Crafting kids

No, I don’t mean making kids, I think you all know how that goes. No, this is about my kids crafting. As a passionate crafter I ofcourse craft often with my kids. Usually that meant covering a table with a plastic cover, get the paint out, some sheets of paper and brushes. While they start I go prepare a bucket of soapy water to rinse the hands and worst things at the table. It usually ends in me being stressed – as the kids put their hands in the paint in the end, and while I am busy with one the other is starting to get down from the chair (with painty clothes etc) – and me telling them to stop. Meanwhile the 3rd has grabbed the cloth and is “helping” me wipe the table – meaning also wiping through the paint and actually making more of a mess. I wonder why I thought it was a good idea to go painting with them.

Then I think, the more I do this, the easier it gets as the kids will learn what to do, how to clean the stuff and what not to do.

When we go paper crafting – that means, me tracing a birdhouse, cutting it out, (twice), and giving it to the 4 and almost 3yr old to decorate. Last time the 4yr old crumpled it as he was angry because I didn’t do something the way he wanted me to do it, and the 3 yr old scribbled the paper in (less than) 1 minute and then was done. Sigh. Too young still for that crafting.

The oldest loves playing mailman. He gets items, or snippets of paper, and starts delivering them. (Yup, everywhere in the house. Especially annoying when he has chosen items that should stay together, like cards from a memory game…) Sometimes he just gets some paper, and starts cutting snippets of them.

From since he was younger he was allowed to help me with the cuttlebug – even the youngest now (barely 1) wants to participate and this is how he can help. They turn the handle. (Ofcourse I help them). Freya occasionally needs help, Tobias has learned now to do it on his own! He now even understands how he needs to build the stack: White plate, thin plate with the sticker, folder with paper (I’m not sure yet if he really understands about putting the folded side in first, but so far he did this almost every time), and another thin plate with sticker. He also knows, that with the white folders, he needs only the white plate and the thick plate without sticker. (The M-bossability folders are thicker and require only and A and C plate).

I showed him the technique of rubbing a crayon over the embossed parts, and then adding ink. He is allowed to use the waterbased inks. He knows now to replace the lids when he’s done (most of the time) and that he needs to use the correct sponge. Ofcourse I limit his colour choice. I’ve got 4 mini’s which I put down for him, if he wants other colours I ofcourse search the correct sponge with it. And ofcourse I remain present when he is crafting. 239 Techniques you can do with a Cuttlebug / embossing folder – Mel Stampz – technique 11

He also discovered my paper pens and can use them quite ok. Ofcourse I have to get them away at some point as he starts squirting it too much.  With die cuts they still need some assistance, but that is going well too.

He loved making cards the other day, and has done so several times since. He wanted to mail them to people, so he send out several cards and was very proud when people told him they liked his cards.

So here are the pictures of him and his sister making them (youngest was playing very sweet on the floor):

My oldest son and oldestand youngest daughter.

It was my suggestion to add a diecut to the card, so they chose a few and I helpd them cut. They mostly glued up the cards themselves.

The ones with multiple diecuts on them are from Freya. She inked up the cards herself too, with me sometimes suggesting colours.

Some of Tobias his makes which I reserved, ofcourse the fairy was not done by him but made by me (stamps: Designs by Ryn) to complement the card. I loved the colours / ideas of the other pieces.

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Rusty flowers

An oldie, made about a year ago but never got around to posting it.

As I have commented somewhere yesterday that I hardly read blog or post on my blog due to timerestraints, I have to contradict myself now and do a posting spree. I’ve still got quite some finished and not entirely finished waiting in my “ready to upload” folder on the pc.

Here’s one of the first:

Flower are from a Chocolate Baroque steampunk set.

Metal flower card – very pleased with the results!

The rest in gallery form:

See how glossy and jummy the flowers look? Glossy accents, stickles, glossy accents.

Some of the used materials.

This looks nice, I prefer the smooth surface.

The other two.

