Mans vintage birthday card and CI Challenge.

Hello everyone, hope you all had a lovely Easter. I haven't had time to make anything in this last few weeks, however it's my boyfriends birthday on Saturday so I thought I should make him a card! I am lucky because he has shown an interest in my work and quite likes it phew!!

I based the card on one I made at a class taught by Sue Abbott about 2 years ago, in fact I think it was one of the first cards I made when I first got into craft classes. Its a bit crumpled now, poor thing, but below is a picture of the card made all that time ago. A perfect card template to make to fit any occasion, even if it is 2 years old!

Using the card above for inspiration and having decided I was going to make my boyfriend a card I realised I didn't have any suitable male themed stamps! Luckily I remembered the lovely Crafty Individual images in the little books they do (People and Places.)  My boyfriend lives away and travels up to see me on the train, these images were perfect. 

Below is the final card I made for him, no flowers, no pearls, no lace, but I did manage to get some organza ribbon on it!!

A close up of the front image, the clock stamp was a freebie of the Craft Stampers magazine

And here is the inside of the card, the sentiment is on CI 236 stamp

Its really very simple and plain, I just hope he likes it.

And finally, I was really thrilled today when I received an email from Jean at Crafty Individuals letting me know I was one of the 5 winners of their first ever blog challenges! It was for my altered box entry into the April challenge. This was my first entry into a challenge, so I am  really, really, happy. You can see all the winners over at jeans blog, see below

http://craftyindividualsblog.blogspot.com/

All that's left for me to do is pick one of their gorgeous stamps for my prize, soooooo many to choose from. Oooo and hope my boyfriend doesnt peak at my blog before he comes to see me on Thursday!!

Sharon x

Mini Pocket and Tag Album

Today I'm posting some photographs of a mini pocket and tag album we made in class yesterday at Grimsby Crafts. The Thursday morning class is taught by Sue Abbott and you can see some of her gorgeous work if you click on the link below:

http://sue-paperparadise.blogspot.com/

The little mini albums were so quick to make, which is a bonus for me because it usually takes me at least 3 hours to make anything to do with crafts!! They were also fab because you needed very little to make them! Only two sheets of A4 paper for the pockets, 2 sheets of A4 card for the tags, a strip of good quality patterned paper for the cover and a piece of ribbon!!! How great is that for using up all those bits you have left over from other projects? Of course the cover is where you can go to town, and I can see you making these mini albums for all kinds of things. I already a few ideas already for a couple more I want to make up, but that's for another day lol.

Anyways, here is the book

Sue always encourages us to do add our own flair and ideas in class but my flair seems to leave me the minute I walk into the class!! So, mine was finished at home with a Crafty Individuals word stamp and then covered with glossy accents. I really do need to find some one line sentiment stamps for my work, I think they really add a lovely finish, even though I love my CI words.

And now for my interpretation:

OK, it is time to take a deep breath, I know it's very early, ......................and I am sorry, ............................but I had this fab idea for a ................................................................................

Vintage Christmas' album!!!

 I'm giggling as I write this, I think I must be going mad. SO, here is my early festive interpretation

Do you think it looks vintage? I always thought I knew what vintage looked like until I tried to get the look right. I hope it does.

I found the image online at 'Go Make Something.'  The frame in from Tattered Angels, I embossed this with gold and vertigre embossing powders. The flowers are hand made out of the gold paper that I also used to make the pockets with, I rubbed the edges with good old distress ink in vintage photo. Ooo and I used organza ribbon instead of a satin one, organza ribbon is so pretty. I stamped the tag corners with a freebie CI stamp I recieved with an order (Thank You xx), and then embossed it with gold to try and make them look vintage, I did like the way they turned out. The tags have been left ready for photographs or journaling. I'm not sure if I am going to keep this for myself or give it as a gift!!

Right, I think I need to relax this weekend. Only a week into blogging and I think I may have gone slightly over the top.

Have a lovely weekend
Sharon xx

Crafty Individuals 'Simply Square' Challenge!!

So here is my second attempt, at my first attempt, of entering a blog competition!! I thought long and hard about the simply square challenge, and decided to alter a square box that had originally had a gorgeous silver ring in it, given to me on mother’s day by my lovely daughter. If I am honest I usually throw the boxes into a bedroom draw and they stay there for eternity (I do wear the jewellery though), so by altering it, perhaps it will stay on show somewhere.

