Birthday Card - Watercolor Galaxy Space Themed

 

Once again, another space themed card. This time I'm using a galaxy background created using watercolors with space themed embellishments. I needed a birthday card for a gift to my nephew so used a happy birthday sentiment with 'Whoa' in front to give it a bit of an 'out of this world' feel!

As per my recent trend, I made a process video of how I put this card together and a link to it is below or you can click here.

First step is to create the galaxy background. I was playing around with some watercolor paints I recently got and decided to make a galaxy. It's made by brushing shades of yellow, green, blue hues near the centre the piece then surrounding it with a dark purple hue then very dark blue (almost black) was painted around the outer edge. I then let the piece dry overnight before using a paintbrush to flick white acrylic paint flecks all over the piece for stars - I added a little water at times to help dilute the paint and make it easier to flick the white specks of paint everywhere. Again I let that dry overnight before adding my sentiment strip and space themed embellishments.

So, once the watercolor galaxy background piece was dry, I arranged the space themed die cuts I found and had hanging around in my stash on top of the galaxy background. I had already coloured these using alcohol makers (a review of the markers I used can be found here) so they were ready to use.

I also decided that I wanted to make a birthday card for my nephew who I was going to give a gift to soon. I found some stamps in my stash to create the sentiment "Whoa. Happy Birthday" The 'whoa' part is to give the sentiment a bit of an 'out of this world, kind of feel to match the space theme I was going for.

As I wanted to heat emboss the sentiment I place the black cardstock sentiment strip in my stamping platform then used it to stamp the sentiment 3 or 4 times with clear embossing ink. I then sprinkle white embossing powder over the sticky ink sentiment and tap off the excess. I do this over non-stick baking paper so I can easily recollect the excess powder for use next time. 

I then use my heat gun to heat set the embossing powder. I decided I wanted the rocket die cut to cover the end of the sentiment strip so it looked like the sentiment strip ends at the rocket so I trimmed off a bit off the end of the sentiment strip.

I stick the sentiment strip down using double sided tape over the nebula part of the galaxy background. Using foam tape behind the rocket die cut, I stick it down over the right hand side edge of the sentiment strip ensuring the end is covered by the rocket.

Standard double-sided tape is used to adhere down the rest of the space themed die cut elements.

Last thing to do is to adhere the card front to a card base. For this I decided a black cardbase would suit the space theme and used double-sided tape to adhere the card front to the card base, ensuring that there is an even border of black around the card front before pressing it down.

And its all done!

Happy Crafting!

Mel Crafting.

Touchfive Alcohol Markers Review

Touchfive Alcohol Markers

Sorry for taking a while to post another blog, I have been distracted with other things and lost a bit of motivation but now I'm back and happy to finally post a review on the Touchfive alcohol markers I bought off Aliexpress for about US$18 last year. For the video review head over to my youtube channel "Mel Crafting" or just click here or view the link below.

First impressions are OK. I bought a 60 piece set and the Aliexpress seller threw in a couple of cheap pens. The listing said a colorless blender would be included but I didn't get one so I was quite disappointed with that.

Some of the tips were poking out and needed pushing back in so consistency of assembly of the markers isn't great. However, they did come in handy zip-up Pouch to hold the makers and it fitted a few extra markers I bought to complement the set so that was a bonus; again though the material of the bag is quite thin and does have a cheap kind of a feel to it.

Touchnew 60 set zip pouch

The markers have a bullet tip and a chisel tip for each color. The caps feel very secure when you take them off and they give a nice click when you put them back on so I felt their was little chance of them drying out due to a loose cap. Holding them and drawing/coloring them was comfortable in my hand, I would have preferred a round barrel rather than the square profile but I didn't get a sense of any control issues.

Touchfive bullet tip

Touchfive chisel tip

I swatched both the bullet tip and the chisel tip ends, noting down both the number and name printed on the cap of the markers. All the markers were juicy when using the bullet tip. I found marker 99 "Bronze" had a dried out chisel tip whilst marker 69 "Prussian Blue" had feathering issues with its chisel tip.

Touchfive 60 Marker Set Swatching

Marker 69 Prussian Blue Chisel Tip Feathering

Marker 99 Bronze Dry Chisel Tip

Moving onto some alcohol marker blending. I tried out sets of three in colors that I would commonly blend together when I make my cards. What I found was that some markers were easier to blend than others; so that missing colorless blender would have come in handy...

Testing out the Blending

I'm mostly happy with the color range for what I use them for (cardmaking/coloring), but I would have liked more in the purple range because, well, purple is my favourite color. The set has a great range of reds, blues, greens and brown/yellows with quite a few greys so really only limited by your imagination.

Overall, I recommend this 60 marker set of Touchfive alcohol markers as a first set for someone looking to try alcohol markers out but who also does not mind having a limited purple color range and can live with imperfect blending.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Happy crafting!

Mel Crafting.

Christmas Card - Vellum Overlay

Vellum Overlay Christmas Card

I wanted to try out my alcohol markers properly so I stamped this bold flower background and used my touchfive alcohol marker - which I bought off AliExpress- to try out some colour blending.

