Stamped silhouette card

 

Here is a fun card that I designed which makes use of a masking effect to keep the stamped bird from being stamped or inked over. It is simple to do and it lets you turn a single sheet of cardstock into a great card by simply stamping and inking it in layers, bird first!

Here are instructions for making it from the Get Creative web site.

Yum! I love Ranger Glossy Accents

Ranger makes this wonderful product called Glossy Accents. It is clear and it is not only a dimensional adhesive but it can also be used as a dimensional glaze to give your projects a great shine. It really is all you need to hold the heaviest embellishment to your project.

This is a collage card I made using Glossy Accents to give everything on the card a great glossy coverage.

The card has an angled front panel and I used some cool Australian stamps to feature in the collage. The card was a project in Get Creative magazine in Australia. You can find detailed instructions for making it here. 

CHA - Distress Palooza

It's CHA Chicago time and Thursday is Education day. I've taken two classes and the one above is perhaps the best project I've ever seen. Taught by Tim Holtz with assistance from a heap of Ranger Design team members and the wonderful Robin Beams, this was such a cool project. There was no cutting, no messing around doing anything but the fun stuff.

We got to try out the new Tim Holtz line of Distress Crackle Paints - great stuff - a one step crackle process anyone can do. The brush is in the bottle and they're available in all 24 of Tim's Distress Ink colors - something to put on the shopping list when they're released later this year.

We also used Glossy Accents as glue - who knew it worked as a glue - it's dimensional and works a treat. The photo speaks for itself everything is stuck firm in just a few minutes and, believe me these were very lumpy accents and not flat backed.

Tonight I'm doing a Memory Glass class - I've done some work with it before but never a focused class. I'm looking forward to it.

Helen

Great news from Ranger Inks

I love Ranger inks but it wasn't until I interviewed Tim Holtz a couple of years ago that I discovered that the company's Sea shells, Sea Brights and Adirondack inks were arranged into a complimentary palette of color - who knew? Not me!

It seems that if you took Peach Bellini, Popsicle Orange and Terra Cotta inks - one from each of the range, they work wonderfully together. In fact, I still have one of their promo sheets on which Tim Holtz circled the colors to show just how they work. I lived by that list for a couple of years but I don't have to any more.

Ranger has, at last, acknowledged that most crafters don't know how the inks coordinate so the company has made it simple for all of us. Now the Sea Shells and Sea Brights are gone and they're all called Adirondack inks (I still can't pronounce that word, but at least I can now coordinate the inks). The inks are arranged into groups called Lights, Brights and Earthtones. The colors are the same but they're easier to match up with each other.

For the Earthtones collection which are the darker colors in the range, there are matching Acrylic Paint Dabbers, Dimensional Pearls™, Color Wash™, Alcohol Inks, Embossing Powders and Pigment Pens. So many wonderful products - Yum!

A by product of this rearrangement is the retirement of a few older products but you'll love the ease of coordinating colors - imagine paint,ink and embossing powders that all go together.

Find out more about the new range here: Ranger inks