Crafting Ireland Issue 1

Issue 1 May 2011

Ireland’s first online craf t magazine....

nI s i d e t h i s i s s u e Tu t o r i a l s Inspiration Challenges And much more!

In Spot l i g ht - Mi c hel l e Roos y r i a F s c i h p a r G Featured-The

Techniques

WELCOME to Crafting Ireland. We are a brand new and exciting Irish craft magazine!!

We will initially be publishing the magazine online. Our aim is to be a magazine for the growing Irish crafting market. We want to showcase crafters and bring relevant informa‐ tion to our fellow crafters about products and

Ni c ol e

classes in Ireland. We are open to everyone though, you don’t have to be living in Ireland to read the magazine or to submit to be pub‐ lished.

Timi Submit your work at Craftingireland.wordpress.com 2

In this magazine we intend to explore the following areas, plus lots more!

Card maki n g

Techni q ues Scrapbooking

s t c u d o r p e s u o t How Altered Art Spotlight on Irish crafter s r e t f a r c r o f s e Chal eng Crafting on a budget We will be writing about products, techniques, styles and much more.

We will also be looking for your input to the magazine. Submit your work to be spotlighted in the magazine. This is your magazine and your resource and we hope you enjoy it!! Happy crafting,

Nicole & Timi

Edi t o rs not e —— p2 Di s t r ess Ink t u t o ri a l —— p6 Submi s si o ns —— p16 Cl a ss & crop l i s t —— p20 Craft e r spot l i g ht p22 ——

Distress ink tutorial page 4

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Craft i n g on a budget p26 Feat u red websi t e p30 Challenge —— p34 Next issue —— p36

In this series of tutorial we would like to show the versatility of Distress Inks by Ranger. The following techniques can be used on any project from ATC‐s to scrapbook layouts.

You will need:

Distress inks in at least three colours Craft sheet Distress Inks applicator tool Brayer Sanding block, emery board Heat tool Acrylic paint Stamp Embossing ink Embossing powder Technique 1 ‐ Wrinkle free distress

Swipe you distress ink pads onto your craft sheet to apply colour. Spritz all over the ink with water. Place you tag into the pools of ink.

Lift and dry with a heat tool.

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It is essential to dry in be‐ tween layers, so you won’t get a big brown mess.

To finish up you can stamp an image onto your card.

Technique 2 ‐ Wrinkled distress background

Apply different colours of distress ink onto a tag with application tool.

When colours are blended and dry crumple your tag. With darker colour touch the highpoint of the crumpled tag.

If you want more dramatic ef‐ fect, take an emery board and sand the creases the crumpling created. This will emphasise the creases even more.

Apply more ink until you are happy with the colour of the tag. Then spray the tag with water to flatten it back out and decorate to your liking.

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Technique 3 ‐ Brayered reinkers background

Drop one drop of each of your colour onto the craft sheet.

Take you brayer and slowly move it into the droplets.

When the inks transferred onto the brayer, apply them onto the tag.

Be careful and try to keep the colours separate or else they will end up looking muddy.

Make sure you dry your tag before applying any more colour. You can build us as many layers of colour as you like.

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Technique 4 ‐ Acrylic paint resist

Apply acrylic paint onto a stamp and then stamp the im‐ age onto a tag. Dry it with a heat tool.

Blend colours on the tag with applicator tool. Let it dry. Use a baby wipe to wipe off the dis‐ tress ink from the acrylic paint.

Your image will be re‐

Technique 5 ‐ Emboss resist technique

Stamp your image with embossing ink onto a tag. Pour generous amount of embossing powder and tap off the excess. Heat it with heat tool to melt the embossing powder and let it cool.

Apply and blend distress ink colours with applicator tool.

Wipe off the excess distress ink from the embossed area and your background is done.

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Technique 6 ‐ Layered ink background

You will need matching colours to use this technique. I used shades of yellows, greens and browns.

The inks used here are: Wild honey Crushed olive Shabby shutters Forest moss Walnut stain Black soot

Apply the lightest colour all over the tag. With the next ink colour start at the bottom of the tag and work you’re your way up. Cover only ¾ of the tag.

