Purple Salt

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2016-10-18T19:23:00.002+10:00

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Guest Designer at Passion 4 Paper

2012-08-08T09:53:00.001+10:00

A month has passed and I haven’t had a chance to blog about the exciting guest designer piece I did for Passion 4 Paper! Bad blogger!! It has been a crazy 6 weeks in our house with my youngest travelling to Canada, losing my part time job & hubby working all hours of the day & night.

You might like to check out my post here. Let me know what you think!

In other news I have finally taken the plunge to start up an Etsy business selling handmade cards and other stuff. Stay tuned for more news on that front as I will post the link once I have actually loaded more than one item into my shop !

A new home on the web

2012-07-02T10:57:00.001+10:00

Hello readers!

I have finally taken the plunge and invested in a permanent web address and have moved my blog over to a new home. I still need to make a heap of improvements to the new one but at least I have ‘moved in’.

You can now find me at:

www.purplesalt.net

I will look forward to seeing you there!

A Magical Bird

2012-06-26T11:29:00.001+10:00

Next we had a play with some Magicals powder, a powder made by Lindy’s Stamp Gang which complements the Starburst Sprays. I covered mine with some rock candy Ranger Distress Crackle for some added texture. It was quite effective!

Dylusions

2012-06-26T11:26:00.001+10:00

Next we created a background using the new Ranger Dylusions sprays – the colours are really vibrant!

Once I got home I stamped some of the Dylusions leaves over a sprayed background made with Starburst spray and popped them along the side. The mushroom spots were outlined with my new Molotow white ink pen. It is so easy to use and created a good, solid white line on my image.

Sparkly Magic

2012-06-26T11:23:00.001+10:00

If you attended the Brisbane Scrapbook & Papercraft show you would have seen the wonderful Kate Palmer demoing sparkly Starburst Sprays & the new Ranger Dylusions Sprays for Passion 4 Paper.

Each afternoon, Kate ran a class featuring these gorgeous sprays and I was lucky enough to secure a spot in the first Saturday class. Boy we had lots of fun!

I wanted to show you the cards we created and I will do three posts so that I can link each of them to the Passion 4 Paper blog. Anyone who did the class has been invited to share their creations.

This one features the glossy embossed papers from Pink Paislee.

A Catch Up

2012-05-09T11:14:00.001+10:00

Goodness it has been over a month since I last posted – I had been doing so well! I promise that although I have been busy with life I did manage to squeeze in some crafty time as well.

In the past month, I:

Spent a week on nearby Stradbroke Island with my family at a beach front unit. Stradbroke Island is a 40min ferry ride across Moreton Bay so really accessible from Brisbane.

Picked up our new puppy, a whippet we have named Zed. He is now 15 weeks old and a ball of energy!

Celebrated ANZAC Day and watched our son Josh march in the city ANZAC Day parade with his high school marching band, Drumline.

Sent off the first part of an ATC background swap. Two sets of backgrounds were made and swapped out. I got a collection of other people’s backgrounds back to decorate and return. At the end I will get mine back with other peoples artwork overlaying my backgrounds. I’ll share once they are returned.
Received a wonderful prize from Helmar for participating in their Facebook competition. Thanks Helmar!

Received my Darkroom Door March ATC swap. The theme was turquoise and here are the ATCs I created.

Finished a Smash Book swap which was hosted on Facebook. The book was a touch larger than A5, bound with rings to enable the recipient to add more pages. Here are a sampling of the pages -

Celebrated 21 years of marriage to my wonderful husband, Brian.

Gee, it makes me tired just thinking of all the things that have happened in the last month !

Dion Dior & More ...: Twinkling Giveaway

2012-04-03T21:14:00.003+10:00

Check out the Dion Dior & More blog for a chance to take an online class about Twinkling H2O's with Dion Dior. You can find the details here.

Dion Dior & More ...: Twinkling Giveaway: Mastering Twinks , an online class that takes you into the shimmering, dancing world of Twinkling H2O's begins its second run in less tha...

An Etsy Treasury

2012-03-25T16:33:00.000+10:00

I've been attending a few creative workshops run by BrisStyle the past few months, trying to learn more about Etsy and the mechanics of having an online shop. I've put up a shop on Etsy here and one on MadeIt here. Not much there yet but that will change in the coming weeks.

Today I was inspired to create a treasury on Etsy of some luscious pinky shopping finds. All are made by Queenslanders:

It was so much fun - why don't you have a go? Share your link with me if you do!

