Shaker Card How Too / Tipnique Tuesday

It's Tipnique Tuesday wahoo. I'm really enjoying going back to my paper crafting roots and sharing some old techniques and tips. When I do these I'll keep the end result fairly simple so new folks to paper arts are able to achieve similar results. Of course if you are already an advanced paper crafter go ahead and use mixed media materials :o). This week I'll share how to make Shaker cards. These have an area that has acetate put behind them and then items placed in the small built up area behind it so the items can move as the card is titled...hence why they are called shaker cards.

                       MATERIALS

• A4 sheet of card stock
• Rubber stamp of choice or images of choice
• Ink pad-I used Stazon on black
• Colouring medium of choice-I used Luminarte Twinkling H2O's and an aquash brush (water fillable brush).
• Sharp craft knife (I use a scalpel blade attached to a scalpel handle available at art shops and Chemists...its the sharpest craft knife ever). pencil, ruler, rubber, craft mat and bone folder.
• Grey or black art pen
• Small sheet clear acetate
• Double sided tape and double sided foam tape
• Glitter, tiny beads, sand etc to place in window
• Spare scrap of contrasting card or patterned paper

                        HOW TOO

1) Choose stamp or images to use. Ones that have an area that can be removed are good such these. The mirror oval or inner frame of either would be great to use.

Or the sky, sand area or even the light house on the one on the left and any of the glass bodies on the right image.

2) Work out how big the panels will need to be. You are going to divide the A4 card into thirds so if its a large image you may want to use larger card stock. I decided to use an Easter stamp and added 1cm on either side of it to get my dimensions of 9.7cm wide by 12cm tall

3) Measure and mark 9.7cm three times across the top and bottom of the card stock and make the card 12cm high. Cut this area from your A4 card stock.

4) Score the 9.7cm lines.

 5) Stamp image in CENTRE panel.

6) Fold right side under then left side and score folds

7) Fold card flat again image side up. Colour card as desired and stamp or use rub ons to add a sentiment if desired.

8) Use a sharp craft knife and remove the area where you want the shaker part to be. Run a grey or black marker along inner cut edges to make the cut areas less visible.

9) Turn card over and place double sided tape around cut panel. If you have a bent area as I did use smaller pieces of tape to achieve the bend.

10) Remove backing from the tape and attach acetate. I have run a pen around mine so you can see it LOL.

11) Place double sided foam tape (it's raised up a few mm) around cut panel and on top of the acetate. Be sure to butt the tape up close to each piece so there are no gaps for the shaker bits to fall out.

12) Adhere contrasting card to the left side as shown.

13) Place glitter, tiny beads, fine sand or whatever you wish to use on the acetate.

14) Be VERY careful and remove the backing tape from the foam tape. You don't want the card to move while doing this or you will get glitter on the exposed adhesive and the card wont seal properly. Press the left side of the card down onto the exposed adhesive of the foam tape.

Now you have a shaker card!! I just added some ink to the edges of mine. Add an insert, rub out any remaining marks that can be seen and you are done.

 I used to be totally addicted to these and I reckon I have made over a hundred LOL. Of course you can use a single fold card, make the shaker part separately (frame style stamps like the one at the start are good for this) and then adhere it to the front of the card too. Or add two or more layers of foam tape so the recess is deeper and add things like Smarties, coffee beans etc. The only regret I am having revisiting these old techniques is I haven't kept information on where I saw or learnt them from.

If you wish to know what I am up too but forget I exist ..how could you LOL...I have now added an e-mail notification gadget to my blog at the right under my contact e-mail....thanks Elizabeth for asking me about this. Just enter your e-mail, confirm you wish to subscribe and then every time I post you will get an e-mail telling you so :o). If there is a paper crafting technique or tip you are itching to know about just pop me an e-mail and I'll try to do a Tuesday tip/technique just for you! Off to make some metal magic :o)
hugs
Annette  In Oz    

Give Away Winner

The winner to my Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments is ...

 and number 27 is Sharon Fozard

Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations Sharon. Just send me your snail mail and I'll pop it in the post for you. I must do more of these give aways as they make me happy :o)
hugs
Annette In Oz xxxx

Love Wishes and Dreams card

I had a big clean up on and around my art desk...I even spent 2 hrs sorting my chippy shapes into themes...then I wondered why the heck I bothered as I use chippy  in pieces when I make mixed media cards/work. Sure I may start with  say a tree branch but you would never know it by the end LOL I'm thinking I need to contact companies and ask for their off cuts!! My biggest\ stash in chippy is cogs and watch faces etc.......hhhmmm those of you whom know me well would know I am a steampunk fan with a passion for cogs, light bulbs and wings etc.

While I sorted my chippy stuff I left some out to use. Then I found one of my fav vintage child images, some white gesso unearthed under some card stock and then found my gel medium and a few small flowers and trinkets....and before I knew it I was making another mixed media card called "Love, wishes and dreams". I used Dylussions spray as the red/yellow colour and then Perfect Pearls Mist gold on top so its lovely and shimmery. First photo is with flash off.

Flash on

Closer look at the details. Cogs, buttons, zippers, press studs, light bulb, wooden peg, lace, chippy, flowers, watch parts etc etc

This last shot I tilted the card so you can sort of see the shimmer when the light hits it :o)

The card is large...just a bit bigger then A5. Hope the person I had in mind for this likes it :o). Don't forget I'll draw the winner of my Give Away below tomorrow so please enter if you want a chance to win. Sheesh...off to colean up my desk again and I'll try to not get distracted this time LOL
hugs
Annette In Oz

GIVE AWAY-Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments

                                               GIVE AWAY
Just bumping this back up to the top post in my blog. 1 day to go till I draw a winner. Now to a treat for some one I hope. Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments are highly pigmented powders with built in binders and shimmery mica, that can be mixed with Luminarte Simple Solutions or other art mediums or even with water to make your own shimmery sprays.

