A Spring Floral Card : When is a Snowdrop not a Snowdrop?

Good morning all! Martina here, using one of my favourite little Craft Emotions dies to add delicate bunches of flowers to a card. Guess what? It's my birthday today! I had to think how old I was going to be...it took a while, I have to admit!

I love Spring, not just because it is around my birthday, but because it is when the Earth breathes and smiles. It may be daft, but as I used to drive along the motorway to work, I would marvel at the totally random bunches of daffodils, crocuses, primroses, poppies and hordes of other flowers just springing up in deserted earth. I mean, they weren't 'planted' there by anyone, so to me, a bit of magic happened...

Anyway, enough waffling and back to serious crafting matter in hand! When I first saw the Craft Emotions Snowdrop Die I knew it was going to become a favourite. It is so petite, embosses detail in the leaves and petals, cuts all the petals together, is easy to assemble and easy to vary the look. After having a play, I also realised that there are so many different flowers you can make with it, one of which I will show you...

My first step was to make a background panel with an aperture. I used a die from my stash to cut an aperture slightly to one side, allowing for positioning and adding a sentiment later.

I then ran the card through an embossing folder and added some Wilted Violet Distress Ink over the raised areas (check out Lisa B. Designs for embossing folders at up to 71% off!!)

Keeping with the purple tones, I die cut a frame to fit my aperture using the same size die as before. Taking the next size nesting die down, I cut into the shape again to make the frame.

To make the snowdrops is so easy: I die cut all the elements from Super Smooth Card and then ran them through again to get the embossing detail. There was no need to do anything more with the petals, so I just used some Bundled Sage Distress Ink on the leaves, adding some Peeled Paint Ink to the raised sections. To make the crocuses, I cut down the leaves to make them shorter and turned the snowdrop petals upside down. Using pens, I coloured the centres yellow and the tops purple, striping down into the middle.

You could easily make these into magnolia flowers using branches coming from above, tulips, blossom, you name it; have a play and you will soon see! As the petals are all so individually shaped, you can easily select the ones you need for the type of flower you want to make...

To balance the card, I used some little wooden hearts from the Craft Emotions Owls and Branches Wooden Embellishment Set. I coloured the wood using Distress Ink and then added some Blackcurrant Sparkle Medium over the top - LUSH!

The addition of a handy little sentiment from the Hobby Art Birthday Set

and there we have it!

I hope you like it: see how many little 'smiles' you can find when you're out and about!

Love

Martina

xxx

   

  

***Lisa is running a PaperArtsy workshop on Sunday, May 28. For more information click HERE.***

A Distressed Harbour Village with a Steampunk Twist...

Good morning all! How are we all doing? Looking forward to class next week? Did you manage to watch Lisa on Hochanda? I saw some of it, but did not realise you could not watch it on catch-up TV (doh!). Just as well really, otherwise my purse would be burning I imagine... Speaking of which, anyone going to the Make It! show this weekend? I am, with a view to being very selective this time... I will let you know if I succeed!

This week I am looking at a card I created using the Hobby Art Harbour Village set again, but in a bit of a different way this time, creating a more 'steampunk' look. I wanted to make a men's card, with darker colours and a vintage feel. I did not want to spend ages on it, and in truth the planning and playing with different bits took the longest time; if I wanted to make it again it would not take long!

The first step was to decide on the size of my card and of the 'topper' panel that I wanted to create. I used a 6x6" card blank and cut a 7x10cm rectangle for my topper from Super Smooth Card.
Once I had my size of topper, I planned my scene on scrap paper using my stamps until I was happy with a layout (see last week's post for more detail re this process!). Next, taking Versamark Ink, I stamped the Harbour Village Stamps onto my panel and heat embossed with Bright White Wow Embossing Powder. The birds I used are from the Cardio Winter Walks Christmas Set, which seem to work well too! At this point there is nothing really visible on the card, so next is where the magic begins... Using a Blending Tool, I applied Distress Ink all over the topper. I started with the lightest colour (Tumbled Glass) and then  added Faded Jeans around the edges and in the areas where there would be some shade. To bring the colours in, I edged the topper with Black Soot and then added some Scattered Straw ink into the middle as though there was a light source ( hard to see from my photo I know).

 

I also wanted to create some layers on my card, so I used some more Super Smooth Card to cut a panel 12x12cm, coloured with the Distress Ink and then embossed through a die-cutting machine. Once embossed I went over again with the darker colours to make the emboss really pop. I layered this panel onto some brown card which I had distressed using an Edge Crimper Tool. To add a little more layering I also used a White Jelly Roll pen to 'dot-dash' around the edge.

