A bird in a gilded cage

The card I`m sharing with you today is a bit more sophisticated and I was reminded of the rococo style of the French royal palaces. It is a bit more involved to make but again the dies do most of the work so you can do as much or as little on the design as you like.

 

What you will need:

Crafters Companion, die`sire, create a card, "birdcage easel" dies

Crafters Companion mat cream cardstock

Crafters Companion craft cardstock

Sheena stamping card

Pebeo, empire gold gilding wax

Hobbycraft general sentiment stamp set

small heart punch

Tim Holtz distress inks - twisted citron, evergreen bough, salty ocean, peacock feathers

glycerine

rock salt

black Versafine ink pad

15mm fancy cream organza ribbon

12mm AB dazzler gem

red card scrap from stash

 

I made the background for the topper using the distress inks - Colour the Sheena stamping card with the distress inks using the glycerine, thoroughly spritz the card with water, drop on some rock salt and leave to completely dry. When dry remove the rock salt.

 

The birdcage was embellished using the gilding wax and I hap-hardly applied the gilding wax to the frame edges of the craft card.

 

I cut out the craft card bird in the cage and replaced it with a cream die cut.

 

The base craft card was made using the smaller of the overlay dies twice.

 

..........................................................................................

 

I have been enjoying a bit of messing about with my crafting lately as I have been making more of the backgrounds for my cards and I have finally opened a pot of gesso that I`ve had for ages, my goodness it is amazing stuff. You will definitely be seeing more samples made using gesso in the future as I experiment and find more ways to use it.

 

Here in Lincoln and especially here in the sticks where I live I have very limited access to craft shops and thank goodness for Internet shopping. On Wednesday 4th April Hobbycraft are opening a store in Lincoln and my crafty friend from work is taking me, we are both so excited and my list of stuff to buy is getting longer by the day. I got a gift voucher for £5 from Hobbycraft the other day for my birthday which is at the end of April and I thought to myself what good timing as I will be going on Wednesday. The day after the voucher arrived in my in box I got another email from Hobbycraft saying they had sent the voucher by mistake and it was void as I would be getting another one nearer my birthday, some you win and some you lose.

 

 

 

 

 

Bright and beautiful

Did you like the easel dies from Crafters Companion? I thought they were the best designed dies I`ve ever used and on Monday they will be launching another 4 sets of easel dies. I`m sharing with you a card that nearly went in the bin at one time because when I did the background I didn`t like it but then when the overlay went on it looked fine.

 

die`sire, create a card, "swirl easel" dies

Crafters Companion Advent calendar 2017 (Butterfly die)  

Spectrum Noir sparkle pen - crystal clear

Sheena stamping card

Woodware sentiment stamp

pastel chalks to make ombre card

mat black card

pink sugar paper

black Versafine ink pad

2mm AB faceted gems

 

I used the pastel chalks on Sheena stamping card to make an ombre background big enough to make the topper, card base and Butterfly.

 

The rest of the card is fairly straight forward and as always with these cards I have used stick & spray glue to attach the delicate overlays.

 

The decoration for the base of the easel card must be cut to size to allow for the fold of the card and I marked this and cut it before sticking down.

 

I used the sparkle pen on the butterfly to make it pop and look a bit special.

 

If you have a Gemini machine I would highly recommend any of the easel dies as they do all the work and you really just have to think of a colour scheme. I have seen the rest of the samples made by the DT and they are just amazing. I know I will be glued to the TV on Monday.

 

..............................................................................................................

 

I hope you are having a crafty bank holiday this Easter, I know I will as I have lots of DT work to do. If the weather is OK I hope to get out into the garden this weekend as it looks such a mess. I have planted up some chilli seeds and Stu has his Tomato seeds planted up in a tray as it was lovely and warm on Monday but then it got cold again so I guess we will just have to wait and see if they grow.

The snow seems like a distant memory now that the clocks have gone forward and the lighter nights are here but it was really snowy here and this is what the road out of our village looked like.

 

 

I had to go to work the Sunday after it snowed and I had a walk down the road to take a look how bad it was. It doesn`t look too bad on this photo but it had drifted further up the road and my little car wouldn't have made it so Stu took me to work in his big old bus of a car. We are going to get rid of his car this year as it is a diesel and the road tax for diesels is set to go up quite a lot, It`s such a shame because that old car is so reliable especially in the snow.

 

 



 

 

 

 

Brown isn`t always boaring

Today is the final chance to get all three jungle of dreams CDs as the one day special on Hochanda but if you miss out you can always get them from Craffters Companion.
Here is another sampe I have made using the go digi CD and its so easy to make.