The Earth Laughs in Flowers

2012-03-15T13:06:00.001+10:00

Yesterday I received the February Darkroom Door swap returns so I thought I would share my ATC’s. I don’t like to do that until I receive mine back in the post – I would hate to spoil the surprise for anyone! Don’t look if you don’t have yours back yet.

The theme was FLOWERS and I chose to use this gorgeous Star Flowers collage stamp. To make the ATC I stamped the image onto some white tissue paper, coloured with Twinkling H2O’s and adhered it to some cardstock (that is the blue you see coming through the image). Once it was layered up, I printed one of my favourite quotes and popped that over the bottom of the image.

It is really hard to see but the image really glimmers, courtesy of the Twinkling H2O’s.

The theme for March is turquoise/aqua – one of my favourite colours so keep a look out next month to see what I do.

Cherish Today

2012-03-12T17:33:00.001+10:00

I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on the Passion for Paper blog of late because the wonderful Kate Palmer (SparkleTart) has been sharing lots of tips and techniques. (I also applied for their design team so fingers crossed !)

With the coming of some new rubber, I wanted to come up with something that used some of my new stamps as well as Kate’s latest technique, check it out here. I didn’t have the right cardstock so I thought I would try regular cardstock and it worked ok.

The watermark effect was done with Darkroom Door French Script, it is much more apparent in real life – just hard to photograph! The branch is one of my new favourites by LaBlanche and the butterfly & greeting is from the new Darkroom Door Wings set. Images were coloured with Copics.

Celebrate

2012-03-07T17:31:00.001+10:00

Recently I was inspired by a post on the Passion 4 Paper blog which gave a tutorial on a resist technique. I created this card based on the technique blogged here. If you follow my blog you know know that I love resist techniques – especially embossing resist.

I used the Darkroom Door Happy Birthday word block stamp and once stamped and embossed with clear powder I coated the card front with delphinium turquoise Starburst Stain. It is really hard to pick up from the photo but it gave a gorgeous shimmery effect.

The flourishes were die cut using a My Favorite Things die called Fancy Flourish and accented with adhesive pearls.

The flower was made using a stack of die cuts done with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. I had sponged each layer with some Distress Ink (Dusty Concord & Chipped Sapphire) and once layered with the pearl brad I spritzed it liberally with some Starburst spray in sweet violet purple teal colour. Isn’t that just a divine name?

Once totally wet, the flower was scrunched up, layer by layer and allowed to dry.

You can hurry the drying a bit with a heat gun if you want to be quick. Once dry, just flatten and shape and attach to the card front. The pearlized spray gives a lovely shimmery effect to the flower.

Art Journal Pages

2012-02-27T17:24:00.001+10:00

It has been ages since I last played in my art journals so when the challenge on the X-Press It blog came up for February I thought of the perfect starter. The challenge for February was to use masking tape on a project. I didn’t have any of the X-Press It but had some Mask It film, so thought I would use that as well as some common painters tape. I can’t draw so using masks to create a page base work well for me.

I started working on two sheets from an old dictionary and smooched on some paint using an old gift card. On the second page I spread the paint a bit further with a a spray of water and used a baby wipe to spread the paint all over the page.

Using Cuttlebug dies, I die cut a flower shape mask and spritzed with some Radiant Rain and Glimmer Mist sprays.

Once dry I painted the flower with some gold ink, keeping in the lines left by the mask and added a bit of a stalk & grass. The flower centre was drawn in with a white gel pen.

A quick outline of the stalk & petals and one of my favourite quotes and the page was done.

On the second page I sprinkled some silver Pearl Ex all over the wet centre of the misted flower. It dried onto the page and gave a beautiful sparkle. I used the painters tape to mask off a flower stem and the white gel pen did a great job outlining the flower.

Some painted cardstock leaves and another quote and a second page was done.

Copic Style Watercolours

2012-02-13T17:56:00.001+10:00

I was playing with a stamped watercolour technique using my Distress inks recently and thought I would try the technique out using my Copics. It created a lovely soft image.

Firstly I coloured my image (Hero Arts) with a selection of Copics, it didn’t matter if I was quick or the ink dried, the next step reactivates it. I spritzed my X-Press It cardstock with some rubbing alcohol and then quickly stamped the image.

As you will see from the close-up, the image isn’t quite distinct, more watercolour like. I find the technique can be a bit hit and miss, sometimes it is more ‘watery’ and sometimes the image is too indistinct to use but mostly it works well.

A solid image works best and this one is perfect as it is just about impossible to ink so many colours using a stamp pad.

