Wednesday 30 September 2015

Visible Image Wednesday.

Hi Friends.

Today I have the card I demoed in the tent at Aly Paly last week or so. This was the one I showed on the Sunday and I had the very kind hearted Stephen helping me grab a few bits and bobs which was a huge help. Thank you Stephen.
It was very different demoing with a camera focused just in one place and mirror image too so when you move one way it goes the other lol but I soon settled and even managed to give away this card to the person who answered my little question at the end of the session so I hope they are enjoying it now. I managed to resist wearing the Britney microphone though , I had to for fear of bursting into song with  ,oops I did it again or something....  ( a well known Britney Spears song with the youngsters apparently back in the day,  hehe).

Anyway I of course used the Fabulous Visible Image goodies and focused on the Be strong sentiment and the Revolution set which I will add at the end as always for reference.

So here is Sunday's card. "Being Strong".





This is before I added lots more glass glitter in the waves and the Black little flat back sparkles in the corners to finish off.
So to recap on how you start, it is the same as the tags we made at Aly Paly to tie in all together with the theme of getting inky and stamping into Utee etc. 

To start.



Stamp the script from the Revolution Set randomly how you would like it on the background, I had mine in the two opposite corners as shown here.


Next I inked the background with the colours of my choice , opposite on the colour wheel and infinitely blendable too, I added two layers as always , go back to the post on the tags for more step by steps on how to blend inks and why two layers etc. I then added tone on tone inking and some flicked water as before and blotting the ink away to leave rings and shapes to fit in with splashing water.



 Here is the small piece of UTEE with the small Fleur de Lis pressed into it when molten to leave this wonderful indentation which I added some black archival ink to the centre and rubbed over with some Treasure gold wax to pick u the high points.





I stamped my sentiment onto card and inked the edges and mounted it onto black card. I also added grey and blue around the lettering to make the writing really stand away from the card, like a shadow.
I added them each item to the card with foam to make the card a little more dimensional.


Lastly I went back in with my trick with the glitters in the wavy corners to really make some wet looking sparkles appear out of the waves with the White horses of the sea.

I hope you enjoyed today's little post , It isn't a huge in depth one as I am currently suffering from a near terminal case of Man Flu , I went back to work after having a wonderful two weeks annual leave to re for Aly Paly and catch a little Staycation time and after two days haha I have germs lol you have to laugh though and keep on sniffing.

Here are the stamps sets used as always.






I wanted to also remind everyone of next month being October and for Breast Cancer awareness there are events throughout the month here is the fab promo picture that Helen and Mark have created to explain what they and the team will be taking part in next month using the amazing Be Strong stamp that I featured above but any others too. Under the promo pic I have included Helen's words about it for you to have a look. Rarely are we not touched in our lives by someone that has some form of this awful disease nowadays but by keeping raising funds for the research at the fore of our minds hopefully one day we will have a cure  ( I try to hope that anyway ) . 

Helen's words...

We are raising funds for Breast Cancer Care throughout October with fun challenges, competitions, a BIG PINK BLOG HOP and more! PLUS we will be donating 50% of all sales of our 'Stay Strong' stamp during the whole of October too!

Breast Cancer Care's BIG PINK event will help more people find a way to live with, through, and beyond breast cancer.

Donations can be made via our Just Giving page...
http://www.justgiving.com/visibleimage

More details coming soon!


Also if you are anywhere near the
Happy Stampers Show in Port Sunlight on Saturday the Visible Image team will be there with the Very talented Pauline Butcher on the stand demoing too. Pop along and have some fun with the gang and say Hi for me.... 

Ok lovelies 
See you soon 


Kim 
XXXX


 







Wednesday 23 September 2015

Visible Image Wednesday.

Hello my lovely friends and a huge welcome to all that have visited since the show on the weekend.