Experimenting with aluminium foil and alcohol inks.

embossed with an embossing folder. Not sure what I expected.

embossed as well, don’t quite like it, the effect of the alcohol inks is less visible.

Effect is ok (wiped the alcohol ink from the raised bits ofcourse), but I found it still very shiny.

I loved making these rustic frame!

Does this look ok?

See what I mean with shiny?

I like the card 🙂

Forever Sisters

At the end of June one of my neeces, the younger sister of the one that had an accident earlier that month, came over to my house for some distraction. I was still within my pregnancy leave, so she came when my two other kids were at the daycare. We made cards, ofcourse.

She really inspired me. She was 10 then. (11 now).  I explaind how the Cuttlebug worked, showed her embossing folders and some dies I have. Put the distress inks and sponges on the table, showed her the binders with stamps and then she started.

Isn’t this gorgeous? I don’t think I have used that Eiffel tower myself yet.

Also the next one really inspired me, and showed me a card doesn’t need much to be wonderful. I loved how the sponging ended up, with lighter areas. I messed up with the flowerhearts though – she/we had made the pearls in them with paper pens, and then I put her card in an envelop and pressed it a bit too much while they were still wet… 😦

I gave her some more cut flowers and leaves to take home to finish the card, as she had wanted to make more but assembling and gluing the flowers took some time.

 

A few days later I made this card for her sister (who was still in the PICU in the hospital).

As you can see, it was inspired on her younger sisters cards. (pictures taken with bad light late in the evening). I added the shiny swallow as she had seemed to react to some sparkly chain my sister was wearing – glinstering had caught her eye. It was/is a primitive reaction, so no conscious reaction, but enough for me to want to add something shiny/metallic on it. I had dug through my scraps for more to add, and had found an elephant I had allready for a while. It was stamped, coloured, decorated with paperpen, and cut out. Eventually I thought it didn’t fit. I send the card away. After that, my sister posted on facebook a picture of a T-shirt with an elephant on it, which was from her daugher. I think it was dressed on her bear, not sure, but my sister wrote to her daughter something like: “You’re as strong as the elephant on your T-shirt”

Coincidence or not? I felt it wasn’t. I had wanted to use that elephant, which was actually completely out of place – both theme and colourwise, still, I held it at the card, looking for a spot to put it. I really had wanted to use it. When my sister visited unexpected not long after, I gave her the little elephant.

I hoped then, and still do, that my neece is a little rebel, meaning she’ll recover a great deal so she can express her feelings, her emotions, needs and pains. So she can roll, sit, stand, walk all by herself. So my sister can once again hear her voice, so they can once again have conversations.

Ah the time is late, and the mood heavy. Time for bed to wake up fresh and with a lighthearted spirit :).

Psychedelic Party

Here is my first entry for the chocolate baroque challenge:

Ever since I saw those swirls from the abstract fragments set I thought “retro”, though not quite (as that would be more geometric). Still, when this colour challenge was presented – brown, orange, yellow (and grey/cream/offwhite) I thought: yes, retro! (Not that I’m good at retro, or have ever made a retro thing, it’s just that now I had to try something new.

Stamped with distress ink ripe persimmon (or spiced marmalade?) then clear embossed, inked inside with vintage photo, mustard seed around it, fading via Scattered Straw to Pumice Stone.
Then embossed in a Tim Holz embossing folder (probably called Rays) – highlighted the rays a bit more with yellow, inked the edges with the orange.
Added the pearls to it (the first use of my premade batch, yay!) with the idea of adding a sentiment in between it, with the card rotated 90 degrees to the left. A word like: Disco! or: Party! Or: ” staying alive”

Problem: I didn’t have that sentiment, none of my alphabet stamps fit the theme, and couldn’t be bothered to spend another hour behind the pc looking for the appropriate font. I knew I would end up hourS behind the pc, not just one.

Time for a small test. I showed my partner the card as it was then, and asked him what he thought. I pretty much thought it breathed retro, or disco.
Do you know what he said?
Kermis. Carnival.
Uh what? How can you think that?
Well, the wavy thing, and the rays…
Ok, I said, and went back to the crafting table.