Guest Designer Challenge at My Favorite Things

2012-01-03T13:35:00.001+10:00

One of my plans for last year was to get published more often and participate in some design teams. I achieved that wish so I wanted to aim a bit higher this year and participate in a few more challenges and design team calls, I figured I have nothing to lose but a bit of time.

Here is an entry I finished yesterday for a guest designer call for My Favorite Things. I love these cute images, they are so easy to colour with my Copics and with a bit of cutting they become really versatile to use on cards. The company also makes a wonderful range of dies.

The theme of the guest designer call was to use the technique of paper piecing. If you have never tried the technique it might seem a little daunting but the finished result is well worth the effort. Essentially you replace parts of your stamped image with paper instead of colouring. This is done by selecting the papers to be used and stamp each ‘part’ onto the paper and cut out. Then each part is layered over the corresponding spot of the stamped, coloured image.

Like this:

I then cut out each piece, including the girl (I coloured her first):

The finished result:

The stamp used was Pure Innocence – Calendula from My Favorite Things. You can buy them from Stamp Art Studio if you have to have them!

Inkurable Holly Challenge

2011-12-23T10:14:00.001+10:00

I couldn’t finish my week of intense blogging without sharing the cards I did for the December Inkurable Stampers challenge. This month we were to create something using holly as a theme. I thought it the perfect opportunity to use another of the Tim Holtz 12 tags techniques – embossing metal. You can see his tag and instructions here.

I created two cards on the theme but will only enter the second one into the challenge.

I love how well the technique worked to give a glass-like effect!

The holly leaves were cut from alcohol inked glassine paper. Tim demos the technique in the post here, relating to tag 7. If you haven’t tried this stuff – buy some! It is so easy to use.

I did a third card as well so have a look on my Flickr site for it.

Some more Darkroom Door Christmas

2011-12-20T17:19:00.001+10:00

Here is some more inspiration using Darkroom Door stamps. Please also have a look at my Flickr site as I have uploaded a number of other Christmas cards there as well.

Back to a couple of simple ones now to give your mind a rest. You can probably work this one out without me telling you but I embossed some cardstock with a Sizzix folder, sponged with distress inks to bring out the pattern and layered over a embossed relief from a Spellbinders die. The effect creates a useful ‘frame’ for your focal image. A few words cut from the Christmas background stamp finishes the card.

The card front for this one was stamped with a word from the Christmas Sentiments set as well as the group of icons from the same set. I left mine in a strip to make it easier to stamp them like this. I then punched out a few circles and layered behind or on top with circles cut from cardstock stamped with the Flourish background. The one on the left was raised up with foam tape.

The Santa image is from the Dear Santa Vol 1 set and was coloured with distress inks. The word is cut from the Christmas word block and coated with a bit of Glossy Accents.

I really liked this card as it came together really quickly but looks like I spent ages on it. The background is the Star background, stamped with white Brilliance. One of the flower layers was stamped with the words from the Noel plate, the ticket stamp comes from the same plate. A frame cut with Spellbinders dies and a strip of embossed cardstock and it was done.

The ornament image was cut from a piece which had been stamped & clear embossed with the Christmas word block. I sponged the image with some Distress barn door ink. A few words cut from my sheet of stamped Christmas word block & some embossing with my Cuttlebug and this card was done.

I think this is the last of the Darkroom Door cards to share and it was really time consuming to do but I love the effect! The stamping was all done with pale blue pearlescent Brilliance ink using the Noel and Christmas Reindeer plates as well as the French Script background stamp. The silver edge was actually created with embossing powder & silver pigment ink.

While playing with the Christmas word block stamp I came up with a couple of tags. The image was stamped and embossed over some vintage music. A quick swipe of some ink and and a tie of ribbon and the first one was done.

This one was done basically the same but I added a pinwheel for embellishment using some of the Tim Holtz Christmas tissue tape.

A Darkroom Door Christmas

2011-12-19T20:38:00.001+10:00

Gee, my regular readers will be shocked by another post! Quite surprised myself actually but I wanted to get these up before Christmas, there didn’t seem much point otherwise! The post got really long so you will see the rest of it tomorrow.

Making Christmas cards usually starts early for me when I begin to plan my Christmas card classes for Stamp Art Studio in May. Usually I try to incorporate the most recent stamps whenever possible but also include some old favourites whenever I can. Here are some of the ones I have made using Darkroom Door stamps.

A simple one using Dear Santa Vol 1 coloured with distress inks. The greeting is from the same plate and was stamped & embossed in gold.The background stamp was the Flourish stamped with chalk ink and sponged a little.