Today I intended to show you the other cards I demoed in the tent over the weekend but it seems the photos are corrupt so I need to get them re-done so for those of you who have not seen all the photos from the show or do not have facebook I thought I'd do a Visible Image homage with piccies from the weekend.


Mark & Helen are fab at taking pictures and I zoomed in a little so I could show you our Team Awesome faces haha, this was actually Sunday a.m and we were just enjoying a cuppa before the first lot of crafty friends were due through the doors to the make and take table.


Here is the stand, we were at number 36 and had one gorgeous bright ,sparkly colourful stand, people were gasping coming up to the DT work on display which made us all so very proud. I am also in awe of the work that goes in putting the stand up and taking it down at each and every show and Mark and Helen are like a well oiled team , they go into the zone and all of a sudden the stand is there or next it is gone and packed away. Team work at its best guys for sure.


So here we are in full swing at the table enjoying the make and take, I had a gentleman here who had never crafted let alone use ink or UTEE and he was so so chuffed at the end when he had his tag and it was Masculine and inky and he had achieved it with just a little guidance. Well done Sir...! .


Here I am explaining away why he should heat utee from underneath lol ... (no cats were covered in UTEE  during the making of the make and takes lol)


Having a good old chat and giggle here with two lovely ladies , they had already done the m&t and were chatting and asking lots of questions as the others were finishing. I had a great time with these two and hope to see them again as I did feel I didn't get to give them as much time as I would have liked.


I was saying on Facebook I look like I had dropped off here but It was just deep in concentration and getting on with the task at hand of course.


So next I have Pauline, Erika and Debbie who all achieved so much with little time left. wow , beautiful ladies with beautiful tags. I was soooo proud , I wish Id got a picture with you all though. Here is there fabulous tags.


Aren't they fabulous guys and dolls? I just love them, everyone did so well , amazing.Wooop Woooop!


Here is again Debbie, Erika and Pauline but on the left we have Stephen and on the right Jilly.
Both Jilly and Stephen helped me immensely in the demo tent, Jilly with her presence and being there and Stephen running around collecting a few bits for me, thank you guys... You were all awesome help go team go team.... Proudly displaying their tags too...


I also was doing the Christmas tag Make and take and I met a lovely lady called Jemma and here is her tag too. I tried to get everyone to do their own individual extras , like choose their stamps and which colours they would like and this is a lovely example. We had so many varied colours at the end and everyone with big smiling faces that they achieved so much. I loved it .





I will finish this post with a lovely picture of Helen and myself , If I find any others I will of course add them at a later date , thank you again to all who came and took part in the make and takes and to those who tried to book in but missed out (spaces went so fast ). A huge thank you to Mark and Helen not only for asking me but for helping through out the two days and for building a Kimmy wall so people could see lots of my work together, that was a lovely surprise as I didn't know they were doing that and so many people asked me to show them how I achieved it all so that was so very special.

If you are down in the Exeter area or near there and you have any time over the next few days or couldn't make it to Aly Paly then why not pop along and see Mark and Helen on The Visible Image C05 stand for yourselves and see not only our fab artwork from all the team but the stamps we are all so inspired by. 

The show is called :


The Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycrafts Show.

Westpoint Centre, Exeter

24-27 September 2015

OPENING TIMES THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY 9.30AM - 5PM, SATURDAY 9.30AM - 5.30PM
Last time I counted there was 174 exhibitors at least... wow I wish I was there as I didn't get to nip round at Alexandra Palace, I needed sooo many bits and pieces and had not a minute in the end to collect it all, ah well lol least i met lots of smiley happy people too and I loved that.


Ok folks give Helen and Mark lots of hugs if you get to Westpoint and if not I will see you very soon for more crafty moments here on the blog.

Don't forget I am also on facebook, Twitter and Pinterest if you would like to get in touch. I will leave all the links below to update new folks and remind older members what my addys are. I also have email if you would like to get in touch with questions , chat or business enquiries too.

