MFTeaser--Day 3 Tree Swing!

Not sure, what possessed me to let this sweet little urchin
out to play after midnight,

but maybe he's just dreaming of fireflies?

It's day three of the teasers of new MFT stamp adorableness!!!

Today (Monday April 5th at 11 AM E.S.T) you'll find links to
day 3 teaser posts here on Kim's blog!

If you missed the other days, you can see them here:

• Day 1 of the MFTeasers here on Kim's blog
• Day 2 of the MFTeasers here on Kim's blog

More sweet new sets!
(That will be available in the MFT boutique
on Wednesday April 7th):

• Pure Innocence- Birthday Princess
• Pure Innocence- Book in Hand
• Pure Innocence- Make Mine a Double

and I've used this one:

• Boy & his Dog- Tree Swing:

Is it where the flow'r of the orange blows,

And the fireflies dance thro' the myrtle boughs?

--Felicia Hemans

(I am in LOVE with this set!!!)

The boy is stamped on cardstock that I applied gesso to (swiped it on with a scrap of cardstock.)The gesso lets you manipulate the paper a lot. I've scratched a grid in the paper to texturize his overalls.



This is scratched with a paper piercing tool, and the gesso makes the paper resilient. You can do this with regular cardstock; I just MUCH prefer the gesso paper. I'll have a full pictorial with all the details of the gesso technique tomorrow, in case you're curious. :o)

The rope is stitched:



(I pierced the image with a paper piercer & sewed on quilting thread after I adhered the cut out image to the black grid paper (the background paper is Basic Grey Origins 6x6 paper with some hills coloured on using black & grey Copic Markers.)

The teensy flowers:



The teeny tiny shaped paper flowers were made (super quickly)
using a Fiskar's scallop flower border punch:

The punch was a gift from Maria (one of the most insanely talented & sweetly generous crafters in the whole wide world! You ROCK, girlfriend!) I love this punch SO much; I tried to find a link, in case anyone wants one... but I'm not sure if they still make it, sorry.

To make the flowers:

1. Punch the wee flowers (punch border punch in white cardstock.)
2. Pierce a hole in them (on a firm foam or cork surface)
3. Glue them to your project (You could colour or glitter them first)

No shaping required. The piercing shapes them. Though you might find that if your paper piercer is too thick, this won't work. The one I used is Making Memories deluxe piercer. (LOVE it--after buying 5 brands.) You could use a needle/push pin...

They're glued on with Tombow Monomulti:

and with some leaves. To make the leaves, I just stamped an extra branch & coloured and cut out the leaves & glued them on with the flowers...

on blowing in the wind:

I love this branch and can't wait to make a card with just the branch even!

Fireflies:

The fireflies are clear seed beads sewn on with white thread:

1. Draw a white dot on the image with a gel pen (I like Sakura Souffle)
2. Draw a soft glow around it with a white marker (I love Close to my Heart white marker more than words can say.) You could paint on a weak wash of white paint or ink with a small brush.
3. Pierce two small holes on either side of the white dot (using a paper piercing tool or a needle.
4. Thread a needle (that will fit through the clear bead) ;o) with white thread
5. Starting at the back of the image, come up through the hole you pierced & adhere the end of your thread on the back of the image
6. Once you've threaded through to the front, just pop the seed bead on your needle.
7. Go back down through the image, in the 2nd hole you pierced.

TIP: The two holes will make the bead lay flat. For a bead that shows its circular inside, just pierce one hole & go back down through it after adding the bead.

And yup, I'm a lunatic, I did stitch around all the words:

To make the embossed words (from an inkjet printer):

Embossing the words lets you colour your paper with distress ink or other things without smudging the computer printing.

1. Type out your quote in your favorite font in a word document

2. Cover a piece of cardstock in Matte Medium (This requires only a very thin coat; Matte Medium is clear & lets you emboss ink jet ink if you work QUICKLY) I apply with my hands, but you could try brush, brayer, lint free rag if you don't want lines in your finished paper

3. Dry Matte Medium & prepare embossing supplies: While the matte medium dries, prepare clear embossing powder, tray, & heat gun so you can act quickly after printing. I find in BC Canada that Golden Matte Medium dries super quickly, but it will depend on the humidity of your area. You can speed with a gentle pass of the heat gun.

4. Print the text & sprinkle on embossing powder. (I like to print on a half sheet of cardstock and on standard setting, so it prints quickly enough to keep the ink jet ink wet.) Immediately sprinkle the clear embossing powder on.

5. Melt the clear clear embossing powder with a heat gun. To get the most out of the powder application, you can heat it from the back of the paper so the heat gun doesn't blow the embossing powder off.

Then you can ink up the paper, or add Glimmer Mist or what have you without smudging. I applied Distress Ink (Broken China & dark grey ink to mute the hue.)

(Please note: Sorry, I can't guarantee that the Matte Medium doesn't do naughty things to your printer. Mine was $50. so I play at whim)

...and there you have it...

Hope this card wasn't too somber for you.... & Sorry about the photo quality, I'll try to get better photos & close ups of this when the sun comes out today & add them with descriptions of the techniques. (It was SO fun to make but SOoooh difficult to photograph!) Photos all added now. :o)

The leaf embossing texture is made using this
homemade cereal box embossing plate:

Thanks for swingin' on by!
Happy Easter.

P.S. (Word to the wise, these stamp sets tend to sell out
quickly, so if you want them badly, then you may
want to save that date: APR 7th) :-)


P.P. S. Can you believe this. If I won the lotto, I would buy these: Jeweled buttons
(no affiliation at all; I just thought they were hot.)

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