Playing with my Gloss Sprays and those beautiful face stamps

 

Last week I treated myself to some more Dina Wakely Gloss sprays and decided to have a play with them for my blog post this week. 

Here is what I used to make my card:

15cm square card blank

14cm square of mixed media card

Dina Wakely gloss sprays in Heather, Mineral, Lime and Eggplant

Faces - Whatever Works stamp set

Inkable Easy frame circle

Inkable big one - Bakewell

Small Words stamp set

Archival ink in Cobalt and Majestic Violet

blending brush

Versamark ink 

White embossing powder

Dark blue scrap of card

First I sprayed the mixed media card with the 3 paler gloss sprays and left to dry.

Next I stamped the face onto the sprayed card with the blue Archival ink. Make sure you use a juicy inkpad for this and don't leave it on the sprayed surface for too long or it will stick. I also stamped the other eye, lining up the eyebrows.

Once the ink was dry I placed the Bakewell inkable and inny circle mask over the face before spraying with the Egg plant gloss spray. I put the Bakewell on the right hand side, leaving an area on the left of the sprayed card not stencilled.

After removing the stencil/masks and putting them into a bowl of water, I used the tubes from the bottles to splatter the colours across the sprayed card.

I used the same part of the bottle to draw some solid lines of the spray where the edge of the big one stopped.

once this was dry I placed the circle back over the face and used a blending brush to add a little extra shading in the purple archival ink around the edge of the circle and the edge of the card panel.

finally I mounted it onto a blank white card and added a sentiment (white embossed onto a scrap of navy blue card)

I can see I am going to have so much fun with the sprays as well as the stamps! 

Thanks for looking! 

A Shrink plastic key ring for Bee Crafty

 Hi there!

I thought I would share a bit of shrink plastic with you today. It is something that has been around for a long time, but it seems to be one of those things that you don't see much of it unless you seek it out. I thought I would show you how to make a simple key ring, and let you know a bit more about it. 

Shrink plastic comes in several different sorts. You can get clear, frosted, black and white. If you wish to colour on it you can sand it with some fine sandpaper, although some comes ready sanded. You will need to use a permanent ink  - one that dries on any surface - I use Archival or Brilliance. The ink will need to air dry for a good amount of time  (at least half an hour for Archival and overnight for brilliance)  The easiest way to colour your stamped images once dry is with coloured pencils. A sanded surface will help with this. Be aware that as the item shrinks the colour will intensify, so light shading with coloured pencils will give a better result.

I used: 

shrink plastic

XL Doodle Art dragonfly

archival ink

coloured pencils

corner rounder

hole punch 

heat gun

Key ring findings

First I sanded the surface of my shrink plastic

Then I stamped the dragonfly onto the sanded surface with black archival ink and left it to dry.

I rounded the corners with a punch....

and punched a hole in the corner (a regular hole punch could be used for this too)

Next I coloured the image with pencil crayons - remember paler and lighter is better as it intensifies when shrunk.

On a heatproof surface use your heat gun to start heating. It will curl and squirm, so keep some tweezers close by in case you wish to turn it over or reposition it. Occasionally it can stick to itself. Try and seperate it as quickly as possible if it does, but mind your fingers as it will be hot! 

Once it has finished shrinking, place an acrylic block (not a skinny one, but one with some weight) on top to make sure it is flat. 

Thread a jump ring through the hole and add the keyring. 

As you can see the colours are much deeper than before it was shrunk. I think I should probably have gone even paler! It really is huge fun to play with and a great hit with kids. there is something so magical about the shrink process. 

Thanks for looking!