Challenge up your life: Challenge #28 White & Gold

Hello Crafters,
guess what, it's Challenge time again. This week's theme is: 

Challenge #28 White & Gold

 

over at

 

I have a different project for you today, no card, but a book.

I die cut the letters and stars from fun foam and adhered them to a cheap notebook from the Dollar store. Then I covered the front and back with one layer of a paper towel and lots and lots of Mod Podge. I made sure to create some nice wrinkles in the paper.

Then I painted the finished cover with acrylic paint and as a very last step I lightly brushed on some gold acrylic paint.

To hide the mess I made on the inside of the cover, I simply adhered a piece of scrapbook paper. 

 

I created three notebooks this way, to give away for Christmas. The others are in colour, so they don't match the challenge, but I'll show them anyway, just to make the set complete.

And the Insides

 

 Now I'm looking forward to your creations in Christmasy elegant white and gold!

Have fun
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #27 Shaker Card

Hello Crafters,

isn't it amazing how time flies? It's almost Halloween. I've been crafting a lot lately, only no cards. My girls and I are having a Halloween party this year, so we had a lot of preparation to so. But right now it's Challenge time again, over at

These two weeks it's all about Shaker cards!

Challenge #27 Shaker card

I got those stars at the dollar store, I wanted to use. And as I was still very busy with Halloween decorations, I wanted something quick and - well - messy. So I created a background with some distress inks and the ink smooching technique.

Then I heat embossed the sentiment and die cut the stars. Instead of foam tape I used non-dimensional adhesive this time, so the stars don#t move as much. In hindsight, I think I would have liked it better with foam. I adhered it all to a black card base, because I thought that would bring out the silver stars more.

So, go haunt your craft space and show us some shaker cards!

Wishing you all a creepy Halloween!
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #25 Treat bag

Hello Crafters,

once again I really had trouble finding time to craft, so today I am late to upload my inspiration for a treat bag.

This time, we're challenging you to create a treat bag of any kind:

Challenge #25 Treat bag

I had Halloween in mind, with bright orange, but didn't want to reproduce what I did last year. Unfortunately it now turned out as a re-do of what I made only a few weeks ago. I really need to get my mojo back. 

I used my pillow box die, because I thought it's the perfect site for a treat bag. I die cut the box in yellowy orange and created a belt for it, sponging the back ground and colouring the lanterns with yellow and orange alcohol markers. 

It's not highly original, but I still like it.
Hope you have a more create time than I do right now.

Love
Ela

Back to school

Hi Crafters, 

where we live, school is starting today. I honestly wish it wouldn't. I really enjoy not having to drive the girls to school every day and not having to send them to bed at any specific time. The summer holidays are always a time of easy going.

Well, it can't be changed, we enjoyed our holidays, and now it's back to business for all of us.

Also my friend's daughter is starting school this summer, and I created a card for her. I don't own a single stamp set for school, so I had to make do with what I had. 

I decided to go with a chalkboard again. I did that before and it's relatively easy, always effective and so fitting, for a school card. So I created a black panel and a craft coloured matte for it. I stamped the matte with my wood grain stamp in brown ink, so it looks like a wooden frame. Then I stamped the sentiment and little images on the black panel and heat embossed them in white. After that I sponged white pigment ink around the edges and over the panel, to make it look like a half cleaned chalk board. The tag was made in the same way.

For the card I wanted an animal to look at the board, so I checked all my critter stamp sets. The little fox from Avery Elle's "more stories" was perfect, but I wanted him to have a school bag. As I don't have such a stamp I checked the Internet for a nice clip art as an example and drew the bag and apple myself on water colour paper. Then I masked off the right side and stamped the fox. 

I watercolour the image with my inktense pencils and fuzzy cut it.

For the card base I had planned to adhere lots of die cut letters white on white to create a faux dry embossed look, but that was too plain and boring. After all, that's for a 6 year old, it should be fun. So I decided the card needed more bright apple green, to tie in the leaf of the apple. I die cut the letters in green instead and adhered them at random on the white card base. 


At last I assembled the card, mounting the fox on foam dots and added glossy accents to the apple and hearts and some silver pearl pen on the buckles of the bag.

