Becki’s Ramblings

I’ve been a busy bee today. Well, as busy as needing to rest for half-an-hour every hour-and-a-half allows! Here is the card I made for the current “Fantasy Card” challenge on the Crafts Beautiful website.

I really enjoyed making this. It’s the first over-sized card I’ve mde and took two sheets of A4 card. I used some papers I bought a while ago from Create and Craft and have been meaning to get round to using. They’re so pretty - all fairies and butterflies and glitter. The inside of the card is a whole sheet of backing paper, stuck onto a sheet of A4. The front is another sheet of A4, folded round and stuck to the back of the first sheet, and covered with part of another of the same backing sheets, trimmed to match up with the inside paper. The topper is made from the front of one of the cards in the kit, matted onto some lovely pale gold mirri card with a little frame and picture of a fairy inside it, on 3D foam pads. The tag is also from the kit, mounted onto mirri card and then hole punched with my lovely Crop-a-Dile. The tag is mounted onto 3D foam pads and the ribbon tied onto it is secured at the other end by an epoxy butterfly sticker. I added a beautiful iridescent glitter to the pretty fairy on the inside, and some GORGEOUS iridescent adhesive gems to the mirri card frame. The whole card was then edged with pink ink, to define the borders a little.

I’ve posted the pictures on the website and now have to wait until the competition ends. This is the first cardmaking competition I’ve entered, and I’ve really loved having a brief to work to, rather than just having to come up with something from scratch.

I haven’t mentioned the wonderful ladies on the Crafts Beautiful forum yet. Such a friendly bunch, and soooooo talented too! The forum is based around all things crafty, but I tend to spend most of my time browsing and joining in with the card-making posts. I find the links to other crafters’ blogs inspirational, and find myself quite humbled by just how clever other people are with their crafts. On days when I’m lacking in “oomph” I find there’s always something on there to give me a kick into starting creating again - so, if you’re reading, girls, thank you so very much!

Here are a couple of ATCs I made for the Crafts Beautiful forum’s March swap. I have never made ATCs before, but found that I thoroughly enjoyed myself doing these. The theme was “Oriental”. The butterfly one I called “Butterfly Dreams”, and the pretty one with the blossom and the parasol is called “Cherry Blossom Breeze”.

I used an oriental script paper that I printed off from the Card Creations Plus “Platinum” CD-Rom, together with  elements from a couple of Paper Nation Decoupage Sheets. I then embellished these using Sakura Stardust and clear Glaze pens and added some iridescent flowers and gems. The butterfly had his wings curled and then raised with 3D foam pads, and the edges of the ATCs were inked with co-ordinating pigment inkpads (I have some wonderful cheap ones that are ideal for this - from Tesco, of all places!). I’m so pleased with how they turned out and am starting to understand why the craze has taken off in such a big way.