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Friday 27 August 2010

A Blue Christmas

Hi all, yes I have made another card, took me a little while but I finally finished it, so decided to show it off.  I hope you like it.

Firstly I got an A4 sheet of white card from my stash, I am not sure of the gsm, but it is a nice heavy weight card.  I ran it through my printer, and printed a lovely blue snowflake backing paper on both sides.  The backing paper came from another Funky Hand Craft CD called 'Yule Be Funky', which has some wonderfully different Christmas backing papers to print out.

I then measured, so that I could get a card that would fold neatly 3 times and then cut my card down to size.  I made the measurements 3.5 inch square for each panel, that's around 8.9 cm square for those who like to be metric...  lol.  I used am Xcut Corner Punch from Docraft to round the corners of the card and then scored the card using a Hougie Board to score the folds before folding them.

I used my Cricut Die Cutting Machine to cut out some silver rounded corner 3 insquares, and then cut out some white squares using the shadow feature to make them slightly bigger.  Three of the silver squares went through my Texture Boutique, using a Cuttlebug embossing folder called 'Holly Ribbons'.  I then stuck them onto the slightly larger white square, and the placed one in each of the panels on the front of the card.  I also placed one silver square un-embossed on the last panel on the back of the card.

For the embellishments on the card I used a downloaded Scrapbooking kit from Nitwits, called 'The Beary Christmas Collection', I loved the cute little bear characters, and the other parts of the kit.  I printed out what I needed onto a single sheet of A4 160gsm text and graphics paper,  printing out each image 3 times, so I could decoupage them, and making a 3in square with a Christmas greeting in, and some of the cute buttons from the Bear kit in each corner.

After decoupaging each image, I stuck them onto the squares, and then used some 3D Crystal Lacquer to highlight various sections, like noses and bells.  The silver Merry Christmas Greeting was made using the Texture Boutique once more, this time using a Sizzix embossing folder from a set called imaginatively, 'Christmas Set'.  I cut it down to size, and layered white card behind it, and placed a blue gem in the middle of the flourish beneath the words.  I then put it in the middle panel of the front of the card at a jaunty angle.  Front complete!!!

The back of the card is not so highly embellished, but is still pretty to look at.  I placed the white printed square, with greeting, on the first panel, putting 3D Crystal Lacquer on the buttons to make them stand out.  Another decoupage image went on the last panel, with a couple of silver holly peeloffs in opposite corners, with some red Stickles added for the berries.  The middle panel has some snowflake stickers I found in my crafty stash, and 'Lo... the card was complete'.

Now all I have to do is make a box. but thankfully that is for another day...

Have fun crafting...

hugs Janie xxx

Sunday 15 August 2010

Thank Whoo Val...

This card is A4 in size, so you can see it is a really big owl !!  It was made as a Thank You card for a work chum of Stuarts who brought us some fudge back from her holiday, I thought it was a lovely gesture and wanted to say how much I appreciated it.  I love fudge by the way...  but then doesn't everyone?

The Digi Stamp image and colourful papers came from a CD-Rom by Funky Hand called, Dreams Come True, part of the Papercraft Factory range.  The paper is Rey, Text and Graphic 160gsm, a super clean, bright, smooth and brilliant white almost card paper, that I buy from my local Staples store. The corners are a Mandala stamp cut into quarters, the stamp is called, Waterlily by Glenda Waterworth over at Graphicus.

Firstly I decided on an experiment, I chose the background paper from the Dreams Come True Cd and decided to run a full A4 card blank through my printer to see if it would work.  My printer takes up to 300gsm card and it worked really well, so I ended up with a funky A4 card to work with.  I am not recommending you trying this with your printers of course, it might not be such a happy result if your printer can't take the card weight.

I printed the owl image onto an A4 sheet of the paper, and then printed the funky background onto another sheet, then put the printed sheet back through again and printed the owl image over it.  So far so good....

