Christmas 2011 - Tag 4 - Crackle

I love that crackle effect in Tag 4, but don't have any crackle paint, and don't seem to be able to reproduce the effect well enough with the PVA & acrylic method. However, there is another way!

"Tag 4"

The background for this tag was made by swooshing the tag through picket fence distress stain and Tumbled Glass & Weathered Wood  inkpad ink on a craft sheet (picket fence is the only distress stain I have!), then I stamped snowflakes & little deer from a Kanban stamp.

"Joy Bauble"

The bauble ornament, joy & snowflakes were diecut from empty cat food box, then stained with Picket Fence 2 or 3 times, drying with a heat tool between applications to get a good coverage. The crackle effect? Well I have discovered this fantastic crackle stamp on the Alice 1 set from Indigo Blu stamps. It was inked separately with Tumbled Glass and Weathered Wood ink, and the stamps heat-embossed with clear embossing powder on each application of ink. The great thing about crackling like this is that the effect you get is much more controllable.

After crackling, the bauble was backed with some music card and the gaps filled in with Glossy Accents for that resin effect.

"Snowflake"

Two snowflakes were cut from a Sizzix Snowflakes die, crackled, then layered and fixed to the card with Pinflair, adding a small blue pearl to the centre just to finish it off.

"Buttons"

My button box was raided again. There wasn't any tuille in the stash, but I did find some enviromesh in the greenhouse! The enviromesh was cut into strips and used to decorate the buttons, bauble and tag.

"Acetate snowflakes"

No snowflake edge die available here, so a couple of snowflakes were diecut from acetate and a couple more punched. These were fixed to the card with some holographic glitter glue to add a little sparkle and simultaneously disguise the fixing.

"Snowflakes"

The edges of the snowflakes were accentuated with a little Picket Fence distress stain.

"Ribbon"

Some white satin ribbon was added to the bauble along with the tuille.

"Side view of tag showing dimension""

The snowflakes, bauble & buttons were all fixed to the tag with Pinflair glue.

Entered for the following challenge:
Let's Ink it Up - Christmas Projects
Stampalot Challenge - bingo (punch, tags, ribbon)

Tatty Button Christmas Tree

This week a package dropped through the door with a couple of Tatty Button Christmas stamps from a magazine giveaway. The button Christmas tree is fab and is used on both these cards:

"Got carried away with the buttons!"

The background for both cards was made by heat embossing snowflakes in white onto white card, then inking with Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky distress inks. The trees were stamped onto white card with Charcoal Versacolor ink and heat embossed with clear powder before diecutting and decorating with distress inks and buttons. As you can see on this first card I got a bit carried away with the buttons, which are all recycled from my button box, but I think the final result is quite pretty.

"Tatty Button Tree"

This second card shows off the stamping better. A few of the stamped buttons were coloured with promarkers. The real buttons here are cheap, black plastic ones that were decorated by dabbing with Adirondack silver mixative diluted with a little alcohol ink blending solution. The buttons were fixed onto both cards with pinflair dimensional glue.

Entered for the following challenge:
Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Challenge - diecuts
Truly Madly Crafty - Inspiration Photo

Robin and the Blue Tits

Robin and the Blue Tits. Sounds like the name of a 60s band.

"Robin - front of card"

But no, it's a Christmas card using Graphics Fairy images...

"Blue tits - inside of card"

and a tunnel of die-cut glitter card snowflakes.

"Top of card showing construction"

Hope you like it!

entered for the following challenges:
Winter Wonderland

Blue tit Christmas

I finally made a start on my Christmas cards this week and thought I'd share this one with you first.

"Blue Tit Christmas"

Birds always make good subjects for cards and this fabulous Graphics Fairy image is no exception to the rule. The sentiment was cut from another vintage image, and the acetate tunnel construction gives lots of depth to add extra blue tits flocking around the crumbs. There's even one peeking at you from behind a snowflake in the bottom right of the card.

"Top of card showing construction"

This same image has been used on a few cards and there's a better one for you tomorrow if you fancy another visit :)

Entered for the following challenges:
Crafting When We Can