I had recently bought some Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments from some one on Facebook. Prior to this I had owned mainly blues, greens and purples. I had no idea what colours were coming my way but when I got them I was totally blown away as there were yellows, oranges, pinks, more blues, greens and purples I didn't have and a black!!! Woot Woot was I happy and then some. So yesterday when I pulled my Polished Pigment stash out and organized the colours I had and the ones I had just bought I realized I had 8 colours that were identical.

So I would like to do a give away of the doubled up colours I have which are three shades of green, three shades of blue, a pink and a purple. You only need to add a tiny bit of powder to your medium of choice for a wow effect so they last for ages!!. As I have used some of my colours I had and the ones I have bought are second hand too I can't guarantee all these are totally full but they look close to full.

This is Lemondrop Yellow (not in the 8 to give away) that I have mixed with water...you can't see the shimmer in photos but it is there and you can see the intense colour effect you can get!! You can even mix colours to create custom colours.

I'll also throw in a doubled up plastic Kaiser mask/stencil I have..

AND I'll put in some simple solutions and the instruction sheet for the Luminarte Primary Elements Primary Pigments. I'll cover postage and I don't mind sending this little gift anywhere in the World :o). To be in the draw just link my blog to your Facebook page, Yahoo group or other group, your blog or whatever and leave a comment HERE with your name (I'll accept comments even if you can't share a link :o)). If you don't have a Google account and don't wish to create one just drop me an e-mail (address is at top right of my blog) with your name and "give away" in the subject line to go in the draw.  After 2 weeks I'll use a random generator to pick a winner. :o).

So you can see the intense colours you can get I made a mixed media card using Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments from the left over colours on my palette when I decorated my journal...

And the next two images are the journal covers I made in Finn's class but decorated at home using Polished Pigments...

Of course you can water the effect down so the colours are not as intense if you like. Again its a shame the camera can't pick up the glimmer and shimmer on the card and journal. See below this post for a how to make home made Christmas Baubles using the powders too :o)

I think I may have forgot to say why I do a Tuesday tip or technique...I was rearranging some draws to try to make more space and come across three draws of past paper crafting tips and techniques that I had collected over my paper crafting years but I had forgot about. I had also recently rejoined one of my paper crafting yahoo groups and thought I would randomly pick a tip or technique each week and share it on my blog and group. I guess at some stage I shall run out of tips and techniques but not for awhile yet LOL On all other days of the week I am usually playing with metal and making funky jewellery :o).

Good luck all.
hugs
Annette In Oz

Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigment Background Tutorial

As I said before there are LOADS of ways to use Luminarte Primary Elements Polished Pigments and as I have some to give away this coming Sunday I'll show you how I make shimmery textured looking  backgrounds to use in your art work. All photos were taken with flash off as the powders have mica in them so kept reflecting. Hence they look a little washed out sorry

You will need 

• 1-3 colours of Primary Elements or other richly coloured mica powders like Pearl-Ex
• A small spoon or Popsicle sticks
• A plastic tray
• Card stock-I have used both Matt and gloss but prefer gloss for some reason
• Gauze or Muslin 
• Water spritzer bottle
• Floor polish. You can substitute floor polish with watered down PVA glue (white glue that dries clear like Elmers glue in the USA) or Acrylic paint medium
• Newspaper to protect your work surface and gloves if you don't want pretty coloured fingers :o)

1) Place gauze in tray

 2) Pour in just enough floor polish to wet the gauze. I added too much so ended up using 2 pieces of gauze to soak it up a bit

3) Sprinkle on Primary Elements powders and do a light spritz of water to help the colours mix and blend

 4) Gently press card stock on top. Lift it up and leave it to dry on the newspaper. The gauze will print onto the card stock in a shimmery gauze pattern.

When the liquid decreases use the coloured gauze and lay it on card stock

 Then place another sheet on top and press firmly or use a roller over the top and the gauze print will be on both sheets

 At first the colours are really mingled with not much gauze print and as the liquid decreases the gauze print becomes more prominent.

Even when you have finished and there is just dried up shimmery colour left in the tray, spritz it with water and press card stock in the mix and you will get something like this...

This is how I made a card using the back grounds. I stamped the dragonfly image on top with black pigment ink. While the ink is wet sprinkle on black embossing powder and use a heat gun or hold above a toaster turned on (heat from underneath) to melt the embossing powder till it looks glossy. I also stamped and embossed the same image on Vellum. I coloured the images with Luminarte Twinkling H2O's in similar colours to the back ground. Cut out just the wings from the Vellum.

Place a small blob of clear sealant on the wings on the card close to the body of the dragonfly. Sealant is the  stuff you use around sinks and in the bathroom to seal them and prevent leakage when using water taps.

 Place the vellum wing on top and gently press it in place so the wings look raised up.

I then realized I wanted to use brads in the cornesr but I had no brads that matched the colour of the card so I mixed some Primary Elements with Simple solution, lightly sanded the brads and painted the colour on.

I added some rub on letters and layered the card on coordinating card and then to the base card. Lastly I glued some small green metallic seed beads on the dragonflies as eyes and TADA its all done.

The colours I have used on the gauze print back grounds I made above are the same as three in the Give Away I am having which is here. If anyone else would like to enter you only have till Sunday to do so and please look further down for more ways to use this fabo product :o)
hugs
Annette In Oz xxx