My Facebook

My Twitter 

My Pinterest

My Email: kim.robertson70@googlemail.com

I hope to see you all very soon with more show pictures and some new goodies too. Happy Wednesday 

Love to all

Kim 
XXXX 

 

Monday 21 September 2015

Alexandra Palace and Make N takes.

Hello my lovelies

Welcome back to my blog  this post will be on the tags that I created and made several of at the make and take sessions during Aly aly weekend with Visible Image. I had a Christmas one and a UTEE one throughout both the days.
We had a great time both the days and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and went away with a tag they had created them self with several techniques , many of the ladies and gents had never even touched a stamp or inks before and were very happily surprised at how special their tags looked and totally individual at the end of the session.
We were completely fully booked by around 10.30-11 for the Saturday sessions and just had a few places left on Sunday but we did tweak the little 6 seat table into 7 and 8 sometimes to accommodate where we could through both days but still had several people asking throughout the day for spaces so that tells me you were all very interested in the gorgeous stamps and techniques we had used on these tags.
Thank you to those of you that came or wanted to join in and for all the lovely kind words you were all saying to me , I do take those words to heart and appreciate every one taking the time to want to speak with me and Mark and Helen, the dynamic duo  haha.... I call them this because Visible Image is Mark and Helen, no huge team , no one helping, just Mark and Helen, they create , make , pack , print and label every single stamp by hand , every single deeply etched amazing stamp done by their own fair hands. Going to the show and seeing the work involved building the stand loading the stand arranging the stand and  all the goodies , again all them. I am in awe... my hat is firmly off to them, yet the stamps are so amazingly priced and you can do sooo much with them. I thought I would mention all this for those of you who didn't know

Anyway going on to the step by steps so you can again follow along to the make and take sessions at home in your leisure rather when we are under time constraints.

The first one is an autumnal tag which looked like this.




It was to show the layering of the background and how you can create them but also stamping in to Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE).


 So to start I took the script stamp that was from the Revolution set of stamps which is still one of my favourite sets.I used it with black archival ink which is oil based so we will need to waft a little heat over it to set it so we don't smudge it. I was stamping off the page onto paper.
Then rub over with an anti static pad this helps it to dry even further and stops the embossing powder sticking to the archival ink just done. Clean your stamp from using the archival with a wipe and using embossing ink , versamark or perfect medium etc stamp the same script or whatever you would like on the opposite side of the tag or where you would like it, we are avoiding the centre as we will be adding the utee to the centre. Add your embossing powder , I used clear as the tag here is white but you can use white if your tag is buff coloured etc. Heat set.

 Next I chose a couple of colours of ink and I colour it corner corner side so what I mean by that is two corners and the opposite side will be one colour and the corners and the opposite side will be the other colour.
Once you have the first layer of ink on the tag (don't expect  to much at this stage) go back and add a second layer of the same colour to deeply saturate the paper so it should look like the above at this stage.

 Next I took my Autumn leaf  from the colours of the wind set  with Rusty Hinge DI and added that on the bottom right corner tone on tone, sticking to that theme I added a few more little leaves in the orange with orange and in the blue with the Blue.


To pull the eye more into the centre I added a darker in around the edges at this stage. I didn't do this bit at the show just purely as we were in a real tight time crunch as the utee part is the longest section of the make and take. Lastly here I sprayed some water into my hand and flicked it onto the tag, I Left it until the ink starts to dissolve (it looks like a ring starts to appear around the edge) once it does that blot off the water with a paper towel, blot don't rub. I used the dark ink also to stamp a swirl across the hole in the tag and a coupe of other places as another little layer on the backing.
You can see it here.

  The Backing is now finished.

You can waft a heat gun over it to dry it but I just put it to one side now to dry while I do the utee section.

This is what we are looking to achieve next.

