Crafters crafters everywhere...

Hello!!

So today I approach this after a long day of crafting to forget about my cold!  I've had lots of techniques I've wanted to try today as I was very lucky to be able to have gone to the Great British Craft Festival in Bolton yesterday.

Boy was that a day out!

Something quite exhilarating about rummaging through over 60 stalls of crafting, although not great if you get claustrophobic, because believe me, there was a LOT of women!  My little boy got really upset after a short while because he became heavily concerned that he was going to lose me - my husband was with us and we did our best to reassure!  I would advise if you go to such an event to take someone with you that is willing to wait in the queues ;)

There were two things that I saw that I found very inspiring, which I have played with today with much excitement and mess!  They were the stamp range from Card-io Majestix and the Sparkle Medium by imagination crafts.

Card-io Majestix have these lovely little stamps.  Now when I say little, I mean little.  They are intended to be used to build up an image, and collectively looked stunning - the cards they had on display were amazing!  I would advise though that you find something secure to store them in, I'd be more upset sucking one of these up in the hoover than I would lego!

 With the stamps being tiny, you can make a wide variety of designs and shapes, and each card will be unique!  My first card I wanted to make a heart shape out of my stamps - the Oriental Blossom pack to be specific, while the second one I wanted to make a giant H as the main focal point - this one I used the Sakura Blooms and the Summer Wreath packs.
Now from a heavy handed, clumsy point of view, I did find these nice to work with.  I can go through several attempts trying to get a good image with most stamps.  The advantage of these is that you can layer them up, which covers any mistakes and any half stamps where you haven't quite pushed through enough!

Sparkle Medium got my five year old very excited.  He watched the lady closely and loved the effects as she pealed off her peacock mask to reveal two beautiful peacocks with little ease.  She even said that if you can butter bread, you can do this!  Now being someone who can destroy bread with my attempts of buttering - along with being overly generous with butter - I was keen to see if I can get the same effects as quickly and easily as she did.

 So some money spent later, and a palette knife bought, I decided that I would attempt to copy this effect with the few masks I have at home.

At long last my wrestles with acetate have resulted in a card instead of cuts!  Sparkle medium was easy to use, quite pleasant to spread and very fast technique.  Unfortunately, you do have to give it time to dry - I didn't dare touch it for some time!  It also worked well with acetate - on my star card I decided to try a technique I was told about, where you slightly align the mask on the card base slightly to one side to give a shadow effect.

From a heavy handed point of view, you do need to take care that you don't accidentally go underneath the mask - not a problem because of the medium, that was easy to use, more just as a result of using a mask, as it may not lie completely flat against the paper.
This technique was so easy that my five year old helped with the blue stars!

  

So there you have it!  A brief flirt with two techniques I haven't tried before, both easy enough to do and I will certainly be using these techniques on more cards!

Have a nice day!
Sara

The Heavy Handed Crafter

  

Quick and Easy Card make!

Hello and good day!

I approach this post in some what of a daze, mainly a lack of sleep daze!  One of the few downsides of being a community care worker who works in the evenings is lack of sleep!  (another one being my hands...no close up photos of these aged beasts!  I have the hands of an 80 year old!)

Inspiration likes to come accompanied with lots of rest, and sometimes chocolate.  Okay maybe nearly always chocolate!

I'll be honest though, it's with a little bit of nerves that I share with you my first ever card I made myself post!  I've made a fair few cards, gosh I can remember some of the early ones, they were... special....   Poor husband has had to endure a lot of "Look what I made" pounces as he either walks through the door or sits entertaining our five year old while I craft.  Some of those I've put up on some crafting websites, such as Trimcraft and Docrafts.  Yet none to my blog...mainly due to lack of time, sorry!

Anyway, I've gone on too much...  Here is the card I made last week, originally intended as a follow up to my last blog as I wanted a card to put on...

This was a quick and easy card to make.  I used three different, complementing papers from the Sheena by Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Oriental 160gsm paper pack, and the background paper I used was from a paper pack I bought in The Works, designed to let you see paper threads in the paper itself, which I felt brought a nice element to it instead of a plain white card background.

This is an easy one that anyone can make!  Here's how...

