my Crafty Corner

Cards and other handicrafts made by Jean Straw

Saturday 25 May 2013

Holly for Rudolph

This will hopefully be a quick post today to show you the only Christmas card I've made this month. The theme for our Christmas card group at Chocolate Baroque this month is script and/or text and there are several CB stamps that are ideal for this including this lovely holly one.I stamped the image with black Memento ink and coloured it with Spectrum Noir pens.I used distress inks to shade the background in I think scattered straw and forest moss.I then mounted it onto red card and attached it to a green folded card. I stamped, shaded and mounted the verse to match and fixed it to the card slightly overlapping the main image.To finish off  I stamped the holly flourish with Versamark ink in the top right hand corner and added a little Stickles glitter glue to the leaves, and then smudged a spot of white ink with a pigment pen to the berries to make them look a bit shiny. I am showing you this today as it the 25th and I can enter it for Rudolph's day at Stamping For Pleasure

Thank you for looking and for your kind comments which are all appreciated.

Thursday 23 May 2013

Flower Show Quintiles

The theme for the Quintile swap at Chocolate Baroque this month is The Chelsea Flower Show. My first thought was, Oh good a nice easy one but in fact  I really struggled to get them made in time, my first two attempts finished in the bin. I have never been to the flower show but I have seen bits of it on TV and love flowers of all kinds but the picture I had in my head just wouldn't transfer to the card. In the end I changed my idea altogether and went for a simpler design and used the fact that the show is celebrating it's 100th anniversary this year. I decided to use the same design for both but using different colour schemes. I started by covering the card with paper from Crafty Individuals Spring book and then brushed Brilliance Pearlescent Beige ink through a Crafters Workshop stencil.This is a round doily type design and I thought the little motifs were flowers until I noticed the title on the package is Mini flying Birds, which on taking a closer look I suppose they are but I still think they look quite flowery too.Then I used distress inks to shade the edges in colours to match the flowers I was going to use.The little trellis panel is a Memory Box die, and the mini roses are made with a Britania die, cut out from white paper and coloured with Promarkers as per the video tutorial on the Johanna Sheen website, The leaves are part of a CB stamp coloured with pencils and fussy cut out.The daisy flowers are coloured with distress markers adding a bit more colour with a pencil on the pink ones, then cut out, and the leaves are cut from patterned paper with a Marianne die.I fixed these with a large glue dot in the centre of each flower and when I went back to them in the morning the edges had curled up a little so I tucked some silicone glue under them as they looked better with a little more dimension.
I printed the title on the computer and cut out with a Spellbinder labels die set, I can't remember which number it is.I mounted it onto dark green shiny card cut with next size up die and fixed to to the card.

Thank you for looking and for your comments which are all appreciated.







Sunday 12 May 2013

Punky Birthday.

Today I have this card to show you, I have made it for my niece and though her birthday is not until next week she doesn't read my blog so I think I am safe to show it now. Some may think it an odd colour scheme but it just the sort of thing she will love.
The stamp is from Chocolate Baroque set Punky Romance and I stamped it directly onto a folded white square card with Memento Black Tuxedo  ink.I used several shades of grey Coloursoft pencils for the shading and a black pencil and black fine line pen to emphasise the leaves and swirls.The flowers were coloured with a red distress marker and I used a red glitter gel pen on the butterflies. It doesn't really show in the photo but the main butterfly is decoupaged with the wings slightly raised with silicon glue.To finish the card I added the red and black ribbon to the folded edge and stuck some black gems in the flower centres and stamped the birthday greeting in the top corner. I am quite pleased with this and enjoyed making it especially as I have been lacking in motivation lately.

I am going to enter this at Fashionable Stampers Challenges - Anything Goes
                                                   Crafty Bloggers Network - Os+ Xs  ( Vertical- Gems Stamp Ribbon )

Thankyou for visiting and for your comments which are much appreciated.