Cosmic Butterfly

My photographic skills are not too good, this really looks much better than this, sorry.
This was made on a watercolour board to stand on an easle from Ikea, sprayed black. The board was blended with Distress inks Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge, Scattered Straw and Aged Mahogany. Behind the butterfly is stamped with a script design in Perfect Medium and then dusted with Cosmic Mica powder Marigold. The grasses are stamped and embossed with Cosmic Lava Black (which matches Aged Mahogany perfectly), the tree was stamped in Aged Mahogany but not embossed. The edges of the board are embossed with Cosmic Bright Gold.
The flowers are made with card coloured using Distress inks so they match the colour scheme of the board. To make these flowers you can find the instructions on the Creative Expressions website along with some other really good projects. Once assembled the flowers were sprayed with Cosmic mist Rich Gold. Leaves were cut from some chocolate card I found in the draw then passed through a ribbler to get the veins.
The butterfly was stamped and embossed in Cosmic Lava Black, the stamp is from Eco-Green Crafts - Butterfly Post. It was then painted using Cosmic watercolours, these really are great. TIP: emboss your image before painting so if you paint over the lines by mistake the embossing will repell the paint leaving you with a perfect image.

Charity shop bargains

These little boxes were part of a kit donated to one of my local charity shops. I enjoyed putting them together and they are now on sale in the shop for mothers day.
There was a large stash donated along with this kit. I would like to say a big thank you to my fellow club members for helping to raise £45 for the East Anglian Childrens Hospice charity by buying most of it.
Charity shops are for me a great source of bits and bobs for altered art as well as books. You never know what you might find. So next time you're in town, any town, go and have a look.

Bitten by the tag

I have been well and truly bitten by the tag. It gives just that little bit more space than an ATC. The lady I gave this one to was adamant it would be taken off the card and hung on the wall.
I also like this size to work as samples, enough room to showcase techniques and materials without producing a whole card. I've got a little metal tree with grippy clips on each branch that's really good for display (Lakeland Plastics).
This tag was created using the ever popular Distress Inks, Stamps from Crafty Individuals, paper roses cut with Marianne Creatables dies, a couple of peel offs and some paper lace. If you take a look at Creative Expressions website you will find a tutorial for making the roses and lots more too.
I was lucky enough to go to the trade show at the NEC, lots of new goodies coming out. My favourite has to be the new Pearl Mica Spray from Cosmic Shimmer (thanks Karen!). It's great for that subtle shimmer on wedding cards, christening cards and perfect for christmas snow scenes. Is it too early for christmas crafting?
There are some really lovely masks coming out, shed loads of Tim Holtz goodies too. That man costs me a fortune, he just keeps coming up with things I try to resist but can't! I don't do much grunge and shyed away from his materials for ages but they are proving to be really useful for lighter projects too.
I'm also looking forward to playing with Eco Green acrylic paints, I'm no artist so it will have to be simple. These paints are very eco freindly and safe for kids to use, the red has already been earmarked for a cardboard fire engine and he has his eyes on the rest for a castle!

Quick pearlescent card

This little fellow is for a friends birthday. I don't usually do a lot with pink but this just seemed to be right.

The image is stamped with Archival Ink Coffee and clear embossed. The mouse and cake are coloured with watercolour pencils, the icing and candle are painted with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints.

I wanted to mat and layer the picture so I used Spellbinders Nesties but every pink card I tried wasn't quite right, until..... I played around with Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid ink pad! It's almost a perfect match for the 'Rose Hue' used for the icing. I only had to ink up the edge of the card because the middle is covered, no point in wasting ink! It dried well and has a perfect sheen to it. I'm now working my way through all my inks and matching them to the paints where I can, no more expensive pearl card required!

The edges of the main picture have been lightly inked with Distress Ink Spun Sugar whilst leaving the nestie on the card, giving the tiny white edge. The background has been stamped with a swirl in both Spun Sugar and Pearlescent Orchid.

If you have some pearlescent ink pads give it a try, if you don't you might like to get some. Brilliance are available in Dew Drop size which are not to expensive for a try out, good luck playing.

Glossy Inspiration

This was inspired by Pam and Viv at Ally Pally (thanks ladies). It's using three colours of Distress inks on glossy paper to get a graduted colour change. I'm not very good with a brayer so something like this is a way for me to achieve a similar look.
I used the waste from a die cut butterfly to create the mask to work with. I'm going to play with other shapes too, but this one really did screem to be used. The foliage is from 'Wild Meadow', an Elusive Images stamp plate that I was given recently. When stamping the foliage I masked off the butterfly for some of it to try and give some kind of dimension to the picture.
I shall be trying out some christmas shapes to see what I can come up with, if it works well I'll post them next week.

Winter Wonderland Sparkle

This is an easel card made using the 'Winter Wonderland' stamp plate by Sam Poole and Spellbinder Nestabilities Mega Curved Rectangles.


The trees are stamped and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Black Sparkle on white card, matted onto black card, then matted onto white card that has been edged with Cosmic Shimmer Aurora Crystal Sparkle embossing powder. I found this was better than glitter as it does not shed, it was also easier to mat than using glitter card.


The base card was cut using the largest die in the set, making sure to keep the top fold below the cutting edge (or you'll have two lovely black rectangles). The glittery white layer was also cut with the large die so that they match up perfectly.
The top layer of the base card needs to be folded in half (mountain fold) to make it stand up. When fixing the white layer to the base card make sure you only glue it on the lower half of the folded area or your card will not stand up. A greeting fixed with foam pads to the inner base will give your card something to stand against when open. Don't worry about it being black inside, there's a white area on the back of the stand up that you can write on.
You can make easel cards with most of the nestabilities, they look professional, cost less than mass produced shop bought cards and you get the fun of making them too!
I've got a few more christmas cards to show you over the next couple of weeks but for now it's back to the samples for the Suffolk Papercraft Show at the end of the month.

Lone Stag

This topper is very quick and easy to create but looks great. All I used was Distress Ink Chipped Sapphire, the stag from the 'Winter Wonderland' stamp plate by Sam Poole, Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder 'Aurora Crystal Sparkle' and a tiny spritz of Cosmic Shimmer mica powder 'Pearlescent' from the 'Metalics' set, Oh and a torn piece of paper.
The card is inked from the top working down. Tear a piece of paper to make your hill mask. Lay this paper mask about 1/4 of the way down the card and using cut and dry foam gently ink up your sky. Move the paper mask down a little changing the angle slightly and begin inking up your hills, this time use less ink and less pressure to achieve the paler layer. Repeat this for the next layer again applying even less ink and even less pressure, now you have a graduated background.
Spritz the card lightly with water and dab off, this will give you a snowfall effect. It doesn't show up very well in this picture but I then spritzed the card with a tiny spray of the pearlescent mica made from the powder set using the little bottle in the pack.
A tip for making up your powders into sprays - don't follow the instructions on the bottle as this will use up most of your powder, ignore the little arrows and only mix up 1/2 a teaspoon of powder with enough water to reach the lower arrow. It lasts ages and you can always make more if you need it.
The stag is stamped in Chipped Sapphire and then embossed with Aurora Crystal Sparkle and that's all there is to it. This card looks good in other colours too, like Dusty Concorde. Depending on how you mat and layer the topper you could get several different looks to your cards using the same picture, great for a few last minute extras.