1)  Cut a strip of paper from three different pieces of paperstock - you may need an extra strip of each depending on how large the card base is - my card base is 7.5 cm x 20.3 cm (or just under 3" by 8", if you prefer).  My paper strips are 2.5cm thick - I experimented with the paper strips at 3 cm and found I preferred them to be a bit thinner 

2)  Trim background paper to make it slightly smaller than the card base.

3)  Attach double sided sticky tape to your paper strips, and attach to the front of the background paper at an angle - you may wish to use something behind the background paper to help you judge the angle of the paper.  Attach the first three strips in one corner, leaving a small gap between each.

4)  Turn the background paper over.  Using good quality, thin scissors, trim next to the edge of the paperstock to remove excess card.  Turn back over, the paper strips should nicely line up with the edge of the card.

5)  Repeat with the opposite corner of the card.

6)  Stamp sentiment - my sentiment was made up using Dovecrafts Alphabet stamps, brilliant if you want to do a nice sentiment and you can stamp whatever you want to say!

7)  Attach embellishments.  Here I added some wooden embellishments, and used some pink gem stones to create a the impression of the butterflies flowing in a particular direction.

8)  Once you are happy, attach your whole piece onto your main card base, and hey presto, quick and easy card to make!!

I had a lot of fun making this card!!  Now..it's getting late and I have a five year old to help put to sleep with the power of "Mummy Hair"....

Happy Crafting!!

Sara x

The Heavy Handed Crafter

Papers, papers, everywhere....

Hello and good day!

It's been a rather busy week, all work and no craft makes for a very dull day!  Managed to find spare time here and there to experiment...

Experiment on what, though?

Crafting things takes me several hours.. just to make one thing.  An unfair chunk of that time is spent finding my table...  other chunks of that time is spent trying to find where I put my scissors down and anything else that I'm pretty sure I had to hand a few seconds ago..

The majority of that time, well, is spent trying to decide what paper I want to work with..

The other day, I was having a go at making a card for a competition on Trimcraft, and I picked out my paper and cards I wanted to work with, some lovely blue.  I came to use my perfect layers rulers and, unfortunately many slashes later ended up with something that could be passed as my five year olds cutting handiwork.  To say the least, I made a bad job of it, because I picked, for me, the wrong type of card.

So I decided, lets look at different types of papers for my blog, something I can have to hand, that others could use, too, because nothing is worse than ruining pretty papers by using the wrong thing!

I've rummaged through my cardstock and picked out some different pieces, different textures and different gsm.

Okay so I've picked glitter card, pearlescent card, Trimcrafts First Edition Christmas Joy 200gsm card stock, 210gsm white card stock from The Range, Sheena by Sheena Douglass a little bit oriental 160gsm, Tim Holtz Kraft core Nostalgic collecion by core'dinations, some very fine paper designed to see the threads of the paper, Gold card stock, parchment paper and red foam.

I'm going to put each card stock through the same tests to see which works best with which technique.  The techniques are : Scalpel test - how easy it is to cut through; Rigidity; Embossing with a folder and finally die cutting and embossing with a simple die and a complex die.

The embossing folder is Sheena by Sheena Douglas A Little Bit Oriental Cherry, the simple die is a Xcut nesting die scalloped square and the butterfly is by Bebunni (also comes with a smaller butterfly and a bee).

So here are the results!

 Christmas Joy 200gsm by Trimcraft First Edition

Scalpel test :- Gentle cut creates scores for fold, firm pressure cut through.
Rigidity:-  Will make good layer or card base.
Embossing folder:- embossed well but did remove a little of the coloured top layer in places             Die cut and emboss:- Cuts and embosses well but some tear                                                                                                      around where the dies get more complex.

Sheena by Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Oriental 160gsm

Scalpel test: Not too much pressure needed to cut nicely through the paper.
Rigidity: Lovely as a layer to the card, but not firm enough to act as the main card base
Embossing folder: Embosses well but some damage to the top layer of paper where embossed, this                                   could be used to create a distressed look or ink to cover.
Die cut and emboss: Complex die did cause some damage to the paper where it was embossed, care                                    does need to be taken to remove card stock from die (especially if you are                                              heavy handed!).  Looks lovely though..

