Nature's Beauty - an ATC swap

One of the blogs that I really enjoy following is that of Diana over at The Velvet Moth. Diana makes the most exquisite pieces of art, often incorporating textiles and beads and of course often velvet!!! A while back Diana put out a call for anyone interested in doing an ATC swap. I was rather behind everyone else by the time I replied, but Diana and I did make contact and agreed we would do a one to one swap.

I have had a very busy time over the last few months with family commitments taking up a lot of time and although I have been doing various knitting and crochet projects, plus had a much needed and special holiday, apart from some essential card making, I have not been keeping up with my papercrafting and mixed media projects. So making contact with Diana and agreeing to do this swap, gave me a much needed incentive to get myself organised and plan something a bit more creative and demanding on my creativity.

Diana was ahead of me and her beautiful Moonlit Garden ATC, decorated box and tag arrived while my project was still pretty much in the planning stages!  Diana's project incorporates die cuts, lace, velvet, beads, gold embossing and script. For more information about Diana's design pop over to her blog where she has also posted about our swap.

Not surprisingly, I had also planned a nature themed project as the natural world provides a great deal of inspiration to both of us. The title for my project - Nature's Beauty only came when I was nearing completion of the project.

My first step was to take a sheet of A4 white card and cover it with my leafy background technique (see my labels on the right for other posts about how I do this), using Distress Inks. I cut out the ATC panel and I then added stamping with the little ferns with first and second generation stamping and a little stencilling, before adding the heat embossed tree die cuts and the little ferny butterfly which must be one of my most used stamps. I shaded the edge of the panel to give a glowing light to the centre, as I wanted it to look like a woodland glade. The final touch was the word "Beauty".

Diana had made a lovely little box to hold her ATC so I thought about what I could do as an alternative.

I used the beautiful Crealie labels dies that I had a feeling Diana would like and cut two out of the leafy backgrounds and two out of toning green card for the insides. I stuck them together back to back and joined them at the bottom.

These are decorated again with die cuts decorated with Treasure Gold gilding wax, some tiny micro beads on the hollyhock flowers and butterflies stamped with the script stamp in the beautiful Delicata Gold ink which I had never heard of until another of my special crafty friends gifted it to me. The insides are stamped with dye inks. I made a matching small tag and finished that off with some leafy ribbon that has been in my stash almost since I started crafting, so it was nice to find a use for it.

To hold the ATC, I wanted something to hold it in place vertically so had a play with some scrap card and managed a little paper engineering to invent what I needed!

I absolutely loved doing this swap with someone so talented who likes the same sorts of motifs and themes as I do. I have been struggling to get inspired and motivated and working on this little miniature gift has got me kickstarted again I think, so thank you Diana and for the beautiful Moonlit Garden ATC, box and tag you sent to me!

My project used the following supplies:
Dies - Impression Obsession - Hollyhock; Craft Emotions Hogweed; Tim Holtz - Wildflowers; Memory Box - Darla Butterfly; Sizzix Framelits Tags Rounded; Taylored Expressions - Birch Trees; Crealies Extreme Labels; Stampin Up butterfly punches; Tim Holtz Bigz tag die

Stamps - Inkadinkado - Meadow; Darkroom Door - Artist; Crafty Individuals - CI207/231/021; Woodware script; Chocolate Baroque - Poppy Meadow

Inks and sundries - Distress Inks - Vintage Photo, Peeled Paint, Squeezed Lemonade & Twisted Citron; Stampin Up dye inks - Crumb Cake & Chocolate Chip; Ranger Archival Olive; Delicata Gold & Versamark. Treasure Gold in Florentine Gold, Oxynite and Green Amber. Embossing Powder in Copper and Gold. Dark Green micro beads.

Nature cards 1

I have recently been playing about with some collage stamping with some of my many plant silhouette stamps.

The colour in this card isn't brilliant. but you get the idea! I started by using ink duster brushes to add Distress Inks to the background panel. I used a mixture of Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers and Chipped Sapphire if I remember rightly. I then stamped with a script stamp from Woodware, followed by another Woodware Cow Parsley stamp in the three background colours. The sentiment is from Honey Doo stamps and the butterflies from the Kind'a Eclectic set from Stampin Up. I finished by adding a little Chipped Sapphire around the edge and mounted onto a 6 x 6 black card blank.

You may be surprised to hear that I rarely stamp in DIs as I find them too wet and not precise enough in their effect for my liking, but I really enjoyed this stamping session and went on to make quite a few more similar designs (to be posted in due course) and I think I may just be a converted stamper!

Hope you have had a good weekend.

Elaine

Christmas cards 2015 - 1

As I mentioned in my new year post, I have already been making Christmas cards while the festive spirit it still with me. Before Christmas I was given some A3 sheets of this fine corrugated navy blue card and I immediately thought of making cards something like this.

I used 6 x 6 card bases, added the die cut stars using a variety of colours of glitter card, added the die cut Noel in a contrasting colour, (this is a Stampin' Up die set) and finished with some 99p shop sequins.

Short and sweet, but my first 6 cards are made!

Hope you are having a good week!

Elaine x

A swinging birthday!

I made this card for my sister's birthday recently.

The main image is a two part Inkylicious stamp, the tree and the person on the swing can be added separately. Once inked (I think in black Versafine if I remember rightly) I die cut the circle and added yellow, orange and cranberry inks to create a nice rosy glow.

I mounted the circle onto a panel stamped with the Stampin Up Hardwood stamp in brown ink on kraft card. The sentiment on a die cut oval is from Unity. Both shaded with Vintage Photo DI. Everything was mounted on chocolate brown card.

Elaine

Another leafy card!

This is another of the cards I made with some of my leafy prints from the other day.

 

 

This time I printed with a smaller leaf, a hardy geranium if I remember rightly. Then I overstamped with a leaf stamp made of pinky purple rubber, I think it is a See Ds stamp that someone rehomed with me! I finished with overspraying with a vibrant Cosmic Shimmer mica spray in a lovely golden green colour.

 

The sentiment came from a bargain bin wood backed stamp at a craft show in Newbury I think. The die cut butterflies are from the Tim Holtz Butterfly Frenzy die.

 

This next  card uses the lovely Stampin Up Hardwood stamp and one of their sentiments from the Wetlands set. I added some die cut leaves using an Impression Obsession die coloured with Pan Pastels, mounted onto branches cut using a Memory Box die. 

 

 

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I am just waiting for a loaf to finish baking so I can pack a picnic as we are going out for a walk before I plan to sit down to watch the Wimbledon final.

 

 

Elaine 

Wetlands birthday card

I recently treated myself to three stamp sets from Stampin' Up, including the Wetlands stamps. This is one of my first cards with that set.

I had seen lots of cards on Pinterest made with these stamps and rather liked the torn edge effect. I started with some hot pressed watercolour paper and used my Peerless watercolour paints to add some background colour. I then stamped the birds and grasses stamps. It is a while since I stamped this card, but I think I used brown and grey inks for the images.

I added some more torn layers in handmade mulberry paper and Co'redinations card and then mounted the whole lot on a black A5 card blank. I finished off with the sentiment stamped on more watercoloured paper and finished off with three little gems.

I really love these stamps and look forward to making good use of this set.

By the way, if you missed my post on our shared blog, please do pop over and have a look here We are all making accordion book projects and this is mine, using another of  my Stampin' Up purchases.

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine