Designs by Ryn

I've been trying for the last two weeks to find a minute or two (well maybe an hour or two or three ) to make a couple of quickie projects for Ryn Tanaka, owner of Designs by Ryn. Last time I used Ryn's stamps, I made some fabric flowers and thought it might be a nice idea to make a couple of cards using some aluminium. In the end they weren't exactly quickie projects but I hope you like them.

Project No. 1

I used SKU CM-F2 Begonia and SKU CM-F15 Leafy Branch some aluminium, Black Stazon Ink, Stream, Pesto and Currant Alcohol Inks, Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold, Little Black Dress Fresco Finish paint and some Ten Seconds Studio embossing tools.

1. Stamp image on aluminium using Stazon ink. Heat set. Use a TSS pointy stylus to outline the image. It's a good idea to lean on a foam mat to do this.

2. Use the same tool to hammer a dotty texture in the centre of the flower (this will be raised up on the other side which will become the front of the flower).

3. Use A paper stump to gently puff the metal out, using smooth, sweeping strokes. You will probably find that this will remove the ink, but that isn't a problem, we only needed the ink to trace the lines.

4. When you flip the metal over, this is what you will have.

5.  Because the flower is so dimensional, you will need to fill the back with spackle to prevent your flower becoming squished!! Sorry about the quality of this picture, I didn't realise how blurry it was until I popped it on here!! You will need to leave this to dry before working further on this flower.

6. Once dry, you will need to stick a piece of card stock to the back and I like to use Humungo sticky tape to do this.

7. You will then be able to trim away the excess metal and decorate the edges with an embossing wheel.

8.  I used a small paintbrush to apply Currant Alcohol Ink over the whole surface of the flower. When dry, I gently applied some Spanish Topaz Treasure gold over the centre area of the flower. I added some of the Little Black Dress Fresco paint over the middle section followed by a touch more Treasure Gold when the paint was dry.

9. To create the background, I stamped the Leafy Branch on the metal with Stazon. Used my pointy stylus to hammer the dotty background. Applied some of the black paint, working it into the dots and the gently removing the excess with a paper towel. Once dry, I used a tiny paintbrush to paint the leaves with Pesto Alcohol ink.

10. I added some Stream Alcohol ink to the background, using a brush and when this was dry, brushed on small amounts of the Treasure Gold to create a blended background From this picture of the finished card, I think you can see how subtle the background colours are.

11. Mounting everything on a layer of card followed by a layer of fabric and a few bits of ribbon & lace made the finishing touches complete.

I'll be back tomorrow evening with the second card that I made.