Flowery Background Outline

To stamp this background I used Gina K Designs Jet black ink as it is alcohol marker friendly and coloured it all in.

Alcohol Marker Colored Background

Then I used clear embossing ink onto vellum to stamp "Wishing you the happiest Christmas filled with love, cheer & joy" from Simon Says Stamp's Holiday Greetings Mix 1" clear stamp set. Then I sprinkled gold embossing powder over the top and heat set it. I folded the top edge of the vellum over the top of the coloured background.

Vellum Overlay

To keep it in place I used double-sided tape to stick vellum on top edge to the notecard. Then I adhered leftover red strips with clear embossed stamping to the top and bottom edges. I founda  navy blue card and stuck the notecard to the front of that.

Finished Vellum Overlay Card

All done!

Happy Crafting!

Mel Crafting.

Christmas Card - Textured Background

Christmas Card - Textured Background with Cats

I recieved an awesome background stamp with berries and leaves on it from a friend. It's got a lot of intricate detail so I thought it'd look lovely as a subtle background using clear heat embossing. That's how this card came about.

I'LL INSERT YOUTUBE VIDEO HERE IN NEAR FUTURE.

I stamped the berries and leaves background stamp using clear embossing ink onto red cardstock then covered it in clear embossing powder and heat set it.

I cut a circle out of 'faux linen' textured cardbase then used doubled sided tape to adhere the red background into the circle window.

I had a couple of diecut cats and presents leftover in my stash from Mama elephant's Oh Kitty tree stamp set that I wanted to use up. I also wanted to use the geometric tree and star from Simon Says Stamp clean line christmas stamp set. The 'Season's Greetings' sentiment is from the same stamp set.

I stamped the cat, present and tree images using Gina K Design Jet black ink because I wanted to colour them using alcohol markers. I did some basic colouring then stuck them to the front of the card using double-sided tape.

For the sentiment, I used clear embossing ink to stamp it onto black cardstock and heat set it using silver embossing powder. Then I trimmed the cardstock around the sentiment to get a single black banner that would fit across the width of the card. Then I used double-side tape to adhere the sentiment strip to the front of the card.

And it's done!

Happy Crafting

Mel Crafting.

Christmas Card - Warm Christmas Wishes

Warm Summer Wishes Christmas Card

Living in the southern hemisphere means a warm summer's day on Christmas. When I came across Simon Says Stamp's Warm Christmas Wishes for sale 2nd hand on Trademe, I had to get it and make some summery Christmas cards. Combined with a couple of other summer themed stamp sets, this will be the first of many Christmas cards I make with a summer flair to them.

(I will link to a YouTube process video for this card here in the near future, I'm just having a few teething issues with editing the footage but I'll get there and put it up as soon as it's ready!)

I wanted to use the large landscape image from Simon Says Stamp's Surf's Up stamp set so I decided to make a square card and cut out a piece of 300 GSM white cardstock 15cm x 15cm. A few friends have been asking how I store my stamp (and die) sets so I'll post another blog post in the near future on how I do that using black envelopes as you can see in the following photos.

Simon Says Stamp - Surf's Up Stamp Set

Simon Says Stamp - Warm Christmas Wishes Stamp Set

Simon Say Stamp - Warm Christmas Wishes - Coordinating Die Set

I stamped that large circular landscape image onto my square card using clear embossing ink and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I also stamped the image onto plain white scrap paper using black ink and fussy cut it out - this will be used as a mask as when I use my daubers to ink blend the background.

Using Altenew mini ink pads and sponge daubers, I carefully masked the landscape image and ink blended an ocean scene with an island in the middle using the following colours: Caramel Toffee, , Desert Night, Dusk, Ocean Waves and Sea Glass.

Altenew Inks and Sponge Daubers Used of Ink Blended Background

Onto white 300 GSM cardstock  I stamped many of the smaller images from both Surf's up and Warm summer wishes' stamp sets using Gina K jet black amalgam ink. As I intended to color them using alcohol markers.

Using Touchfive alcohol markers I colored the images then either fussy cut around them or they were die cut using a coordinating die if the image was from the Warm Summer Wishes stamp set.

Warm Christmas Wishes & Surf's Up Images - Stamped and Colored

Next I arranged the images onto the card front to see where it would be best to place a sentiment. I decided to use the 'Warm Christmas Wishes' sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp's Warm Christmas Wishes Stamp Set. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I stuck the images down into place using double sided tape and stamped the sentiment using clear smbossing ink onto black card stock. I then heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder, cut the card into a banner and stuck it to the card using double-sided tape.

I cut down the card front a little and mounted it to a 15.5cm x 16.5cm black card base. This is the first square card I've made so it a bit of an odd sized card, which is why I also had to make an envelope that is 16.5cm x 16.5cm. I used some scrapbooking paper with silver/black baubles to make a christmas themed envelope for this card.

Warm Christmas Wishes Christmas Card with Silver Baubles Envelope

All done!

Happy crafting!

Mel Crafting.