my Crafty Corner

Cards and other handicrafts made by Jean Straw

Saturday 25 August 2012

Alphatags Again


Yes it's that time again, although I actually made these tags over a week ago but just haven't got around to doing the blog. As you will probably see I struggled somewhat this month with the letter Q,and though I had one or two ideas I ended up with Q for question mark, and even this hasn't turned out quite as I intended it to. However I do rather like the colours I used and I hope the person who receives it wont be too disappointed.The base tag was coloured with alcohol inks in Expresso,Terra Cotta and Willow with some gold added at the end with a Krylon pen. I then stamped some Chocolate Baroque swirly corners with versamark and embossed them with WOW gold fine detail embossing powder, and some curly Qs with brown Stazon ink.The question mark I drew by hand onto grunge paper and cut it out. I tried several methods of colouring it with various ink pads and stains but didn't like any of them and while searching for something else I found a jar of Viva Precious Metal Colour in Blue Lagoon that I had forgotten about and tried it out. It is a lovely colour and went well with my background so I went ahead and gave it two coats of paint. I still wasn't really happy with it so I ran it through the Cuttlebug with a Craft Concepts embossing folder, and then just touched up the ink a bit and edged it with the Krylon pen and attached it to the tag with foam pads. I also used the gold pen to edge the tag and the hole reinforcer.
                                     
    For R I went for Romance and Roses. I covered the tag with pink paper from an Artylicious Echoes of Italy pack, and again stamped the lovely swirly corner from the Chocolate Baroque nature swirls set, using Billiance Pearlescent Crimson ink.The Romance image is also a CB stamp from a set called Romantica, stamped I think with Adirondak Raisin and embossed with WOW pearl powder. I trimmed the bottom of the tag with a Fiskars edge punch and used the pearlescent crimson ink and a little dusty concord DI to shade round the edge. The roses and leaves are from my stash but were the wrong colour so I altered them a bit with some pearly paints from my Artquest Sparkling Pastelles pallet. The heart is one I made some time ago with a Das air drying clay in a silicon mould, and  I used several layers of ink and paint to get the colour I wanted. I finished the whole thing off with some ribbon and pearls and a piece of very pale pink lace through the hole.

I now have to set my thoughts to next months letters, S and T which should be a bit easier and then on to the really nasty ones!!. To be honest I have been lacking in inspiration lately, but I have been making some ATCs this week which I might show you later, so perhaps it is returning. Thank you all for dropping by, I love to hear from you.

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Blue and Green


  This is the first time for a while that I have got round to entering the Less is More Challenge. This being the the first week of the month their theme is a colour one, namely Blue and Green, which I believe used to be a taboo combination but seems to be OK now. I think the modern shades make them more compatible.    
 I used a white square base card  and used post-it notes with a with a circle die cut from the centre to add an inky background.I used Distress Inks in Shabby Shutters and Bundled Sage. I then Stamped the Hero Arts image over the top with Broken China ink. I can't tell you whose the birthday greetings stamp is because it is a wood mounted stamp with no name on it.  I then just added a matching ribbon across the bottom.   I apologise  for this awful photo, it makes my card look really out of shape but I can assure you it is really square.
I will also enter this at Make it Monday, anything goes.
I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately I was without a computer for most of last week.It's back now with hopefully less gremlins to frustrate me and prevent me from visiting all of your blogs.
Thank you to all who look in and for your lovely comments. Jean