What more retro, disco, old but not vintage old? Hmm hippies? Flowers! Ok, flowers… I stamped the flowers on a separate sheet, dabbed some ink on my craftsheet and coloured the flowers. I cut them out (note that I don’t say fussy cut, as I didn’t, only the first half…. then I was too tired. But would you have noticed if I hadn’t said it?)

Played around a bit with the layout. But what to put in the middle? Still didn’t have a sentiment. But, I did have this big mushroom from my second Chocolate Baroque entry (actually I made that card first, but haven’t blogged about it yet. I’m not much for chronological order.) Yay, I could use left overs!

Hippie… drugs…mushroom…

Jaaah, and then I could use some of the fairyland stamps! “Welcome to fairyland”? “Let the adventure begin”? Those would have fitted equally well. How about “sprinkled with fairydust” for an added dose of psychedelics! Ofcourse, no way I could stamp that onto the embossed paper, so stamped it onto tissue paper, embossed it, and glued it. Oh, as you can see, I didn’t use the big mushroom – it didn’t fit. I made 2 new ones. (See how I use my leftovers?)
I sprinkled those with fairydust. That was possible because I had made a card with her first, you know, that second entry which I haven’t blogged about yet.

So that was my card, for the Chocolate Baroque Colour Challenge. No idea who I would give this to. (And you know what my partner said when I asked him again what he though? “Still Carnival, sorry…”. Hm. I think I need to feed him some more mushrooms with some special fairy dust, maybe then he’ll see!.

Magic happens all around

I started this card not as a card, but just playing around with a new stencil (stars), distress paint budled sage, distress stain bronze and rusty hinge on green cardstock. Then I also tried out my new Sheena Douglas embossing folder – it started to look quite ok, maybe I could use it? It had an autumn feel to it, with the leaves and brown and glimmering colours. So I searched for some challenges to help me by adding some boundaries within which I would make something.

The themes of the challenges I chose were: Autumn/Fall, inspirational image,  make your own leaves, Anything but CAS, Frame it, use stamping on tissue paper and decoupage technique and use Design by Ryn stamps.. Some might have closed allready as I dind’t like the finished card untill today, when the room was brightyl lit and I stood a bit further away – the card was as intended. Very autumn like, a bit of an ancient feel to it because of the mosaique, the pillars and colours, and the fairy not that well visible. I wanted her to be transparent – only visible to those who look.

An autumn scenery in an interesting frame. Here it is:

How I made it

I continued with the background by colouring in the leaves with barn door distress marker. I was wondering what to put on it – then I rememered the arch from a French Kissed card which I had laying around for ages, this looked like a card where I could use it. Imagine walking around in a forest, and stumbling on an ancient ruin where you witness this magical scene. I wanted it to be behind the embossing, so I put the card and arch on it’s place in the embossing folder, and then pressed with my hands only on the one pillar, rubbing that spot untill it was embossed as well. Then I knew where and how to cut it.

Next I stamped the fairy and squirrel with on tissue paper. It is one stamp, and I inked the body of the fairy with versafine grey and the squirrel, wings and nuts with stazon black. I coloured it (the fairy very lightly as she needed to be hardly visible) and glued it on. Unfortunately, my plan to make the fairy transparent succeeded. (uh what?) Yup. No fairy visible.

See the plant? It used to be full of flowers, just lovely. My children liked the plant too…

The prettiest side to the house. I’ve got little vases on the table, for when the children pick flowers (usually with a very short stem) – they are filled with these now.

The emptiest side to the garden. In my kids defense, the stems break very easily.

So I restamped onto tissue paper, cut out only the body of the fairy and decoupaged it. If you look closely (don’t do it!) you can see that decoupaging tissue paper on the exact same spot is impossible. (As some parts of the fairy were a bit more visible). I higlighted the squirrel by drawing black lines and white lines in some places, also outlined the nbuts and wings a bit more so the contrast between them and the fairy would be bigger. I stamped and embossed the text, adding the white higlight there as well, and also highlighed some parts of the Arch and the big leaf.

