December challenge reveal with the DT - Merry Christmas

Welcome to the December challenge.

We know it's a busy time of year but we so love seeing your creations.

So our challenge this month is "Anything Goes"

Luciana

To inspire you this holiday month, I made an arrangement to decorate the house or the door! I worked with two border racks and tulle bottom. I hope you are inspired by our Christmas mood!

Some details.

Louise

 Cherie Craig

Carol Theng

This month our sponsor is 

Narelle Fasulo - narelle@simplystampingwithnarelle.com

Scrapmatts will supply $40 of chipboard and stencil from their online store.

We hope you enjoy this months challenge and can't wait to see your entries.

Happy Scrapping.

Off the Rails Team

Impossible Card Tutorial

Welcome to the blog and thank you for dropping by.  It's Narelle here.

Today I have a video tutorial for you on how to make the Impossible card. I have seen this card pop up everywhere on  the internet, so I thought it was time I tried to make one. And thought perhaps you would like to see how I made it. But first here are a couple that I made to practice the technique.

I think they are called Impossible because the flap in the middle seems to stand by itself. I could be wrong with that....if I am please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know why it is called what it is. I know why I call it Impossible, because when I first saw it, I was like what, how did they do that. That's impossible to make. But as I researched more, I found out that  they are not impossible to make. In fact, they are quite easy. I did a video to show you just how easy  they are.

Here is the finished card from the video. I love the paper on this and the matching stamp set.

Here is the template for when you want to make your own.

I  hope you have enjoyed seeing how these cards are made and you have a go at making one.

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle

Fun with Brusho and water with Narelle

Today I have a fun pictorial for you on how I used Brusho with my Stamparatus. It was heaps of fun and something you should try real soon.

Once  it is dry, have fun making fun projects. I turned mine into a card.

I hope you enjoyed this fun technique and will give it a try soon.

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle

Tutorial how to stamp the perfect wreath with Narelle

Hello  friends.  Narelle here on the blog today.

Today I have a quick tutorial for you, showing you how to easily stamp the perfect wreath. I think we all find stamping in a circle sometimes challenging. But today I have an easy way to get the circle shape every time.

Here is the card I made using this technique.

This whole wreath was stamped using one stamp. Here is how I did it.

Start off by using something round to draw a circle in pencil onto your card stock. This is the secret to getting a perfect wreath shape.

This may be obvious to some people, but sometimes the obvious is staring us in the face and we don't notice it. There are also a few other tips I have for you too.

I didn't want the long stem of this stamp on my wreath. So I inked the stamp up and then covered the stem with some washi tape. 

I then removed the washi tape and stamped onto my card stock. When I stamped, I only got a small part of the stem on my project. I then repeated this process for all the leaves I stamped. 

To get an even distribution of the colours, I stamped the first colour, Melon Mambo, at North, South, East and West points on my circle. Then I overlapped each of those slightly with the next colour, and repeated this for  the third colour.

The Lemon Lime Twist leaves are using the same stamp, but this time I wanted to use just the two top leaves. So I used part of a post it note like I used the washi tape above.

The leaves in the centre of the wreath are lighter in colour as I stamped off onto scrap paper first. What this means is I inked up the stamp like normal, but before I stamped onto my project, I stamped once onto a scrap piece of paper, which removed some of the ink from the stamp. I then stamped onto my project without reinking. This gives the same colour as the ink, but just a bit lighter.

I then glued on Touches of Nature Elements. These are woodchip elements in the shapes of leaves and flowers. The cool thing about these is that they are double sided. White on one side, natural on the other.

Then I created a bow out of several strands of linen thread. I got four strands of linen thread all the same length.

I then straightened them by holding them all together and using my bone folder to run the length. A bit like you do when you curl paper when making flowers. Then just holding the four strands together, make a bow. Attach it to the wreath using glue dots.

Here is a close up of the wreath so you can see the elements better.

I hope you have learnt a few new things today and I hope you try some of these techniques out soon.

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle

Water Colour Technique with Narelle

A couple of days ago, as part of the mid month reveal, you saw a card I did that contained a watercolur technique.  This is the card in case you didn't see it.

I have done a colour dropping watercolour technique on this card. This is not your normal way of watercolouring, so I thought a tutorial on how to do it would be useful. Here is the step by step to how you do it.

Select an image which has a large area or largish sections. It is easier to control the colour variance in larger sections. 

Stamp your image onto waterolour paper using Versamark ink. Then heat emboss it using white embossing powder.

Get  your colours ready that you are going to use. Open your ink pad and drop some colour from your reinker onto the lid. I used Cherry Cobbler and Crushed Curry for the rose, and Tranquil Tide and Garden Green for the leaves.

Grab an Aqua Pen and fill one section of the image with water. It is best to have one aqua pen for plain water and one for each colour you are going to use.

Then using another aqua pen, pick up some ink from the drop of ink on the lid of the ink pad and touch the water. The colour will transfer and spread. Don't touch the water again just let the colour do its thing. 

Grab another aqua pen and repeat the process with another colour. This time, touch the water droplet from the other end.

You can get some amazing colour combinations depending on the colours you have chosen. Mine turned an orange colour where the two colours blended.

Repeat the process until all the image is coloured. Leave it aside to dry. Don't try to force it dry by using a heat tool as this will move the colours around and blend them too much. You may end up with a single colour image rather than the variegated look.

Because I wasn't very careful or perhaps very good, at keeping the water within the embossed  lines, I did get some bleed out side of the image. So I fussy cut the rose and leaves out before I adhered them to my card,

This is such a fun technique, and I can see it being truly spectacular on some other stamps, like the Magical Mermaid stamp.

Don't forget that this month I am sponsoring the Red Mood Board challenge.

So make sure you have a go and enter.

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle

August Mid Month Challenge DT Reveal

Welcome to August.... hope your enjoying summer and your family time together while the kids are out of school... or just relaxing when the weather is perfect.

Today we have some awesome mid month inspiration to celebrate our August moodboard.

Be inspired by the pictures or colours or a theme.

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Also thanks to our amazing sponsors this month.

Narelle Fasulo

Candy Chelepy

Candy is one of our Design team members who has kindly
donated a surprise package

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Here is the DT to get your creativity flowing ...

Narelle

Louise

Bev 

We hope you'll play along this month, 

link and share so we can view and comment on your project.

Thanks for visiting today.. and see you again soon.

Watercolour Tutorial with a Difference by Narelle

Hi it's Narelle here. Today I have a watercolour tutorial - with a difference. I am not going to show you the normal watercolour technique, but something a bit different. First  let's take a look at the card on which I used this technique. In case you missed it, I featured it yesterday on my blog.

It doesn't look like there is any water colouring on this card, does there? But there is. All the flowers and leaves have been water coloured. This is how you do it.

You will need some watercolour pencils, stamps, aqua painter and card stock.

Next step is to wet  the stamps with your aqua painter. This works best on the red rubber stamps.

Now use your watercolour pencils and colour in the stamp. Sometimes the water will dry before you are finished, so you have to work quickly.

Once the stamp is coloured, stamp onto your card stock.

This is the effect you will get. And each time you do it, you will get a different look.

It is a fun technique and a different way of using your water colour pencils.

I hope you have learned something new today and have a go at this technique soon.

Thanks for dropping by and have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle