Star Card

Yet another treasure tutorial found on the web, this time from Maria. It uses a 12" x 12" sheet of card stock, some scraps of pretty paper and embellishments, you choose. I had some greenish blue papers I wanted to use so that became my base.

Thanks Bella Mio for the tutorial which is found here http://pysseltagen.blogspot.com/2011/03/tips-och-trix-torsdag-en-ny-kortvikning.html

Folding Card

Found yet another great tutorial for making a folding card. This is quite a substantial card as the base is made from a 12" x 12" piece of cardstock folded and covered with smaller triangles and squares of assorted pretty papers. I could not begin to explain the template and folding of the card so I will give you a link to the StampARTic site where I found this. I do wish I had a lace paper edge punch it gave Marianne's card a beautiful finish. Instead I edged the cardstock with a string of tiny peearls. In the middle of the tie wrap I embossed a square of cardstock with Watermark Versamark and clear powder. I then decoupaged two more layers of the same stamp only with decreasingly smaller pieces using sticky sponge squares to give it height. Thank you Marianne for the tutorial. Here is the site http://stampartic.blogspot.com/2010/11/folding-card-tutorial.html

Thank you for visiting my blog.

First Time Buyers?

The woodpecker house I made has only been up for a week and already there has been some interest. This pair of woodpeckers has been flying around, landing on neighbouring trees and finally checking out the house. So far neither of them has been inside, they just look in the hole from time to time. I hope they nest in it, would be great to see some little ones fledge from it.

Book Box

While browsing through some blogs from Norway I came across a delightful design for a Book Box on the Papirdesign-blog which was a box made as a decoration for Easter by Monica. I contacted Monica who told me that she had learned how to make this at one of the Papirfest classes but she gave me the following link for a excellent and easy to follow tutorial.
http://whiffofjoy.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-box-tutorial-by-michele-roos.html
Thank you Monica and Michele.

It is my dear friend's birthday soon so I decided to make a card to go inside the front cover of my box and to put her present inside the box. The box is embellished with pretty papers, ribbons, charms and beads. In the center of the front cover I stamped a pretty image then embossed it with pearlescent powder. I then used the same stamp to emboss a triple layer of UTEE and final layer of the matching pearlescent powder while hot on a Formica kitchen counter sample tile and placed it exactly over the first stamp to raise the detail. Now to buy the present, something pretty, some jewelery perhaps?

Carte a Jouer #14

This fortnight's challenge over at http://carteajouer.blogspot.com/ is a theme of a keyhole and if I have understood the french it is with some sort of embossing. First I took the one-eyed Jack and masked his face with painter's low tack tape. I painted the whole card with black gesso. Covered the whole card with versamark watermark ink and gave it three layers of UTEE. When cooled down I covered it again with versamark watermark and then perfect pearls in two shades of blue. Again I heated the UTEE with my heat gun until it was liquid on the surface then quickly stamped a rubber stamp with tiny hearts into the UTEE. To help with the release of the stamp I had also covered it with versamark watermark before stamping. Finally I poked around with the tip of my scissors to find the painters tape and removed it and its coating of UTEE from the card leaving the Jack's face image showing through. Next I cut out a small piece of cardstock into the shape of a keyhole and repeated the whole process on this embellishment but used green/gold and red perfect pearls. I edged the keyhole with gold leaf pen and the background card with silver leaf pen and attached the keyhole to the card with E6000 glue. The words "One Eyed" are stickers.

Church Birdhouse, Bat Cave and Woodpecker House

So as you can see I am hooked on making birdhouses. I made the Little Country Church birdhouse with the instructions from the same book and the Little Country Cottage house. The other two were from some other books I got from the library adapted to my style. The bat house cut a piece of wood into the shape of a bat to add to the top and the woodpecker house I added bark to the outside after varnishing the box with 3 coats of polyacrylic. The books I read said that the woodpeckers like a deep box that looks like a tree and if you add some wood chips inside it will encourage them to nest in it. Well here's hoping that I get some birds to nest in my boxes, and some bats to use their cave, with the mosquitoes here in the summer they will be a definite plus.

Art n Soul Challenge - Postcard with metal element

The challenge for this month is a 6" x 4" COLLAGED POSTCARD AND YOU MUST incorporate METAL somewhere. I printed one side of a piece of cardstock with the word Postcard at the center top and 4 lines for the address down the right half. For the front I took a piece of heavier cardstock, in fact a cereal package, and rolled pink, white and lilac acrylic paint in all directions across one side. I next stamped a pattern on this in a darker purple, unfortunately this does not show through the lace that I then covered the card with. Pink and purple flowers were then hot glued onto the right hand side of the card. I cut a piece of metal tape into a lattice pattern with my cuttlebug and stuck it to the right of the flowers. I stamped and embossed the word "ADORE" onto an oval piece of cardstock and edged it with pearls and flower ribbon. The front and back pieces are then glued together. Hope my swap partner likes my contribution.

Cottage Birdhouse

I recently got a book called "Making and Painting Victorian Birdhouses" out of the local library. I am hooked!!!! I drew the templates for this little cottage on a fencing panel and my partner very kindly cut the pieces of wood for me. I nailed the box together and painted according to the pattern and roofed with 3M non-slip tape to look like roofing shingles. For my first attempt at making a birdhouse I am very pleased. Next project is a Country Church :-)