For the envelope, I picked a matching bright green ready made envelope and just adhered the letters in white.

I must say, I love how that card turned out. The bright green really makes me happy and it even fits with gift we picked, a book about an inventive frog.

I think I'll create the same card again, because there are still some more kids among our friends who will start school next year, or the year after.And those friends don't know each other, so they will never know. ;)


I hope you all have a great day!

Hugs
Ela

Birthday lanterns with alcohol markers

Hi Crafters,

I made a card! 
Yes, I know, that shouldn't be worth mentioning on a card maker's blog, but I didn't manage a single one all summer. The holidays were all busy busy, and my muse seems to have been on holiday too. 

School is starting next week, with a lot of Birthdays coming up, so I am settling back in my daily business. To activate my creative mojo, I re-created the last card I made,  but with different means and a little twist. 

Last time, I masked off the lanterns and used distress inks to sponge the background. This time I did the whole panel with alcohol markers. I only sponged on a tiny bit of black soot distress ink to darken the edges. 

For the back ground I stamped the images in dark yellow as before but this time I also used my alcohol markers to create the shadows. I created the envelope similarly, but I didn't want the alcohol ink to bleed through so I used my Tombow blender pen for the shadows. The area for the address was masked off of course.

So, what's the twist? Here it is: The inside is not white, but the same yellowish orange as the matte.

I had that idea when I created my first card, but didn't have enough of the card stock, so I decided to try that with another version. I love the bright sunny colour and the little surprise when you open the card. I think I might do that  more often in future. 

So, that's almost it for today. For those of you who are used to comments from me on their blogs: Girls, I didn't abandon you, I just didn't get around anything card making this summer, not even blog reading. I'll be back! Promised!

Lots of love
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #19 Masking

Hello Crafters,

how are you? I can't believe it's Challenge time again, and I haven't posted a single card since the last Challenge. Shame on me, but summer is always a busy time. Besides it's been very hot lately.

So, this time, we're challenging you to use masking:

Challenge #19 Masking

I had a whole lot of vague ideas for this one, but in the end I used some very simple basic masking, no fancy masking fluid and stuff. 

I die cut a stitched panel, stamped my lanterns and coloured them with alcohol markers. Then I masked them off with masking tape and sponged the background in blues and black. The sentiment is from the Flirty Frames set, heat embossed in white.

I matted the panel with some light orange card stock, but I didn't like the way that looked on the white card base. Too plain. So I used all 5 lanterns in the set to create a background on the card base, stamping them repeatedly in dark orangey-yellow ink.

That looked a lot better, but I wanted some more, I wanted shadows around the lanterns. Not too obvious, so I went for a  very light grey. I couldn't use Copics, because I had stamped the background directly on the card base, so I used an ink pad and a blender pen.

I haven't created a matching envelope yet, but I will surely stamp it the same as the background and mask off an area for the address.

So, go ahead and show us your ideas, with all kinds of masking media.


Love
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #18 Sequins

Hello Everyone,

how are you? Guess what, it's Challenge time and this time it's all about sequins!

 

Challenge #18 Sequins

I decided to make another shaker card, because they are just so much fun. Besides I had that idea, to use the flowers from Persian Motives (WPlus9) for a shaker.

I stamped the flowers on a piece of watercolour paper. I had marked the area I needed with the help of my stitched rectangle die before I started. Then I coloured the flowers as usual with my Inktense pencils and a lot of water. 

After the colour had dried, I die cut the panel and cut out the middle with a straight edge, an x-acto knife and some small scissors. That was a bit tricky in places. Then I glued my acetate to the back, added the foam tape and filled the inside with matching sequins.  I also glued a few sequins to the card base, so that there would be some sequins visible at all times.

I am pretty happy with the result, even tough too many sequins stick to the glue dots inside now. I meant to scatter just a few, but  obviously the glue dots I used are a bit too large, so other sequins got stuck to them. But I like it anyway.


So, time for you to join in, show us some cards with lots and lots of sequins!
Hugs
Ela

Private Investigators Birthday

Hi Everyone,

it's time to show you what I've been doing those past weeks. 

It's been my girls' Birthday last week so I spend the last few weeks with preparations. The motto was private investigators. Here are the invitations I created.

