Poppy for Pop - JCC #77

This week's challenge over at Jehkotar CardChallenge was to make a Father's Day card using either a tag or a bookmark. Here's my version of it. I wanted a distressed vintage feel for it, so I cut the tag shape from paper, crumbled it, and dabbed with Distress Inks. The colours were first a bit too bright, but applying a light wash of clear water with a waterbrush helped a lot. It also helped when I ironed the tag out again... I backed the tag with cardstock to stiffen it and raised it with foam pads. Small peel-off butterfly and 3 brads add the finishing touches.

Stamps: Penny Black 'Poppy' / Inkadinkado 'Letter'
Colours: Derwent Inktense
Inks: VersaFine / Distress Inks
Brads, ribbon: Tiimari

Lil' birdie - JCC #76

Been making lots of these children's cards lately, this one's for JCC #76. A nice sketch, which I modified a bit for a "normal" card blank instead of a square one. I also had a clear vision of a stamp design for the stamped image (now that sounds a bit awkward), so I changed the centre picture from circle to square. For the boyish look, I used punched stars and buttons, plus just one flower. The chipboard number was a spare from an earlier card, so again it paid off to save everything...

Stamp: Imaginisce
Colours: Derwent Watercolour
Papers: HOTP / Canson
Punch: Tiimari
Ribbon: The Paper Studio
Flower and brads: HOTP
Buttons: Artemio / Rayher

Home is where the heart is - JCC #75

I'd had this card idea in my head for quite some time, but hadn't really gotten round and making it. When a friend of mine bought a flat, I decided it was high time to get on with it. Besides, I noticed that this week's sketch in Jehkotar CardChallenge was really similar to what I'd been pondering. So here's my entry for JCC #75.

Die cut: Cricut 'Plantin Schoolbook'
Flowers: Prima/ Reprint
Stamp: Inkadinkado
Ink: VersaMark
Embossing powder: Ranger
Rub-on: Kaiser Crafts
Heart gem: Tiimari

I cut the city scene with Cricut from black and red paper. I only used part of the whole black strip and only one house from the red. The small heart was leftovers from a border punch. I stamped and embossed swirls on the red flower to echo the doodling and layered it with a couple of white flowers and a heart gem. I used wire to attach the key charm to the flower, no idea where I got that or the ribbon hiding the die cut's edge from. The rub-on was really hard to keep still while rubbing and I had to do some slight retouching here and there to hide the breaking points. I didn't quite stick to the sketch because I felt the card looked better this way, but I think stayed true enough to it.

Shaker card with recycling - JCC #74

I seem to really have taken into these challenge blogs, this time I made a card for Jehkotar CardChallenge. The JCC #74 was to make a shaker card. Now, I've been wanting to try and make one for ages so I jumped at the chance here. I first thought of making an autumn card again, but somehow shaker card reminded me of snow globes and I switched to a winter card instead.

Stamp: Inkadinkado
Punch: Tiimari
Die cut: Cricut 'Accent Essentials'
Chalks: Pebbles Inc.
Tag: HOTP 'Earth's Palette'

I didn't have acetate and, to be honest, wasn't too keen on fiddling with it and foam tape, but I remembered a tip that some products come with plastic packagings ideal to be recycled for a shaker card. I had (of course!) stashed some clear plastic boxes from brads and found one that was just the right size. I took the lid and base apart and used the base here. It really was made for this project as it was raised into square dome shape and had flat edges (man, this is hard to describe...), so no need to use foam tape or pads to raise it, normal double-sided tape was enough.

I couldn't find a suitable paper for the card so I made one myself. I used peel-off snow flakes as masks and dabbed white acrylic paint, diluted with water, around them with a make-up sponge. I trimmed the paper to size and measured and cut out an aperture for the plastic dome. I marked where the plastic's edges were on the card blank (they naturally extended a bit further than the window on the snowflake paper), and stamped the image in the middle of the square.

I punched snow flakes from textured iridescent paper but wanted something else as well. At this point I didn't remember I had snow flake spangles in my stash (did found them later but by then it was too late). Would have used them otherwise, since the paper is too light weight. I found some largish silver heart and star spangles (freebies from a mag), though, and decided to have a go at punching these (I find spangles diffult to incorporate into projects). Stars didn't have large enough area where to punch, but hearts were easier. I turned the snow flake punch upside down, positioned the spangle by tapping and tilting the punch lightly and when happy pushed the punch knob against the table. It took a lot of pressure (almost all my body weight, to be precise) and the punch jammed every time, but in the end I managed to punch my silver snow flakes. I had to press the cutting edge back up from the underside and occasionally fish the spangle bits from the punch, so it wasn't exactly easy, and this may break (or at least dull) your punch, so don't try with your best and most expensive one. Mine was really cheap, and I was quite surprised that it didn't break.

Next I had to assemble my shaker box. I fixed double-sided power tape onto card blank where I had marked the edges of the plastic dome to be, piled my punched snow flakes and some clear micro beads in the middle of the stamped image, carefully peeled the backing from the tape and pressed the plastic dome onto the tape. The dome's edges disappeared under the patterned paper, which I fixed with the power tape again. I cut the white snow flake with Cricut, rolled it through Xyron and coated it with white/iridescent glitter. The plastic mesh ribbon had to be streched taut to narrow it enough, and my mistake was that I didn't attach it before fixing the patterned paper onto card blank. Stupid, stupid, stupid... It took a lot of battle to actually manage to hide the fraying ends, and it'll definitely be a while until I use it again. To finish, I chalked around the edges of the dome, fixed the glitter snow flake with a foam pad, wrapped a piece of silver ball chain around the foam pad and secured by locking the balls against each other, and added the greeting tag.