Steampunk - Crafty Cardmakers

OK - I am a big fan of all things Tim Holtz and I love the distressed style, but I am still trying to work out how to do it. The Crafty Cardmakers challenge seemed to be the perfect place to start to find my style...

I decided a collage style card would be the best place to start and so I printed out loads of images from various My Craft Studio collections, some background papers which I edged with Martha Stewart stamps, I die cut some coredinations paper, which I embossed, distressed and sprayed with Crafters Companion glitter spray and a stamped image of an edwardian lady (sorry couldn't find anything Victorian).


I then stuck the whole lot together (if only it were that simple!!!) to come up with the card above. In the end not a lot of Tim Holtz but maybe I will be braver next time...

Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge 12 - Girl's Birthday

If nothing else, making this card has shown me that I seriously need to invest in more Crafters Companion stamps LOL!

The card is an A5 base made from yellow pearlescent card.

The backing paper, sentiment and the images are from the Crafters Companion Platinum CD - the birthday collection. I actually uploaded them into My Craft Studio to resize them and then alter the colours to the yellow tones shown. It also meant that I could crop out the images I wanted and not print the others.

The main image was cut out using a square spellbinders die and then coloured with wild honey distress ink whilst still in the die to create the white border. I have glittered the flower and the lines in the present, although you can't see that in the photo.

The yellow scallop die was used to cut out the second layer to the topper. And yes, its more yellow paper from the January Docrafts Goody bag.

Both squares were edged with gold pen.

I shaped the Souffle image to add dimension to the card and then stuck  Souffle and the present on to the card. Souffle and the present are also well glittered!

It's not easy to see on the picture but there is also a yellow lace ribbon behind the main topper. I have been practising making lace borders with my Martha Stewart Stamps.

The card is finished off with flowers and buttons from the Docrafts goody bag.

I am entering the card in the Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge.

A wedding card

Not surprising that there are few wedding card challenges at the moment. Can't think why? But thought, I may as well have a go and came up with this:

The card is a 6X6 square card to which I have added a red spotted background from Red Hot Bed.

The image came from a My Craft Studio collection, but I forgot to make a note of which one and, of course, I can't find it again. Yes I have too many MCS cds. I created a background for the image using the old faithful denim blue and forest green distress inks from Tim Holtz.

I cut the image out using an oval spellbinders die and then matted onto blue pearlescent card (Crafters Companion) cut using a slightly larger scallop oval die from spellbinders.

The flowers were cut from a sheet of flowers from Red Hot Bed that I have had for ages and so had forgotten about. I layered them up and added a blue flower sequin and gold gem to finish.

I finished off with a peel off sentiment on the same blue pearlescent card, cut around with scallop scissors and edged with silver pen.

I am entering the card in the following challenge:

Crafty Cardmakers - challenge 44 A Royal Wedding.

Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge 11 - Aqua and Brown

The card base is some brown pearlescent card from Crafters Companion. Using some aqua textured paper, also from Crafters Companion, I created two panels which I edged with a Martha Stewart punch. Over the top of the panels I have stuck pieces of ribbon (using the xyron sticker gadget).

The image is a stamp from CC and one of my favourite Popcorn stamps. The 'relax' sentiment is from the same set. The image was stamped onto glossy photo paper and coloured using promarkers. The background to the image was made using distress inks applied with cut and dry foam. I used the same inks to colour the sentiment.

The flowers were made from a My Craft Studio backing paper and various flower digital punches from the MCS program. I cut them out, scrunched them up, coloured them with distress inks, layered them together and then used gold flowersoft to create the centre.

I am entering the card in the Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge 11.

Birthday for a Teen card

Another foray into my My Crafts Studio collection found this beautiful image - perfect for a teenage girl and very reminscent of Saturday evenings from soooo long ago!

Its a bit pink but then that is a colour that I always find a bit of a challenge.

The base card is A4 white Centura pearl folded in half to make an A5 card.

The background came from the Kids NSR collection from MCS. I have added a silver ribbon and silver peel offs to the edges. I have added some green gems to the ribbon.

