Crafty Cardmakers Blossoms Challenge

The final kick for me to start a blog here was the formation of the Crafty Cardmakers blog - and it's got its first challenge on right now. The idea is to use flowers somewhere on the card, and, as usual, I take things kind of literally.



I used my nestibility flower dies to make three flowers using scraps from a box of such things, playing with ways to make them more dimensional - in this instance, mountain folding each petal and cutting between petals, and finishing them with silver brads. Then, for contrast, I used an embellishment that was part of my secret Santa present from Vix on the cardmaking group. I used some coredinations card in the background - two shades, each embossed with different Cuttlebug folders and lightly sanded,and topped that off with some hand made and some textured paper I've had for a while.

I'm sure there are better ways yet to dimensionalise those flowers, so I'll keep trying different things. (Up to the limit where they're difficult to post anyway ...)

Playing with my Medallions

It seems like a while since I last finished a card - especially since it's still the summer holiday!

A couple of days ago, I got two medallion dies to match the borderabilities I got a little while ago. I had to have a play, and these dies just seem to beg for a bit of glitz, so here's the result using the Spades medallion and borderability.



I've used gold mirriboard (scallopped octagon) and pearlescent cream for the medallion. The inside of the card has a strip of some paisley paper I've had for so long I'm really not sure what it is! And that's it. I think it'd make a lovely golden wedding card in those colours, and of course, with a colour change, there are lots of other possibilities!

Got tired of the background of my blog so I went searching for something I liked better. Didn't find anything, so I went back to plan a): to do my own. Last time I tried that here I failed - couldn't get the background to size correctly at all. As I made it bigger, it got smaller and other crazy things. Realised the problem was probably Photobucket trying to keep the file size down so I reduced the quality a bit and viola! It actually worked! I may tweak or completely change it in a day or two, and in the meantime, it really does need a matching banner. I'll have to see how this evening goes!

Dragonflies

I have a love/hate relationship with stamping. I've been so disappointed with some of the results I've had that I all but retired my stamps completely. I've been encouraged to have another go courtesy of the Crafty Cardmaking group, and had a few successes, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it.

Today, I set about trying to make a card for the Sketch and Stash challenge. The stamp is fairly new - definitely not previously used - and it was a freebie on Craft Stamper. I used it for the main feature as well as the backing papers, and finished it off with flowers made using my Spellbinders blossom nestibilities. The backing papers are stamped in Versacolor in olive, ash rose and marigold, and the feature is stamped in Hobbycraft metallic ink and embossed with clear, holographic powder.



Having stamped a whole A4 sheet with the dragonflies, I decided to do another card - this time my preferred square format. It also fulfils the criteria of the Colour Create challenge - to use pink, green and orange.




The dragonflies are done as above, but this time I used the Spellbinders Impressibilities die (Butterfly) to emboss the side panel, and I inked it with more of the Versacolor olive. (I love that effect!) I finished it with some dragonfly brads given to me by a generous friend on Crafty Cardmakers - thanks again, Shirl!

Flowers Card

I'm actually rather pleased with this card. The image is one I put together using some basic shapes on a vector drawing package. I printed it, then coloured it with Sakura Stardust pens. I cut layers using my Wizard and nestibilities. The background paper is a freebie from a magazine a while ago that just seemed to work. I embossed some lilac Co'ordinationscard using a Cuttlebug embossing folder (again in my Wizard), sanded it and put everything together, before adding some flower gems.