Standard White card stock from The Range, 210gsm

   

Scalpel test:  Gentle pressure scores the card, does need firm pressure to cut through

Rigidity: Suitable as layer or as the main card base, this tends to be what I use as it's cheap and I go                   through a fair amount of card stock until I am happy.

Embossing folder: embossed well, clear to see.

Die cut and emboss: Die cuts and embosses well, easy enough to remove using pokey tool.

Pearlescent Card

Scalpel test: Cuts through if you use firm pressure, scores with gentle pressure.

Rigidity: would make a good layer or card base

Embossing folder: embosses clearly and beautifully in the folder

Die cue and emboss: Cut through first time, embossed beautifully, easy to remove using pokey tool.

Gold foil card

Scalpel test: Gentle scores the card, firm pressure did start to cut, need to press hard.

Rigidity: Firm enough to make a card base or a layer.

Embossing Folder: Embossed beautifully, very clear to see.

Die cut and emboss: Nice embossing and die cutting, easy to remove, but some small tears at the                                          finer details.

Glitter Card

Scalpel test: Gentle pressure scores, does cut through with firm pressure
Rigidity: It is sturdy enough, but felt horrible to fold!  I'd rather use it as a layer.
Embossing folder: does emboss in folder (also embosses if you forget to check that you put it in the                                    folder the right way round,,,,)
Die cut and emboss: Does cut and emboss though harder to see, easy to remove with pokey tool.

Parchment paper

Scalpel test: gentle scored the paper, firmer pressure cut through
Rigidity: Will bend but not sturdy enough to act as the main card base
Embossing folder: Does emboss, but creates a pale white "shadow" in the paper where it has been                                     embossed
Die cut and emboss: Die cuts, but did notice some threading around the edge, some tear to the                                              embossed areas where it is more complex and did rip when removing with a                                          pokey tool.

Very fine paper

Scalpel test: Cuts with gentle pressure.

Rigidity: No rigidity to it, better as a pretty layer.

Embossing folder: Did emboss, but not very clear and quite hard to see.

Die cut and emboss: Does die cut but doesn't emboss well and ripped easily.

Foam

Scalpel test: Cuts through with some pressure quite easily.

Rigidity: Not great at folding, wouldn't make a good card base layer, good for adding a textured layer

Embossing folder: Did emboss, but not as a clear an image as you get with card.

Die cut and emboss: Does die cut, some strands of foam left around the edge, embossing did cause                                       the foam to curl a little.

Tim Holtz Kraft core Nostalgic collection by core'dinations

Scalpel test: Gentle pressure scores, firm pressure cuts through

Rigidity: Firm, stands well, possible good base 

Embossing folder: Embosses well.  There is also the advantage that you can sand the embossed                                         image.

Die cut and emboss: Die cuts and embosses well, easy to remove with pokey tool.

So there you have it! Just to explain to those that don't know what gsm means, it stands for grams per square metre, the heavier the paper the higher the gsm.  (Also, just to add, I haven't been approached by any of the companies to do this test, I just wanted to see what could be done with different gsm papers, the cards mentioned above were some of the papers I had that had the gsm on the front.)

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this!  Phew!  It's certainly been interesting to see just what I could do with some of my stock!

 

All the best,

Sara

The Heavy Handed Crafter xx

Hello and welcome!

Good morning!

So to tell you a little bit about myself...  my name is Sara, and I am a crafter!  I'm fairly inexperienced at crafting (I started collecting things to craft a couple of years ago, but never started properly crafting until last year at Christmas time).  As I write this, I have a scrapbook next to me which I use to make notes of techniques and layouts I see on the internet - however, I have one unfortunate (well..many..) trait about myself that does make crafting quite the challenge.  I'm very heavy handed (and also rather clumsy, the two don't go well together!).  I've been thinking about making a blog for a while, looking at techniques and other things to share with people, trying to find things that work for those that are a bit heavy handed, too!  I also hope to find things that work brilliantly for new people to crafting so that they can make pretty things!  

I look forward to seeing where this all takes me and to sharing my projects with you, and finally putting use to the many papers that I like to sit and look at!

Have a great day!

The Heavy Handed Crafter