The topper is an image from the same MCS collection printed onto glossy photo paper. I have added some glitter that is not too clear in the photo but it does form the water from the shower amongst other bits.

The topper is mounted onto pink card that has been embossed with a flower pattern and then glittered over. The flower shape in the corners is from a corner punch. The whole lot was then layered onto silver holographic card but that didn't look right so I coloured the card with a green promarker. I also added some green gems to the corners.

The flowers were made from the left over backing paper which I cut using the spellbinders flower shapeabilities, crinkled, distressed with fired brick ink and then stuck together and sparkled using Crafters Companion iridescent spray.

The sentiment is just a gold peel off stuck onto scrap pink card and cut with a deckle edge pair of scissors and edged with the green promarker.

I am entering the card into the Charisma Card challenge - Birthday for a teen card

CD crafting

I was playing around with My Craft Studio and created a lovely image which I printed onto glossy photo paper. But what to do with it? Inspiration, as ever, came from a number of Challenge blogs and so I created the following card:

I only wish my ability to photograph things was better because the above does not show off the wonderful glitter effect.

How was it made...

In my MCS collection, I have Simply Silhouettes. The main image is made from a background, a silhouette of a fairy and some butterflies. As I mentioned above, I then printed the image onto photo paper. I love the fact that you can resize images in MCS to match the paper sizes in your printer. Basically, I resized the image to 10x15 photo paper and printed it out from the photo paper tray. No need to waste a full A4 piece of paper!

I then matted the image onto some more yellow paper from the Docrafts Goody bag (I know it just goes on and on) which I darkened to match the colour of the topper with Wild Honey Distress ink.

I added some Fairy trails glitter from Hunkydory to highlight some of the elements of the image. You simply cannot get the full effect of that glitter in a photo! It is magical.

The topper is then matted onto Centaura Pearl card which I have punched down the side with a Martha Stewart border punch.

I punched out some butterflies with an old hand punch I found in a drawer and have been dying to use for a while. I decorated the butterflies with a black glitter Sakura pen.

The flowers were made from copy paper! I cut out a multitude of flower shapes and then using the scrunch technique turned them into petals which I layered on top of each other to create the roses. A quick spray with Crafters Companion iridescent spray and they were done.

The whole lot is mounted onto an A5 black card (i.e. an A4 sheet folded in half!).

I am entering the card into the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz - Black and White with one other colour
Crafty Cardmakers - Fairy and two paper punches
Allsorts Challenge - Make your own flowers

Valentines Day

Here is the card I have made for my DH. I hope he likes it.

The Card

The insert

 The card is an A4 card blank. I printed out a coordinating backing sheet from the Crafters Companion Popcorn Romance CD to cover the whole of the front of the card and the identical backing sheet was used on the inside of the card. I cut down a sheet of red heart embossed card that came from the Glitter Girls and the added a cut down backing sheet onto it, again it came from the CD. All of the papers have been outlined with holographic peeloffs (Glitter Girls) or fine line peeloffs (Pinflair).

I printed out a decoupage sheet of Biscuit the dog onto glossy photo paper for the main image and layered up the images using good old Pinflair glue gel. A little crystal heart embellishment finished off the sentiment to a 'T'.

I stamped a verse from Clarity Stamps onto cream pearlised card and used red glitz WOW embossing powder. The card was cut down to size and then matted onto red crushed jewels card from the Glitter girls.

A bit of satin ribbon across the background, a bow made from a sheer ribbon and some hand made button embellishments were added. The buttons were printed from a My Crafts Studio free download. I changed the colour to red and resized them to fit the corners of the card. Using versamark and some Cosmic Shimmer Thick embossing powder, I added a glossy finish to them before sticking them on the card.

The insert is the matching one from the Popcorn CD, matted onto pearlised red card and peeloffs used to accent all the edges.

I am entering the card into the following challenges:

Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge
Crafty Cardmakers Heart challenge
Daring Cardmakers - Ribbon Reel challenge

Ooh la la Someone special challenge
Papertake Weekly Challenge - Have a Heart