Cards with Faux Metal Flowers

Posted on October 24, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

The painting is not going well, the lap top is still temperamental and the weather is changeable – it being spring and all – and I have not posted for ten days!

The desk top is buried under a pile of papers and inks and paints and heavens only knows what and I end up working in that little 10 cm square empty spot in the middle:

Now before continuing with my tale I must just fill you in a little more. I am an enthusiastic fan of Vivian Keh, whose blog ‘Contadina K’ is peppered with beautiful and inspiring work and who often makes videos to share her talent. [If you are a card maker and haven’t, you should check her out]

Vivian has been making gorgeous cards [check ’em out here] which kind of inspired me to get out my embossing folders and play around a bit with them – I can’t remember why precisely, but something was kicked off in me and I left her blog and wandered off to the play room and hauled ’em out ………. I didn’t document the process, but all that work can be seen as the background to what comes next……….

On with the story.

If you are a long time reader of this blog you will know that when things are not going well in the arty-farty part of my life I make flowers.

So, I’ve also been making flowers.

This time I played with water soluble pastels and pastel gliders [which are similar to Faber Castell Gelatos] only with a more affordable price point 🙂 I randomly splotched colours all over some 160gms water colour paper and then spread them about with a very wet paintbrush.

See those chopped up bits of paper lower left of the photo, that’s all that is left of those lovely colourful papers I created.

I die cut as many flower and leaf dies as I could fit onto each piece of paper and got a wildly varied collection of colours and patterns – some look really interesting and pretty:

Others not so much:

Some colour ways just did not sit well with the cards I had already begun to prepare for them – using the embossed backgrounds remember – so I got out the ‘Twinking H20’s’ and started playing around to see what happened.

What happened was that as I layered the different colours I began to get a metallic look.

This was exciting and interesting so I forged ahead and made these:

The card on the right is not finished – it is still waiting to be flowered up, but here you can see one of the embossed backgrounds I’ve been wittering on about. The other two are already tucked away safely in their cellophane bags, maybe not so very clear, but you get the idea – yes? And those beautiful backgrounds are really my favourites – more about how they were made a bit later.

Here is the latest card I made, not yet bagged up so let’s have a closer look at it:

I make these cards as durable as I can. They are made from A4 200gsm card and the inside back is given the same matting format as the front which makes it sturdier and able to support the weight of the card front. Here is what the inside looks like:

Lots of space to write your message!

Closeups to show the faux metal look:

I think the above photo shows best the metallic look – the leaves look weighty and see, even the tiny butterfly has a metallic look.

In real life they all do really and truly look as if they are made from metal – this morning I actually had a tinge of disappointment when I picked up a metal looking butterfly [made using the smallest Martha Stewart butterfly punch] and it had no weight to it – and I made the darn thing!

Here’s another flower with a copper look to it:

Once the H20’s have dried I run a darker ink around the edges and some raised parts of the flower and leaves, which gives a more finished look to each piece I think.

This card also has my favourite background – remember those first two cards, here is how they were made. I used two Spellbinders ‘Impressabilities’ – this one called ‘Diamond and Stars’ and the one used at the top of this post called ‘Butterflies’ – as templates and inked through them with three to four different coloured chalk inks. I think the colours are soft and pretty and they work well – Yay, successful backgrounds. 🙂

So that’s what I’ve been up to the past week or so – just playing around to see what happens………………

What do you think?

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did 🙂

When Aged Laptops Go Bad……Make Gift Bags!

Posted on October 3, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

It’s been 9 days since I last posted – and I’ve also been missing out on some of my bloggie friends doings – due to a lap top that has decided to stage a ‘go slow’. I was even stopped from leaving comments on some blogs I did read by my [former] flat and shiny pal!

I went shopping with YD and priced new computers – its not in the budget, but I can’t imagine life without access to the blog-o-sphere, email or ‘Words with Friends’ on Facebook!

As always happens to me when I go shopping, we ended up looking at something that resembled a small space craft before we realised we had some how gone well beyond our brief and needed to regroup! Now I know what I need and am waiting for the ‘pre-Christmas’ sales to start.

Having told my flat and shiny former pal what is on the cards, today is a good day, and she hasn’t stopped altogether – yet……. so here’s hoping. I’m hitting ‘save draft’ at the end of every sentence just in case.

I wrote a post about a week ago and lost the whole thing when flat and shiny had a major fit and shut down completely and unexpectedly and left me all high and dry….. so I went into the play room and got on with my latest project.

Here’s what my desk looks like – its three photos moving right to left along the length

YD asked me to make some gift bags – I’ve never made them before and thought it would be pretty straight forward – but it ain’t! The first half dozen all have sloping bottoms because I still don’t know how they make ’em without adding a little extra paper across the bottom… Anyhow, I eventually worked out that I needed to seal the base with an extra strip of paper and once that was sorted I raced ahead and produced about 20 bags – here is a small assortment of some that are finished:

This is one for a bloke – no ribbons here, but some lovely jute which has been in my stash since the 70’s when we all made hanging macrame coffee tables 🙂

I used a pretty old paper collection from ‘My Mind’s Eye’ called ‘Damask’, Martha Stewart punches for the top trims and loads of organza ribbon.

I’ll show the rest when they are finished!

Thanks for coming by – love that you did! 🙂

A Card For Kerry

Posted on September 16, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Hi all!

You may remember this card – I made it for my ED’s birthday back in March

ED’s sister-in-law liked it very much and has asked that I make something similar for her.

I had the camera sitting on my desk, so pretty much was able to document the process step by step – ergo if you want to know how I make a card, read on! 🙂

I used 2 A4 pieces of white card stock, one folded in half made the card base, the second went to the die machine and was put to work making all the add ons. I think all the dies I used – with one exception – are Memory Box dies and I also used a Martha Stewart punch.

The Contented Crafter

I embossed the house wall with my brick embossing folder than rubbed three different shades of reddy-browns in Tim Holtz stains over it. The die cut window was treated to some white acrylic paint and grey ink to shabby it up.

That done, I turned my attention to the inside. Wallpaper was added to both sides of the card and another window frame was fitted with some recycled plastic packaging fitted between the two frames to serve as glass, so we have a proper window:

The Contented Crafter

Next the architraves and floorboards were created. I used a Couture Creations Die at the top:

The Contented Crafter

I coloured the floor boards with water colour pencils and am really happy with the result!

Yay water colour pencils!

The next step was to create the cat and the girl – Benson and Kerry:

The Contented Crafter

They were stamped onto white card stock and coloured with alcohol ink pens:

The Contented Crafter

Then they were cut out – to you non-crafters this is called ‘fussy cutting’ and takes forever

The Contented Crafter

This is where I discovered I’d made an error with my calculations – the window was too far above the floor and the cat couldn’t see out the window – some creative thinking was called for:

The Contented Crafter

Puss sits on top of the pile of books so he can see out the window:

The Contented Crafter

I made the flower garden and forgot to photograph that process too – sorry!

Now we are getting to the finishing touches – ‘So, what’s all this for?’ you ask:

‘Well,’ I respond ‘You remember when I cut out the window from a die? Where the panes of glass go there are little square discards of white card. When cut in half they are just the right size for some banners….”