The leaves: The two big leaves in the upper rightcorner are from my stash, (sizzix die, and one leaf has moddeling paste through a leaves stencil) only coloured it a bit more red so it matched the card / autumn theme more. The 4 smaller leaves (Marianne Design die) were also from my stash, they are as old as the arch, which might be 3 years? ANyway, they were diecut from green cardstock on which I had stamped randomly in green and had aged it a bit with forest moss ink. It was too green for this card. I took some decopuage glue and followed the nerves of the leaf, let it dry and then ink it and add some perfect pearls copper on it. (The decoupage glue acted as a sort of rsist for the ink). The leaves were a bit lost in the corner, it needed something extra. That happened to be that piece of string that I found on the table (or ground)… no idea where it came from, maybe one of the kids found it outside, but it was great for this card 🙂

In the lower left I pt mod melts figures, the middle leaf is Martha Stewart clay and the outer two are made with hot glue. Several layers of yellow, green and red acryllic paint (too yellow – add some red. Hmm too red, add some green. Too green, the yellow is gone! add some yellow etc’. Finished with perfect pearls copper.

I forgot an important part, the frame! Ofcourse I made that before glueing the leaves in place. Cut from pink cardstock, then added some metallic colour (I honestly can’t remember if it is acryllic paint or the new copper distress stain – I got so many things in copper colour as I love it!) I put a Crafter’s Workhsop stencil on it, used modelling paste, let it dry. When dry I replaced the stencil and painted it with distress paint. Let dry, adhere to the card, and on to the leaves.

Last I wanted some more autumny things, and got out my paper pens. I don’t have the bright red, but the orange suited very well too to be little berries. I was trying some things out, like marbling with the paper pens, so they turend out to be more like mushrooms then berries, it’s up to the viewer to decide what they are 😉

Have a look at my second post to see the miniature marbled pearls which I made with my paper/gloss/perlen pens! (I have yet to write it, will be out late tonight at the latest).

I was worried that the card didn’t have enough contrast, the colours are very close to eachother. The frame was very light, so I dabbed an Black Sooth sponge on it which wasn’t inked, so just a tiny bit of black sooth. Not sure it is even very visible, I can’t really point it out now but at the time it seemed better.

It’s not really a card-card, it’s more like a small wallhanging. It’s A5 size so not too small.

Challenges

I’d like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• Stampingback – Anything NOT CAS (mijn 2e inzending, geen stampinback stempels gebruikt)
• Our Creative Corner – Autumnal image (berries, autumn, leaves, texture, the beauty that is seen when you take a second look, or Look at the world around you,)
• Simply Create Too – Autumn (oops, allready entered 3 times, which is max!)
• Panpasteluk – Frame it (sorry don’t have pan pastels yet!) -oops too late for that one, but…
• PanPastelUK – Embossing (The new challenge, my card fits that one as well, and I made the frame mainly for you! Following via RSS feed)
• Ducth Card Lovers – Autumn and make your own leaves
• Craftstamper – Take it Make it September: Stamping on tissue paper ( a day too late for it)
• Designs by Ryn – Always Anything goes, use Designs by Ryn products.
• Vandicrafts Artistry Challenge – #9: Autumn
• The Artistic Stamper – Autumn colours;
• Fantasy Stampers – autumn colours;

edit 28th of September: I found the pictures of the disappearing fairy.

before

stamped with too oily and light versafine grey

coloured with distress inks

is that my mini acryllic block that I can’t find now?

decoupaged – and oops, didn’t apply (glue or the image) well enough – air pockets beneath it.

Almost completely dry – you can see the fairy has faded a lot.

 

Steampunky Einstein, some tags, an exotic mermaid, minecraft creepers and birthcards.