 

On top of my embossed panel, I cut some more card, (5x10cm) coloured with inks and then stamped a nautical stamp randomly across it using the Scattered Straw ink. I used some garden string and a Steampunk Charm for some dimension and layered this on some more brown card, tearing along one edge.

 

My final touch was to use some brads that I had in my stash on the side of the topper panel...

 

I hope you like it: different I know, I am not sure what I was thinking at the time, but I quite like it after all!

Thank you for reading, will see you next week for a final Hobby Art post and then class on Friday!

Love

Martina

xx

 

 

 



Birthday with Inka Gold

Hello crafters, well it's my last blog for the look back at 2015 and I've chosen one of my favourites.  This is were we had fun with lots of texture using Gesso and Inka Gold  Gilding Waxes.

 

So I started with my usual 7" x 7" white card and matted it with black, then cut a piece of scrap white card slightly smaller and set aside.  I then chose a few embossing folders from my stash, there's lots to chose from on the web, and embossed some Super Smooth card and cut them all down in different sizes so that it covered the backing card.

 

Stuck them into place:

Ignore the colour card, that was an experiment that went wrong but didn't want to waste the card.

I then chose the embellishments I wanted to use, again lots on the web, I also used a couple of dies, from my stash, that I cut out three times each, glued them together to create the dimension.

 

Then positioned them on the card before decided where they should be stuck.  The die frame was stuck down and painted inside before sticking the guitar down to ensure I got a good coverage of the Black Gesso.  

Set that to one side to dry for a while, this doesn't take very long at all, it can be speeded along with a heat gun.

 

Then it was a case of choosing the waxes I wanted to bring out the patterns, so I chose the following colours:

Cobalt Blue
Champagne
Magenta
Silver

Here's the card again

Thanks for dropping by, hope to see some of you later today
Love Jan -x-

 

 

 

Guitar Medley

Hi crafters, todays card is all about what we learned at the workshop last Friday and hope you don't mind but I've made this one it into a birthday card for my son :o)

 

As usual using a 7 x 7 card I layered it with some mat silver paper then cut a smaller piece of white to use as my base for the main focal part of the card.

I embossed several pieces of card with various embossing folders then cut them down to 6" x 4" pieces, the larger central piece was embossed with a Happy Birthday folder to stand out.  I randomly placed the pieces onto the base card deciding where I wanted them to go then glued then all in to place.

I chose the embellishments I wanted to use, beer bottle top, some MDF cogs and metal embellishment.  I found a guitar shaped die in my stash which I cut out three times using card and glued them on top of each other to create a raised effect and did the same with the name.

 

I glued them all into the placed I wanted, left to dry for a while before painting with black acrylic paint, which needed two coats.  We used Gesso at the class which works much better, you only need one coat of that.

 

Once that was dry I began with the colour rubbing them in with my finger, Inka Golds where used at the class  and glided on so smoothly.

Once that was all done I just matted it onto the card and buffed it all using a piece of kitchen roll.

Thank you for dropping by to my usual Friday blog, happy crafting, don't forget the Extravaganza Day on Saturday 18th July.

Love Jan -x-

 

Through A Window

 

 

Hello crafters, Kirsten here, hope you're well. Preparations are in full swing for the Christmas part classes next week & I'm coming to the end of my samples for November's theme of 'Christmas Sparkle'.

 

Today I have two cards to show you, both made with this hugely popular die from Cheery Lynn.........

 

 

(Available for pre-order)

 

I used it to make a window for the first card..............

 

 

With an Embossalicious embossing folder & some Hobby House pearl medallions on the front. I used Soft Purple Sparkle Medium through Imagination Crafts' The Clearing stencil for the inside..........

 

 

 

I then used the die to make a card blank, adding a piece of Hobby House Aqua Flakes patterned card on the inside & another, punched piece wrapped over the side. I applied Diamond Sparkle Medium through the Imagination Crafts Christmas Celebrations panel stencil & when the SM was dry, cut out the stars & glued them to the background with Cosmic Shimmer Dries Clear Glue........

 

 

 

The greeting is from the Woodware Clear Magic Patch Robin stamp.........

 

 

 

 

 This is a great die, I found that using a piece of ordinary copy paper as an extra shim gave a perfect cut.

 

                                                     

 

Until next time, take care & happy crafting.

 

Kirsten