Thursday, 31 May 2012

Masculine Mask




Project By Annette Lee

With Father's Day looming, the panic sets in when it comes to making cards for the men in our lives. Hopefully this will give you a little inspiration. I just love my SplodgeAway Mat and it has definitely earned it's place on my craft table.

Materials Used

SplodgeAway Mat
SplodgeAway Masks : Jimbo Machine & Trellis
SplodgeAway Easy Ink Card
Cosmic Spray Inks (2 colours)
Darkroom Door Stamps / Archival Black Ink
Distress Inks: Scattered Straw / Black Soot

To make, set up a spray box and spritz your card stock with your choice of Cosmic Spray Ink and allow to dry or speed it up with a heat gun.

Next run the card through your Grand Calibre and emboss with the trelis mask and trim to size.

Lay you Jimbo Machine Mask onto the centre of the card and spritz with another colour ink.Leave the mask in place to dry.

When dry transfer the card and Jimbo Machine Mask onto your SplodgeAway Mat and use complimentary DI and deepen the shading around the mask. At the same time blend around the edges with Black Soot. 

On a spare piece of Easy Ink Card stamp your focal image. Use DI to lightly colour the image, mat onto black card.

Add your sentiment and stamped image to the corner and finish by matting the whole card onto black card and attach to your card base.

Now I'll let you into a secret - next week we'll be asking you to show us your creations and there's a rumour of a GIVEAWAY.

See you tomorrow

TFL

Annette x



Wednesday, 30 May 2012

The Mechanical Bird



Materials Used

The Jimbo Machine Mask
Distress Inks : Antique Linen – Crushed Olive – Tea Dye, Weathered Wood, Mustard Seed, Walnut Stain
Serif Craft Artist
Cricut Cage Embellishment
Glossy Accents

How To...
First emboss an 8 x 8 white card with the SplodgeAway Mask
Put the Inks onto the SplodgeAway mat in a line. Start with the Mustard Seed ink, bring it across to the card and blend it onto the cogs sparingly. Next blend in the Tea Dye and Crushed Olive, let them blend a little on the SplodgeAway mat. Finally, darken the edges with the Antique Linen.
Highlight the cogs and swirls with glossy accents to give a raised look.
For the Square Topper - Blend with the Antique Linen and Weathered Wood and finish off sparingly with Walnut Stain just on the side edge of the card.
The Bird topper was made using the Serif Craft Artist 'Steampunk Range' – print the bird onto a backing paper made with the Steam punch scrapbook images. Print the bird another three times on its own and cut out a full image, a wing and a head. Use these images to decoupage the bird. Randomly rip the paper into a shape you like and attach to the Square topper.
Make a tag using thick card and Stencil the edges through on of the cogs off the Splodge-A- Mask.
Use a Sentiment of your choice.
 
 
The Bird cage was made on the Cricut Cutting machine but you could also use a stamp and cut it out.
Hints & Tips
When you want to blend your ink into the middle of the card or right across it, warm up your ink onto the SplodgeAway mat so that the ink is more open and will spread more easily.
Hope you Enjoy
Sam x

Tuesday, 29 May 2012

The Striped Lady

Today, Dimply has put together another example using the Jimbo Machine Splodge-A-Mask.





What You Will Need
8 x 8 scalloped card
SplodgeAway Mask - Jimbo Machine 
Old Paper / Brushed Corduroy / Vintage Photo Distress Inks
Stickles  Paprika
Jenny Elroy free paper
Double sided tape / 3 D foam pad tape
Silicon glue

How to Make
Make a card measuring 17cm x 17cm
Emboss using the Jimbo SplodgeAway mask
Distress the front, highlighting the embossed pattern
Cut out a topper to fit into the space in the middle of the mask
Cut out a piece of card into a label shape, and distress
Punch a hole in the top and add a piece of ribbon
Add a key to front of label with silicon glue (allow to dry)
Add Stickles through the mask (allow to dry)
Attach label to front of card with 3d foam tape
Add other embellishment to suit your style



Thanks For Joining In


Distressed Splodge-A-Mask

Welcome to this week's daily SplodgeAway blog postings. Today's project has been created by Sarah, who when you next see her check out her fingers - cos she must have had one heck of a play time with those Distress Inks to create this project.


By Sarah Savont

SplodgeAway Mask
SplodgeAway Mat
SplodgeAway High Resolution Card
SplodgeAway Easy Ink Card
Distress Inks
Crafty Sentiments stamp-He loves me
Black Memento Ink
Spectrum Noir Pens
Grand Calibur / Nestabilities - Romantic Rectangles
Stickles /Gems/Spray and Sparkle-iridescent/White Card Candi
3 small flowers,  2 brown,  1 white
Double sided tape /Silicone
8x8 Scalloped Card

 To make........