I made this card for a challenge, but I forgot that I had to include certain stamps /materials sold in that shop, so my card wasn’t suitable. Still a nice card, where I experimented again with aluminium foil. ( I seem not to really get past the experimenting fase with it, I still haven’t really got a clue how to best use it).

Made in september 2013

Used up some stash here as well. Gear dies, Nellie Snellen multiframe die, a Joy! craft or marianne design die, 2 sizzix embossing folderss, maybe some tissue paper (beneath the lightbulb), the lightbulb stamp is from de stempelwinkel if I’m correct, and distress ink, ranger copper spray (can’t be bothered to look up the correct name now, but I love that one!) coper acryllic paint and/or copper crackling paint (I love copper – can you tell?)

Designs by Ryn and Chocolate Baroque, my two favourite brands of stamps, and they go well together. I wanted to try out some very vibrant colors together. A mermaid lives in the ocean, and in the ocean fish can be found in lots of different beautiful colors, so why not a mermaid? I love how this turned out. But as you can see, it’s not a card, it’s only a frame. I think it still is, I still need to finish it. Or just mat it onto cardstock, and leave it as is? Maybe add a sentiment?

Tags made using the patio stone stamp from Designs by Ryn and the Three Leaves set- stamps, paper pen and a clear stamp sentiment

Creepers from Minecraft

I intended to make a series of Minecraft themed Christmas cards, and made stencils to get different colours of the creeper. I could have done this better – if I had taken the time to cut out the stencils out of self adhesive plastic (the kind you put on the window) or even proper stencilling sheets it would have worked better. This was about the last project I made – since jan.6th I had not made cards or sent cards, except for maybe 1 or 2. In 2013 I was very good at sending cards – first half of 2014 I was terrible, but I was so tired. (pregnancy and perparing a move, selling an appartment and renovating both places).

 Back from crafting break – first steps again

These were about the first cards I made again after my crafting break, birth cards for twin boys. I wasn’t entirely happy with the result, but it was a start in crafting again. I had tried to keep them in the same style as the birth announcement card I had received, but I had no stamps in that style, so I just picked some elements from the card – blue and cloudy. Also, as it were boys I wanted to use my robot emobssing folder finally, and wanted to make 2 seperate cards for them.

(This was a scheduled post)

On to happier topics – a colorful card

While the situation in the previous post continues and hopefully will only get better, the crafting fever has struck me again.

Maybe it’s because a few weeks ago I finally got inspiration for the birth announcement card, and making that sparkled my creative mind. Or maybe because it’s a way for me to relax. Anyway, before I can post you my recent makes I still have a backlog of cards to show you.  The birth announcement card will be posted after the baby is born, ofcourse.

The first card I’d like to show you is one I really loved, such vibrant colours! Made around august last year, and used as a “sorry!” card – I had forgotten my aunts big birthday party – I felt so bad that I had totally forgotten about it!

I can’t remember exactly how I made it – was it distressink + water on an acryllic block, then pressed onto the paper or was it also chunks of salt onto the card? I think I did put salt on the card.Then I clear embossed the flower edge on the bottom of the main frame, and used caran ‘d arche crayons to colour it in and make the contrast a bit better – it wasn’t very visible with the light purple. The swirls stamps is from Designs by Ryn, and also colored with the caran d’ache water soluble crayons. The flowerborder, central flower stamp and flower on the bottom strip are from Chocolate Baroque. The central flower is again colourd with the crayons. Then I added some gold tinsel embossing and white and black highlights and the sentiment with a clear stamp alphabet sheet (can’t remember the name).

Matting the card and adding that glittery ribbon finished the card. I even made a sort of matchin envelope, with a stamp from chocolate baroque which I inked up with tattered rose and/or old paper distress ink, then sprayed some water over it very lightly and stamped it. I wanted a watery, faded look, with low contrast to the background.

 

Although not perfect ( I did make some mistakes here and there), I really like this card, love the colours.

 

Flowers for mothersday and more

No, we don’t celebrate mothersday now, it’s just that I still got several cards I haven’t posted yet.

