Monday 6 October 2014

Me and A DeeTee

Yes, gentle reader, me, on a Design Team!  Ack, get away.  Actually it's a guest spot which is far better for everyone's blood pressure and my general level of terror.
I jumped at the chance to play with some canadian rubber stamps when Robyn and Suzanne of Quietfire Designs asked me if I'd like to guest. And then immediately became stricken by panic and inability.  They are such beautiful stamps; I wanted to do them justice...which of course meant that I couldn't.   

If you pop over to Quietfire's design blog, you'll find this post, but enhanced with a short synopsis of my life so far.  Or something like that - an 'introductory paragraph' I think they called it in the brief. You can skip that and head straight to the card making part..
I was playing about with the Dragonfly from this set; I don't feature them on my cards very often and had an idea to make the wings all irredescent (which you can't see) and to keep it simple, but with a striking background.  Tall order on a 4" square card!
I used good watercolour stock and dripped Distress Stain onto the wetted area.  And then used the heat gun to dry it because I'm too impatient to wait.  Then I die cut it (it's a Joy die) and ran a silver Krylon around the edge.  You can't tell, but the text is embossed - Versacolour Imperial Blue and embossed with clear powder.  Nor can you tell that the Dragonfly is higlighted with the silver Glamour Dust.  As was my face and decolletage....clumsy, moi?

While I was squashing the Distress stain against the corner of an acrylic block to produce enough liquid to drip onto the wet water-colour paper, I had another idea and decided to 'go grand' so that I could use one of my favourite stamps;  it’s from this set. If there's a trick to this, it's to stamp the text and emboss it before you do anything else, so that the plastic surface of the embossing can resist the inks. I used white embossing powder to maintain the contrast. 




Credit of course to Sizzix and T.Holtz Esq for the die, and to Provocraft for the embossing folder. You can see too that I don't know when I've finished and I used a white gel pen to doodle a border top and bottom and then to 'stitch' some of the coloured blobs (technical term) together.  
Quietfire sells stamps through Oyster Stamps here in the UK, but has a mass of cut files for you Silhouette and type users...lucky you, I say.  Please to stay relatively tuned...there's more where this came from..and oh the stamps are so worth seeing!

17 comments:

Helen said...

love them both, but especially the dragonfly card, it's stunning.

Di said...

Beautiful work Julia!

Hugs
Di xx

misteejay said...

Congrats on your GDT spot. Love the colours you have used on each of these cards.
Toni xx

Sue said...

Fabby cards.

Well done on the design spot.

Hope you have a good start to the week.

shazsilverwolf said...

Stop the stressing, Julia, they are fabulous. Especially love the Umbrella man card,and a sparkly decolletage is a small price to pay for that lovely dragonfly. Hugs, Shaz xxx

Eliza said...

Excellent cards both of them.

Hugs Eliza

I'm a Little Teapot said...

Your cards are top shelf, Julia! Both are beautiful!

I left some love at the QF site...which was very easy to do with these lovely cards!

Christine said...

Congrats on the nerve racking adventure .....
Superb card! Thank you for sharing with us.
Oyster is new to me but going to be exploring so thank you for suggesting somewhere in GB to buy the stamps which I have long admired!
xx

Lunch Lady Jan said...

They're even gorgeouser in real life! Hope you're having fun :-)
Xxxx

Art By Wanda said...

Your cards are wonderful!!!!

Krisha said...

Stunning, just stunning!

Felix the Crafty Cat said...

Love the cards Julia. Happy crafting, Angela x

okienurse said...

Awesome cards Julia. Congrats on the DT guest spot. I like those best too! Vickie

ANNETTE HUSBAND said...

Love love love both these cards Julia...just gorgeous and simple. Well done you

HeARTworks said...

Glamor dust on your face and decolletage?? Isn't that where it's supposed to be? Especially now that you're on a DT? Great cards! Love the splash of colors behind umbrella man. Do you know that's the symbol of the protest movement in Hong Kong? Just thought you'd like to know :^) patsy

Sharon Madson said...

Love both the cards Julia!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

You truly did justice to those stamps. Both cards are gorgeous, and you can be proud of them. I would be happy if I made anything half as lovely as you made.