 I am not all that computer savvy but I love digi crafting and I suppose I got into it because I couldn't find things in the shops that were the right size or colour. Digi crafting as I do it is never confined to the computer screen as I always do what is called fusion crafting where I print it out and then incorporate it into a real life craft project. It is quite important that you use good quality paper to print on and I like to use 190gsm mat print paper or if I want to add a bit of texture I would print onto linen paper but in the past I have had a go at printing onto all sorts of things (pearl card, sugar paper, non print paper, cotton).

For this card I printed a script background onto Neenah desert storm card and the script I used was a free download that I found on Pinterest.
Select some flowers from the colour me crafty flora file on the CD, re sized them and arranged them on the screen work area, then over print them onto the script background.
Whilst you have the graphics program open make the sentiment using the abc`s file and print it onto cream card.
Colour the flowers using Spectrum Aqua pens and draw in the stems of the flowers with a black fine tip pen.
Use a water pen to hand draw a line which would be the edge of the topper and then gently tare down the line, repeat this till the topper is cut to size.
Using vintage photo distress ink shade the edge of the topper and also the cut out sentiment.
Assemble the card and add gems and small punched out dragon flies to finish off.

 

.......................................................................

 

I was busy yesterday making some more samples for a future Crafters Companion launch and I think the sunshine may have had an influence as the sample I mocked up is so bright I may need sun glasses to finish it off. I had a run out to the cat shop, they had asked me to call in as I didn't get to the shop last Wednesday for my final day volunteering there. The lovely volunteers had bought me some chocolates and a card as a leaving present which was a complete surprise, I was quite choked up as I left the shop.

A little bit messy

Today the Hochandas one day special is digi crafting and as I said yesterday in my blog it is featuring a CD called jungle of dreams, this is a card which I have made using a couple of the elements from that CD. This card may look messy with its inky splodges but my hands stayed clean, it was all done on the computer.

 

This is really easy and once again I am in my comfort zone here with a square card.

If this CD is like the last one Michelle designed it will actually be a set of three CDs but the one I have used is the go digi CD which is full of digi images which you can re size, re colour, and use as overlays in your graphics program. I always use Craft Artist as my graphics program as I think it is very easy to use.

The CD has files of backing papers which Michelle has made using Brushos and they are all gorgeous but for this card I used one of the more muted colourways. The CD also has a section called embellish it and the black splodges are to be found in this file, I have used them as an overlay on top of the background colour. Once you have created this splodgy background you can print it out and then overlay the sentiment and print out the sentiment topper.

The corners of the topper were die cut using Crafters Companion die`sire essentials, decorative corner 2.

 

.....................................................

 

I have to make an apology for a big mistake that I made in yesterdays blog when I said the clocks would be going forward this weekend. My blogger friend Holly commented on yesterdays post and told me that the clocks don't go forward here in the UK till 25/3/18. Thank you so much Holly, I work weekends and could just imagine me rocking up for work an hour before and it all being locked up.

I had a lovely catch up with my sister yesterday, Pauline is very into parchment crafting at the moment and that is something that I`ve never got to grips with. I will be trying to get my crafting mojo on today as I have to make a start on some samples using some new dies for Crafters Companion, if you loved the last easel dies you will love these new babies.

 

 

Hot pinks to chase away the blues

I hope all my crafty blogger friends are looking forward to the spring and with the clocks going forward this weekend it will feel more spring like after that. On Wednesday Crafters Companion launch another Craft CD from Michelle Jackson Mogford called jungle of dreams. Here is a card which I made using the CD.

This card is easy as it is mainly print, cut out and stick on.

The main side stepper (square) part of the card is 4" x 4" with a 1" strip running across the bottom, the side part can be any size just cut it down after the card is folded.

I used 190gsm mat print paper to print my images on.

The main body of the flamingos was cut out and shaped with a ball tool. I cut slits into the bodies to poke the feathers through and secured them on the back of the bodies. I then used 3D glue to stick the bodies onto the topper when it was secured to the card base.

The sentiment is made using a die from the Crafters Companion 2017 Advent calendar.

This CD is inspired by the artist Rousseau and so a lot of the images are bright and as the name would suggest it has a jungle theme.

...............................................................................

The snow last week was really bad here in Lincolnshire and our little village was cut off for two days. On Friday I had to go out to post these samples back to Crafters Companion and I had to go to work. Luckily some kind farmer had ploughed his way through the snow drifts which were 3` high on the long road out of the village but the road was still only single file and very slippery.

What a difference a few days can make and the temperature feels much better now. I`m going to have a coffee and a catch up with my sister today so that is a real treat because Tuesdays are usually a bit boring.