To keep this a little shorter I will explain how to in easy steps.
  1. Choose sentiment
  2. Cover that stamp in versamark/perfect medium and set aside ready.
  3. Take a small piece of card and add some Versamark/perfect medium straight to the card you can also use tombow glue if you prefer lots of bubbles. (make sure you have enough for your sentiment to fit it)
  4. Tip on UTEE , pour off excess onto paper and tip it back into the pot now before you switch on your heat gun. (pour off don't tap, we want to build thick layers.
  5. Heat this from BELOW. once it starts to melt you can heat above but if you do it at this stage you will blow it all over the table , house , furniture , cat , dog  you get the drift haha...
  6. next if you take a long time putting the gun down and slurping ya tea etc and the utee cools right down you can add more versamark (don't do it while its molten folks or bye bye versamark) and the next layer of UTEE, If you are quick and you have heated the UTEE and it is still boiling hot tip on more UTEE as it will stick to itself. Melt again.
  7.  Repeat the last stage a third time. ( three layers of utee) 
  8. Have your stamp ready next to you and as soon as your 3rd layer of UTEE is molten and still wet add your stamp into it , push hard but don't skid it, so straight down onto the utee. once it is set into the utee take your hands off and sit back for a second. leave it alone to cool slightly. Don't go make the tea or walk the cat we don't want it cold we just need it to cool off a bit, A. you don't want to burn yourself and B. you need it to keep its shape when we remove the stamp.
  9. Ok its been a while so pick up the stamp block and pull the card away from it.
VOILA.... You did it.... Marvel at your cleverness. hehe
Rip the edges all around , crack the utee ( trust me it looks good. ) then rub a dark ink into the edges that are exposed, I favour walnut stain or vintage photo but if you use blues or your tag is really dark colours consider black, it looks fab. 
OK add foam to the back and add it to your tag. choose some nice ribbon for the top and add some bling or a button to cover the knot if you choose or leave it rustic. I also Matted and layered my tag twice using card from my stash to make it nice and thick to last the rigours of the show.
The sets I used on this one were Revolution and Colours of the wind and the sentiment was Stay Strong which I love. I will show all the sets at the end of the post.
Next is our Christmas tag which looked like this.

So those of you who were at the show saw the sparkle on this tag. it is not showing up on the camera as well but people were commenting on this sparkle all day both days. If I was in the glitter trade i could have sold a fortune lol but it wasn't about that it was showing how these stamps off and how they stand up to all I put them through hehe.
So lets gets started.


I used a slight off white card so for this stage I embossed some snowflakes in clear, If your card is buff coloured like Manila tags then you can emboss in white if you prefer or keep it buff its entirely your choice.
So ink your snowflake with Versamark/Perfect medium  and stamp off the edge of the tag  tip on your choice of embossing powder and heat set.


Choose two colours of ink , I used here seedless preserves and peeled paint but it kinda looks like dusty Concorde in this light for pictures. you can use any colours you like together and at the show it was fantastic the colour schemes and different tags people were creating, I was soooo proud for everyone as they achieved what they thought they couldn't do. yeahhhh!!
So again, I colour corner corner side, I like how it comes out and  it always works , I use the analogy of how flowers grow , they always seem to be off numbers and look better if you plant them the same in 3's or 5's etc, first layer of ink we are trying to get wet into dry so it will never look really cool with just one layer of ink but this is what it looks like with one (above) it will be patchy and may have some lines etc, do not worry about it just move on.


 Next we add a second layer of the same inks, it will start to look much more saturated and more like the real colours and much more blended. Once this is done we will use the same snowflake tone on tone so green on green purple on purple or whatever colours you choose. I added just a few on edges here and there like branches almost as I knew I needed room on the left for my tree and sentiment.
I also spritzed some water in my fingers and flicked it at the tag waiting til it started to dissolve the ink as it is water based (its gets a ring around the edge as it starts to lift) take a piece of kitchen towel or a cloth and dab the water off, dab not rub. you will be left with patches of missing ink which gives us more texture to the background, If you were doing a water scene you could used these dots and turn them very simply into bubbles as I have done many times before on the blog but I will do again this week to show what I mean.


