Simply Gorjuss

Today I am sharing with you a card I have made that has taken me virtually all day!  That is because today was aimed at being a "play and see" where it takes me day.

I started the day playing with my Spectrum Noir Watercolours making backgrounds on watercolour card and then sometime experimenting with different promarkers to colour in my Gorjuss stamp. 

I then decided to take one of my accordian card dies (Create a Card) Diesire from Crafter's Companion and cut out the watercoloured card stock to make a frame using the snowflake overlay which looked lovely in the blue.  I also cut another piece of card that I had washed with my watercolours using a scallop edge die from the set.  

A quick look through my paper stash and I found that the background paper from my Serenity cardstock (Craftwork Cards) would pull this altogether especially if I made use of the tiny flowers that come with the Serenity paper craft pad. Fortunately for me that I had already pressed these out and shaped them into flowers some time ago whilst sat in front of the television!

Decorated MDF Box

I have been getting really crafty with my latest project and moving into the realms of mixed media!  I had a box that needed decorating and I wanted to use some embossing paste on it. I searched through my stencils and found one that I liked both the scale and design of.  I then used some of my tacky stencil glue to hold it in place on the box whilst I spread the embossing paste (Dreamweaver product) over it.  The paste dries within one hour which means not too long to wait before I could start on the next side!

After I had covered all the sides and the lid I then used some grey paint, suitable for using on mdf, to cover the inside and outside of the box.  This product came from Imagination Crafts and it comes in a 60ml bottle.  It is lovely and thick and I highly recommend it because the coverage was excellent and gave a lovely finish. 

The final coat of paint is another product from Imagination Crafts called Starlights.  Starlights are a metallic paint that come in a variety of colours.  They have a super metallic finish.  I used the very beautiful teal and silver paints, dabbing it on and blending together to create different hues of blue.

Here is the end result.  I now have a decorated box and I am using it to put my Tattered Lace corner embossing folders in.

Butterfly & Dragonfly Cushion Covers

A new week has passed us by and I am writing about a new craft experience for me.  I purchased some lovely linen looking cushion covers from Hochanda recently with the intention of printing onto them using some stamps from Indiglo Blu and some of their fabric paints.  I also tried using my Luminarte Silk paint (all purpose paints) which work on a varety of surfaces including fabric.

I used Indiglo Blue's Raven Black Metallic Paint to stamp the lovely dragonfly, one of my own small butterfly stamps in the Indiglo Blue Kingfisher Blue Paint and the larger butterfly I stamped using the Luminarte Silks paint.

Before working with the paint I put a piece of 12x12 cardstock inside the freshly ironed cushion cover to protect any paint leaking through.  

I used some sponges to apply the paint to the stamp but it worked equally well and if I may say perhaps better, when applying the stamp to my craft mat area where I had some paint.  With this method your fingers kept clean and this is important in case you accidently get paint onto the fabric.

Anyone trying this for the first time, have a go on some scrap fabric so that you can get used to knowing how much paint you need on your stamp.

Here is the end result.  Some cushion covers for our home which I am very proud of and had fun making.

Leonie's Wee Stamps

I couldn't resist getting my hands on these little stamps by Leoni Pujol.   They are really useful for pattern building.

I created my own stencil of the word "Father's Day" using my Cameo Silhouette and then used some Stencil Glue by Pinflair.  This is a really good product.  You use a sponge to apply it, wait five minutes then you have a tacky background.    I then stuck down the words and sponged colour over this. Following this I stamped these little dies over the words and finally, coloured them in with sparkle pens and gel pens.  Only when I had completely finished working on the card did I peel away the words to reveal the area underneath.

Here is the end result.  I hope you enjoy them.

Rolled Heart Card

I have enjoyed today so much and very happy to have a three day weekend ahead of me which means plenty of crafting time.

By luck I discovered when visiting the website of Craftwork Cards on my lunch hour Friday that Clare Curd, demonstrator, was going to start online classes using Craftwork Card products.   The first lesson was that very evening so I made sure I checked it out. Clare demonstrated how to make this lovely rolled heart card using the gorgeous chambray and lace and vintage background paper pads.  These paper pads are absolutely lovely.

