Saturday StepxStep

Welcome back and thanks for kicking your weekend off with us at Frilly and Funkie.  Linda Coughlin here with Saturday StepxStep.  It will be a regular post at Frilly and Funkie where our designers will share with you the various steps and techniques they used on one of their projects.

Today, as promised, I am going to break down the steps I went through to create the design team sample I shared here on Wednesday.  It features images from a brand new Artistic Outpost stamp release Secretary Pool.  After high school, I trained to be a secretary.  I never worked as one, but I had the training in office procedures, typing and shorthand.  Consequently, this set chocked full of vintage office images has great appeal to me and I so enjoyed making this card.  Don't forget, you can double click the images and they will open up huge so you can see all the details.

My standard size card is a 5.5x5.5" square and I cut the layers as shown below from confetti cream CS.

The outer shell was sponged lightly along the edge with Weathered Wood DI.  The next layer in was first sponged along the other edge with Vintage Photo, then scissor distressed and then the edges were sponged again with Vintage Photo.

There are a number of ways to rough up the edges of your paper.  You can see a distressing tool in the foreground and I do use it occasionally, but my preferred method is using scissors.  Open the blades about a half inch and rake the scissor blades along the edge of your paper.  I like the look of that type of distressing best plus you get some interesting rips and tears, especially if you are distressing paper as opposed to card stock.  Be careful because paper rips really easily when scissor distressing.  Even though I had already ink distressed the edges, I do it again after distressing to cover up the white edges revealed by the distressing.  

Next I clear embossed images from the set in a random pattern using a clean Versamark pad.  I have several Versamark pads, but when using clear EP on light CS, you need to make sure you are not stamping with gray dingy Versamark.

Using Weathered Wood DI, I sponged the entire panel.

Next I stamped the script/vintage label stamp from the set over the entire piece using Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink.  Just a quick endorsement of that stamping ink - it is truly the best stamping ink I have ever used.  You get great coverage even with stamps with lots of rubber, it stamps crisp and clean, dries fast but not too fast and is embossable!  I use it for all my black stamping needs.  After stamping, I let the ink dry and did not wipe it off the embossed areas.

From the confetti cream CS, I used the Movers and Shapers large ticket die to cut a ticket.  (I love this die and it is becoming a favorite go-to for me.)  I stamped it with the same stamp I used to stamp the front panel and then sponged it with Vintage Photo.  

I stamped the typewriter with the Jet Black Archival ink and applied clear embossing powder.  You can see in this photo how well the embossing powder stuck.  The typewriter and the four pencils were stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink and clear embossed.  Since I found out how well the archival ink embosses, I have stopped using black EP - I hate how it is so messy and I always seem to have a few black dots where the EP strayed and I didn't see it before I heated it.  That is all totally avoided by using the Jet Black Archival Ink and clear EP.  

Now comes the fun part.  I started thinking about those vintage manual typewriters and the stinkin' ribbon came to mind.  Yuck!  When the ribbon wore out, you had to remove the reels on both sides and insert a new pair with new ribbon rolled on one and then sort of thread the ribbon through the guides that kept it in place when it scrolled back and forth.  It was a messy, inky job.  I decided to recreate one of the ribbon reels using a piece of rayon seam binding and copic markers.  I used R08 Vermillion and 100 Black, first making a thin line down the middle with the red and then filling in the red.  When I neared the center, I colored very lightly so as not to saturate the seam binding with ink that would bleed to the other half.  Once the red half was colored, I made a thin line of black and then colored that in the same way.  

I created a reel with two round filigree metals altered to black with Pitch Black alcohol ink.  I rolled a piece of black CS that was just about 2/8" wider than then "ribbon" and glued it to the filigree metal with Claudine Hellmuth's Multi Medium Matte.  When dry, I glued one end of the "ribbon" to the reel and then glued the top part of the reel with more Claudine MMM.  A second round filigree metal was then glued to the top in the same manner.

I made reinforcements with the Tim Holtz Tag and Bookplate die.  You don't have to have the die to make them - just punch a small circle and take your hole punch and punch out the center.  I did that forever before I owned that cool tag die.  But I really like how the die cut the reinforcements so I used that.  I hung the typewriter key charms with mini paperclips threaded through the reinforcements and clipped them on with a Tin Holtz clip.  The mini paperclips and the typerwriter key charms are TH too.  All are either in the boutique or expected next week.  I got word that a major Ranger shipment should be here next Tuesday.  

That is pretty much it for this card. I really had a blast making it and I think it stands out as one of my favorites of all that I have made.   Let me know if you have any questions!

Hugs,

Linda

Alterations Ticket Die	Weathered Wood Distress Ink Pad	Ranger Pitch Black Alcohol Ink	Artistic outpost Secretary Pool
Tim Holtz Mini Paper Clips	Multi Medium Matte	Rayon Seam Binding	Vintage Photo Distress Ink
Filigree Metal	Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink	Alterations Tag and Bookplates Die

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