For the next colour start at the bottom again and only go 2/4 of the way up the tag. Continue working your distress ink over the tag in this way, reducing the area you are inking up.

With the Walnut stain only blend the edges of the tag and finally just touch the edge with the Black Soot.

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Call for submissions….Calling ALL crafters – we want to publish you!!

For each issue we will give you a list of themes to work with. We would love to see what you create inspired by these themes. When you submit an image of your project, please make sure it is clearly photographed straight‐on with a neutral background or scanned.

Please make sure you only submit projects that have never appeared online or on a blog before, and it can not have been published previously.

We want to say a huge thank you to all of you who supported our first call for submissions. We loved all your entries and are delighted to show them off.

Summer Fruits

Submitted by Stephanie Serrano of http://stephaniesstampinspot.blogspot.com

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A Stitch in Time

Submitted by Eve Louw of klieka.blogspot.com

Submitted by Jackie Mooney

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Submitted by Aideen Fallon of http://www.piecesbyaideen.com

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Submitted by Elise Sabre of www.HeirloomGypsy.com

Travel

Submitted by Felicia Thomas of scrapzville.blogspot.com

The themes for the next Issue are:

Clean and Simple and On the beach

See p36 ‘Next Issue’ for more information

We would love to publish your classes and crops here. Whether you are a shop running crops and classes or just a group of crafty people looking for like minded people let us know. Email your details to craftingire‐ land@gmail.com Workshops at the Siopa Buí – or presented by the Siopa Buí

Wednesday card making workshops. Every week, 10:30 – 12:30 – Cost 10 Euro, make 2 cards.

21st of May ‐ Chocolate themed demonstration day, 11am—4.30pm Kerry Colson and Philomena Sullivan will be demonstrating all things choco‐ late from stamps, decoupage, Hunky Dory and the real thing!

22nd May Felting Workshop, 11am‐4pm Spend the day with fluffy wool and make a landscape image, an accessory and a small bag. All equipment and kit provided. Please bring along an old towel. To book please call us on 091‐504692 or email on kerry@ansiopabui.ie Cost: 30 Euros for the day

Tuesday 31 May ‐ Evening Card making workshop, 7:00 ‐ 9:00 Make 2 cards. Cost: 10 Euros To book please call us on 091‐504692 or email on ansiopabui@hotmail.com. ‐5th June—A Great Craft Day A day with the fabulously talented Karen Matthews. Art stamping and card making, jewellery making.

11th June Saturday—Carlow Workshop New Oak Community centre A full workshop day with 7 amazing projects. Expect some Clarity stamping, Hunky Dory crafting, Flowersoft, Sizzix and die‐cutting masterclass, 20

Ribbonmania and more.

Cost: 32 Euros for the full day inclusive of all materials.

Booking can be made via the shop .

418th June Saturday‐Wedding Workshop 11:00am ‐ 4:00pm All new designs for 2011. An excellent class for those wanting to make wedding invitations as a business or as a bride. It is also a good class for any beginner as we start from the beginning with card folding and quick and clever techniques. We make at least 8 projects and the class includes a Wedding words manual.

Cost: 30 Euros for the full day inclusive of all materials.

To book please call us on 091‐504692 or email on kerry@ansiopabui.ie

26 June Sunday‐Teaching Crafts for Children 11:00am ‐ 4:00pm Our all new class this year is full of new ideas and inspiration for anyone teaching crafts to children. The class includes the basics of face painting, fimo clay, making children's jewellery and hair accessories and more. We also have some good money saving tips along the way Cost: 30 Euros for the full day inclusive of all materials.

To book please call us on 091‐504692 or email on

Don’t forget to send us in your list of classes or crops to craftingireland@gmail.com

Michelle Roos!!

In every issue we will be spotlighting the work of an Irish based crafter. We will look at paper crafters, scrapbookers, and altered art aficionados. If you think you know someone who you think sound be spotlighted let us know at craftingireland@gmail.com.

Our first spotlight is shining on Michelle Roos. Here is Michelle to tell us a bit about herself and her work....

I’m a SAHM to three won‐ derful cheeky monkeys and married to a very under‐ standing and patient man called Menno who is Dutch.

