Thursday 19 May 2011

There's no Present like the Time (posted by Jo) and, yes, you did read that right!




I was excited to have Debbie's great project to work with this month as we have come very close to choosing her projects before. She is a designer we all admire. But strangely, the things I loved most about her box card were things I didn't carry through when I made my own. I intended to go with Debbie's colours and to choose a similar stamp as I love anything with even a hint of ironwork. But things changed along the way as they often do. I was going to go with architectural stamps and make something for my son who is a student architect. But I eventually settled on a time theme. I made a masterboard using stamps by Paperartsy and The Artistic Stamper. I embossed in gold and inked the background with Tumbled Glass and Vintage Photos Distress Inks (I've always admired people who can pull off the blue/brown combination). I used the resulting papers more sparingly than Debbie did with hers as I thought it would look cluttered with all sides of the box covered. On the front page I mounted a strip of the paper onto a piece of watercolour paper edged with Vintage Photo and gold embossing and matted this on brown card. I wanted a cluster of chipboard flowers but was surprised at how small the card was when I made it up to Debbie's dimensions so I settled for just the one flower with a clockface centre. I stuck this over my favourite flourish from the Inkadinkado Dotty Flourishes set and completed the page with the time adage from The Artistic Stamper's Time and Keys plate.


Inside the card I used another strip of the masterboard mounted onto another piece of watercolour paper. This time the paper had been embossed with Creative Expressions' Time embossing folder and inked, again with Vintage Photo. Over the panel I added a clock charm using a chain and swivel clasp.


One inspiration for the contents of the box was the Sizzix label die that is shaped like a watch. But the die turned out to be slightly too big for the box front so I had to improvise. The watch inside the box is rather special. It belonged to my late father in law and is a treasured possession of my husband's. So the box is a display box for now but will maybe become a gift box when my son inherits the watch.


We didn't see the back of Debbie's card in Craft Stamper but I couldn't resist using Crafty Individuals' lovely watch and clockmaker label on the back. On the watercolour background I have used clock stamps from The Artistic Stamper and also the free clock stamp from February's Craft Stamper which features Debbie's project.


Looking at Lesley's and Elaine's posts I am struck by how differently we work with the magazine projects we take as our inspiration. It's especially surprising as we have quite similar tastes. I sometimes wonder if I would do things differently if I saw their projects first as I am very easily influenced. But then this one has turned out very different from the one I had in my head when I started so it's all a bit of a mystery ride.

Sunday 8 May 2011

The Secret Garden (posted by Elaine)

It's my turn to post our next project which is actually from as far back as the February issue of Craft Stamper. Life has been so busy for us all one way and another. This is my take on Debbie Dolphin's card gift box project chosen by Jo. I decided to make mine as a birthday card for my CSQ buddy Lesley.


I am afraid I stayed in my comfort zone again with this project, a vintage nature theme! My main colour scheme was green as that is Lesley's favourite colour. I wanted to make my cover look like a vintage book and used a combination of stamps and pieced together different pieces of embossed card to do it, using a ton of extra strong DST!

I used a large fern background stamp I bought from Rubbernecker at Ally Pally for the main panels, embossed in two colours of my favourite Moonglow Obsidian powders and cut in half. I edged the panels with a border of an ancient letters border stamp from Third Coast. I love their border stamps - they are brilliant value for money too - available from Happy Daze! I added large square bronze brads like studs on the book cover.


For the book title I stamped some words from a much larger Secret Garden B Line stamp that I adore. For the spine I used another Third Coast border with the letters.


The inside uses papers from the lovely 7 Gypsies Conservatory collection, (just rights as Lesley crafts in her conservatory!) with some elements cut out in the pocket and an image stamped from a Crafty Individuals image stamped in Olympia Green Versafine and aged with Vintage Photo DI. I added a little cream guipre butterfly ribbon, again aged with a little VP DI. I decided to add a picture on the gift box section as I planned to put some ribbons and braid in there and I felt it might look a bit messy with all the different colours if I didn't cover it up. I used an image from a vintage postcard that I love.


I edged the photo with lots of little leaves cut out of scraps of the 7 Gypsies papers with one of my favourite little Woodware punches, edging each one with a little more DI.


Thank you Debbie for such great instructions and inspiration and thanks Jo for choosing the project!

Elaine