Valentine Card

Hello!!

I thought it was about time I started on some cards for the year, I have some absolutely gorgeous Green Tara Rose buds so what better way to start than for Valentine's Day...

Ingredients:

12 Red Rose buds from Green Tara

White Cardstock

Black Cardstock

Script Embossing folder

Random rub-on

Fired Brick Distress Ink and applicator

White envelope

I hope you like it - thanks for looking.

Jen

Smart School Bookmark

New Year School Bookmark for Erin. Pink and lime, a cool combination for 8yr old girls!!
The flower go in the book to hold the page and the owl sits on the front cover of the book.



Ingredients:
Green Tara stripey ribbon, pink & lime (52cm - folded in half and taped together)
Twiddleybitz whimsy owls (2)
Twiddleybitz fairy flower blossoms (2)
Colourful Thoughts jewel enamels - peridot & pink sapphire
Googley eyes
Pink jewels
Clear jewels
Pink and lime feathers

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Ironing Your Jewels!

Heheee couldn't help the title - sorry!

I joined an ATC swap group and one of our themes was 'no paper'. Sounds cool and exciting but if you think about it - it's quite difficult to do. The following ATC's are what I came up with and an explanation of the technique I developed to get to the finished product. I hope you like it and please DO try it at home!! (and tell me how you go!)

I have a review of the Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels on my blog HERE.

Ingredients:

Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels:

• Diamond Clear
• Rich Copper
• Deep Gold
• Light Gold

Utee Flex

Black Stazon ink

Versamark ink

Prima Clear stamp 4x6 Recital

Barn Door Distress Ink

Tools:

Green Craft Cutting Mat

Dual Heat Gun from AED

Soldering Iron

Glad Bake

Iron

Cutting Knife

Method:
I covered my green mat in newspaper (about 10 sheets) and then in Glad bake. I then poured Jewels from the four colours above and a fair helping of Utee Flex randomly onto the Glad bake (I used Utee Flex as without this - the size of each ATC will render my project brittle and liable to crack and/or snap because it will have no backing). I laid another sheet of Glad Bake over the top and 'ironed' my Jewels. This can be quite a lengthy process depending on the thickness of your layer of powders. A note to remember also - is do not press down on the project while ironing; when the Jewels become molten they will spread and if you are pressing they will spread to far and the sheet of Jewels will end up too thin (remember you want to stamp into it!). Before removing the top layer of Glad Bake, let the Jewels cool - otherwise when you pull that Glad Bake off the top, you may pull your project apart!
(the larger 'balls' seen in the first photo are the Utee Flex)

Any thin areas or to concentrated in one colour - I added more flex and Jewels and re-ironed, repeating until I was happy. You will notice when you pull off that top Glad Bake that the project is not shiny - but dull. This is addressed by gently heating with your heat gun until you see the gloss return - do NOT leave too long or your Jewels will become too molten and move - creating holes and 'tears' which will then need more product to fill. Viola! you now have "Jewel Paper".

With a craft knife and metal ruler - score your Jewel Paper (my project used enough product to make 10 ATC's (slightly smaller than 2.5in x 3.5 in - about 1 x 30 gram jar in total) and scraps leftover to re-melt into faux buttons and wax seals.

Once I scored my Jewel Paper, I used my soldering iron to gently 'cut' my ATC's along the score lines. Next I gently heated the surface of each one until slightly (in some cases more than slightly!) molten, versamark inked my "recital" stamp then black Stazon inked it and stamped into the ATC, no pressure as the weight of the block gives enough pressure to imprint the design. Once completely cool, I removed the stamp and tidied the edges (sometimes adding a 'hole' for the rustic look) with my soldering iron.

The only thing left to do is ink for definition with Distress Inks - Barn Door, however - I did have a problem with this. Distress Inks are supposed to be permanent dye inks but the ink did NOT adhere to the Jewels and dry. I was still rubbing off a week later. I would recommend using Stazon ink for this - if you have them at your disposal or rubbing/buffing mediums.

I do hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and try it out for yourself. Let me know if you do - and how you go! Please also stay tuned and visit me on youtube for number of Tutorials on using Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels!


Thanks for Visiting!
Jennifer

Digi

A digi layout using my new iPhone app - coolibah.

It's soooo cool!


TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Arr!

This 6x6 shadow box is another Twiddleybitz product.  I combined it with the brand new, just released Pirate themed twiddleybitz products - the border, and the pieces of 8; and the Square Alphabet - Arr!

I sprayed the entire shadow box with different earthy colour sprays and let it dry naturally - careful not to get it too wet or it would swell and warp; when dry I ran them through the bigshot with the script embossing folder, and used more spray and distress inks. I also sprayed the skull and anchor border and then assembled all the sides and put them aside to dry.

I covered the Arr! and the pieces of eight with gold colourful thoughts jewel enamels and sprinkled other colours on top - pressing the script embossing folder into some while warm and inking to distress as well.  I covered the front frame of the shadow box with the jewel enamels, working on one section at a time, creating the base coat and adding more enamels in the different colours (copper, silver, black, gold, bronze) - adding small beads to the enamels in some areas - pressing the script embossing folder into others (and gently inking the raised surface with black stazon ink) - keeping in mind the future placement of the border, pieces of eight, and Arr!

I then glued the front frame to the box, and added the skull and anchor border, and the Arr! The most tedious part was gluing all the jewels individually into place and getting the "necklaces etc into the right place and stuck without including my fingers or layers of my skin!  I also had to leave room for the back panel of the shadow box to sit just inside the frame.

The photo is of me dressed as a pirate for a fancy dress cyber party and scrap night a couple of years ago on The Scrapper's Stash (it was such a good night!).  I printed it in sepia and distressed, and curled the edges, also spraying a bit of bronze colour spray, glued it to the backing board and used my heat gun to force dry it a bit - added some jewels and carefully placed it and glued it in the frame (again losing some skin I'm sure!)  Last thing was adding the pieces of eight in the appropriate places.

Once completely dry I added the support corners and hanging 'bit' to the back.  I love it and don't know if I can part with it now!

Ingredients:
Twiddleybitz 6x6 Shadow box
Twiddleybitz pirate coins
Twiddleybitz Alphabet - square
Twiddleybitz border - skulls and anchors
Twiddleybitz Colour sprays - gold, bronze, silver, walnut, black, copper.
Colourful Thoughts Jewel Enamels - Gold; Light Gold; Rich Silver; Jet.
Green Tara Bead Chains
Stazon ink - black

Tim Holtz Embossing Folder - Script.

Distress Inks - Vintage Photo

Beads from Spotlight
Jewel Beads from spotlight
Kaiser Jewels - Red, green, blue, clear
Pritt Power gel.


Thanks for looking - I hope you like it!

Jeweled Sprocket

Playing again with colourful thoughts jewel enamels on a twiddley sprocket and "Hi". I have youtube movies of this and other techniques at "jennihodgetutorials" if you'd like to see :-)



Distress inks to color the paper, sprayed with twiddley coloursprays, put through the cuttlebug, inked over, sprayed again, added some jewels; envelope treated the same; large sprocket covered in silver jewel enamels and sprinkled with other earthy toned jewel enamels and while warm, pressed into an inked cuttlebug embossing folder.
Hi covered the same without the folder.


Hope you like it!!


TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen

Letter Writing Set

Using the Twiddleybitz Colour sprays and a Tim Holtz mask, I created this letter writing set. I printed some lined paper and then sprayed!!



I also did some matching envelopes...



Ingredients:
Colour sprays - Fern, meadow, blue lustre.
Tim Holtz Idea-ology mask - concerto.

TFL - Mwah! XXX
Jen