Category Archives: Card Craft

Hand-crafted greetings cards: techniques and final results

Colouring the way nature intended…

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Challenge time again over at the ‘Less is More’ blog, and this week it’s the colour theme: they’ve used this fabulous picture from Design Seeds to define the colour scheme –

ThankfulTones

I decided to colour match the swatches using Versacolor small inkpads and came up with the following colours: Cement, Bisque, Khaki, Charcoal and Umber. They are close matches – as always with colour matching, each monitor, printer and eye is different resulting in all sorts of different interpretations. I also noted that the wet inks are significantly different to the dry…

But here’s my challenge entry – one of my favourite stamps (from Hero Arts I think) along with the label and sentiment from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous:

With Love

I inked all over with the Umber, before removing ink over the various plant parts using a tissue or wet wipe. I then carefully inked in with the other colours – the small ink pads come in handy. It would have been a one layer card, except I didn’t notice the first impression of the label had a filled in centre… overzealous inking with a new pad!

Update: 16-Aug-13
This card was chosen as one of the showcase ‘winners’ on the challenge blog 🙂

 

So grateful summer’s here…

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Though everything was a month late at the allotment this year, I did actually have blossom on the fruit trees, unlike last year, and some fruit has set. Unfortunately, the cherry tree is still having problems and I have just one cherry ripening. Not so on this card for The Crafting Cafe, featuring LEJ Designs ‘Blossom’ digistamp:

 

For more details on how I made the card, check out my post over at The Crafting Cafe.

Papercrafted Clematis Card

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As I type, my head is pounding, my ears are popping, and the light-sensitive lights are on and it’s only 11:25am. Something to do with the English heatwave breaking down – there’s thunder and lightning and I love it!

Another challenge stimulated a spurt of creativity this morning – it’s another for the ‘Less is More’ blog, and this week it’s ‘hand made flowers’. This card features my handcrafted clematis flower, using the Leone-em bumble bee paper punch to create the petals and an ash leaf punch for the leaves, shaped with an embossing tool pressing into funky foam. The centre is a sun punch, with a smidge of Aubergine ProMarker underneath to darken the centre and similarly shaped. A quick mount on Bazzill pre-embossed cardstock, and a strip of thick white card with the sentiment from WOW! Everday Sentiments clear stamp set embossed with WOW! Metallic Silver embossing powder.

Handcrafted Clematis Card

I’m in the process of planning a ‘Papercrafted Flowers’ workshop at my studio in Leicester – if you’re interested, let me know below and I’ll keep you informed 🙂

Playing with ProMarkers

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It’s been quite a while since I had chance to enter any web challenges, and since planning workshops is going fairly well, I decided to use time today to put that right. I’ve got out my ProMarkers again, and created two cards:

For you...The first is for the ‘Less is More’ one layer challenge this week, which requires that I use a ‘not square or rectangular’ card. I used string theory to draw out an ellipse template and transferred this to a card made from my favourite white coated cardstock (from Rymans) before stamping the image [docrafts] using Memento Tuxedo Black. I coloured the bears with Blush, Saffron, Ginger and Cinnamon, with Meadow Green/Apple and Pastel Pink/Salmon Pink for the roses.

Picnic timeThe second is for the ‘Passion for ProMarkers’ weekly challenge, which this time set the task of ‘set the scene’. I stamped the background image [Hobby Art – Countryside Scene] in Archival Jet Black onto watercolour paper before using AquaMarkers in Frost Blue/Perwinkle, Celery/Spring Green/Fern Green and Viridian with Granite and a waterbrush pen to colour. The picnic blanket was drawn freehand and coloured with ProMarkers – Warm Greys 1-4 over Lipstick Red. The girl is a stamp from Bild Malarna ‘Mimosa – Wonderful Day’ and complements the scene beautifully – she is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with ProMarkers: Pastel Yellow/ Sunflower/Gold and Caramel and Lavender/Orchid/Amethyst and skin tones blending Blush/Oatmeal and Apricot.

Summer Garden Card

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Summer Garden

It’s ‘Summer & Sunshine’ over at the WOW! Embossing Powder blog, and the challenge is up and running. My take on the theme is to create this summer garden inspired by the view from my studio. It’s completely coloured with embossing powders. For the full details, see my post here.

Yin Yang

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Yin-Yang

It’s my last official day as a student (though my student ID card is still valid for another month… what can I find with a discount on? 😉 ), and I’ve popped down to the studio to do a bit of creative work before some of the tutors and my class mates come round this evening for an end of course party. These cards are part of my colour development work – I used Photoshop to create an inverted (negative) version of the distress ink colour palette and then colour matched the results to the inks. This way, I was able to quickly find the complementary colour for each ink, that being the colour opposite on the colour wheel. Frayed Burlap complements Weathered Wood, and Bundled Sage complements Dusty Concord. I added even more yin and yang with the Retro Circles texture fade folder.

Mixed media cards

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It’s demo time again for the Manic Stamper Craft Club, and I’ve spent the last four sessions teaching various techniques, including distress inks, image transfer, acrylic paints and myriad other art materials. There was a request that we take time out this month to put the techniques into practice, so I’ve spent a while in the studio coming up with these three cards:

The bath time one features image transfer, distress inks, and faux rusted enamel technique. The flowers use acrylic paints for background, stamping, tinting and covering metal embellishments. The final card uses the Ranger Summer Palette Challenge colours in distress inks, stains and alcohol inks as well as a bit of shine from Perfect Pearls, trying the capture the long car journeys for our summer holidays! Hopefully they’ll be enthusiastically received as examples of mixed media chemistry 🙂

Embellished embossing powder moulding

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IMG_3652

 

It’s a ‘Nature’ theme over at WOW! Embossing Powder Challenge blog this month, and for my design team contribution, I’ve used their pansy mould to make and embellish the centrepiece – all made with embossing powders. For a mini-tutorial, follow this link…

 

Bon Chance…

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‘Good Luck Card’ by Neil Burley


For the ‘Lady Luck’ theme this month over at ‘The Crafting Cafe’ I chose the ‘Moving Car’ digi stamp from the wonderful Bugaboo Stamps, our sponsors. I think it’s such a versatile image, whether for moving house, emigrating, marriage… perfect for wishing someone good luck. For more details, see my challenge blog post.