I’m originally from London but moved back to Ireland in 2006 to be closer to my Mum & Dad (who are both Irish) – yep I’m a plastic paddy ! We are now living where Sam Maguire usually resides in the gorgeous Kingdom of Kerry in Listowel.

When and how did you get involved with paper craf ting?

I’ve been involved in all types of crafting for most of my life whether it was cross stitching, knitting, etc.. but I’ve stuck with card making now since 2008. I’ve also tried scrapbooking a couple of times and was quite pleased with the results.

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W h a t i s y o u r f a v o u r i t e a sp e c t o f p a p e r c r a f t i n g ?

My favourite aspect of paper crafting has to be making my own flowers. I know that it would be way easier to buy them but I find it very therapeutic to make my own.

What are the techniques that you use most of the time?

My favourite techniques that I use most of the time for card making is the shabby chic look. I love to distress the edges of the designer paper that I use and then ink them up using Distress Inks.

What are your "can't do without" products?

The products that I can’t do without is my slice machine and Bigshot. If they broke down today I wouldn’t be able to finish off my cards because these are the two products that I use every time I create a project.

Tell us about your inspiration If I’m stuck for inspiration, I usually head to one of the challenge blogs where they will have a sketch for that week. If that doesn’t help I usually head to this persons blog because I just love the details on her pro‐ jects http://cstoen.blogspot.com/ How do you describe your style?

My style of paper crafting is Shabby Chic.

D o y ou b l o g ?

Yes I do love blogging and have got quite addicted to it. I’m part of some Design Teams, three of which I can’t mention just yet but I’m very excited about it.

Where can we see your work?

If you want to see more of my projects, this is my blog address http:// micheleroos‐space.blogspot.com/ and there you will see all the Design Teams that I’m on.

Have you any plans for the future?

I’m always trying out new tech‐ niques and I would love to learn how to paint with distress inks, but I’ve not got round to it yet.

In the next couple of months, I will be joining other Design Teams but I’m afraid I can’t spill

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Edi t o rs pi c ks The editors each picked one of their favourite projects from Michelle's work to share with you below..

Ti m i says. . that she loves this card because of the soft col‐ ours, the stunning image and colouring and the beautiful handmade flowers!

Ni c ol e says. .

this card is cute and funky.

She loves the shading on the image and all of the wonderful layers and em‐ bellishments!

Welcome to our Crafting on a Budget section. Crafting on a budget can be creative and fun – and green. Keep in mind that lots of things people throw away can be reused to create something beautiful.

We want to share a some tips, ideas and techniques in each issue to help you craft on a budget.

Tip #1 – Reuse and recycle

There is much more awareness of being environmentally friendly in every as‐ pect of life. At work you probably recycle as much as possible. At home you more than likely recycle, turn off lights when not in rooms, and are aware of your water, gas or electricity consumption.

Crafting may seem like an area that you use a lot of resources – especially paper. It is however possible to be environmentally aware when crafting.

There are a number of ways you can go about this. We will take a look at some ideas below.

Use those paper scraps – we all produce paper scraps through our projects. Rather than throwing these out, keep them and use them up on future projects. How I hear you say? Here are some ideas:

Create mosaic backgrounds Take scraps of paper in colours that compliment the project you are creating. Cut them into small pieces, rough squares

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are usually the best.

Lay out the squares on your project. In this case I am placing them on a piece of card in order to mount it on to a card.

When you are happy with the positioning on them adhere them to the card.

Y o u

You could also at this stage sew all the pieces together to give a patch work effect instead. Or you could simply lay strips of the scraps of paper on to card and use this as a background or die cut a shape from it.

Ribbon scraps Using ribbon on our projects is something many of us do. Often I find that I have scraps of ribbon left over from a project that I feel are that bit too big to throw out but yet that bit too small to use on a project.

In an ideal world we would not worry about throwing these scraps out.

Take a sheet of card stock and use your adhesive of choice. Here I use d a strong tape that works with ribbon. Be careful about using wet glue at this stage as some types bleed through ribbon. Lay out a patch of adhesive on the card.

I am making a card here so I have cut my cardstock slightly smaller than the card blank I am using.

