Waltzingmouse Makes...

Good afternoon! The old blog has been a little bare this week and I thought I'd take 5 to pop up this card I made about a fortnight ago. I'm setting up an additional supplier and the store is busy so Herself and I are working double time to both, get orders out, and to ensure that the backorder stamps get to something like a normal supply in the next couple of weeks. Orders are a little slow this week, something like a 48-72 hour delay, but we expect to be back on track by early next week.

Back to my card, well I must admit, I've been having a little giggle to myself (nope, I don't get out half as much as a person my age ought to...) - We released the Opera Tags stamps in the ill fated August release and it contained a special stamp. It's the sort of a stamp that you might understand instantly, or not at all.

I call it my 'Theatre curtain' stamp and you can see it in the card above stamped in blue. It is designed for use with our Opera Tags Die templates. When I was drawing up this stamp I was thinking of how a set of dramatic curtains would make a nice frame stamp for announcements, such as new baby, wedding etc.

By covering only a part of the stamp it dresses up the label shape nicely, and allows you to add whatever you like underneath, in this case I've added a Santa Silhouette (Santa's coming to town) and a Merry Christmas Sentiment (Say it with Style).

The corresponding label/tag shape is quite large, which makes it ideal as a focal point on your cards, or as a feature label, such as the jar label below.

I stamped the Theatre curtains in green and added some label information "Partially decomposed Fingers' etc, from a stamp from the Wanda's Pantry set. I put sellotape over the corner flourishes on that stamp before inking up, then removed them so that the only thing that would leave an impression would be the text detail of the stamp.

It makes a good sized label for one of those large mason jars, lots of potential for dressing the Halloween table.

If you are interested in a little how to, read on, otherwise I will catch up with you tomorrow!

 

Usually I stamp first, then position the die over the image with tape. I use Tsukineko inks, I find the Versacolour cannot be beaten for even coverage on large solid stamps. For today's projects, I heat set the ink before adding a little dimensional shading with two copic markers, warm Greys 1 and 3.

 I also sponge heavily...Antique linen...yes...again...

To make the snowflake background, I took one of those Spellbinder Impressabilities - Snowflakes, and inked it up, with the same Sky Blue Versacolour ink. I carefully placed it onto the Grand Calibur Base plate, ink side up, and then very carefully laid a piece of cream cardstock over the top, then the tan embossing mat, then the pink embossing plate. Fed the whole lot through my big raspberry buddy and out came what looks like a lovely letterpress snowflake background.

Recently I've seen folks do this with those nice Spellbinders M-Bossabilities folders also, it's a neat technique.

Hope it tickles!