My first exploding box!

Earlier this month it was my crafty friend Judith's birthday. I wanted to make something special for her as she had been feeling really poorly with a horrible virus. I decided to have a go at making my first ever exploding box card. I have been really inspired by the work of another Elaine on her Magic Boxes blog and in particular, this amazing Indian inspired box which was commissioned by a chap for his wife - lucky girl.

I started with this lovely Persian Shrine stamp from Lost Coast, available from Happy Daze. I embossed the arch in fine silver EP and then cut out the shape and inked panels to go underneath in my favourite Adirondack dye inks over little stars stamped with a Lavinia stamp embossed in clear EP and a Viva clear flourish stamped in archival black ink. I mounted these panels on dark blue and turquoise card layers.  

I made a lid from more blue card and decorated it with the beautiful Elusive Images Indian Flower mandala stamp, glittered in shades of blue, with self adhesive jewels added. I decorated the edges of the box with glitter card and a phrase from the gorgeous set of abbey stamps CI 286 from Crafty Individuals, embossed again in silver.

I decorated the inside of the box with panels stamped with a tree stamp CI 209 from Crafty Individuals,  this gorgeous vine leaf and tiny slender mushroom stamps from Lavinia. Once again I shaded with the Adirondack dye inks in various shades of blue applied with Cut 'n' Dry foam. The central panel was stamped with the vine stamp, decorated with dark blue fabric flowers, with an oval panel with the delight stamp which is from a Hero Arts set. I added a couple of little stamped dragonflies whose wings had been painted with Opal Dust paint.

As always I love this kind of inking, building up the depth of colour and getting a sort of glow in the centre of the panels. I have to say it took me ages to put this together, but I was quite pleased with the end result and felt it had been worth the effort.

Last but not least, if you haven't already seen it, do pop over to the blog of the very talented Lynn Brown of LB Crafts where she has a very generous Tim Holtz giveaway going on until the New Year - someone is going to be a very happy bunny!

Elaine

A White Christmas

I saw a beautiful all white card on the blog of the very talented Christine Dark . I have seen Christine demonstrate a number of times at the brilliant Craft Barn Extravaganzas. She is a truly talented crafter, her skills in watercolouring with Distress Inks are awesome. Anyway, I loved Christine's white card immediately and wanted to try and do a version for rmyself. I did think my version is a rather pale imitation of Christine's perfect card, then I wondered if it is possible to make a pale imitation of an all white card anyway? !

I don't have any large Cuttlebug embossing folders, so I made four square panels using the Divine Swirls folder. I used this gorgeous sentiment which is one of my new stamps from Quietfire. I embossed the sentiment onto another circle of white card in silver detail powder. I love the crispness of this stamp. I still can't get over my childlike wonder at the magic of the embossing appearing this beautifully from under the heat gun!

I made a wreath of snowflakes using a set of Marianne dies, stuck it all together with silicone glue and added some self adhesive gems and pearls.

Not sure who is going to get this card yet, but overall I am pleased with it and loved making it more for pleasure than pressure which is unusual at this time of year.

Hope you are keeping up with your own festive crafting!

Elaine

Feeling seasonal!

Well the snow has finally reached the south of England. Here is one of our squirrels running through it to get to the feeding table. I wish I could put a video on of the way they are bouncing, it is hilarious!!

I have had quite a few cards to make lately. Last week I received an order from a Canadian company Quietfire Design. I have been wanting some of Suzanne's beautiful calligraphy stamps for some time and finally got around to ordering them. It was my Mum's birthday this week and I made a card using this beautiful quote from Walt Whitman on a nestie shape edged with Caramel Adirondack dye ink and Vintage photo Distress Ink and a couple of copper brads. I mounted it onto a piece of Masterboard stamping I did ages ago. I used a whole A2 sheet of brown card from Paperchase and overstamped with leaves in brown and gold. I sprayed the whole thing with Autumn Leaves glimmer mist it has been so useful for several cards. I must try and get some more of that card when I am in London next week as it is a perfect colour for this kind of work. For this card I added some copper embossed leaves which used the same stamp, painted with H2O paints and a piece of brown ribbon.  



We have definitely left autumn behind now though! I am off to make a pot of veggie stew and dumplings later!

Whatever you are doing keep warm!

Elaine 

Elusive Images Design Team Christmas Cards

Well it's a busy old time of year at the moment. Loads to do, not enough hours to the day and as card makers we are on guilt trips about sending shop bought cards too! I thought I'd share a couple of the cards I made as Design Team samples for the gorgeous and versatile Family Christmas stamp set from Elusive Images. I fancied making a card in monochrome and silver. It doesn't show that well in this picture, but the images on the tree are all glittered in three different colours of extremely fine glitter. The flowers are cut using a small Marianne Poinsettia die, the leaves use a McGill Pine Bough punch that gets good use all year round, even if I do have to stand on it to cut through card! The border at the bottom is cut with a Crealies die set from the Netherlands. These are new to me and cut beautifully. The whole thing is matted on silver.