Which is ok, as I hardly have time to craft the past few weeks! So I still have some cards left to post.

Here are 6 cards, probably made more then 6 months ago.

Butterfly butterfly

Stamps from Prima Marketing – Christina Renee

The flowers for mothersday

The stamp was part of a bigger stamp, and you can see, I messed up a bit with stamping/ inking. 😦

Before stamping the text

I love the look of it. Soft flowers, soft colours, clear embossed flowers and green accent colours on the banner. The top and bottom part of the bannerpaper were used as masks for the previous card. Stamps are from the set 3D Amelie from Viva Decor

Some lovely papers -turqoise acryllic paint on paper, then embossed with inked up embossing folders – which I still haven’t used!

First and second card. I learned from the first. But not enough to not mess up the 2nd card after this picture so horribly I threw it out (I think).

Background stamp is from the serie Chronology from…? Peacock is a clear stamp from cArt-us

Papermania – Square Urban Stamp  – Chronology – PMA907138 – Beautifull time pieces

Playing with the Designs by Ryn stamps which I just got then (I think). The lady was part of a grab-bag of Chocolate Baroque, and it was only after stamping that I noticed the fish in her cape.

  What did I learn from this card: Think before stamping. I added the lady after clear embossing the circles and colouring the background. I would prefer for her to be without the circles and colours in her. So she would be less of a ghost. Leaf (from Three leaves set) and Patio Stone are from Designs by Ryn, other stamps (lace, flowers, lady) from Chocolate Baroque)

Fairy garden

I still have this card, didn’t find the right occasion yet. I love the card, I love this Hero Arts stamp. I had the fairy for a while, but don’t actually use here so often. She’s embossed with rangers distress embossing powder shabby shutters. The raindrops were then also just newly received from Designs by Ryn, I love how it looks like she’s in a garden, and I love the sizes! IT jus t matches very well. Looking at it in a digital way now, (You know, on screen…) I think I should make more of these cards. I love the frame, the fairy, the drops, and they match together perfectly! Also used on this card: Patio Stone.

With that, I conclude this post of 6+months old cards.

Which do you like most?

A song for each step

It was fun making this card, it was a bit different from what I usually make. I started out with a page from an old thin book for people who start learning english. The paper is a bit more fragile then my usual paper so I had to work a bit more careful. I refound my sizzix flower dies, and had fun using them on fabric! Fabric? There’s no fabric on the card! That’s right, but I only decided against using the cut out fabric after the inkin/masking, when I tried them on the page. It didn’t look right.

I look forward to using my dies on more fabric scraps.

I masked both the negative and the positive cut of the die-cut, which gave a nice layered effect. I seem to be in love with the Persimmon orange colour from distress in combination with blue (Peacock Feathers is still a favourite!).

Then, time for the words. “May songbirds serenade you every step along the way”  has a very poetic feel to it, it matches the page very well. Also, there are a few times when the word “footsteps” jumped out of the text – some are hidden in the end result though. I think on this page they are tracking someone, or following a path (I did read the short story back when I checked if this book could be used). Songbirds singing from between the flowers, lovely!

I stamped with versamark+stazon jet black and embossed with black embossing powder. Next was adding some more diecuts, and I set myself to the challenge to use some of my scraps of paper. I did find some good matches.

I also stamped a bird from Prima Marketing Pixie Glenn with Stazon Jet Black, and Non-Sequitur’s Tree Trunk with brown.

Last, I die-cut the tattered flowers from tissue paper (after colouring the tissue paper with distress ink and water and drying it). But that’s not all, I took my M-bossabilities folder Twigs and Tweets, inked up a part of it (and removed the ink on the leaves, leaving only the birds to be inked reddish) and embossed the flowers. So on every tissuepaper flower there is also a bird (or part of a bird) inked, and the embossing of the folder itself. In the end I didn’t use all 4 diecuts, I only used 2 and inked them up a bit, made them a bit greener as I thought the red was too red.