I really love this Christmas word block and this is a simpler way to use it than the post before by stamping with red chalk ink. The greeting was done by masking off the top corner using post its and then removing them prior to stamping & embossing. This is so easy to do and means you can easily stamp up any of the word combinations on the plate.

With so many cut-out sheets available this Christmas, this card also comes together really quickly. I just cut out the shapes I wanted (this sheet is from Bo Bunny), laid them over a strip of red, stamped with one of the word strings from Christmas Sentiments using crimson Versafine ink and added a few buttons for interest. The reindeer circle came from the icon strip of the same set, stamped with pearlescent Brilliance to give a bit of bling and the card was done.

A more time consuming card using an old Christmas favourite – the Noel set. The main image was stamped using pale blue pearlescent Brilliance ink and die-cut with a Spellbinders die. Believe was stamped with the same ink but embossed to make it stand out a little and both pieces were raised up with foam tape. The embossed panels were created with a Sizzix folder and given a swipe of Stickles for sparkle. If you have never tried this, Christmas cards are the perfect reason. Just squeeze some Stickles onto a smallish, flat surface (I usually use clean milk bottle caps) and smoosh the glitter glue over the embossed design. If I have used a cap I can just throw it away – no clean up!

Another really time consuming card using a technique from Tim’s 2011 set of Christmas tags. You can find details on how Tim Holtz did the technique here. I took the basic idea and adhered my decorated fragments onto a card front. I did the glittery line the same way as the Basic Grey Christmas card below, only I used two shades of glitter. A pearl topped of each of the fragments and the greeting was a Copic coloured word from a Dear Santa word strip.

Overall I was happy with how they turned out but it was a bit annoying to have the slight greyish tinge in a few places where the ink didn’t quite rub away.

Stamps used were the flourish background and the scroll one from the Ornate Elements set.

I love this Christmas Reindeer set and use it so much. The reindeer is a pain to cut out but so worth the effort! I started with a base stamped with the Star background stamp and clear embossed. It was sponged with distress inks in wild honey, rusty hinge & barn door. The die cut was from Spellbinders and I stamped half of it with the words from the same stamp set. A strip of embossed cardstock covered the edge and added a bit of interest. The reindeer was stamped in red ink, covered with Glossy Accents and sprinkled with coarse glitter. I had to smoosh it on a bit to get it to stick. Once layered up the reindeer looks like he is about to take flight!

Embossing Resist Christmas Cards

2011-12-18T11:32:00.001+10:00

As soon as I saw the Darkroom Door Christmas word block I knew it would work perfectly for this technique. I love how the words disappear into the background, except for where the embossing is.

For these cards I stamped the word block and heat set it to make sure it was really dry. I then dusted with an embossing buddy and stamped the reindeer image with clear ink and embossed with clear powder. To bring out the contrast around the stamped image, I sponged with inks or paint. The embossed design resisted the ink and after a quick wipe with a tissue to remove any ink build-up the image was done and ready for layering.

For this one I used warm red Colorbox chalk ink for that real Christmassy red in both the stamping and sponging. A few pearls added a bit of bling to his antlers. The die cut is from Spellbinders.

This card was done a little differently. I stamped the word block with distress Ink and once the reindeer image was embossed, I scraped over some Precious Metal Colour with a gift card. The close up doesn’t do the effect justice – it really shimmers! Once dry, I die cut the reindeer & layered it onto a panel stamped with Darkroom Door dots background stamp in pearlescent blue Brilliance ink. The panel was raised on foam tape before adding to the card front.

This one was done a little differently again. The word block was stamped with wild honey distress inks and instead of stamping with another image, I die cut a stencil using the Spellbinders ornament die, laid that over the word block and used a direct-to-paper technique to apply the clear ink. A quick sponge with some more distress ink and it was done.

I finished the card with a little punched tab stamped with the tree image from the Darkroom Door Christmas sentiments plate.

Christmastime…

2011-12-17T18:20:00.001+10:00

We are done to counting sleeps until Christmas so I thought I might share some of the Christmas cards I have made over recent months. Some I taught in classes & others were just playing with techniques and stamps.

First up is a real simple one using a Stamp It stamp. I stamped with lime Brilliance ink to give a pearlescent effect and layered the image up with red and green Bazzill. The green layer is Bazzill bling.

Next up is another simple one. I used a piece of Basic Grey paper, tied a ribbon across and added a stamped, embossed and layered greeting (Stamp It). The glittery edge was created by putting a line of glossy accents around the paper and sprinkling with glitter. The most time consuming part was waiting for the glitter to dry!

