January Kraftyhands Blog Challenge - Winter Blues

This months challenge is Winter Blues. Now this could mean the sadness if winter, being cold and miserable with Christmas over, or it could mean the winter colours and beauty of blue.

I love my hydrangea bushes and always leave the flower heads on over winter. I tried to catch the winter look of these last year blooms with distress inks and sparkle frosts on the flowers. 

Kraftyhands December Blog.

Christmas No Squares Allowed is this months title.

This months end of year challenge is No Squares Allowed, so the 8 x 8 cards were left untouched. 

After watching the British Craft Network and enjoying Kay Rutter doing a star card demo I decided to use the star idea to make a decoration.

In the Create It Magazine there is a beautiful image of a stain glass window of the nativity scene. So with shape and image chosen I looked for a rich Christmassy paper in which to make the star. I chose one from Vintage Christmas and printed it on white pearl paper.

I mounted the image on one of my favourite dies using a buttery gold mirri card. 

Fronds in gold were added to each arm of the star and finally a pearl at each point.

A thin gold ribbon was added to allow it to hang. It is decorated on the back, but could  have a personal greeting on the back

Pram I have just Finished

Hope this video works and you can see the pram.

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.