Xmas 2015

Copyright

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and find inspiration and ideas from what you have seen here but I would ask you to please respect my copyright and not use my pictures for publishing as your own work, or for entry into challenges.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

A guest book...

A friend of mine is hitting the big 5 0 next month, and is having a party.  She asked me if I could make her a guest book for the people who come to it to write messages in, and asked for it to be themed black and silver, with "bling".

And this is what I came up with...

The cover was a textured black paper, covering a chipboard base.  I cut a small square out of the chipboard, and made an aperture which I filled with silver mirri card and "blingy" gem initials and numbers.

The swirl was a stamp (I've forgotten who made it) stamped with flitter glu and covered with silver gilding flakes. 


I included a black feaher and a digi stamp of a shoe, coloured in with promarkers, glittered with glamour dust and covered with glossy accents.

The sentiment was stamped, but again, I have removed it from its packaging and I can't remember who provided it! 





I used book rings to keep it all together, and inside placed a number of sheets of thin black card for signing.

I put it into a box for storing, that was made from centura pearl cardstock.  On the lid, I stamped and embossed the same swirl as on the front cover with black rainbow sparkle, and stuck the same flower gems onto it.

Monday 19 March 2012

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 64 - Time

This week it is my challenge at Crafty Cardmakers - and I have chosen "Time" as the theme.

For this, the main image or focus of your project should reflect in some way the concept of time - time passing, time spent, time waiting.  It needn't be a card, and you can use stamps, digi images, photographs, shop bought embellishments, trinkets, your own drawings or anything else you can think of.

I hope everyone enjoys this challenge as it is the first time I have had to set one and choose a winner - I wish  everyone all the very best of luck and look forward very much to seeing what you all come up with!
 
Our sponsors this time are:

$10 Gift Voucher

 
and


Recently I have been trying to make cards with minimum layers, so that they are easy (and less expensive) to post.  It's actually quite challenging to make the card base the background - because if you mess it up you either have to start again, or cover it with backing paper.

For this card, I used a pearlescent base cardstock, cut to make a 6 x 6 in card.  I used vintage photo distress ink to add some colour to the edges of the card, and provide some contrast.   The background was then stamped down the left hand side with a flourish, using a Fiskars continuous stamp - Elegant vine.
 I then went back to my new favourite product, flitterglu, to stamp the butterflies with a stamp from my stash, and the sentiment "Time Flies" which is from a Sheena Douglass set.
 
  I used a mix of gilding flakes to give the butterflies a varigated look, and as a bonus the flakes that were surplus after using the scootchy sponge are now in a new pot - my own mix!!   Finally, I used pearls to indicate the tops of the butterflies antenna.
I then embossed the clock face, using a Couture Creations embossing folder, onto a textured linen effect card and flitterglu'd the numerals and clock hands.  This time I used plain copper gilding flakes to gild it.  The clock face was also coloured using the vintage photo distress ink to make the embossed parts "pop", and was then stuck onto the card base using silicone glue.

The last addition was a diecut butterfly (Marianne Creatable, I believe) which was spritzed with Bronze Blush cosmic shimmer mist, and finally given some extra bling with some gold glamour dust. The colour has not come out true in the photograph unfortunately - it is not quite so bluey pink in real life!

Monday 5 March 2012

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 63 - A sketch

This week the challenge at Crafty Cardmakers has been set by Susie, and the theme is a sketch.
A sketch is really helpful if your crafting mojo has taken a holiday, and I had great fun with my card this time. 

The photograph is not the clearest, so I have taken some smaller cropped shots to try to highlight the detail.  The colours are a turquoise blue and cream, to symbolise the ocean floor and water.

My card is made using the Aquarium digi stamps from one of our sponsors -

The other sponsor this week is

The card base itself is a white 8 x8 inch square card.  I layered onto the base card two pieces of create and craft textured pastel blush card - it has a nice linen texture.  

The panel across the centre to hide the join was the same card cut with a nestie border.  I threaded some blue ribbon from my stash through the holes.

Next, I cut an oval shape with a decorative top and bottom using a nestie.  I wanted it to look curved, so rather than use the plain oval in the centre, I offset it slightly, to give a "bowl" effect.

Inside the bowl I used 3 of the digi stamps from the Aquarium set by Digi Doodle Shop, coloured in with promarkers.  The fish itself I gilded using a quickie glue pen and assorted gilding flakes.  (Gilding flakes are my current craze - you will see them a lot... *blushes* ).

I used some transparent seed beads to indicate bubbles coming from the fishes mouth.  All the images inside the bowl were stuck down with silicone glue.

For the three elements on the bottom lefthand side of the oval of the sketch, I used again 3 digi stamps from the Aquarium set - one treasure chest and two plants.  All were coloured in with promarkers, but for the chest I again used my quickie glue pen and gilding flakes for the crown and the coins, and used pearly doodles to make the pearl necklace more tactile.

Finally, I finished with a good luck greeting on a square in the top left hand corner.



I am entering this card into the challenge at Getting Cricky Argh, Matey(pirate or fishy theme)