite manage it on it's own as two other copies will attest as the toner brushed off as I cut them out! I've coloured using Letraset AquaMarkers, starting with the pens in the shaded areas of each element and dragging the colour out using a waterbrush to the rest of the area. This results in a subtle blend from dark to light which can be emphasised with more pen work in the deepest shade areas. Sentiment is from Craftwork Cards, and mats use Bazzill cardstock.

Pen colours used: 
Roses/berries: Cherry Blossom / Flamingo Pink / Vintage Rose
Face/lips: Deco Peach
Leaves: Amazon Haze
Hair: Cream
Background: Frost Blue
Highlights: White Signo Broad pen

Until next time,

Neil

Shades of One: two cards - and an oops

It's shades of colour here at The Crafting Cafe this month. And silly old me forgot this for my first make (see below) - but once I'd got back on track I made these two cards:

Using photo stock from our sponsor Scribble & Scrap, I've done shades of sepia for this one - and sort of created shades of the photo too. I used MS Word to create a background version, to which I applied a sepia and blur filter. I then used the crop tool on five more copies to select various pieces of the original image to make the thumbnails at the side. Mounted on Foundations A4 Dark Roast Coffee card from Creative Expressions, and black card, and embellished with Dark Chocolate Liquid Pearls. 6x6" hammered card blank.

Using this fantastic silhouette from our other sponsor this month, Bugaboo Stamps,  I printed two copies onto 160gsm card, sizing them to 13cm square. For the outer ring I have blended Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves Distress Inks. For the inner silhouette, I used Milled Lavender, working from the bottom of each to created the gradient. The inner ring is the second copy, raised off the first using foam pads, and with the butterfly and leaves cut round with a knife so that they can be folded up. I edged everything with either black archival ink or a black pen, and mounted it on white, (12.5cm diameter) then black card (13cm diameter) before gluing it to my card. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards and mounted on black card and foam pads.

This is the same card technique this time with all the shades of more than one! Look at the difference with the leaves and butterfly edges when I haven't used a black pen to colour the cut edges.

Until next time, happy crafting!

With Sympathy Card

'With sympathy' by Neil Burley

When faced with a photo inspiration challenge, you have so many choices - do you go with the colours? The featured elements, such as the poppies? How it makes you feel? What it reminds you of? Tying all that in with the images supplied by our sponsors this month, Ooh La La Creations, I was reminded of all the commemorations of the First World War that are ongoing at the moment, and decided to make a 'with sympathy' card.

I've embellished the Toppers 2 triptych with black ribbon bows, black mosaic tiles (Mark Richards Crystal Stickers), and matted onto black card. The lettering is machine cut on my Silhouette Cameo - Remember is in the font Agency and the with sympathy in Zapfino, with a white card background made by adding an outside offset of 0.1cm to the text.

Strawberry Birthday

'Strawberry Birthday' by Neil Burley

I'm never afraid to take a literal approach to a challenge theme, and here's my 'fruity' card for this month's 'feeling fruity' theme here at The Crafting Cafe. It features the delightful 'Eleanor's Heart Balloons' from our sponsor Lacy Sunshine Stamps coloured with ProMarkers. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards. The card itself is made from a folded sheet of red card, cut to shape and flecked with Bisque Liquid Pearls. The leafy bit is part of a large poinsettia punch and a flare punch over the top. Not at all my normal style, but I think I'll get away with it ;)

Colours:
Hair - Pastel Yellow / Sunflower / Gold / Caramel
Skin - Blush / Oatmeal / Apricot
Hearts - Berry Red
Sweater - Pale Pink
Skirt - Cool Aqua

Love is... tarmacing!

'Love is...' by Neil Burley

It's easy to be inspired when working with great images, and the digistamp from Bugaboo Digital Stamps that I chose this month is no exception. I decided to make a 12x12" background using canvas covered board, and after a little consideration, used a base coat of titanium white buff acrylic to create some texture to work on. I added a generous layer and brushed a basketweave-like pattern into the wet paint. After this dried I sponged metallic gold and red paints around the outer edges to create a vignette effect.

