Grasses and spritzing

I saw an article recently in the Craft Stamper which I really liked, and meant to try but never got round to it - so nows the perfect excuse.

Easy to do, but messy and fun. Pick some lovely dried grasses, seed heads, interesting branches etc. You want something that looks interesting, but your collecting freebies - so this is the perfect time to really experiment and play.

Hold you seed head to your card, try to get it as flat as possible to your card, and spritz. I used a couple of colours - try lots of different spritzers, from shimmery ones to the plain dyes.

Allow them to dry naturally, then you have a lovely image to make into your card. I made it very plain and simple as I didn't want to take the emphasis from my image.

Spritz away.




Sorry, my photo wasn't very clear - the shimmer was very shimmery and my light to bright.



xxxx

Time for Tea

My first post is probably something all of us have thought about, or had a go at, and it's something that I was inspired to do again as we are using tea leaves at the moment, and I hate just throwing them away. Tea of course has it's distinctive colouring - which is great for dying your papers and cardstock.

Take wet tea leaves and leave them on your card to dry. The longer left, or the wetter the leaves, then the darker the shade you can obtain. Alternatively you can pop your left over tea (without the milk), into a spritzer bottle. Mix with some pearlescent powder if you want a shimmer, and spritz. The more layers of tea you spritz, the darker tone can be achieved.

If you want an even finish, allow the spritzed tea to dry natural, if you want something more startling try drying with a heat tool:

Step one, spritz the tea so you have puddles on your card:



Using your heat gun, force the puddles into the card, and hold that position so the drip doesn't fly off around the cardstock:



The place the tea is forced to dry in will result in a darker result - keep spritzing and drying until you are happy with the result. You can of course "chase the drip", all over your card and you will get veins of colour - looks ace.

The samples below show the various depths of colour that can be achieved - just with a good ole cuppa!



The resulting card can then be used for the perfect backing material for all your cardmaking and stamping projects - just the job for that distressed look (on the cheap!)