Gather your ribbon scraps and lay out on the adhesive, alternating the colours and tex‐ tures of ribbon scraps for the most interest.

When dry adhere the card with the ribbon on it to the front of the card.

Take another piece of card – plain or designer paper. Cut this to be just slightly smaller than the card front.

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Choose a die that you like and cut the die from this card.

Place the die cut piece aside (for use on a future project!) and keep the negative of the die cut.

Adhere this to the card base and you will see your ribbon now ‘fills’ the die cut space.

The ribbon makes a super contrast tucked away in behind the brick wall!!

Tip #2 ‐ Use Found Objects

Why pay for craft embellishments when you can probably walk right out into your back yard, head to a forest or beach and find an assortment of items for free? There are plenty of items for sale in craft stores that you can find for free in your own environment if you just set out to do a little searching.

Pliant sticks and small branches can easily be woven into small rustic wreaths. Shells from your beach trip can be used for all kinds of crafts. Feathers, stones, sand, and other objects found in nature can all be used in your crafts.

Another way to gain free supplies is to mention to family and friends that you collect things like ribbon, tags, broken jewellery, tester pots of paint– and so on.

You will be amazed what you will end up with.

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Think outside the box!!

We are delighted to present our first featured website—The Graphics Fairy!! This fits in fantastic‐ ally with our crafting on budget theme. We love the Graphics Fairy for the fantastic vintage images the owner Karen shares with us every day. All these images she provides free of charge for people to use in their art in any way they want.

Karen says “One of my most favourite pastimes is to shop for beautiful and interesting paper items that I can share with you, on my blog. I can't tell you how much joy it brings me, knowing that my readers are able to use these pieces in their art “

The Graphics Fairy runs a website offering these free images, as well as a site offering free blog backgrounds. A new addition to the

Graphics Fairy is the craft blog. This craft blog shows all the Crafty good‐ ness, found on The Graphics Fairy. It features reader projects, as well as my Karen's own work, and other bits related to crafting, in an effort to inspire you with various ways to use Graphics Fairy images!

We really recommend stopping by The Graphics Fairy at http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ —we guarantee once you start visiting you wont be able to stop!

All images used in this article are from The Graphics Fairy

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If you would like to advertise in Crafting Ireland email us on craftingireland@gmail.com with advertising in the subject line for more information.

In every issue of Crafting Ireland we will have a crafty challenge to help you all get your creative juices flowing. We will select two winners from each challenge. We will then publish the two winners projects in the next issue, as well as a selection of the runner up’s work too.

We hope to see you all joining in and show us the talent that is out there! For this issue we have been kindly sponsored by An Siopa Bui in Galway. They are sponsoring the two prizes. Make sure to pay them a visit at http://www.ansiopabui.ie/ and check out all the fantastic products they have on offer. They also run lots of classes and workshops and this list can be seen on page 20.

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Our challenge for you this issue is a Sketch. We want to see your take on this layout. You can make a card, scrapbook layout or even altered item that follows the layout.

To get you started with some inspiration we have created a card and a layout to show how versatile the sketch can be.

Nicole created a masculine vin‐ tage grunge style card, keeping it fairly simple with the layers and embellishments. Tissue tape scraps worked perfectly on this card.

Timi created a grungy vintage layout as a memory of her many travels. She has embellished with the Tim Holtz film strip ribbon, some fantastic handmade flow‐ ers and flourishes. The superb Kraft resist paper back ground works perfectly with the theme.

out on 27th June For the next issue we would love to see more of your work. The submis‐ sion themes are as follows:

Clean and Simple This theme can be for cards, layouts or any type of project—once it fol‐ lows the guide lines. A clean and simple project is one with clean lines, minimal elements, areas of white space and few or no embellishments.

Quite often then can be one layered and monochromatic also.

On the beach Summer is here and for once we seem to be getting some sunshine in Ire‐ land! We want to see you celebrate the summer with your beach themed projects. Again any type of project can be submitted once it has a beach theme.

Article submission If you have an article or tutorial you would like to get published please email us about it to craftingireland@gmail.com.

Make sure to check out craftingireland.wordpress.com for more information on future issues 36