Read the small print!

Read the small print!

Hi there

Thanks for popping in. Yesterday on HOCHANDA TV, Paul and I were showcasing those 2-way Overlay Christmas Baubles of ours.

They are so easy to use – and you can make many cards quickly too, which isn’t always strictly necessary. But if you are making cards to sell, or cards for charity – or you have a HUGE family – then you can’t be spending days on one card, now can you?! Here are a couple of examples just using the second stamp, the negative image as it were….

I thought I’d try something different with them today. Just to see if what i saw in my head actually translated!

So here’s a simple step by step. I hope you like it. I could have done with a perfect page for the background, but H for Harmony is good enough today. Used what I had in loose leaf book scraps…

Pick a leaf out of an old book, stamp one of the positive baubles into place using Black Archival

Load the second stamp in the 2-way overlay set with ink. I used Distress Oxides and a Spot on Sponge to distribute the ink evenly. Tea Dye and Black Soot. Plant the coloured stamp into the outline on the printed leaf. I offset it a little, to get a tiny white highlight. See?

Decided to wrap the printed leaf around a piece of Stencil card, to make it more robust. 4in x 4in (10cm x 10cm). A glue runner does the job well.

To age the edge, just load a Clarity stencil brush with first Walnut stain, then Black Soot and lightly brush along the edges. Drag the edge across the top of the black Archival too. Then draw in a little hanging hook

Let’s make some aged photo corners with the printed scraps. Mount the artwork on a 5in x 5in blank Kraftcard blank, leaving the corners free. Now cut corners on the fold along the browned tops of the old book page and tuck them in under the centrepiece. Use Perga Glue to attach the faux photo corners.

Once all four corners are sorted, let’s add HARMONY from the Christmas Sticker collection, to tie in the backdrop. Then, to finish, how about a dropshadow around the lower half of the bauble, to give it that dimensional look?

Done.

I like the earthy feel. I like the neutrality, the absence of bling and glitz. I just wish I’d picked a printed page that didn’t have phlegm, hawk – noise made when clearing the throat and cigar made in Cuba in the background! Hey ho. Could be a whole helluvalot worse!!

Here is the ingredients list, and the links to the website if you fancy having a go but need a few bits:

Have a great Sunday.

Love always

Barb xxx

24 thoughts on “Read the small print!

  1. Great idea. Dug out these stamps earlier for my next round of cards. Will keep yesterday’s newspaper for this, being careful to read what I’m stamping over – haha. Poppets next.
    Stay safe.
    🍒🍒🍒

  2. Lovely Christmas card and you could use music paper with a Christmas song instead op pages from a book.
    So sorry that when I looked at Hochanda I never been able to see you or Paul in action. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong with watching or time….
    Hope to see you tomorrow save and sound!
    Enjoy your sunday evening.
    Greetings, Trijntje Huppel

    1. Trijntje, If you go to the Hochanda web page & select TV schedule then go back to Saturday 15 Aug against the show time on the right hand column you will find a blue box which says watch now. You will be able to do this for 2 months after the show. Hope this helps

  3. Thanks Barbara, I’ll definitely have a go at this when my stamps arrive. Getting into the Christmas spirit already 😝😝

  4. That’s lovely. I like the idea of using dictionary pages. Thanks for warning us about checking each word on the page. 🙂

  5. I watched these shows and were very impressed
    with the stamps and especially the groovi they make a real statement card. well done for keeping us all happy.

  6. Hi Barb,
    Lovely! I really like the use of the old dictionary page, but I also like the idea of Christmas music paper too. I’m looking forward to my baubles arriving as I’ll plenty of time to fill during the next 2 weeks ( starting Thursday) while I’m in isolation. I should get a few a Christmas cards completed I hope. Love and hugs,Alison xx

  7. Thanks for a great tutorial. I have ALL of the ingredients -except a book!! Well I have 100s of books but I’m loathe to cut them up. I really must find one I’ll never read…….
    I think I might position ‘Harmony’ over the phlegm, in case the recipient is of a delicate disposition LOL , though I haven’t a dictionary I’d cut up that’s the right size. Maybe a thriller could be sacrificed??

  8. It would be nice to photocopy the appropriate christmas bible story to use as background. The stamps are so lovely and has so many possibilities to use – clever Barbara!

  9. Lovely. I have some foreign language books that could be used for stamping but I’m too nervous that I will use rude text without knowing!

  10. What a great idea for doing something with the stamps to make them look totally different to the cards we made last year. Thanks for the step by step.
    Have been playing with my mini poppet stamps today on parchment.

  11. I love my bauble stamps, used them for all my cards last year. The positive and negative stamps are so quick and easy but give excellent prints. Like what you’ve done with the book print, I would do it over my book print stamp. Xx

  12. Hello Barb, what a great project, these stamps are wonderful (unfortunately still on my wish list), and look perfect for so many different methods. Take care and stay safe everyone. Bx

  13. I love it, and will go and dig out the books I bought specially for this technique; an old dictionary and an old French novel. After seeing the sample last week I’m now on a quest for an old novel in Cyrillic as well!

    I do like the idea of using an old bible too, would I be brave enough to rip pages out and stamp on them? The jury’s out at the mo!

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