Monday 24 September 2012

Back to School

Heres a card I've made in the back to school theme, I think these Jayne Nestorenko patchwork polly stamps are cute but not overly so.  The background patches were stamped with purple distress ink then colourwashed all over in the same colour.  I've 'blanket stitched' them using a sewing machine.  The image was coloured using sakura gel pens but the sparkle isn't showing through in this picture.

 
I'd like to enter thi into Emmas Crafty Challenge - this months theme being Back to School.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Simpler rock Candy Christmas

As much as I enjoyed making the previous card I don't have time to make 50 plus of them, the postage costs would also be prohibitive due to the thickness. Consequently I made this second card using less bulky materials and a ready made die cut snowflake topper.  The embossed snowflakes are still encrusted with Rock candy stickles although the photograph doesn't show them up very well, the topper also has a good layer of the stickles on it giving added texture.  The embossing on the tag  was done with a Splodgeaway mask run through my Grand Calibur. The background, which this time is debossed, and topper were distressed with iced spruce.



Rock candy Christmas

I was sorta inspired by Sue Wilson on tv this morning, more like she gave me a kick in the right direction to get crafting and not buy anything!  I've made my first Christmas card of the year, it's A5 in size.






The JOY stamp is from a recent Sheena Douglas set stamped with perfect medium and heat embossed with gold before embossing the background using a snowflake embossing folder (possibly a do crafts one, the Sizzix one has the flakes closer together).    I dotted clear rock candy distress stickles all over the snowflakes.

The tag is cut from kraft card. For the background after diecutting the foliage I used the waste piece as a stencil and inked through with Iced Spruce distress ink and then embossed with wow white pearl powder.  I also used Iced spruce to lightly distress the snowflake background.  I think I finally managed to master the pine cone's die cut with a Sizzix alterations die, thanks to some great demonstrations :)  I frosted the edges of the cones with the clear rock candy distress.  I roughened the edges of the tag and distressed with iced spruce before adding some gold embossing.  Finally I frayed a scap of fabric and made a bow.

close up of pine cones
 

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Altered picture frame with metal foil tape



Inspired by Tim Holtz and Ali Reeve I altered this 8 x 8 picture bought from a charity shop for 50p.  I used Tims foil tape technique to get the industrial look on the frame.  I'd like to enter this one into the Studio L3 Challenge 22 which features projects from Tim Holtz book, A compendium of curiosities 2 the challenge is kindly sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

The gears were die cut twice from the Alterations gadget gears sizzix die, once in chipboard and once using craft metal (a cola can worked for me!).  I painted the chipboard pieces with black soot distress stain and once dry glued the metal pieces on top.  I then distressed them as with the frame and stapled them to give them more dimension.

The image is a That Special Touch mica mask which was used to emboss white card with a diecutting machine.  Before running it through I coated the mask with perfect medium so that the debossed side was ready to take embossing powder.  I used the sticky embossing powder this time and then 'floated' a few gilding flakes where I wanted them before brushing black mica powder all over the piece, the powder sticking to the embssed parts.  I spritzed lightly in a few areas with some silver ink. 

Once dry the entire image was coated with a good layer of rock candy distress stickles. 

I'd also  like to enter this into     http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2012-september/.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Thursday 13 September 2012

Kinetic Halloween Card

Here is a Halloween card with a bit of a surprise.

 

The head is mounted onto a strip of acetate that has been concertina folded four times.  In one of the folds I have put a small piece of sticky tape, this is not enough to hold the folded acetate firmly so suddenly it pops out making the head jump out and wobble!  It's difficult to describe, if I had the facility I'd do a video to demonstrate but its a simple enough thing for you to try:)

close up of kinetic mechanism


I stamped and cut out the skull head twice and cut out the top hat from one of the images.  I 'coloured' in the areas of the hat I wanted black using an embossing pen and sprinkled with ebony wow embossing powder, heated then 'coloured' in the red part before 3d mounting it over the skull.  I distressed around the skull a little with black soot ink.

The spider was stamped with embossing ink and embossed with the ebony powder.   I pierced a hole above the spider and threaded some cotton through and tied at the back to resemble a cobweb.

The words were printed using a suitable font and cut out.

The background was painted using dylusions sprays only on this occasion I brushed them over wet cardstock, once dry I splattered it with water.  I used purple and blue distress inks to tone it down a bit.  The stamps I used were from the Dylusions range plus a clock from Paperartsy.

I'd like to enter this card into the Wow embossing powders September Challenge
 

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Teenage number card

I was a bit stuck on ideas for a birthday card for a male teenager with few hobbies so concluded a number card would be pretty safe.


First I made the metallic number plaque by cutting out three 3" squares from chipboard.  I then gutted the center of two of the squares to leave a border.  Using the Tim Holtz wordplay die I cut 2 x numbesr 1 and 7 from chipboard. 


I stacked and glued the chipboard numbers to make them thicker and then stacked and glued the two frame pieces and fixed them to the bottom square.


I scrunched up some paper and glued that to the square number piece making sure it was pressed into the recess.  I painted the whole piece in silver metallic paint, waited for it to dry before painting over the whole piece with black.  I then wiped away areas of the black with a wet tissue to leave an aged metallic look to the piece.

I used black bazzill bling cardstock for the base as it has quite a metallic feel, on top of that I matted a piece of distress coredinations which was embossed using a Special Touch of mica mask , another piece of coredinations which is sanded lies beneath the assortment of Maya Road cogs which have been painted with silver metallic paint and then brushed lightly with black soot distress stain.


Monday 3 September 2012

Two Cards with Spellbinders

I discovered Spellbinders online has an archive full of tutorials and ideas for cards.  Sometimes when the crafty mojo is absent its nice just to look at a tutorial and create something where you can see the end result.  The first card was done by following a tutorial, adapting a bit and using my own choice of materials.  The second follows the same idea of cutting a diecut in half diagonally.  I think the papers are from the 'once upon a time' paper stash.

 I was quite happy with the way the black glue dots on the second card turned out today, usually mine are a bit wobbly.  This was due to a happy accident.  I sewed around the black card (no thread in machine) using quite a big stitch rather than piercing through a ruler which takes ages.  Unfortunately I left the length too long and I didn't like the spacing of the holes so I put the dots directly over the holes.