Playtime

A couple of weeks ago, the Craft Barn which was in Lingfield, moved to just outside Redhill and had a whole lot of demonstrators to celebrate.  I was quite taken by the Exploding Box one of them did.  I've seen Exploding Boxes before, usually three nesting boxes, and hadn't quite seen the charm, but this was something different.

This weekend I was crafting with a group of friends and decided to try it.

The base of the box is only two inches square and the sides are three inches high, so it can be cut from an eight by eight inch square.  Score three inches in from each side and cut out the corners leaving a cross shape.  One of the corner pieces will make a lid (just add a smidge - two thicknesses of card plus a sliver  - to the two inches of the top).

I used one of the smaller dies from the Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles™ on some plain card and used it to frame a pretty floral.  These (eight) pieces were stuck on the sides of the box, inside and out.

The lid just had the plain and floral card layered as had the bottom of the inside of the box.

Before sticking the layers together for the bottom of the box, I cut four slits diagonally by each corner and threaded a strip of acetate through each pair; then bent the acetate up and glued on some flowers and butterflies.

I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the person who demonstrated this, but thank you to her.

An Experiment in Acetate

Not entirely successful - I didn't like the edges which is why I bound them with ribbon.

I've had the Spellbinders Persian Motifs and Accents™ for a while  and wanted to play.  I also wanted to try out embossing with acetate.  I probably shouldn't have been so mean with the acetate and allowed a margin to fold behind the backing card.

I embossed the largest of the motifs onto the acetate (didn't cut it - just used the motif as an embossing stencil).  In the centre I put a smaller motif for my greeting and cut the long accent from the same card.

I trimmed the long strip accent to fit the top of the acetate.  The acetate fixes to the card with double sided tape stuck behind the shapes and a line across the bottom where I was going to put ribbon anyway. 

Binding up the sides hides the edges - I think next time I will either allow a margin to tuck under or punch a decorative edge to the acetate.

Cupcake Wrappers - too good to eat

There are some very pretty cupcake wrappers in the shops - it seems such a waste to use them once and throw them away - especially at the price!  But, with a little imagination, and a complete disinclination to faff around decorating cupcakes, they make good card decorations.

Both of these were made for Easter last year (I know I said I don't do Easter cards, but a new technique, spring, and a dearth of birthdays ...)  I stamped the flower, stamped onto a post-it to mask it while I stamped a script stamp over the top.  I think the die is Spellbinders Label 18™ and I inked the edges with the same colour as the script and flower.

One wrapper did both of these cards - a little judicious snipping, a few gems and a greeting and there you are.

I don't usually do Easter Cards ...

... but this one has spring colours and I wanted a card for someone.

This is the first time I've tried the Fancy Lattice in colour - so of course I used the darkest purple I could find! It needed a strong frame to pull it off, so I used gold mirror card.   I tried several things behind the lattice, but nothing worked - each would have been fine on its own, but putting them together muddied the overall look.  In the end, I decided to go with Spider Web.

The Spider Web puts a bit of texture behind the lattice - I'm still wondering if I should have tried to colour it with a lilac ink, but I'm not sure that fabric will take colour - something to try another time!

Flowers round one corner, butterflies up the other side and a tag from Spellbinders Antique Frames and Accents™ and the card's finished.  I've found that for sticking fiddly stuff like the flowers and especially the pearl centres, a squeeze of a PVA glue spread onto a small square of Cut'n'Dry™ foam is easiest - my PVA always gums up the nozzle - so I can swipe the flower lightly across the glue using some bent-nosed tweezers and place it on the card - and you only get as much (or as little) glue on as you need.

It's behind you!

Although building up layers is fun, it's sometimes more effective to put the focus of the card behind the layers.

I'd found some lovely handmade marbled paper with gold in the marbling in an art shop and didn't want to hide it behind a whole lot of matting and layering.  I used a docrafts card blank with the trellised-edged circle cut out and gilded it with a metallic acrylic paint.  A gold-stamped rose, a touch of ribbon lace and a rosette with the greeting on a tag and the paper takes its true place out of the background.

I had some music score paper for a card for a musical friend and, again, didn't want to lose it in the background.  A bitty pink floral paper with a pale pink glitter frame on top softens the harsh black and white of the score and an arrangement of strips of black glitter card hints an a piano keyboard.

I really love the Spellbinders Fancy Lattice™ die

I was looking at my die collection for a card and automatically picked out the lattice die first - at the moment it's my 'go-to' choice and the rest of the card gets built around it.  I have a serious die (especially Spellbinder) addiction which means I can make variations on the same type of card using the various frames

Here's another white on white with a framed aperture.  I had some die-cuts from the docrafts Vintage Lace™ set and the rose was a perfect fit.  The frame is from the Spellbinders Floral Ovals™ - can't remember which embossing folder has all the butterflies (but any background embossing will work).

I started off by putting the white card and the 6x6 card together with an oval die and running both through together - to make sure the apertures line up - and embossed the card.  As the card is wider than the embossing folder, I ran it through twice with the 'join' at the middle of the oval where there's going to be the frame to cover most and the little that is on show is really too small to be noticeable. Then I sandwiched the fancy lattice and a frame of a shiny pink wrapping paper between the card and the card - my, that sounds awkward - still, it hides a multitude of sins and the inside of the card looks clean.  I wrote the greeting on the back of the card so it doesn't show through - I could have used a liner, but I rather liked the shadows against the back of the card.

To match the rose, I punched flowers from scraps of pink card and glitter card, shaped them with a large-balled embossing tool and foam pad ('stir' the middle of the flower and the petals all turn up a treat) and put assorted pink and cream pearl gems in the centres.  I've found the easiest way to glue both the flowers and the non-adhesive pearl gems is to put a small squeeze of pva glue on a foam pad and pick up the flower/leaf/pearl, swipe it across the pad and set  on the card.  One day I'll find a glue that doesn't set in the nozzle the minute my back's turned!

Mothering Sunday

Now Mothering Sunday is a week ago, I feel I can show the card I made for mum.  The colours were a lot lighter in real life - the purple was a brighter plum colour.

I used the Spellbinders D-Lite Medallion 1 ™ over silver mirror card.  While I was composing the card, I thought that the mirror card looked a bit stark, so I layered some spider web between the two layers.

A foofy rosette bow in plum and mossy green ribbon with a pearl centre and some feathers behind...

... and some tags (again, the colour is brighter in real life) with a greeting.

It didn't matter how I tried, the pearl brad wouldn't go through the card, so it was stuck down with extra-sticky tape - the sort with the red liner.  Does anyone know how to get the liner to go into the bin?  It's so clingy, each time I thought I'd got rid of it, I found it clinging to a different part of my hand!