Stamp chosen  image onto SplodgeAway High Resolution card using memento ink.

Colour using Spectrum Noir Pens

Die cut image with 2nd largest Romantic Rectangles Nestabilities. Distress using SplodgeAway mat around the edges using Tumbled Glass and Faded Jeans

Using 3 flowers 2 brown and 1 white distressed with faded jeans thread stems through top right eyelet of small rectangle, hold in place with double sided tape.

Using SplodgeAway easy Ink Card and largest of the Nestabilities die cut rectangle

Distress using Rusty Hinge ink all over card

Place mask over rectangle making sure cogs are showing along left hand side distress over mask using Aged Mahogany ink.

Cut a 7x7” square of Easy Ink card and distress in Rusty Hinge ink

Place mask over square and place topper over the top moving the mask until happy with position and remove topper.

Distress with Faded Jeans over the mask and whole of square giving project a green tinge

Spray and Sparkle over both large rectangle and 7x7 square leaving to dry.

Stickle around edges of square in crystal

Using yellow Stickle glitter around the inner border of large square.

Place small topper onto large rectangle at an angle and add to large square using double sided tape.

Distress edges of 8x8 card blank using faded jeans.

Add 7x7 onto card blank

Distress 8 white Card Candi’s 4 in faded jeans and 4 in rusty hinge.  Add Card Candi to the corners of card and place gems on circles of rectangles  to finish off card.

Monday, 28 May 2012

Coggish Frame Splodge-A-Mask


By Karen Wright 

I hope you’re all enjoying the new SplodgeAway Blog and are taking inspiration away with you, this week I’m using the Coggish Frame SplodgeAway Mask and this is how I made it.

Taking a piece of 7  ½ x 7 ½ die cuts with a view card stock, lay down the mask, take a natural sponge and dab your chosen colour ink through the mask, on this occasion I chose big and juicy birthday. Distress the edges with the same colour ink, that’s your background complete.

The centre piece

Cut a piece of 4 x4 patterned paper. I’ve used Making Memories, distress the edges using Big and Juicy ink and SplodgeAway  Blending Mat.

Using a paper piercer, pierce the centre to give you room to get the tip of your scissors through, cut diagonally into the corners make sure to stop  about 2 cms from edges, tear some of the centre paper and roll towards the edges to make a centre frame.

Ink up your chosen image, I’ve used  Crafty Individuals CI 202, stamp onto coloured card or distressed/ brayer background, place this directly on your background, then mount your frame with 3D foam over the top.

To finish add twine and a metal making memories washer, then chose 2 coordinating colours of bias binding and make a creased bow, add 2 decorative pins and a button to finish, I always add a drop of glossy accents to the points of the pins to avoid any nasty accidents.

Mount it on an 8 x8 scalloped card from Suzicraft.

Lo and behold not a drop of stickles in sight!

Enjoy your creativity

 Karen x

Sunday, 27 May 2012

Letting Off Steam

We're doing things a bit different on the SplodgeAway Blog this week. This week we shall be posting something different everyday as the amazing DT has been working really hard and put together some fantastic samples and tutorials. I would like to give them more credit so we're now posting daily. That means you can pop back here for a dose of daily inspiration..... this week the DT have been playing with the SteamPunk Frame. This has versatility written all over it and hopefully you'll see the different ways it has been used. So without further ado let me introduce you to another newbie........ Nicki...


 
A Few Things You Need To Know About Nicki.....

Favourite Crafting Product? 

Stamps – I have never grown out of my love of colouring in pictures! I would say 99% of my cards feature a stamped image as the main focal point and on the rare occasions I make a simpler card without an image, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something missing.

Crafting influence?

The world of blogging – I’ve been inspired so much by all the fabulously talented cardmakers who share their gorgeous creations on their blogs. I also love to enter blog challenges as they’re a great way to kick-start your creativity when you’re short of ideas.

3 words to describe me?

I would have to say Creative, Obsessive, and Organised (my craft area has to be tidy, I can’t work if it’s messy and I even file my card scraps by colour!)

How Do You Feel About Working on The SplodgeAway DT?

I love how the SplodgeAway products work brilliantly to enhance my favourite techniques, but I’m also looking forward to being pushed out of my comfort zone a bit, trying different products and learning new things.

