Embossability

Hello all, delighted you could drop in on me here at Words and Pictures today.  It's Tuesday (I believe...), and time for the new fortnightly challenge at Fun With ATCs.  This time we're looking for Embossing - dry embossing, heat embossing... you take your pick, or mix and match them all on one ATC if you like!  So, I'm offering you two ATCs today - each of them using both dry and heat embossing.




To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about these...


I had to make them some time ago, as I knew I'd be away from my BigShot for November, and therefore unable to use embossing folders, so any dry embossing had to be done before going away in order to meet the DT deadline.



Coming back to look at them now, there are things I'd do differently I think... or even start all over again - but deadlines are deadlines, and here they are.  But I'd certainly recommend hopping over to see what my amazing team mates have provided for inspiration too...





































The rusty ATC has a background of Kraft Core run through the Tim Holtz Bingo embossing folder, and then painted and inked and sanded until it had a weathered look.  I added a TH die-cut key which I'd rusted up some time ago using Andy Skinner's textured rust technique.








The lock is cut from the same Hardware Findings die, from some chipboard covered in numbers paper (which I think was from the Vintage Gentleman's Kit I got from Vintage Page Designs, but I'm not completely sure now...).

I then used some Vintage Photo Distress embossing powder - which has a lovely rusty texture all its own - to edge the lock, and attached it using a couple of Idea-ology long attachers.   I used the Vintage Photo powder around the edges of the ATC too.








I used an embossing pen to highlight the word FREE in the centre, and then added clear embossing powder to it for a glossy finish.

On another piece of kraft card, I wrote my little sentiment Unlock Your Potential using the same embossing pen, but in the end decided I preferred to UTEE the whole of the piece of card rather than just the lettering.  It's mounted on a piece of rusty mesh from the Funkie Junkie Boutique.

For the silvery ATC, I started with a piece of black cardstock, and cut it to the ATC size - 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  

I stamped one of the recent Stampers Anonymous Classics releases in clear embossing ink, and applied silver embossing powder.  Once that was heated, I used some of the mica paint from the palette I created for a previous project to add colour to the image.  

I trimmed the corners of the ATC to the same angle as the stamped image.  

And on the very edges I used some of the Frantage Aged Silver embossing powder - that's the one that has the varied colours within it.








On the top and bottom edges I used the little TH embossing folder out of the Pattern and Stitches set, and then swiped clear embossing ink onto the raised stitches and added silver embossing powder to those two.

I do like all the diagonals and angles within this ATC, and the silver against the black.  The gleam that you get when you tilt it in the light is pretty yummy, so I think it probably comes out as my favourite of the two.  

I don't know... what do you think?!


It's so great to have you drop in today...  Do pop over to Fun With ATCs and see what my amazing team mates have been up to, and of course we'd love to have you play along.  It was lovely to see so many familiar faces amongst the entrants last time round!  

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.
Winston Churchill

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. 
Albert Schweitzer

Paris - Mon Amour

Hello all, lovely to have your company here today at Words and Pictures.

Parlez-vous Français?  This week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show they're asking for some Inspiration Française, and after musing for a while, I finally came up with some.  And here's the tag I arrived at.

As often happens for me, the inspiration came thanks to a song - one of the lesser known Cole Porter numbers, "Who Said Gay Paree?" from Cancan.  You can hear the man himself playing it here, and the full lyrics are at the foot of the post - I find it achingly lovely, but that's at least partly because this song and I have a history.

I did a lot of shows at university, and one was Cole Porter's Silk Stockings, set in Paris.  The director had always loved this song, and wanted to add it in to the show.  So it was inserted at the point when both lead couples were going through problems before the - inevitably - happy ending.

It was one of many happy summers at university when I played opposite the man who was/is (so far) the great passion of my life.  We seemed constantly to be cast as couples - playing opposite each other in show after show!  








The romance is of course long over, and the song has an added bittersweet touch these days, as he left to go and build his career in France, and lives in Paris to this day.  

(Right about now, any of my family and friends who are reading this are saying: "oh no, not him again" - but I think you never forget your first head-over-heels, love at first sight, earth-shifting romance - or is that just me?!)











