The Littlest Fairy

This is another card featuring Selina Fenech's artwork. This image is available from her download shop  http://selinafenech.com/products-page/  from the stationery section. This has always been one of my favourite of Selina's beautiful fairies and I thought she would be just perfect to use on a card for a friend who is facing a major struggle in her life just now.

The download is a sheet of writing paper so I first took it into MCS and cropped the fairy. I then digitally cut 4 layers of her to create the decoupage. I horizontally flipped the sheet of stationery and resized it to fit on my card base as the backing. I also cropped a small section to use for the sentiment.
I inked the edges of an 8"x8" blank with Distress Ink Milled Lavender and inked the edges of the writing paper with Dusty Concord. I matted the full image of the fairy on a piece of card inked with Dusty Concord, and did the same with the sentiment piece.

I used Memory Box dies to cut the scroll and two butterflies from gold mirri. I then trimmed one of the butterflies for variety. The flowers were inked and the edge of the lace was coloured with a Promarker before being tied in a bow. Gold letter peel-offs were used to write the sentiment and a dusting of fairy glitter was the finishing touch.
If you look closely you can see the faint image of the fairy in the stationery. The paper is so beautiful on it's own, it's an added bonus that it works well turned into a card.

Bubbles

This is an image from one of my favourite artists; Selina Fenech. She paints beautiful fantasy pictures from which she has recently created stationery and decoupage to download. You can find her downloads here: http://selinafenech.com/products-page/  Have a look and you'll see why I love her wonderful artwork. In the meantime, here is Bubbles, decoupaged and made into a simple birthday card.

I started by inking the edges of my 8"x8" blank with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, then I made a backing paper in MCS by taking a cropped section of the background from Bubbles and stretching it to the size of my blank. I found a background paper on Flutterby Butterflies by MCS with bubbles on it and reduced the opacity, I then overlaid the two.  I also created the sentiment at the same time. The Bubbles decoupage was mounted up and placed on a frame created with Martha Stewart punches and Dusty Concord ink.

 The scroll is a Cheery Lynn leaf flourish die with the leaves removed, and the bubbles were created by punching circles from white card coloured with Distress Inks and sealing with Anita's 3D Gloss.
I didn't want to add too much to the card as I didn't want to detract from the beautiful Bubbles, but I did sprinkle a bit of glitter on her and the bubble embellishments as a finishing touch.

Jem's Victoria

This is a commissioned card for a "very grown up" 8 year old who loves pink. I love this image from Jem's Designs and have used her before for a young girl's birthday so I thought she would be perfect. Her name is Victoria and she's from The Age of Steampunk CD.

Here is a surprise for you all; it's an A5 easel card, not my usual 8"x8"! I used Spellbinder die Grand Labels Eleven to cut all the bases and layers. The cards used are pink Hunkydory Adorable Scoreable  and black Kanban. The backing paper is from the CD.
I cut, freehand, two figure 8s and mounted the pink one on the black, slightly off-setting it to create a shadow effect. I then tied a silver charm to it before attaching to the card.

I decoupaged and glittered Victoria and gave her pride of place in the centre. I then prettied the card up with a lace bow and button, a Memory Box scroll and some fabric flowers topped with pearls. I added three more pearls to the other side for balance.
An MCS printed sentiment creates the stand and more scrolls for decoration finish the card. It's worthy of a birthday princess, I think.
The previous post showing Victoria is "A Different Steampunk" in case anyone wants to compare the two very different cards.

More Chocolate

I so enjoyed making the "chocolate challenge" card that I decided to use up the leftovers and make a card for a friend's birthday. Seeing as I had craftily gutted the card and paper I used on the previous card, I had just enough to work with to produce this quick and simple card.

The base card was inked with Memento Rich Cocoa - very apt - and the Kanban pearlescent card and Industriana paper were matted and layered on top. I did ink their edges first for some definition.
I cut a doiley with a Cheery Lynn die and inked that with the Rich Cocoa then used a Spellbinder die to cut my MCS created sentiment.

I made a couple of pins with gold wire and beads and placed them under a lace bow. Then I inked the flowers to go with the Cheery Lynn leaves and added some Candi to finish off.
I still prefer a more traditional image topper, but I am impressed with how much I like the effect of these last two cards. Almost good enough to eat...

Emma's Crafty Challenge # 3

This is my entry for Emma's 3rd Crafty Challenge. The theme is CHOCOLATE (yummmmm). When I think of chocolate, I think of a certain brand that uses gorgeous purple foil, hence my choice of colours.

I started with my usual 8"x8" card blank and created layers from a Kanban pearlescent ivory coloured card, a paper from Kanban's Industriana pad and a piece of Hunkydory's Swiss Dots card. I took a length of creamy coloured lace and, using a Promarker, coloured just the centre. I then wound a strip of the lace around the brown card before sticking it down. I tied a bow with the rest of the lace and attached it to the front. I made the "hat pins" from gold wire and some pearlescent beads and tucked them behind the lace.

I adapted the verse and used MCS to print it and a Spellbinder to cut it out and layer it up. The flowers were made using a Crealies die and Hunkydory gold foiled card. A Cheery Lynn die and some pearls finish the card off.
It wasn't until I'd finished this card that I realised that I hadn't used an image as a topper. This was a first for me! I so enjoyed the effect that I will be trying this again.