So this tag I made at home was very much bigger than the ones we used at the show again with time constraints of a make and take we had to downsize a little but here I took my tree as I showed on the blog last week used two or three greens ( used the colours you want on your tag) and I stamp out three slightly overlapping then I  go on the next layer and overlap and layer them til I have a larger tree. which looks like above.

 You can see lots of little white dots on my tree in a zig zag pattern like a pearl string, that is achieved with a white pen making dots so this was next.


 Now if you look at the tree I went back and added gold baubles which are just using a gold gel pen and drawing three circles slightly smaller in size randomly all over the tree, I know we are covering this in glitter so you think it will not show but it all adds to how it looks at the end, without this step the tree can look flat.

 I also added some white around the edge some of the snowflakes in the purple to pull it forward.

Next just above my tree I stamped in Versamark/Perfect Medium and embossed in gold the sentiment that goes with the little tree set, it says have yourself a merry little Christmas.
I took a quickie glue pen and dotted it al over the tree randomly , then tipped on some iridescent glitter. once this was done I took some glue , any that is thicker than the quickie glue that dries clear and laid down much bigger blobs of glue randomly all over the tree and tied on Glass glitter. Now glass gitter is the most sparkly shiny glitter ever but you do have to be careful as it will cut you after all it is glass shards. but treat it with respect and you can do some amazing things with it. so tip on your glass glitter and tip off the excess, admire the sparkle as it will be reflecting all the iridescent glitter underneath and all the work you have put in to building up to this bit.

I was testing out which bow I wanted at the top of the tag here but I ended up matting and layering this one to make it nice and sturdy for the show and then going back in with the ribbon at the top and the bow and then I found a nice button which I added too. 


Which you can now see all finished on this tag. You cant see half the sparkle this tag has here as the folks who saw it in person with be able to tell you haha.
So that was the two finished make and tacks from the Alexandra Palace craft show this weekend September 2015. I also did two demos which I will show you this week.

But for today these are the stamp sets I used on these two tags.












You can either use these stamps which are all linked as usual direct to the stamp on the Visible Image website or peruse through the stamps until you find something you would like to use on your tags , it isn't about using the same it is making tags individual to you and who you would like to give it too, the Christmas one can be added to a tree for example and themed to match.
I hope you enjoyed the process of making these tags and would like to give it a go, I was astounded at the quality and clever pieces made at the show as we were limited on time of course being make and takes not workshops but everyone managed to do brilliantly well. I really enjoyed meeting you all and all the  hugs I will treasure meeting you and your kind words.

With that said I was a little surprised to see a couple of people had a few moans about not having enough time to follow along and needing more tables out, not wanting to share equipment etc but again that was only a very couple of people and I just wanted to pick up on the point I made up the top Mark and Helen do all this themselves there is no big company footing the bills they have to do everything and pay for everything and unlike most of the companies at the show we were not charging for the make and takes this time, they were free, all the equipment was either Helen and Marks or my own which I was passing around the group too, it is sad to see at our age some people still find it it hard to share but most people had a fabulous time and I could tell by their huge smiles at the end were pleased they could achieve so much.

Again a huge thank you to all who wanted to book and I apologise to those who could not book on  but I will be doing a lot more so keep your eyes out and do ask your local stores to ask for demo days if you would like us to do that.

Visible Image has some amazing plans coming up and over the next year you will hear an awful lot about them and see lots of goodies. They have already got to the stage where they have their own office and are no longer making the stamps from home which is an amazing achievement and soon they will be moving forward with the next phases , I am sooo proud to call them my friends and to have been with them for so long.

Great things to come folks.....

Thank you to all who attended, a huge thank you to Mark and Helen for asking me to come along and looking after me with all the refreshments during the shows too.