Another in a glittery theme is this dove themed card. The image was coloured with Smooch paints – these are so easy to use and give a gorgeous shimmery effect which is just perfect for Christmas! The close-up of the shimmer actually worked this time but is so much better IRL. The image is from Stamp It. I thought the card didn’t have enough shimmer so I added a strip of thin X-Press It tape and sprinkled with glitter. The pic looks a bit yellow but I think that might be the light and the gold flecked glitter I used. The ribbon was also held nicely in place with another strip of X-Press It tape.

Hero Arts Challenge

2011-11-25T18:04:00.001+10:00

If you follow the Hero Arts blog you will know that they run regular challenges with lots of great prizes. I haven’t entered for ages but I was inspired this month to create a flowery card matching the colour theme of pink, pool, green, neutral & white.

The flowers were coloured with pink & green shades of Smooch Inks and accented with a few tiny pearls. The butterfly was coloured with Copics & coated with some Ranger crackle accents. I loved how it softened the strong Copic colours.

A close up of the crackle effect.

Inkurable October Challenge

2011-11-02T18:23:00.001+10:00

The challenges keep coming at Inkurable Stampers and this time we are to use orange, green and purple plus neutrals of white/black/brown if needed.

This colour palette is not one I use regularly so it was an interesting exercise. As I have a class coming up featuring the batik technique, I thought I would give that a go. It gave me a chance to use my new Darkroom Door Bold Blossoms set.

Essentially the batik technique tries to mimic the look of batik fabric – normally done with wax as a resist to the dyeing medium. In this technique, the image is stamped and embossed with clear ink/powder and the background is coloured with inks etc – on this card I used Distress Inks. Once happy with the result, the piece is covered with a bit of paper towel and ironed with a dry iron. The heat from the iron removes the embossing powder and leaves a lovely 'flat' image which leaves people guessing.

Darkroom Door - Masked Stamping ATC Swap

2011-10-15T11:56:00.001+10:00

The September theme for the Darkroom Door ATC swap was to use masked stamping as a technique. I thought this would be a perfect way to use my all time favourite butterfly stamp and a new favourite, the Journey wordblock. As this technique can be a bit tricky I thought I might do a step-by-step for the blog.

I prepared each ATC base using some Distress Stain and later when they were stamped I added a bit of sponging to fill in the gaps. I usually make my bases 3 1/4" x 2 1/4" so I can mat them with a contrasting colour & still end up with the required size of 3 1/2” x 2 1/2”.

I then stamped the butterfly image into the centre of each base.

For masked stamping you need to create a mask - a post-it is perfect for this job and they work really well. Stamp the image over the 'sticky' bit and cut it out really closely. Place over your image, making sure you line up the image as closely as possible to avoid ghosting. Remove the post-it after stamping and apply to the next image.

I then stamped over the masked butterfly with the Journey wordblock using Distress Chipped Sapphire ink. Once I finish a batch of ATC's I usually dispose of the mask as it is very inky but if you are only stamping a couple of images - keep it with your stamps for next time.

To finish the image I coloured it with some Copics and sponged the edges a little more with Distressed Chipped Sapphire ink. I stamped the word 'Nature' using one of the images from the Garden Inchies set and applied it over the middle of the wings with some foam tape.

The final step was to mat the base with some cardstock sized 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" and they were done!

Inkurable September Challenge

2011-09-22T17:21:00.002+10:00

This month the challenge at Inkurable Stampers is to produce an item which uses eyelets.
My card uses the Darkroom Door Christmas Reindeer stamps. These are one of my favourite Christmas sets to use.
The embossed panel was done using some Core'dinations cardstock which was sanded lightly after embossing.

ATC Swaps Revisited

2011-09-03T17:54:00.001+10:00

Recently I have been sorting through my digital images of past ATC swaps and thought it would be good to share some with you, along with the techniques used to create them.

For the first set, I have ATC’s created for the Darkroom Door ATC swap from April 2011. The theme was to use background stamps.

This set used the French Script background stamp along with the Tour Eiffel stamps from the Paris Collection.

The background was made by sponging cardstock with Distress Inks, I used Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold & Spiced Marmalade. After sponging I flicked a bit of water over to create the droplet pattern.

Then it was a simple matter of stamping each of the backgrounds with the script stamp, stamping the wording and Eiffel tower and attaching to the background.

I love the colour this combination of inks produces – so luscious!

Here is a group photo – it shows the variations in the background.