Maria Giselle's Creative Cuts: Shrinked Stamped Crystal Images

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Shrinked Stamped Crystal Images

I came up with a card idea that I couldn't just give up on. I know the Hero Arts Holiday Cardmaking will end today, about 6 hours before I started working on this card. This is a big challenge for me, time crunch.

I stamped the images from HA Christmas Crystals onto Shrinky Dinks Crystal Clear transparencies. I used Stazon Cotton White to stamp the images. I also used the Misti Stamping Tool which is very helpful in stamping a lot of images at once, and also prevent shifting of the images when stamping on transparencies.

I cut the images separate before coloring it. I tried coloring first but the inks end up transferring to my hand. I then, punched a hole on the top of the image. I fuzzy cut the image leaving a small border around the image and the punched hole.

Here comes the magic. According to the packaging directions, it is recommended to use a toaster oven to shrink the plastic. I used my heat tool, a popsicle stick and a box cover. The plastic will curl during heating and seem to have its own mind because it will start curling and flip. This is where the use of the popsicle stick comes in, to get some control over the plastic. The end result, pretty crystal gems!

To create the card, I used the HA Tiny Flags to create a Christmas tree. I initially stamped this on a scrap paper to plan how I will mask the background rubber stamp. I used painters tape to create the tree border. I inked this background stamp with HA Soft Leaf Shadow Ink. I took the tape off and placed a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" green cardstock, to create a tone-on-tone image.

For the sentiment background, using the same colored cardstock, I stamped the sentiment from HA Snowman Christmas stamp set. I used the Misti to repeatedly stamp the sentiment with Versamark ink since the first impression weren't good. I heat embossed the sentiment using American Crafts Metallic Gold powder.

To add more detail to this sentiment panel, I rubbed the HA Unicorn pigment ink to an acrylic block. I spritz this with a little bit of water, mixed it with a small paint brush, then tapped the paint brush on my finger to create small dots.

I positioned the crystals on the tree panel. I poked holes using We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy needle. I hand sew the crystals to attach them to tree, sort of like the hooks for ornaments. I used a DMC Metallic Gold thread. I secured the thread at the back using a strong double adhesive tape. I fuzzy cut the tree which I should have done before sewing. Well, it still worked, just gave myself a bit of difficulty. I adhered this onto the sentiment panel using foam tape, then adhered to a kraft colored note card. I did snip a small portion off the edges from this green panels to create a border with the kraft color.

Here is a comparative picture of the stamp set and the shrinked version of it.