I used my Cameo Silhouette to cut the background squares and create a heart shape that the rolled paper is glued on.  I slightly deviated at the end by using a blue ribbon to make a bow and fixed it differently. 

And here is the finished card.  I would love to hear what you think.

Craftwork Cards Beau Papier Collection

I find myself sorting out my card collections and finalising the inserts for unfinished cards I had made in the Beau Papier papercraft range.  Looking back on my blog I see that I had promised to share these with you when I had made them so here is a post of them.

Enjoy, Natasha

I have used my Tonic cat dies on this one.

I found some cardstock that matched this collection so I couldn't resist using it.

Embossing folder by Tattered Lace was used on this card.

Simple but very effective.  Stickles was used around the edge of the topper.

A favourite.

Amazing that I had some tiny butterfly dies.

Hunkydory - Flight of the Butterflies

I have been busy making some lovely cards with a butterfly theme.  There were some concept cards in the kit which I made up first.

This one is an accordion card. It was fiddly to put together as the sides kept coming out but I did get there in the end!

This one has a lovely piece of printed vellum with butterflies on which is used on the front of the card together with a wrap with ribbon as a closure.  It gave me the idea of trying this wrap closure on one of my cards.

And this one is very unusual in design. I got out my Stickles to make my butterflies stand out.

These others are what I made with the rest of the papercraft kit.

This is one of my favourites.  I made the flower and geranium leaves from my Sheena dies.  I used black card stock and rubbed Pebeo gilding wax onto them.  It could be a New Home of 21st Birthday card.

This is a new card style for me.  It is a good way to use those small toppers that would get lost on a big card.  I have made more like this. It was simple to make and I used a die from Tattered Lace to pin down the front corner.

This is one of Sheena's poppy dies. I didn't have red tissue paper so I used vellum.

Here is the wrap and ribbon tie I designed for this card. The gold mirri card is lovely and is a Kanban product.  The quality is really good.

This card was crying out for some of those black flowers of mine to finish it off.

This butterfly cardstock is so beautiful that I didn't feel I wanted to cover it up with a topper.  Instead I used it as paneling down the sides of the card.  I added a few flowers at the front to give it a bit of a lift.

I love the simplicity of this card.  The embossing folder is a favourite of mine from Tattered Lace.

I had some letters to add down the side of this one.

Here I have cut around the edges of the butterflies so they stand out with their wings flapping.

A quick card!

And a not so quick card!  This is a die from the Couture Range available at Create & Craft.

A relatively easy card to make.

I love the freestanding butterfly on this card and colour tones.

Another.....

This was the image that made me want to own this papercraft collection.  I wish I had cut around some of the butterflies though so their wings stood out.  I don't feel that confident with a scapel so I didn't want to risk damaging the cardstock.

I cut this design out on my Cameo Silhoutte.  I used my Sketch Pens to write the sentiment then cut it out.  I then offset the outline of the sentiment to make a mount for it.  So pleased to be able to combine my skills and use of the Silhoutte with my card kits.

Here I wanted to use some of the lovely printed vellum .

This was fun, I designed it on my Cameo Silhoutte.

Really liked the mix here.

I used a Sue Wilson die to add additional interest to this card.  I also had a frame left over so I glued it to the background paper then I cut out some butterflies and placed them on top so it was decoupaged.  I then used a further sheet of the background paper and lay this behind the topper.

These narrow toppers needed to be used somehow and work really well on top of the vellum.

If you look closely you will see that I have used my Cameo Silhoutte to cut out the sentiment on the front of this card to reveal the gold background behind.

This is a great way to use up strips of narrow card.

Another of these wrap designs only I used a butterfly to act as a closure on this one.

This is quite a masculine card so I didn't want to add a bow.

I really love the way this card stock works as a wrap around the card.

Another great card idea.

More lovely vellum.

A large easel card.

More use of these lovely flowers.

Here I cut out the butterflies to decorate this card.  Do you like it, it isn't my usual style.

Can you see the gold peeping out behind the butterfly wings?

I had the idea of using my Cameo Silhoutte here to cut out the words.

Two more cards made that are tri fold with matching wraps.

and then finally the rest of the concept cards I talked about at the beginning.  I must have made about 50 cards here.

It looks like I have made over 50 cards from this card collection so a good investment.