I cut out the eyes and the beak from the unpatterned sheet and then cut round the main image leaving a nice border around the edge, makes cutting out the feet easier (sly wink).  I then cut the owl out of the patterned sheet, I actually cut off the feet to make it easier, and then used some Crafter's Companion Iridescent Spray and Sparkle Glitter Varnish to give it a lovely sparkle.  I then stuck the patterned image onto the unpatterned image.  The eyes and beak were coloured with promarkers, and then stuck them on, the beak I raised slightly, the eyes flat, though I have added some blue plastic, foamy round embellishments to the eyes. I then stuck the whole image flat onto the card base.

I printed out another sheet of paper with the same pattern I used on the owl and used the Waterlily stamp with a black ink pad.  I cut it out and then sprayed it with the Glitter varnish, and then cut it carefully into quarters and stuck a piece into each corner.  Finally adding a cheerful Thank Whoo, with some alphabet stickers that I found in my crafty stash.

I quite liked the finished result, and hope that Val does as well, when Stuart gives it to her at work tomorrow.  I am pretty sure she doesn't read this blog, so have no worries of the surprise being ruined.

See you all soon...

hugs Janie xxx

Thursday 5 August 2010

The cards I promised...

Well I said that I had done them, and at last I managed to get the camera out.  The first one you might recognise as a Messy Rabbit Stamp from Joanna Sheen, which I picked up from her sale section.  It is always good to browse there to see what she has on offer as she often has some brilliant bargains.  The stamp is actually called 'Gnome Stamp', but I thought he looked quite Christmassy and used my Promarkers to make him so.  I stamped and coloured several times, then cut them out, decoupage and placed in the colourful snowy background paper.  I then used a Martha Stewart - Punch Around The Page - Snowfall Set (M232389) on some white card to fit around the edge of the topper.  I then ran some gold mirri board through my Texture Boutique, and embossed some lovely snowflakes.  This I bordered again in white card, and stuck all the parts of the topper together. I used paper and sticky ribbon from my crafty stash, and embellished with gems and some 3D Crystal Lacquer.

The second card got in a bit of a mess, but I wanted to show it off anyway, maybe you can spot the nasty glue mess.  First off I must ask you to try and name those printed papers, I know the backing paper came from a Glenda Waterworth disc, but it was printed out a while ago and I can't remember which one.

The main flower embellishment is similar to one I saw in my Papercraft Inspiration Magazine, I must admit the photo does not do it justice, nor is it quite as good as those in the magazine.  I cut a strip of paper with a scalloped edge, rolled it up, and then cut down the scallops and folded the edges back, there is a better example in the magazine...  but it was my first go.  I used lots of my crafty stash for this one, paper, card and bits of ribbon.  I used another Martha Stewart Punch to make the paper ribbon band that goes across the center topper, this time it was the Scroll Lace Edge Punch which was part of a QVC Martha Stewart TSV.

Hope you like these latest cards, I am enjoying card making again... which is good...

hugs Janie xxx

Monday 2 August 2010

Darwin Scrapbook Page

Hi all, sorry it's been so long posting a new creation here.  I really lost my mojo for ages, couldn't get into crafting or anything.  Still kept buying new stuff though, really a crafty addict I think, but it just sat there unused...  so sad.

I decided to create a scrapbook page to try to get me into the swing again, using my Digital Scrapbook Artist (DSA) program, which I should add you can get a free trial copy of it from Daisy Trail you just have to join up and download.  It is not a full version but it will let you find out if you will enjoy using it before handing over any of your hard earned money.

I chose an 8x8 page size, as I can print that size out onto an A4 sized sheet of paper if I so wish.  The background paper came from Glenda Waterworth's new Artylicious Essence of Nature CD- Rom  using the copy and paste function to get the image into the DSA program.  I then picked out a frame I like from some of the scrap-booking elements available through Daisy Trail, this frame came from the set called Indie Chic, it is one you have to buy, but there are plenty of free element sets available, the cascading flowers also came from the same set. The letters came from a set called Berry Pie and is a nice bold font, great for a single word, as in the name of the newest member of our family, Darwin the African Grey Parrot.

There is actually not much to the page, but I hope you agree it is very effective as an introduction to a Darwin scrapbook, and after doing this I actually made 2 cards, which I will have to photograph to proudly show off to you, so maybe my mojo has finally returned.

hugs Janie xxx