The second card uses a rocking horse image. I felt this needed a vintage look., so I stamped this image and embossed in burgundy on some cream card, watercoloured with some Distress Inks and Inktense pencils and edged with some Vintage Photo DI before distressing the edge and matting onto burgundy. The image is backed onto an Artylicious holly DP and then added the cotton gingham ribbon, edging cut with the Martha Stewart Garden Trellis punch, with some whopping big flowers and very nice metal flower brads. The sentiment is also from the Family Christmas plate and I embossed and coloured it the same way as the main image. I always manage to take pictures that make things look wonky but I am sure the sentiment did not have that list IRL!

Go and have a look at the Graphicus website for these stamps through the link above and click on the gallery link to see all the amazing work the girls in the design team have come up with. While you are there check out their sale too!

Thanks for popping round!

Elaine xx

More playing cards

Well, so much for my weekly posts of my altered playing cards! Life seems so hectic, but today I have been doing a little catching up, being creative and doing some baking too!
 

Here are cards 2 and 3. Card 2, uses a lovely image of a lady - this is available from a number of companies. This is a Cherry Pie stamp. This stamp got me e mailing the very talented stamper Paula Whittaker who also loves this image, when I wanted to know who made it. I love Paula's work and she has been very generous with her patient answers to my questions about stamps, papers and techniques - thank you! The words are from Artistic Stamper. I used a mask to create the background and added a chipboard bird and a little bling!.

Card 3 uses a word stamp - I think it might be a Cat's Life stamp possibly, the child image is from  Joanna Sheen. This is stamped in plum archival ink, coloured in pink sherbert and coloured gently with Coloursoft pencils. I think these words are very apt, sometimes when I am at work, dealing with something very challenging, wondering how I ended up doing what I do, when really all I want to do is craft these days, I think of these words!

Lastly, I posted my latest project on the blog I share with the lovely Jo, Judith and Lesley.

Do pop over and have a look at our projects this month (I think we might just have stretched the month again!). Judith's project really sums up our special friendship perfectly.

Thanks for stopping by.

Elaine x

Lovely ladies

Elusive Images have released some new stamps that are a little different, three A5 plates of ladies in dramatic evening dresses . The girls on the Design Team worked on these designs last month and the results of all the hard work helped to launch the stamps last weekend. The stamps can be used to make beautiful wedding cards, to send a message for someone going to their prom or for any occasion where a posh frock is the order of the day.

For one of my submissions, I did something a bit different. Using the skirt from the main Belle Dame image, I stamped it 6 times in black archival ink to make huge petals. Then I coloured the images with Adirondack dye inks, Coloursoft pencils and an orange Copic Spica pen to add some sparkle. I added jewels in amber and yellow to highlight the design. I mounted the petals onto an 8 x 8 card covered in black velvet paper and added a flower from the very useful Big Flowers plate in the centre, coloured and bejewelled in the same way.  I think I am stuck in a little groove with these autumn colours!! Some people have described this design as looking like a kaleidoscope, which come to think of it, it does rather. Maybe not suprising as I was always fascinated by them as a child (and even an adult if I am honest!).

To see the stamps in all their detail, go over to the Design Team blog and you can see what the other girls have been up to. Glenda is doing a random giveaway of all three of these new stamp sets so leave a comment on the post on the Design Team blog (rather than just here) to have a chance of winning one of the sets. It's a random draw, so everyone has an equal chance of winning.

I will be posting playing card number 2 in a couple of days.

Elaine x

Back again!

I have been a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks as we were away in Brittany for a week's holiday and I have been playing catch up since.

Apart from rather mixed weather we had a great week and saw some great places that gave me lots of artisitc inspiration too. The highlight for me has to be the Abbey on Mont St Michel. I had visited before, but not been into the Abbey, it is an amazing place, on a huge scale, even more impressive because of it's location and how difficult it must have been to build. My favourite thing though had to be the gorgeous cloister garden. I have already mentioned my love of cloisters and they inspired one of my projects on the blog I share. I just wish there hadn't been so many people there! I would have loved to just soak up the peace!

We also saw some dramatic coastline.

Near Cap Frehel lighthouse people had built lots of little cairns out of the rose granite. Some were 2 - 3 feet high .....

......while this one was only about 4 inches high!

I also spotted some rather lovely shop and restaurant signs ....

........... some interesting shop windows ............ had Tim Holtz visited maybe?

and some great srchitectural details - this has shades of Harry Potter I thought!

While I was away I made a start on a new project I had the idea for a while back when I saw some giant playing cards in the 99p shop! Stupidly I didn't buy them at the time, so ended up finding some on line.

My idea was to make a set of cards with positive and affirming messages for myself. I liked the idea of using playing cards because it gave me 52 cards, one for each week of the year. I have had a difficult summer one way and another and need to focus on the positives on life whenever I can. I keep meaning to try journalling, but am so critical of my work it sort of defeats the object. This approach felt like a great alternative and a chance to do a manageable craft project just for me. I also decided that I am going to allow these cards to be less than perfect, so if the odd mis-stamp or blob or blotch happens, I have given myself permission to let it go for once!!

The first card uses the Don't Worry, Be Happy from the Words of Wisdom stamps from Elusive Images and the wonderful bees by Jo Capper-Sandon, which are a complete joy to use. The message seemed very appropriate for the first card in my set. The images are stamped in black archival ink, shaded with Colourosft pencils and the wings made to glimmer with a Sakura Stardust pen. The card is then finished off with shading in Wild Honey Distress ink.

Let's hope I manage to keep up making one card a week!

Thanks for popping by!

Elaine x