Friday, July 31, 2009

VersaMark Ink and Chalk

There is a craze in adding color to your card creations that combines two great mediums for a totally new look: VersaMark and Chalk. This great combo gives you wonderfully rich colors in a reasonably short time and is an easy technique.

Ink your image or images with the VersaMark pad. Be sure your stamp is clean before starting. Heat set your image with your heat gun otherwise your image will smear. Use make-up sponges, cotton balls, q-tips, paper towels or the gray tips with the Colorbox Stylus Tool – whatever is easiest for you to get chalk on the card as your applicator.

Begin by rubbing your applicator onto the chalk block then rub it on your cardstock. Start with the lightest color and keep working to the darker shade ... this saves you from having to get another applicator quite so often.

Keep adding chalk to your cardstock in circles, diagonals, blotches, streaks or smears until you like the effect. As you add chalk, the VersaMark image will become more vivid in the color of the chalk you are using and the non- stamped part of the image will have a soft color look to it. Go to another color and repeat. The chalks will overlap on the image and start to give stamp a great ‘blended’ look. Do this with a variety of colors until you achieve your desired result.

As a finishing note, chalk can be messy and can come off the image. The chalk companies recommend you seal your final product. Cheap aerosol hairspray works fine.

The cool thing about this is – say you put down green in a spot and you don’t want green there. No problem – just rub another color (purple f or example) over it. Viola! Your color is now purple!

Chalk Popping

From the Decorating Chalk Palette, pick up #1 yellow with a Colorbox stylus tip. Using the DTP technique, apply to a piece of white 4” x 21/2” cardstock.

Wipe the stylus tip clean and repeat with chalk color #13 Magenta.

With a clean tip, lastly apply #12 Violet.

Without adding any other more chalk color, rub your colors into the cardstock with the stylus tip or if you like the looks of the colors, just leave it.

Ink the Magenta rose stamp #09.145.K page 144 with VersaMark. Stamp in the center of the background that you just created. Heat set with a heat gun or let air dry completely.

With a sponge q-tip, apply chalk color #17 green to the leaves. Apply #12 Violet to the roses. Set aside

Apply #12 violet chalk to the front of 41/4” x 51/2” white card.

Using Vivid lavender ink, stamp the edges of the card with the Magenta dot stamp #18.086.E page 233. Set aside.

Cut white cardstock 45/8” x 3”. Chalk the edges with the Stylus tip and #12 Violet. Punch with a corner slot punch. Insert rose. (To line up any corner slot punch, make sure your cardstock is ½” longer and ½” wider than your image that you want to insert, however, the punch I am using
seems to require a bit more in length). Spray with cheap hairspray to seal the colors.

Glue to the card. Spray with gold glitter.
On the Just a Note card, I simply swiped the chalk colors across the entire image.
First taught this class January 23, 2002.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Spotlight Stamping

Prepare card by cutting black cardstock 83/4 x 5.75”. Fold in half. Crease fold with a bone folder. Set aside.

Stamp Magenta image 21.057.R page 84, twice on white glossy cardstock using black Memories ink. Let dry completely before proceeding.

Trim one image to 51/4” x 41/2” and mount to front of the black card. Set aside.

Cut out a “Spotlight” shape from the second image. The shape can be a rectangle, circle, square or a shape that echoes part of the stamped image. I cut a 2 x 13/4” rectangle on mine. Using markers, color in the shape you just cut out.

There are two ways to add this to the main image. The first one is to glue this to the top of the full image aligning to the corresponding part of the image. Outline a border with the fat end of a Zig Writer black marker around the spotlight. The second way is to mount your spotlight piece on to black cardstock. Trim close then align to the corresponding part of the image.

I colored some leaves and berries from my scrap piece and added them.

Here are a couple of samples using the same stamp and spotlighting different parts.

First taught this class March 2, 2002.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Using a Stamp Positioner

The stamp positioner is an acrylic tool much like a draftsman t-square but thicker. Used with small sheets of tracing paper, it gives the stamper total control in positioning an image.

The first step in using the positioning tool is to place a piece of tracing paper into the corner such that it fits snugly into the right angle. Depending on the size of the stamps used, you may be able to fit 3 or 4 images onto one piece of tracing paper, with one image in each corner. These registered copies of your stamps can be used again so file them carefully.

Using a fast drying ink, stamp onto the tracing paper by placing the corner of the stamp block into the corner of the positioning tool, then sliding it down onto the paper. Do not use pigment ink as it will not dry on most tracing papers and may lead to smudging on your work.

Move the tracing paper across your project to see where you want the image. Once decided, hold the tracing paper in place and slide the positioned onto the corner of the paper. Remove the tracing paper. Without moving the positioned, stamp, using the ink of your choice by placing the corner of the stamp block into the corner of the positioning tool, then sliding it down onto the paper.



Your image will be exactly where you want it to be!

A Bouquet of Wishes using the Stampaliner

Yellow emboss the larger Magenta flower 09.163.H page 184, three times on banana colored cardstock. Cut out the flowers. Curl each petal downward by rolling each petal over a pencil. Apply a piece of two sided foam tape to the centers of each flower on the back. Set aside.

Green emboss (I used Topiary Tapestry by PSX) the same flower once onto green cardstock. Cut it out then cut it apart so that you have two double and one single petals. These will be used as the leaves. Set aside.

Prepare card by cutting off white cardstock 81/2 x 51/2”. Fold in half. Crease fold with a bone folder. Starting in the center of your card, alternately stamp a checkerboard pattern on the card front using Memories Soft Leaf ink and the Magenta shadow stamp 23.287.F page 225, with the aid of the Stampaliner. With Vivid yellow ink, and the small Magenta flowerd.0252 page 145, stamp a flower in each of the empty squares. Set aside.

On a piece of off white scrap, green emboss the phrase by Penny Black. Trim close to the phrase. Layer this on to banana cardstock, then green cardstock. Adhere at an angle on the bottom of the card.

Place yellow 3-D flowers in a pleasing arrangement above message. Adhere. Place leaves amongst the flowers and glue in place. Punch a dragonfly from banana cardstock and glue to the bottom of the phrase.

First taught this class November 28, 2001.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Coloring with Colorbox Paintbox

Prepare card by cutting Forest green cardstock 5.25” x 10.5”. Fold in half. Stamp the outer edges of the front with leaf 02.183.D page 247, using Versamark. Clean the stamp. Over stamp with the same stamp using gold colorbox ink. Set aside.
Black emboss the image 30.024.P page 247 on white cardstock. I choose colors from the Pastel Paintbox to color my image.
Lightly swipe Apple Green over the four center squares, overlapping slightly into the other squares. Repeat as above using Heliotrope for the four outside corners. Color the remaining eight squares with Coral.
In a circular motion, lightly rub the colors off the embossed image with a cotton ball. Too much pressure will drag the black so be sure and do this gently.
Color the three small and only one large flower with a red marker. Color all the leaves with a green marker. Highlight some of the uncolored petals with a white gel pen. Add centers to all the flowers with a gold pen.
Trim close to the outside embossing lines. Glue to a piece of white cardstock that measures 4.25” square. Mount to the center of your prepared card.

First taught this class June 20, 2001.
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