Once all that had dried, I used the so-called tarmac technique to highlight the textures and blend the colours together as well as enhancing the vignette effect - essentially the process is to use a bitumen coating that is brushed on, dried and then rubbed back.

Using the heart shape from the image, I cut a bespoke stencil for the hearts, sandwiching two sheets of 160gsm card together to get the depth I wanted. Using the stencil, I applied Apple Red Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Texture Paste through and allowed it to dry overnight.

Finally, the image itself is coloured with ProMarkers and enhanced with Glossy Accents before mounting on the canvas with foam pads. A true mixed media piece!

Just Keep Swimming...

'Just Keep Swimming' by Neil Burley

This gorgeous creature, 'Fancy Fish' from our sponsors this month, Oak Pond Creations, brings the perfect encouragement for those going through it. Mind you, looking through some potential sentiments, 'Ooops' caught my eye too! But I didn't feel that was terribly ladylike.

I've opened up my bottles of Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Spray Inks from Creative Expressions to watercolour three layers of the image, using Marigold and Sunflower for the goldfish, Sea View for the water and Blue Lace for the bubbles. Once everything was dry, I decoupaged the layers up with foam pads, matted onto Cobalt and Kraft card stock before adding the sentiment. The bubbles have a little extra treatment that isn't obvious in the photo - I ran the coloured image through my Xyron Quick-Sticker and then stuck them onto acetate (this hides the double sided against the acetate as it is uniformly applied), before cutting out the individual bubbles and mounting them on foam pads or gluing in place. Just another way of glazing, although the fussy cutting was a long project!

Seeing Double...

This month we have two sponsors... and us lucky DT peeps have had the chance to use an image from both for our inspiration projects...

First up, I've used Stargazer from Delicious Doodles. I imported the image into Silhouette Studio, used the trace and resize functions to create a cut file to fit a square 10x10cm and cut from black cards. For the backgrounds, I've used two techniques, masking the moon circle first: the first was a PanPastel gradient, spraying with fixative, splattering with white acrylic from a toothbrush and then stamping Stampscape images over the top with Jet Black Archival Ink. The second was an old Royal Blue Dylusions Ink Spray, edged at the top with Black Soot Distress Ink once dry before splattering and stamping as before. I matted onto white, then sparkly deep blue card before sticking the silhouette over on foam pads:

The acrylic paint takes up the dye from the ink spray and discolours, but I think I prefer the watermark effect the spray gives over the PanPastel. Either way, they are a perfect background for the stunning Stargazer silhouette.

And my second card features Dirt Bike Mike from our other sponsor, Kenny K. Again, I imported the image into Silhouette Studio, traced the outline, then set an offset to cut away from the lines and welded it to a rectangle 13cm x 26cm so that it would fold to make a 13cm square card. A bit of slope making using the edit points function allowed me to have Mike and his dirt bike run down a cut away. Add the text, and cut out from your favourite ProMarker card. I also a cut a second (without the text) from a background colour card and embellished that with several layers of Picket Fence Distress Stain to make dust clouds on the back of the inside.

ProMarkers used:

Ground/Mud: Tan / Cinnamon / Burnt Sienna

Tyres/Metal: Ice Grey 2-5

Blues: Pastel Blue / Cornflower / China Blue

Flames: Sunflower / Crimson

A Host Of Golden Daffodils

'A host of golden daffodils' by Neil Burley

Well, ok, five is probably not a multitude, but Wordsworth wasn't terribly specific!
I was provided with the fabulous Daffodil 2 image from LEJ Designs to work with this month.
 I imported the source image into my graphics program and did a bit of mirroring and scaling to create this bunch from the original single flower.

I laser printed onto my favourite coated card from Rymans before colouring with ProMarkers:
Petals: Yellow / Canary / Sunflower / Gold
Stems: Marsh Green / Forest Green / Pine / Leaf Green
Outline: Powder Blue

I mounted on some Bazzill card stock, using the really useful Stix2 Layer Perfect to help square everything up, used a sentiment from the Craftwork Cards Friend Sentiments die cut sheet with a piece of Tim Holtz Idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon underneath using the Yellow and Sunflower ProMarkers to colour it to match. So that I could have a large white space for my CAS style, I used a 6x6" card to mount everything on.