Nicki has a come up with a very clean style for us this week. Leave your comments and let us know your thoughts.

You Will Need:
SplodgeAway Mask – Clockwork Frame
Distress Inks – Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, Antique Linen
Stamps - pocket-watch and sentiment
Dies / punches - cogwheels (mine are actually flowers!), chain, oval
Colouring pencils
How To:
Emboss a square of pale brown cardstock with the SplodgeAway Clockwork Frame mask, and then use your SplodgeAway Mat to blend Tea Dye and Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto the cardstock to highlight the embossing. Mat the finished square onto a dark brown panel then onto a cream square card blank.
 
Cut a piece of cream cardstock to fit within the frame area of the design, stamp it randomly with a pocket-watch design using Tea Dye ink, blend the edges with Antique Linen and Tea Dye inks. Stamp the pocket-watch on a scrap of card and cut it out, colour with pencils and fix to your stamped panel with 3D foam pads.
 
Die cut some cogs and chains from black cardstock, add gold circle stickers to the centres, and fix them to your card.
Stamp your sentiment onto a scrap of card, distress with inks and cut out with an oval punch or die. Fix to your card with 3D foam pads.

Sunday, 20 May 2012

Mask It with Splodge-A-Mask !

This week, the  DT got to play with some of the Splodge-A-Masks and the lovely Karen Wright provided the Design Team with a Sketch Challenge. We were asked to incorporate either the Butterfly Swirl or Butterfly Flourish SplodgeAway Masks. Here is the sketch and Karen's card.




Feel free to interpret any way you want, you can turn it and flip it, the circles don’t have to be circles and the squares don’t have to be squares, as long as we can still see the sketch. The most important thing is to have fun.


Project By Karen Wright


 There's a number of different techniques in the design of Karen's card and the use of butterflies have really brought this card to life.




Sarah and Annette both followed the sketch quite closely and produced some very different results.



Project By Annette Lee


Annette used the butterfly swirl mask. It was spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer Vintage Mist -Antique Green and distressed with shabby shutter DI to create her background. You just need to allow the spritzed ink to dry before distressing otherwise the patina will rub off! 




Project By Sarah Craggs

Sarah really went to town messing with her DI's. She did comment that the SplodgeAway polymer blending mat helped her get the  great effects she was looking to achieve.





Project By Dimply

Dimply decided to use the detail of the mask as her focal point for her inspiration. The results have produced a clean line  elegant card with a concentrated colour palette.   

Although this project does not follow the sketch directly, its quality and clean lines reflect the versatility of the Splodge-A-Masks well.




Project By Suzicraft Susan

Susan, embossed Cordinations Cardstock with the Splodge-A-Mask through her Grand Calibur and sanded to get this lovely subtle effect.



I would like to Introduce Sue Jimson, the newest member of the DT team.  We asked Sue the same questions that we asked the rest of the team and this is what she said....


O.K... Sue tell us a bit about you....
I am a busy wife, mother and nana. Even though my two children have left home now they always find their way back with my two adorable grandsons in tow.  I’m either found in my craft room or in the kitchen. I’m on a carers break from work as my lovely hubby Paul isn’t well and this played a huge part in getting back into crafting as I make cards for charity and it was my way of de-stressing.

Another member of our family is our cocker spaniel Ollie who I bought for Paul when he had to retire from work because if  his health, he goes everywhere with us and has been known to partake in my crafting goodies if I forget to close the door to my craft room.  Ollie will do anything for a biscuit and when he visits Suzicraft, Tom is always found sneaking custard creams to him....


What is your favourite crafting product?
This is a hard question to answer as I have a few but I would say my distress inks and SplodgeAway mat as I use this all the time.

Who is your Crafting Hero/influence?
My art teacher who took me through my ‘O’ and ‘A’ level art. She was amazing and a total inspiration

What 3 words best describe you?
Outgoing, Friendly and Omptimistic

How do you feel about being on the Design Team?

I’m really excited and honoured to have been asked to join the team. It’s going to be challenging and rewarding and I’m so happy to be working with a great bunch of people


Project By Sue Jimson

Sue on the other hand turned the sketch around to create an A5 size card. The creative versatility of the mask in her embossing techniques has produced an amazing background and is something that I'm looking forward to trying out.




Tom, Susan and DT members would love to see your projects and how you have used your masks. I know that new designs are in the pipeline - can't wait! All the current designs are available on the SplodgeAway Web site if you want to take a look.

I would like to say thank you to our talented designers for their contributions this week. 

TFL

Annette x