So, there's the conventional linking of France with love, romance, and affairs of the heart, and also a very personal connection to that link.  And that's what this tag grew out of...  













I'd just like to say that I think Jill, who sang it in our show, did a better job than CP (I suspect he'd agree he's not the world's greatest singer) - but the verse he plays on the piano is full of exquisite romantic yearning.











The tag itself was relatively simple to make.  I started with a piece of Tim Holtz's Vintage Shabby paper, backed it onto chipboard, and added some TH stamps for extra layers.  

The Eiffel Tower was stamped in black and embossed with Clear Detail embossing powder for glossy dimensionality. 














I did the flourish with embossing ink followed by some dark red mica powder, so it has a lovely shimmer - quite hard to photograph, but I think you can get the general idea!












I found the silver hearts on ebay, but I didn't want it silver for this tag.  

Sadly, I'm working away from home at the moment, and the alcohol inks didn't make it into the takeaway stash, so I had to get creative with giving it some colour.











First I tried with Aged Mahogany DI.  I knew that wouldn't work by itself, so I tried clear embossing over the top to keep it in place.  It partly worked, but perhaps I overheated it, because in places it went green!  

Luckily the hearts are two-sided, so I flipped it over and tried again.  This time I used the embossing ink and mica powder again, and I'm really pleased with the subtle, soft, red gleam it now has.

It's topped with an Idea-ology Game Spinner for the arrow piercing the heart!










I dyed some seam binding with Pumice Stone, Aged Mahogany and a combination of the two, dug a hole in my hand-cut tag (I've come away without my punch too - bah!) and completed the trimmings with an Idea-ology trinket pin.

Et voilà, c'est ça,  c'est tout!  Thank you for stopping by, and I look forward to seeing you again soon here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland, but for now, merci beaucoup et au revoir!







I'm entering this in the following:
Simon Says Stamp and Show's challenge Inspiration Française
Frilly and Funkie's lovely Tic Tac Toe game, playing the top line of metal, chipboard, lace (it's backed onto chipboard)
Top Tip Tuesday are playing a challenge called We're All Heart, and I'd like to offer this tip:  To colour metal without alcohol inks, and still keeping that metallic sheen, try using embossing ink topped with mica powder, heated to fix it

Who spread the rumour Paris was fun?
Who had such fantasy?
Who never knew Paris minus you?
Who said 'Gay Paree'?

Who said of all towns under the sun
All lovers here should be?
Who failed to add
Paris could be sad?
Who said 'Gay Paree'?

I thought our love so brightly begun
Would burn through eternity;
Who told the lie
Love can never die?
Who said 'Gay Paree'?
Who said 'Gay Paree'?
Cole Porter

Seeking Illumination

Hello everyone, and a warm welcome to you.  At least there's some sunshine in today's pictures - the fact that my fingers nearly froze while I was photographing, we'll overlook for now!

So I'm still catching up with The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas (only not Christmas if you're me)... but I'm getting there, and in all we've got until 17th December, so I should make it, I hope!

Linda offered up number 7 yesterday... but this is my number 6 (yes, I know, I still haven't done number 4).  And it isn't just any tag - read or scroll onward and you'll see what I mean... 

From Linda's original tag, you can spin off in any direction, as long as you let her know what it was in her tag that inspired you.  And the prize, if you complete all 12 according to the rules, is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

So for this one, it's obviously the gloriously glossy clock die, and the magical book text background.  I've been using book pages as backgrounds, and love them, but Linda's added an extra refinement - ripping some of the print away with masking tape - which I completely love for how it adds to the distressed look.  Expect to see more of this one!

I was also inspired by her use of Iced Spruce DI, which I've only just added to my stash, and once I'd started using it I couldn't stop.  So as well as using it on the background, as Linda did, mine also made its way onto the clock!



This was one of those projects which just kept expanding by itself.  It took several days, and quite a few times of letting it wait and see.  But now this tag has hidden secrets to reveal... Let me take you on a journey in search of illumination.

