Steampunk Christmas

Here is my contribution to this weeks challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, the theme is eyelets.
Having invested in a Crop-A-Dile a few months ago I thought it was time to put it to good use. I have a set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque called Steampunk Christmas of which this tree is one.
The tree is stamped with Perfect Medium and Embossed with a Verdigris powder on to white pearl card, not such a good choice once all matted up so I have toned it down by using Distress Ink Old Paper to get more of a grungy look.
I have used two different sizes of eyelet, both came with the tool and a few tiny brads. The gems are also in two sizes just to add a little sparkle. The lovely gold star on the top of the tree is a brad sent to me by Ruth in a wonderful act of pure kindness, thank you Ruth.
The backing card is a lovely olive green run through an embossing folder called Victorian Fleur.
The green layer is matted on a small piece of chocolate pearl card and then an embossed gold card I picked up at a show before going on a chocolate pearl card blank. I have added some more gems to lift the colour a little. It is rather a masculine card because of my colour choice but I can think of two friends who would be happy to receive it so all is not lost. I think I'll try another one in silver and purple now.

Floral Tribute

 I found this photograph of my Granny and her big sister last week and thought I would like to make something special for them, sadly they are both gone now but I would like to put this photo up anyway.
Sizzix die - Tattered Flower Garland,  Spellbinder die - Foliage,  Distress Inks - Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge, Aged Mahogany, Brushed Corduroy, Old Paper and Forest Moss,  Archival Ink - Coffee,Cosmic Shimmer Glue - dries clear,  Foundations Card - coconut white.  Floral stamp - from Chocolate Baroque.

 The frame began life as a plain brown papier mache item crying out to be decorated. I began this process by stamping with Archival Coffee and a floral stamp from my stash. The beauty of this stamp is it's a random pattern making it easy to match up over a large area and it's not mounted onto anything, not even U-Mount, so it flexes to the shape of the item you are stamping, you can quite literally stamp round corners!
I covered the whole frame with this image because I liked it so much.

 Then I die cut four of every flower shape I wanted to use so that I could build my roses, Granny loved roses. The flower tutorial can be found on this link. All four sizes are on the Tattered Flower Garland die from Sizzix, they are smaller versions of the flowers found on the Bigz die Tattered Florals and the leaves on Tattered Leaves. Now you can make lots of different sized flowers that all look like they are from the same plant, it's great.

Colour your flowers before assembly, you could use coloured card to begin with but I chose to play with Distress Inks because I love them so much. Starting on the left hand side the colours are as follows.... Rusty Hinge edged with Aged Mahogany,  Wild Honey edged with Rusty Hinge,  Wild Honey no edging, Old Paper edged with Brushed Corduroy and Scattered Straw no edging.

 Here they are all made up and ready to glue on the frame. I also cut out some leaves from green card with a Spellbinder die - Foliage. While the shape was still in the die I inked the exposed areas with Forest Moss to darken them.

I put the flowers on the frame in several different positions before gluing to see where they looked best. Once happy with the layout I stuck them all on with Cosmic Shimmer dries clear glue, it's a very strong PVA glue that I have found very useful and it dries quite quickly too.
I made the frame with the flower cluster at the top left so that if I decide to change the picture it will also stand portrait without looking odd as the flowers will then be at the bottom.
I hope you will try using your paper craft skills for projects other than cards, there's so much possibility, start now for Christmas presents!

Sparkling antlers

This sparkling deer is my challenge entry over at 52CCT. It's a colour challenge this week, brown, cream and red. I'm also hoping he will qualify over on Sparkles Christmas Challenge where sparkle and bling are required.
The deer is a Sizzix die cut out of brown glitter paper that I stuck on to card. I didn't do so well as I stuck him on to white card then I had to colour the edges with a Promarker to get rid of the white, better planning next time!
The deer is stuck on to red card using foam pads. The red gem was stuck on his nose with Cosmic PVA. I used a Fiskars corner punch that has tiny snowflakes on it with cream card to get three different shapes of snowflake, then I stuck a tiny gem in the middle of each one. The snowflake on the rosette was coloured with a Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate teardrop inkpad, the ink wipes off the gem easily.
The rosette in made using the smallest size of Tim Holtz Sizzix Rosette Die. The cream layer is the actual size of the die strip but the red layer has been cut down by a few millimetres before assembly to show a cream border when completed. The Happy Christmas is a tiny peel off coloured with a brown permanent marker.
The whole picture was then layered onto cream card and then back onto red.
52 Christmas Card Challenge - colour challenge, brown, red and cream
Sparkles Christmas Challenge - Sparkle and bling , glitter and gems

The Old Boot gets Flower Power

Here as promised is The Boot.  It began life a long time ago as a lovely new work boot but when it's work was done I thought it should have a new life.
J&C Creations challenge this month is Try Something Different, so I did. I decided that as distress and grunge are so in vogue at the moment I would go the other way.
With the exception of one sequin covered flower they are all die cut from metal, card and fabric using a range of Sizzix and Spellbinder dies.

 I wanted to put my flowers on a green base so I had to paint my boot. I masked off the top brown cuff so it stayed brown and then painted with a cream emulsion I have in a tester pot.

 The green layer is a mix of various shades of acrylic paint and some Cosmic Shimmer misters.
The large purple and blue flower in the bottom left corner is the only metal one I made, it's coloured with alcohol inks.

The large pink flower with the button in the middle is fabric stuck on double sided sticky sheet then on to card and cut out. The netting is also die cut with a card flower in the middle and a gingham brad.

  The foliage is cut from a mixture of pearl card, plain card and some coloured with Distress inks or sprayed with mica misters.
The butterfly is the only stamped item on the boot. Stamped and embossed then coloured with Cosmic Shimmer Watercolours.I used a flower stamen folded in half and stuck behind his head to give him antenna.
Everything is stuck on with Cosmic Shimmer PVA dries clear glue, it's amazing stuff, much stronger than it looks!
 The whole project has taken a few weeks to complete but it has been fun. Oh and it has a jam jar inside so you can use it to store your brushes or put flowers in it!
I would like to enter my boot in the challenge over on Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Handmade Flowers.  When you see the creations people have come up with you'll be amazed. I don't enter to win, I just want to share because it was so much fun making something different.
So go on and Try Something Different!