Time Flies Encased Quotation

'Time Flies Encased Quotation' by Neil Burley

This 'bottle cap' is in fact more like a mini-flan case, 5cm in diameter and available from Woodware Crafts stockists. I've used WOW! Clear Gloss embossing powder in layers to encase the various bits 'n' bobs: bottom layer and butterflies are from Craftwork Cards Time Flies papers, the cog is from Tim Holtz Idea-ology line and the quote is printed ever so small; all are edged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

By using my low airspeed Heat-It tool, I was able to heat the powder directly from above rather than pour in previously melted powder - much the same as if you were building layers with clear resin. Don't try this if you have one of the fast airspeed heat tools as it will just blow the powder everywhere - you'll have to use pre-melted powder and pour it on instead. This allows the elements to be placed in turn in the individual layers. The molten powder has soaked into the paper turning it translucent. Just make sure each layer is completely cool before starting the next so that you are only melting the powder and not the whole piece. 

The 'case' comes pre-pierced with two holes at the top so it can be used as a pendant - I chose to plug these with blue tack so I could fill with embossing powder. I hope this inspires you to use embossing powder for more than just lines!

Layered-Paper Rocking Horse

'Layered-Paper Rocking Horse' by Neil Burley

For this month's 'anything goes' challenge, the DT got to choose digistamps from our sponsors The Stamping Boutique. I couldn't resist this gorgeous rocking horse, and with a bit of digital jiggery pokery I created a cut file for my Silhouette e-cutter. Using time honoured decoupage techniques, I layered up the 160gsm card shapes to create this 3D layered sculpture. It's all in white card with no lines at all, and relies on shadows to create the form. Great fun, and now I have the cut files, easy to reproduce should I wish to.

A Vase of Roses

'A Vase of Roses' by Neil Burley

I hope it's obvious that I've used Sketch No. 1 from this month's theme! I had recently come across this Cling Vase Bouquet stamp from Stampendous, and thought it would be perfect for ProMarkers. As it happens, I decided to use AquaMarkers first...

I printed the stamp on to good quality watercolour paper using Archival Jet Black ink before adding Sunburst Yellow, Marigold, Rose Blush and Gold Ochre to the petals, Fern Green and Viridian to the leaves, Periwinkle for the background and Granite for the shadow. Blend with a water brush. I've mounted onto Bazzill card stock, used Buttercup and Cantaloupe Liquid Pearls to embellish and mounted the lot onto an 8x8" card.

If anyone would like a step-by-step guide to colouring, let me know :)

Winter Snow Blues

'Winter Snow Blues' by Neil Burley

I chose 'Snowflake 1' from our lovely sponsor LEJ Designs for the centrepiece of my 'Winter Blues' card this month. I converted the artwork to a cut file for my new Silhouette Cameo electronic cutter and cut various sizes of the snowflake from my favourite card for ProMarkers (Ryman's bright white coated card 200gsm). Tips for conversion and cutting are below.

I added some ProMarker colour to start off my blues, using Powder Blue, and layering it several times along edges. For some of the flakes, I misted with Cosmic Shimmer Pearl Mist, another I used Rock Candy Distress Glitter (on spray glue) and another I used Ranger Antique Frosted Crystal embossing powder. All of them had a similar sparkly finish, so it's personal preference at the end of the day!

For the background I used a square of watercolour paper and then added Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink using a blending tool, grading it to a corner. I dried it and then added another layer to deepen the shadows in the bottom right before finally adding a small amount of Dusty Concord Distress Ink at the corner to darken it further. I dried it off again and then spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer French Navy Mist to add a bit of bling.

After matting it all together, I added some self-adhesive clear crystals and coloured them in with French Navy and Azure ProMarkers. Peel-off markers will work just as well.