Here is the box before I made a start on it. 

I wanted to try and keep it vintage looking, and pretty so I hope I have achieved that.It was all plain and just ready to be crafted into something fab. Oooooo and I should of said, I thought I would stick to the mother / daughter theme too as the gift came from my daughter whom I am very proud of xx

I started by painting it all over, both inside and out, with white gesso and then rubbed it with various distress inks to give it some colour. I then rubbed the edges with vintage photo distress ink to try to make it look, well, distressed!! For the top of the box I used a Crafty Individual image from one of their printed people and places books. I sanded it down just to take some of the light shine of it. I framed this with one of the Crafty Individuals die cut frames. I stamped it with the CI-116 stamp to make it look crackled. I then coloured it with distress inks and triple embossed with clear powder to give it a slight gloss.

I added some flowers, and a couple of tiny punched out butterflies with the smallest pearls for the bodies and of course a word from the CI-156 plate (with added glossy accents to the top.) I then put some lace around the edges, distressed and aged that with vintage photo distress ink and that was it finished.

I think I might make a mini accordion book to fit inside it, but that’s for another day!!

Sharon xx

Crafty Individuals Angel Tag

Yesterday I was going to attempt to enter my first ever blog competition. Over on Crafty Individuals, Jeans Blog, they are hosting their first ever competition. Anyways, as simple as the project matter was, Mine didn't quite work out!!! So, after stamping the image three times, cutting out card, and realising it was never going to work I decided to use 'some' of the stamped images to make a tag instead. I really like tags, not sure what to do with them, but they do look so pretty.

I started by painting the whole tag with crackle paint and then rubbing over 'tea dye' distress ink to age it a bit. The stamped image is the Crafty Individuals CI-086 plate. I stamped it in brown Staz On and coloured it in by painting it with Tim Holtz distress inks. I also stamped the image in a watermark ink so I could emboss the gates in gold.

I took this closer shot so you could see the image and crackle glaze better. I love how old this makes the tag look. The green lace on the bottom of the tag is from Running with Scissors and the organza ribbon in the top, and the tag die was from Grimsby Crafts. Its amazing to think its a plain piece of brown cardboard under all that altering!! Ooooo I do love crafting.

Sharon xx

Vintage Cards and Tags

Ok, so here goes, my first pictures and blog!!

Here are some cards that I made at a recent class I attended at Grimsby Crafts, taught by Sue Abbott. These are the first two we did in class, with lovely little tags.

How gorgeous are these? The images are from the little printed books at Crafty Individuals. The papers are from Basic Grey, Cappella and basics vocab. The frame in the first card was run through the cuttlebug. The words believe, cherish and friends are a Crafty Individuals stamp, stamped in stayzon ink and then glossy accents applied. I love the words with the glossy accents applied and now use them on most of my projects!! lol.

A couple of pictures took closer, loving the mini tags.

And below are the ones I made at home using the same techniques and papers. Not very different I know, but its my interpretation lol. I love the Capella papers and have used them to make several mini books and birthday cards since. Think they are my favourite at the moment. I will post pictures of the mini accordian books at a later date.

The colour is better on the last picture. The light was bouncing up of my fireplace in the sun!! The image was stamped using a Crafty Individuals stamp and coloured up using distress inks (rubbing the pad onto an old cd then using a watercolour paint brush to apply the ink.) The flower is a made up of a printed large one, I have forgotten who does them, and the top bit is a couple of circles punched out of the paper, scunched up to within an inch of it's life, and taaa daa, vintage and distressed flower!!

So, hope you enjoy. Any questions or comments welcomed. And happy mothers day to all you mums out there. I have been truely spoilt, and hope you are too xxxx

Give us a clue?? x

Ok

So people who craft tell me to start a blog!! Apparently its easy but I'm struggling. Help lol. I look forward to being able to post pictures of gorgeous crafty things that I have made. I'm always inspired by others, especially Sue at Paper Paradise (see blogs I follow for her fab work). In fact I always say my things are inspired by Sue and made by Shar xx Please be gentle with me, my spelling is rubbish and my grammar is worse lol.

Xxx

P.s is this spell check American?? Whoopsy xxxx