 

Very simple, I printed the word (it means Invitation) in red on white card stock and cut the card stock to panels. The font is called "Top Secret". Then I stamped the foot prints all over the panel and adhered it to a grey card base. The stamps I already had left over from a previous project. I cut them myself from fun foam.

I printed the words "Streng Geheim" (Top Secret) in the same font and colour across the envelopes, but unfortunately forgot to take a picture of them.

Next task were the giveaway bags. I got some sweets, cheap toy handcuffs and invisible pens (to be read in black light) for all of the kids. I also printed out a Caesar cipher disc from the Internet and I got a bunch of little note pads, that I made into personalised note books. I am pretty proud of these. 

I cut and scored a black card stock cover to match the pad and stamped the front and back with white foot prints. Then I adhered the red die cut letters (Tim Holtz Alphabetical) to the front, mixing upper and lower case letters. 
In order to get the letters straight, I always arrange them and then use a strip of post-it tape to keep the spacing, leaving the lower edge free of tape, so I can see were exactly I place the word. Then I use liquid glue to adhere them down and let them dry a bit before removing the tape carefully. On the next picture you can see how the note books look when opened.

Of course all those goodies needed to go in a bag. Usually I use small store-bought gift bags and modify them to match the motto, but there are no black gift bags, at least not where I live. So I had to think of something else. Luckily I still had plain white treat bags, about the size to fit a card. 

I needed a good way to close them, therefore I die cut the Stampin' Up "Top Note" die from black card stock and scored it in half. Then I stamped white foot prints across it.
With the books personalised, I needed name tags on the gift bags, but I didn't want to go through all the fuzz with the die cut letters again (we had invited 16! kids...). Therefore I just printed the names, cut them out and adhered them to the black card stock.

Then I filled the bags and stapled the card stock over the top. The hand cuffs didn't fit in, so I used a piece of baker's twine to keep keys and cuffs together and attached them to the bag with another staple, hidden underneath the black top.

For the day itself we prepared a little treasure hunt or actually a private investigator training programme, including games for team work, agility, speed etc. We also included the cipher disc and invisible pen that would be in the treat bags at the end, so they had to decode and puzzle a little as we went along. 

At the beginning of the party we took a picture of each child, so before leaving, they would not only get their "set of basic equipment" (the treat bags), but also their personal "Private Investigator ID card".

I had prepared a word file ready for print with all the cards already filled in, so that I had to add only the pictures during the party. The photo would be were the fingerprint is in my example. After printing I just had to cut them with my guillotine, round the corners and put them in their clips.

We had a great day, the kids loved it all. 

So, that's it from me for today, have a great day
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #7: Monochromatic

Hello Crafters,

it's time again to challenge you over at

This time, it is:

Challenge #17 Monochromatic

I chose a very simple design, with some masking.

The frame is from the Lawn Fawn Flirty frames, the sentiment and leaves are from Paper Smootches. I traced the frame and sentiment with a white gel pen, to make it stand out a bit more. Then I mounted the panel on a craft card base.

For the frame I created a similar design, only craft of white. As I used Antique Linen distress ink, I needed to stamp the images three times each, to darken the colour. But that worked fine.


I hope you'll join us an create lots of monochromatic cards.
Have a nice week-end
Ela

Flirty frames

Hi Crafters,

How are you? I've been rather busy lately, so I didn’t get around to much crafting. My daugthers' Birthday is coming up and I am not at all done with planning. Besides there was our street festival last week-end, which is always a huge affair. As we practically live right next to where they set up the Ferris wheel every year, we can't avoid it either...

This year my girls had three performances with their dance group, which cost me (and them) two full afternoons. 

Anyhow, I managed to create at least one card:

I cut my card base from water colour paper and stamped the frames in black Archival ink. Then I masked off all the frames and stamped the animals and sentiment.

I coloured all the frames and animals with water colours and added a little bling – mainly because I had to hide a spot where I hadn’t waited long enough and some blue seeped into the yellow.

I admit, I am not entirely happy with it, but it’s nice and bright, so I am pretty sure one of my daughters’ friends will like it.


Have a great day
Ela



Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Animal Birthday