See you all soon 
Much Love

Kim 
XXXX 



Wednesday 16 September 2015

Visible Image Wednesday

Hi Folks

Welcome back to my blog and today I have something that I have been working on for the shows at Alexandra Palace over the weekend coming.
As most of you know by now I will be at the Craft show doing make and takes on the Visible Image stand which I am looking forward to sooo much I am also doing a couple of the demos in the tent over the weekend too which will  be great fun.
Mark and Helen are as we speak beavering away making and packing all the stamps by hand, they amaze me how they get everything done, it is just the two of them working all hours designing writing creating making and marketing all the fabulous stamps they sell and my hat is not only off it is on the floor and stamped on to them lol (slightly dramatic but hey why not I am impressed lol) and they are kind lovely friends too.... wow.

Anyway I thought you would like to see some  of the tags I put together for the make and takes so this is what I will be helping people to acheive.

This first one is an Autumn feel tag , I will be showing how to get the background ready and all that layering
with embossing powder and inks and then that amazing centre featuring the Stay Strong stamp pressed into Utee. On the blog over the weekend will be full tutorials on how to make these so that the people who come to the make and takes have it written down to have a go at home and for those who can't make it to the show so can follow along anyway so look out for that this weekend.


 I just love the inks and the depth with  how your eye starts at the central piece but then travells to the backing where you immediately see the leaf but then start to pick up on a the other items with in the backing.



 Here you see it from the side angle with the script stamp from the Revolution set used and embossed in clear over white card then at the end of all the inking some treasure god added over the writing in places just around the edges, I love to do this as the raised embossing really grabs the shine in the wax. Once its dried you can take a coth and buff it til it realy shnes as of course originally it was used as a furniture polish to add shine and colour to wood.


Here is a close up of the tag with a tiny button in the centre and some thin ribbon through the centre. You also can see how the ink colours blend and how I have added all the layers to buid the depth you see from afar.

The stamps used on this one are .





My thoughts on these these two sets, first when revolution came out my jaw hit the floor as they say , I immediately saw crashing waves with white horses (as they call crashing waves lol) and that script is just beyond perfect for mixed media and scrapbooking Also those of you who ike to journal wow , use a white gel pen to write your message over a colourful background rather than black pen on a light colour. It creates a stunning effect.  
Then there is the coours of the wind set, well does this not scream Autumn and tucked within the leaf is a tree amazing , i dont know another brand with such forward thinking ideas. I love this leaf and the small leaves around can be used separately so you can have falling leaves exactly where you want them
Here are a coule of cards I originaly created with these two sets , Do you remember them?


 This was the one I envisioned the very first time I saw Revolution.


And something a little different , look into the backing and you will see lots of embossed leaves too, with lots of ink blended all alround.

The second tag is a christmassy one ..





With it being half way through September already people have been wanting quick ish Christmas cards, well why not send a tag for people to hang on the tree or their Christmas card line instead and be a iece of art as well as your seasonal wishes. 
Most of you saw my little tree I created from the Visible Image set a couple of weeks ago which is a fun way to create a larger tree so we will have a go at this one too.

The stamp sets I used for this one were.

                                                     



I am not a huge Christmasy person now the kids are all grown  but I just love the dellicate Snowflake here in the White Christmas set and as soon as I saw the Merry Little Christmas set I saw the larger tree made with shades of green, or whatever colour you choose , your imagination is the only thing that can choose how your tag comes out but with these amazing stamps the possibilities are endless as a famous man once said lol  ( Eddy Izzard at the end of a recycling advert on telly) lol . Trivia tooo ... haha 

Here are a coupe of recent cards made with these sets ..




Well I hope I haven't overloaded you all with too many pictures but I truly hope I see as many of you as can possibly make it over the weekend and I would love to see you on the make and take table enjoying some time together whilst playing with yummmy stamps... what can be better.... 

Don't forget the extra posts over the weekend to coincide with the shows too with love and best wishes to all 

Huge Hugs 

Kim 
XXXX