Creating titles

A few posts ago I had a bit of a rant about how much trouble I had in creating titles for pages. A little while after that I managed to get a set of Papermania alphabet stamps which were identical to some letter stickers that I had and particularly liked. I have also made a visit to Boots and had ordered a load of prints of my nephew as he is my main scrapping focus at the moment, the place where I seem to find the most inspiration. One of the sets I liked was 3 pictures, taken at very different ages, but all in variations of Arsenal outfits. Immediately a title "Growing up as a Gunner" sprung to mind and I've taken the opportunity to create a really bold title. The page isn't finished yet but I've done the work on the title.

I started by stamping in black and then inking the edges with a gold ink stamp. But it just didn't look striking enough. So I then decided to ink the pages, but I knew I wanted the letters in white, as they are on the strip. So I Glossy-accented the lettering and left it overnight to dry. The lettering really lends itself well to Glossy Accents as the nib is just as big as the gap. How fortunate is that!

So here you can see all of the parts of the title. (I apologise now for the photo's but I have a short focus lens and I was going for arty farty shots with short depth of field!) The next evening I got out my Aged Mahogany Distress ink pad and blenders. I inked over the whole title, wiping off the lettering immediately with a babywipe. And the lettering came out crisp and white. I was really impressed with how it looked and just how easy it was to do.

Once dry, I re-inked the edges with the gold and it gave a really good, aged look but still with the basic Arsenal colours. For the Gunners part, I've stamped my large, plain Dimension fourth letters in gold and cut them out. I have the photos matted onto white with gold edging and then onto navy blue card, but that is as far as its got. I can't decide whether to mount the titles onto the navy blue as well before they all end up on a nice bold dark red piece of 12x12.  But as far as lettering goes, I'm quite happy with this DIY look.

For those who don't use them, I can't recommend baby wipes enough. You can get the really cheap ones that you wouldn't necessarily use on a baby, but they clean stamps up immediately, as well as glue and ink on my messy sheet. They pick up glitter better than anything else I've found, and even me when I get a bit sticky! 

Love Elliefantasy xx

Alphabetti Spaghetti

A lot of what I do with cards and scrapbook pages results in the need for some kind of writing. Either stamped, peel off, stickers, printed etc etc. And I never ever seem to have the right thing. I feel like I am constantly buying alphabets but when it comes to crunch time I just don't have something to match the project. If I was better organised I would plan all my pages in advance, matching up kits before I even put glue to pretty paper. But that isn't fun if you do it all the time (I am just guessing, I have NEVER managed to do it for one page, let alone many.) Some of my favourite pages are ones that just come together without a lot of effort, but I have a 5% success rate in finding good letters and having enough of them to make the associated title. 

Today I popped into Hobbycraft to spend a £10 voucher on some non-crafty bits and came away spending a bit more and with some crafty bits. One of which was a packet of Papermania alphabet stamps. The main thing that attracted me was that it was the duplicate of some stickers that they do, but now I can do my own alphas in my own colours and have exactly the words I need. Plus they are a decent size, which is not easy to come by and they are not often that cheap. Dimension Fourth do a lovely set of alpha's in a blobby version of Times New Roman, either in plain or in funky patterns. I have a set but unfortunately have chopped the top off my U. The queue was too big at Ally Pally to bother them with random queries but I shall be e-mailing soon to investigate the possibility of single letters. I also am the proud owner of Zoo Alphabet by Penny Black. Unfortunately they have only had 1 outing so far, but now I am perfecting the art of the pro-markers (and worked out how to stop them bleeding) I will have another go soon. 

I have also delved into the world of printed alphas and these have also worked. I recently made a 360 degree card for my mum and didn't have enough of some chipboard letters that I had brought from Dunelm. So I poodled into Paint Shop Pro, downloaded some new swirly brushes and made a pattern. I then wrote some text over, first ensuring that the fill colour was sent to transparent. Printed off, cut out and glossy accented and I had some fairly good little letters, albeit in a fairly over the top shade of purple. I do have the robo if I can sort out using it, but sometimes you want something nice and quick and lets face it, the robo isn't really. I also like to make the absolute most out of any card that I cut so just 1 phrase isn't good enough.

So what is the point of this ramble. Well partly it is that, just a ramble. Partly it is a plea to any manufactures who might possibly maybe have stumbled upon this blog by accident, please put in loads and loads of vowels and useful letters in your packs. And partly it is to share some ideas that I have had to try and solve this perennial problem.

And 1 final tip for you all (in case you hadn't stumbled upon this yourself) With silver peel offs and permanent brush pens you can get a lot more coloured peel-off letters than you think.  Don't bother with the pro-markers, its a waste of their capabillities and the ink doesn't spread well. But 3 or 4 goes with a good old fashioned brush pen and you unleash a whole new world. 

Love Elliefantasy xxx