The Wisdom Of A By-gone Flower OR Heck That Is Pink

Well I know I like colour but I don't think I have ever created a piece with mainly pink as its colour LOL.The words have a pearl blue and pearl pink wash on them and so are hard to read in the photo but it says "Being a Woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men".I'm experimenting some more with my Opals paper and this time instead of just ironing in bits of Fantasy Film into the Opals on the Vilene I used two 13cm lengths of the Fantasy Film and ironed them and Franklin Opals together to make a sheet of shimmery Fantasy Film Opals paper.I ran it thru the Cuttlebug in different directions and changed the embossing folder each time...the result was a gorgeous shimmery textured base that the camera does not catch.

The Vintage image was done using Lazertran water slide decal paper for Inkjet printers.It adhers wonderfully to the Opals paper.I used an Angelina fibre piece at the bottom that had been ironed while the fibres were sitting on an After midnight art stamp floral boarder stamp as it ties in with the shimmery background.To make this you lay Angelina fibres across a stamp sitting image side up on some baking parchment.Place more baking parchment on top and iron over the top with iron set on a hot dry setting.The Angelina fibres melt and press into the stamp.When cool peel the fibres up and the image of the stamp will be on the Angelina fibres.Lastly I added some fluffy and beaded ribbon trim,hand sewed on some beads to the trim all the way round and added "Le Fleur" page pebble.Here is the view from the top side

and from the bottom up

I only had today off so on my next day off on Tuesday I am going to play with the brand new Opals embossing enamel colour that came in the mail for me yesterday.It is called Abalone and it has a beeswax look but has irridscent effects(so it has blues, greens, reds andviolets in it), it is transparent and silky smooth according toNiamh and Sue.Think weddings,Christenings,Christmas and vinatge works

Textured Cuttlebug Card Made With Opals

My niece has just had a birthday and I forgot to make her a card so I quickly made her one today.I had some of my thinner Opals embossing enamel paper that I made in the past on my desk so I put it thru the Cuttlebug several times changing the embossing folders each time as I moved them around the Opals paper.The base size was wider then the Cuttlebug feeding slot so once I had the Opals paper inside the embossing folder I bent the excess over the top,hold in place and fed it thru the Cuttlebug.It pops and cracks but comes out the other side with no great problem.At times when I do this there will be a white fold line showing so I just match the colour of Opals I have used with Luminarte Polished Pigments,add simple solution for plastic into the Polished Pigment and paint it over the Opals paper mark to repair it
This will give you the textured Cuttlebug card effect without having to tear and glue the Cuttlebug embossed card back down and cuts out the need to then paint over it with gesso to make it seamless.On the card below I worked out what stamp I wanted to use and it's approx size and then painted over the centre area on the textured Opals Cuttlebug base with pearl white acrylic paint so the painted area was about the same size as the stamp I wanted to use.The After Midnight art stamps Annette face stamp was stamped on white tissue with Brilliance Graphite black ink,heat set with the heat gun and then stuck in place with watered down PVA glue.I painted more pearl white paint around the face,coloured the lips and eyes with Polished Pigments,highlighted the lips and eyes with Plaid Dimensional Magic,added some Polished Pigment painted flowers and some Collections words to finish it off

Opals Paper Question...or why did I use the fabric mid way thru the video LOL

Sorry to confuse some folks but I changed to using the PRE attached to thin Vilene fabric piece(it is not paper behind it)part way thru merely to show the use of a fabric piece for the process of applying the Opals and melting them using the iron but it is the same process(melting the Opals using the iron) whether I had used the Vilene attached to the white tissue piece I made first in the video or not.SSoo it does not matter if you use the heavyweight Vilene attached to white tissue or fabric OR the thin Vilene attached to white tissue or fabric.The heavyweight ones will make pages that are more sturdy,wont run thru my Cuttlebug and are not as see thru and the thinner ones are much more transparent,easy to run thru a Cuttlebug and much thinner .Here I can ONLY get the heavyweight Vilene that is non bondable so I use the fusible webbing to attach the white tissue or fabric.If you can get heavy weight Vilene that is bondable on one or both sides WAHOO to you and of course then you wont need the fusible webbing part

The light weight thin Vilene here I can get it bondable on one side so it has a thin heat sensitive adhesive side already on it so you just place the tissue or fabric on top of the shinny side of thin Vilene and iron between the baking parchment to melt the adhesive and adhere the fabric or tissue to it.Hope it all makes more sense now for those who wondered why I changed to fabric piece mid video.The choice of using white tissue or fabric(or anything else you may want to try) is yours.Neet has let me know that in the UK they have Vilene like we do here in Oz and that Vliesofix is sold as Bondaweb over there :o).I prefer to get my heavyweight craft Vilene from Dale at The Thread Studio .It is better to use for this then the one I have been able to get a Spotlight here so far.Just in case the link does not take you straight there it is in the catalogue under fab bits and then miscellaneous tab

OH and yes you can just use plain heavy weight Vilene without tissue or fabric attached but it is quite porous and you use a lot more Opals to get coverage this way then you do with attaching tissue or fabric on it.Mind you some of my fav Opals paper pieces were plain heavyweight vilene that I sprayed with Radiant Rain sprays and then just ironed in Franklin(clear) Opals on top of

Annette in Oz

VIDEO: How To Make Opals Embossing Enamel "Paper"

At last I have this video uploaded...it shows how I make my thin sheets of Opals Embossing Enamel subtrate sheets that I use alot in my art/craft work.Many people e-mailed asking me to make a video of the process even though I have done few step by step posts with photos about it in the past.I have to confess I prefer to watch something being done to reading about it myself LOL.As usual I have not listened to myself on the video so if there is something I say that does not make sense just e-mail me for a clarification..For those that use UTEE I'm sure this would work just the same with that but I just don't own any myself.
NOTE-the fabric bit that I switch too part way thru in the Video was already pre-attached to thin Vilene that was bondable on one side...that is why it is so easy to see thru.Sprinkling Opals on the fabric alone doesn't seem to make the pages sturdy enough and hence I use heavy weight Vilene on its' own or heavy weight Vilene with tissue attached or light weight Vilene that I attach fabric too.
Give it a go and let your imagination run wild...iron in glitter,Fantasy Film,adhesive foils,foil flakes,frozen Opals,Jo Sonja's Opal Dust or Gold Dust,mesh,micro beads etc etc.The pages will be sturdy yet pliable to a degree so you can cut them,run them thru a sewing machine,emboss them in a Cuttlebug,punch shapes with them and anything else you can think of .Don't forget you can leave the end result matt like after ironing on the Opals or hit it with your heat gun to make it shiny...take care though if you have used sheer material here as it may burn off and shrink/distort.Back to my 31 never ending pages for my collab book swap

Amazing Blog I Found and Uploading videos Is a Pain!!

Hi All
I was blurfing(blog surfing)and found this gorgeous artist's blog from Brazil site here....love her work.Paulo if you check in here do you know this lady???I have been busy making 31 A6 sized pages for a book swap so in the mean time I have been quiet on the net and have been trying to upload a how to video for the way I make Opals embossing enamel pages for over a week...it keeps saying the upload is complete(after a day and a half of it loading sheesh)but when I view it there is only a half or three quarters of it there....so I delete it(wish I could do that to rude obnoxious people LOL...would make being a nurse easier....oh oh or my hormonal teenage daughter from hell !).Today I retryed again but I changed the upload name for it and it has almost loaded now YEHA!!!!...will see if I get the whole thing up there and then post the link here for you all :o)