Kraftyhands Christmas Cheer

Here is my sample for the November Challenge from Kraftyhands.

For this months challenge I chose the lovely Santa image from the Create It 3 magazine. I wanted some heavily patterned paper fro the scroll and the background so I looked in the Finishing Touches CD.

 Had some mucky fun with inks to make the papers look old and worn.

 Then to add the magic of Christmas I added some of Chloe's chunky gold glitter, gold ferns and a dark red silky crush ribbon.

I think that the stamp was a freebie from a magazine.

Tag Challenge for Kraftyhands

When the challenge title was chosen I got excited, all that ink and distressing.

Time to get inky and messy.

I have always loved this image from the CD so I built it around her.

Using strips of backing paper I glued it to the tag. I distressed a piece of paper from an old book and added some 3D paste in the form of dots. The paper was then torn and the edges embossed in gold.

The cogs are cut from craft card, inked and embossed in the same gold.

The key is wooden, inked in green and embossed in gold.

The words were printed out on the computer and then inked to look old. 

Butterfly Botanicals British Craft Network Samples.

Large Butterfly Card.

Side view of 8 x 8 card.

Inside of the card

Card front

As soon as this CD arrived for the samples to be made I just fell in love with it. 

The combination of backing papers and butterfly images are fantastic. The CD has a Victorian Butterfly collection feel about it but with paper butterflies.

The images on Kraftyhands  CDs are always so good that you can play around with them and I like to push it to the limits sometimes and resize  them.

I had in my mind a k card because I wanted to have some movement in the central aperture with a butterfly dangling. It was hard to choose which butterfly to use, but I finally decided on this one. 

Using the snapshot tool on Adobe I cut and pasted the butterfly into Word then enlarged it to fit on the front of an 8 x 8 card. It was printed on white card so the bright white needed to be toned down with distress in to make it less stark. I printed a second butterfly and cut this one out without the antenna. This means that when you decoupage the second one on top you have a clean image below to make it look real. The wings are slightly curved and held in place with silicone glue. The edge was embossed in an old gold embossing powder. To give some texture to the front I added black organza ribbon with cream lace. The gold embellishment is made out of paper clay and painted gold.

For the inside I used a die to cut the aperture and tonic butterfly dies. The side panels are gold card embossed with a butterfly embossing sheet. The butterfly is made by printing two butterflies and gluing them back to back with a thread fixed in the middle for it to hang by.

I added a sentiment but it could have been left without one and become a piece of  decoration. 

I think if I was giving or selling  this card to someone I would present it in a box.

Hope you like the card.

Septembers Kraftyhands Blog Challenge

I cannot believe that the month has gone so quickly. Here we are again with another challenge from Kraftyhands. 

This months challenge is Autumn colours and it was not difficult to find an image on the A Little Bit Naughty CD. These ladies are lovely, plump and fun.

I chose this image because of the colour of her bikini and the ripe wheat. Also I have had these red leaves for ages in my crafty store and they fit perfectly. 

I made the background with a stencil and distress inks.

It is over to you now to show us your creations.

August Kraftyhands Blog Challenge

This is my version of the Sketch for this months challenge. I like working to a sketch as it takes out the planning of how to construct your card and you can just play with the images. I wanted to make a very pretty feminine card to celebrate this years lovely crop of flowers.

July Kraftyhands Blog Challenge.

June Kraftyhands Blog Challenge

Floral Fancy

This months challenge is Floral Fancy.

I used the Floral Fantasia CD, not a hard choice to go straight to.

I love lilies but orange is not one of my favourite so I chose this image as a bit of a self challenge.

I printed the backing paper straight onto A4 card then folded it to form an easel card.

The topper is decorated with an ivy stamp repeated three times at the bottom and embossed with Wow powder. The blue ribbon on the right of the flower image is highlighted with some gold glitter.

Sometimes the stopper on an easel card irritates me as it does not lie correctly. I decided to try using pearl beads to hold the image a little further back from the topper. I like the look and am going to us it again. I did not add a sentiment as I like the phrase on the image and feel the message inside would be suitable. It could be Birthday, New Job, Graduation or Thinking of you card. 

Hope you like.

Crafty Wishes.

Laura XXX