To start with it's not just one tag - oh, no - look here:

Something in the distressed book text and Iced Spruce made me think of those extraordinary medieval illuminated manuscripts, and I started to try to capture something of that quality.

This is the cover of my book, worn, leathery, but still carrying that golden gleam of knowledge and painstaking labour.









The first step was to try out the Indigoblu Mega-Flakes I added to my stash a while ago, but hadn't dared play with yet.  I wish I hadn't waited so long - I love them!

They're used here with the Tim Holtz elegant flourish stamp, and I adore the shimmer of the peacock metallic colours in the light.  And because it has the shifting colours, it keeps that sense of age and distressing - it's not "perfect" gold leaf, but shifts as the eye looks at it.

I love that in this particular selection of flakes, there's a turquoise-y colour, which I love with the Iced Spruce UTEE'd clock face.

You can see that around the distressed edges of the tag, I added some gold acrylic paint using my fingertip - looking for that medieval gold edged paper feeling.

If I had been a monk in the Middle Ages (sorry, I'd really rather be a monk than a nun; I prefer the singing), I very much hope that I would have been one of those lucky ones in the Scriptorium, charged with copying the best knowledge of the age from book to book, disseminating learning.

I know that in writing about my book of spells, I traduced the church for its actions against "witches", and the wilful destruction of so much wisdom and knowledge of the natural world, but there is also much to be grateful for in the music, architecture and libraries created in the name of religion.


And as they illuminated their great manuscripts, the monks were also in pursuit of spiritual illumination, of course... a journey towards spirituality and inner calm, with which I also find myself in deep sympathy.  And all you've seen so far is really the outside cover of our journey in search of illumination, so let us "open" the cover to reveal what's inside:

I was so lucky that the sun shone briefly today - there's so much gold shimmer around that it would have been impossible in the recent dull days to get a photograph that would even slightly do it justice.

The flourish here on the lower panels is stamped in Versamark Watermark ink, and I then brushed gold and copper mica powder into it for the burnished sheen.  The whole panel has had a light dusting - I hope you can see the lustre.











The quote is one I've always loved... and it's just the start of the piece.  I had the whole of the Desiderata up on my wall throughout my university years.  I could probably do with hanging it up again now.  Or maybe I'll just open up my illuminated tagbook.

The quote is handwritten on some more of my tea-stained tags, and distressed with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist (which I painted on in places as well as spritzing), Gathered Twigs DI, and some more gold acrylic paint on the edges.  The corner stamp is by BoBunny.

There's plenty of Heirloom Gold misted around, inside and out!

But we haven't yet uncovered all the hidden secrets - the journey to illumination is never simple; it's a lifelong exploration, uncovering layers of meaning in the world.  So we have another layer to remove - but we have found the key to the lock, so now we can discover what is revealed behind the tags...

I had a lovely time creating my illuminations.  They are embossed in copper, and then painted using Tim Holtz's Perfect Pearls paint technique.

The shimmer is so glorious - again, thank you Universe for the sunlight today!









I even think they're beautiful before they get anywhere near the paper!  I don't have one of the official palettes, so I used some leftover Idea-ology packaging from a set of gears (I never throw anything away at the moment).

Once you've made up the paste, you let it dry, but it can be reactivated any time with a brush and water - so pretty!

Thank you so much for bearing with me through this search for illumination - I hope you've found some inspiration, or simply some pleasure along the way.  It's certainly a joy for me to know that I'm not on this journey alone... I'm so grateful for your company and your support - thank you!

I don't want to make this post even longer than it already is by quoting the whole of the Desiderata, but if you don't know it I do urge you to follow the link - it's very beautiful.  And I'll leave you with just a few more phrases from it which I love.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
You have the right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

... in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

From Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

I'm entering this in the following:
Frilly and Funkie are looking for Anything but a Card with a Hidden Twist
Simon Says Stamp and Show would like to us to Just Add Pearl - plenty of Perfect Pearls here!
And the Craft-Room Challenge are playing with Time-Keeping - my clock face is taking us back in time, and into time for meditation
Thank you to Linda Coughlin for the initial inspiration - this is my Tag 6 in the Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas