Upcycled paper bag

 For this weeks project I decided to upcyle a plain brown paper bag (courtesy of the local Chinese take-away!!). It was the prefect size to put some parchment magazines in which I'd bought for my Aunts 97 year old mother, who still makes all her own cards and goes to her painting club on a Friday morning. Oh I hope I can do that at 97!!!

I added a piece of white A4 card which I'd spritzed with Brazil Nut spray ink then torn around the edges. I die cut the words using my Cricut Mini and sprayed them with my three main colours of Brazil Nut, Citrus Yellow then Paris Pink. 

 I then used the yellow and pink sprays on some old  'brief tape' (used in the old days to wrap the 'paper briefs' given to Advocates in the Crown Court. This was given to me years ago by a friend who worked for a Solicitors, but due to its course nature, off white colour and floppy texture I'd never used it. Now I've found how well it took the spray inks I'll be using it lots! I used it to make the bow, decorate the handles and as a band of colour under the sunflowers. Little hint here is to use the yellow first. This gives a better orange and prevents any being bright pink which I didn't want for the Autumnal Challenge - but will love for another time!

Perfect fit for the parchement mags!

 The sunflowers were stamped and embossed with the Copper Detailed Embossing Powder onto yellow card, then I just used a watercolour brush to again add a mixture of the sprays to colour. I didn't use the paper in the pic above with the orange/ yellow ribbon - that was just to show how you can create a beautiful bit of coloured card by soaking up the sprays from the ribbon. So no wasted colours! Have fun, Suz xxx

Autumnal Colours

Here are two projects I've designed for Oak House Studios Autumnal Colours Challenge. Both are cards, one is a traditional simple combo of stamping and watercolouring. The other is a bit more abstract.

For the Sunflower card I stamped and embossed a central image using the OHS medium sunflower stamp and the OHS copper embossing powder. I Stamped the image again with black archival to make a mask which I cut out. Then after laying the mask I stamped another flower either side of the masked image and embossed with Pearl Gold embossing powder.- which I also used for the sentiment. I went around each image and the sentiment with a Spectrum Noir alcohol marker (EB2) for a little deptth  I then coloured these with watercolour paints.

 For the heart card I took a plain Kraft card 5x7 blank. Sprinkled embossing powders randomly over the card and spread around with my finger to give a swirly look then just heated from underneath so the powder didn't just blow away (as it wasn't fixed to the card with anything). I did this with the Copper, Pearl Gold and Seafoam white embossing powders. Then I sprayed the card with some OHS spray inks in Brazil Nut and Paris Pink to give the background a bit of interest.

 I took the Walesby Heart stamp and stamped onto pink card. Sprayed it to death with the inks. added some gel pens to the hearts and dots then, once dry I inked all over with a Versamark pad and embossed with Crystal Sparkle embossing powder which completely changed the look and gave it a sparkle with lots of different tones (love it!).

 I die cut 4 corners from black card then used gilding wax to give a metallic look. Die cut wings from pearl white paper. Wrapped some wire to create the shapes on the heart and across the card. Added silver pearls and hand wrote letters. I went around the letters and edges of the corners with a Pitt black marker pen and smudged to soften the line. See top card for the finished article as this pic was taken without some elements. Good messy fun! Suz xxx