The branch is stamped on with a stanp with versamark and then heat embossed with shabby shutters distress embossing powder. The little die-cut birds from Marianne Design are inked up with versamark with a brush, and then dipped in embossing powder.

I used a Cheery Lynn die (Celtic Frame I think it’s called) to partially cut the top and bottom of the page.

Before gluing on the die-cuts I wanted to put a little bit more protection on the page, so I put decoupage glue on it. I was a bit slow in thinking, because only after rinsing the brush (which I do immediately after using the glue) I realized I ofcourse could glue on the die cuts now easily as well. No fussy gluing with small bits, as the entire surface of the card was sticky. I did end up having to add a bit of glue to some parts where it was too dry allready, but none the less it was fast and easy to add the diecuts.

Before adding decoupage glue – would it ruin the card by smearing out the ink? Also visible, on the right: die-cut fabric tattered flowers (blueish) and the flourishes die (and cut), inks and oh the antique greenish embossing powder! Love it!

That about sums it up. (I didn’t describe all steps, it’s obvious I inked the edges and matted the card onto cardstock etc).

Used materials

• Distress inks, (distress) embossing powder, stazon, decoupage glue, tissue paper, old bookpage, scraps from the scrapheap.
• Sizzix movers and shapers Tattered Flowers
• Sizzix Swallow
• Marianne Design creatable (The small birds, Ivy and branch)
• Joy!Craft Vintage Flourishes
• Stampendous stamp May Songbirds serenade you every step along the way
• Prima Marketing Pixie Glade stamp on the branch for some more texture
• De Stempelwinkel Tree Trunk from the Plate 101 Trees
• Cheery Lynn Celtic Fire

Challenges

I’d like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• The stamping cottage – October challenge #4 Surprise us (anythin goes) (Must use a product they sell, which is ofcourse the inks and the Stampendous Stamp I bought there a while ago)
• Ladybug Crafts -Oktober Challenge Use die cuts
• The Crafting Cafe – Oktober Challenge Anything Goes
• Stampin for the weekend – Anything Goes (closes around 24th of October)

Thank you for the visit!

Bird in the sky, up up you fly

This card is made on a wallpaper sample. The Die-cut is a swallow from ranger (I think) – I haven’t used it much, as somehow this image reminds me of a soul leaving the earth. I kind of associate it with a sympathy card. I didn’t intend to make one, that is why I left the blue bit empty, I want to add the sentiment later. (with a label on the blue, but I think i’s prettier if I print or stamp on tissue paper and decoupage it on the blue card, you won’t see the tissue paper but will see the stamp). But I guess a sympathy card is the best fit.

The swallow flies up out of the bushes, up up in the sky, to be free. It has a vintage touch to it, due to the colour use. The two lines at the top are inked too, to add just a bit more sky-ness.

The raindrops are from design by Ryn, and the branches with leaves are from the Joy!crafts vintage flourishes serie as is the swirl. Before cutting it out I coloured the paper with different shades of distress ink (with the acrylbloc technique). after diecutting I stamped on the leaves with another stamp in blue. (I forgot which one). It wasn’t really needed though, as it’s hardly visible. Before gluing the branches in place I tried slightly colouring the area behind it, as I wanted it to look like bushes rather then just branches.

The dry embossing is done with the M-bossabilities folder twigs and tweets. (My only machine is a Cuttlebug)

Heat embossing is done with shabby shutter, on the swallow. Next I darkened some bits, and stamped with embossing ink on it and embossed it with rangers embossing powder Stream.

A simple card (for me, at least) which I don’t particularly like. The reason is that the card makes me a little sad, it somehow oozes melancholy, or sadness. (Instead of comfort or a spring rain shower or autumn). On the other hand, it’s also kind of calm, spiritual.

What would you use this card for? For which occasion?

Challenges

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Emma’s Cards UK – Birds (closes around 30th of September)
• Crafty Cardmakers – winged things (closes around 29th of September)
• Cuttlebug Mania – We are Flying High (closes around 1st of October
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes (closes 2nd of October)