Second New Home Card

As soon as I saw this topper from Hunkydory, I knew my young Grandson would love it, so, I made this card for him when he and his Daddy moved to a new house. I chose the image because he loves cats and had to leave his behind. As the card was for a boy, I didn't want to highlight the pink from the image, so I picked out the red for the embellishments.

I started with my usual 8"x8" card blank and printed off a backing paper from Polkadoodles Pretty Sweet CD with the roses that seemed to match so well with the image. I layered that onto red Hunkydory silk art card. I matted and layered the image with the same red card and piece of yellow card. I used Spellbinder dies for all the red embellishments and a Marianne die for the leaves. The flowers were coloured to match and the sentiment created with MCS. Needless to say, my Grandson loved his card.

New Home

Today I will show the 1st of two New Home cards I made recently. This one was for the adults and the frogs have a personal meaning for the recipient. I just couldn't resist the corny humour to go with them.

I started, as usual, with an 8"x8" blank and distressed the edges to match the colours in the card. The frogs are from the Jane Netley Mayhew Collection part 2 CD,  available from Joanna Sheen. The backing paper is from the Baby Love CD (no longer available) which I thought went perfectly. I took the frogs into MCS to position them together and create the border around them. I created the captions and sentiment at the same time.
I used foam tape to raise the middle of the captions and sentiment, everything else was kept flat. A Marianne die, some uncoloured flowers and Candi which I coloured yellow to finish it off. The flowers look a bit too much like fried eggs in the photo, I was aiming for them to match the lilies on the backing paper. Oh well...
Next time I'll show the other New Home card I made.

A different Steampunk

I find myself with a few hours peace and quiet while Granddad takes the youngster to play with dinosaurs.  So I thought I'd better not waste the opportunity to post something.
This Steampunk image is from a Jems Design's CD called The Age of Steampunk. It's full of beautiful images of women and girls from the era. This one is called Victoria and I chose her for a young girl's birthday card. I made this card a few months ago but I need another card for a young girl and think I might use this image again.

I first printed out the decoupage sheet on the CD and made up the topper by layering Victoria onto a pink polka dot paper and silver mirri. I glittered up her skirt - because every girl should have some glitter.
I edged a white 8"x8" blank with spun sugar Distress ink. I used black Kanban card trimmed using a Spellbinder Edgeability die and did the same to the matching backing paper from the CD. I attached a strip of velvet ribbon before matting onto the card blank. More black card matted onto silver mirri and the decoupage on top. The sentiment was created in MCS and layered onto black card.
I made a couple of velvet ribbon loops to look like a bow and made the roses. I added scrolls and a feather, some candi and a black button to finish off.

Flowered birthday

This is another commission. I only had 24 hours to make it, whilst looking after a 4 year old, so it had to be an easy card. The brief was 8"x8", floral, to have the lady's name plus "Happy 80th Birthday" and "Special Friend". It was already dark by the time it was finished, so the photo isn't very good. The backing paper is actually pale green and white.

The lovely backing paper and topper are from January's issue of Making Cards magazine. I matted the paper onto a purple A4 sheet of Hunkydory's Adorable Scorable card and used thin silver peel-offs to create the illusion of another layer. I coloured white ribbon with a Spectrum Noir pen and wrapped it around the purple card then layered it onto the card blank. I layered the topper onto a left over piece of the purple card and cut round it to leave a border. I attached it with foam tape to give some dimension. The text panels were created in MCS and printed onto pale green polkadot paper from the Polkadoodles CD Candydoodles. They, also, were matted onto the purple card. I cut out flowers from the remaining backing paper to embellish the sentiments. The Cheery Lynn die and the flowers were coloured with Spectrum Noirs.

I tied a bow with more coloured ribbon then tied a thin piece of wired iridescent ribbon around it and made a bow, curling the ends. A few pearls to finish the job.

Easter Poppet

Seeing as it's Easter Sunday I thought I'd show an  8"x8" Easter card I made for a fellow crafter. This one is an image from Crafter's Companion CD Paintbox Poppets featuring the beautiful artwork of Christine Haworth. Perfect for a non-religious Easter card.

Both the image and the pink backer are from the CD and I matted and layered them onto a blue Kanban textured card. I printed the image a few times and decoupaged it up to give a bit of depth. The tags were edited in MCS and the flowers and ribbons were coloured with Promarkers. A couple of Memory Box scrolls plus Marianne leaves and butterflies finish off the embellishments. Happy Easter everyone.

Red and Black Girl

I wanted to try colouring black hair on this girl as I thought it would suit her and I thought a vibrantly coloured dress was in order, hence the red. She is called Niecey and she's from the Joanna Sheen cd Daisy and Friends.

This was a very easy card to make, I coloured the image with Promarkers and did the same with the flowers and Candi. I matted the vintage writing paper onto an 8"x8" card blank and layered up a couple of swatches from Papermania Portobello Road paper pack. Spellbinders and a Memory Box die to finish. I was quite pleased with the way the whole card came together.

Pretty Tuff Grandson

I'm looking after my 4 year old Grandson today so not getting any crafting done. This image reminds me of him (although he doesn't have the long hair).

The image is from Polkadoodles cd Pretty Tuff and the bouquet of flowers has been added. It was coloured with Promarkers. The blue check paper is from a Papermania collection, the other backing papers are from the Pretty Tuff cd. The green strip across the middle is an off cut from a Kanban textured card. I used various Spellbinders dies and a scroll from Memory Box. The Candi, string and flowers were all coloured with Promarkers so everything matches.