Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Artist Trading Cards

I do a monthly swap of Artist Trading Cards  in A Mad Crafter's Attic Group. These are a couple that I really enjoyed making this month.

The first is Vintage Children. The background is a Hero Arts stamp which I  embossed with white embossing powder then coloured with cheap watercolour paints. The image is a freebie from magicmoonlight and the sentiment stamp is from Quietfire Designs.


The second is "Let them eat Cake", which I decided was Marie Antoinette. For this one I coloured the background with Distress Stains. I stamped Tim Holtz and Hearts in Touch stamps with Memento Tuxedo Black ink after drying the stains. I then attached the Marie Antoinette image to the card. This was a gift from a friend so I can't tell from which site they would be available.

Sunday, 7 October 2012

circus wagon

On AFTCM there was a swap to create a circus wagon.

I had many ideas but finally settled on using some chipboard pieces that I had on hand, which are the front and back. For the bottom I used some heavy cardboard and for the top and sides, I cut out pieces of chipboard to fit.

I used some scrapbook papers from my stash, but felt they did not convey the circus theme well enough. However, I was able to get a few sheets of the Le Cirque Graphics 45 papers from the Inked Stamper, which had lots of great images that fit the theme perfectly.

After adhering all the various papers and image to the piece I wanted to add more embellishments to make it look more authentic. When putting away some rubber stamps and dies that I had bought at the the Great Canadian Scrapbook Festival, I realized that the window and door die and stamps from Heartfelt Creations would be perfect for the wagon.  I cut them out and used the coordinating stamp on the door. I also stamped the lanterns from the Decorative Metal Fixtures set, coloured them, added glossy accents and attached them to the side of the door. To complete the doors and windows I printed off some freebie images from Gaby's and Belinda's blog and placed them behind the dies with some acetate.

After completing the various elements, I glued it all together with wood glue.

For the roof I added some metallic coloured dew drops to simulate lights on the wagon. I found an old bottle lid on my desk and covered it with some of the Graphics 45 borders, then added the whirly piece at the top and glued it to the top of the wagon, thinking that it looked like a fan. I did not glue the lid in place, as I thought that the wagon could be used to store items inside.

I wanted to add some wheels on the base and to add stability I attached a clear acrylic lid from an old candy box. I cut up some wine cork and glued them to the base, then attached bottle caps into which I had inserted cardstock pieces and stickers, gears (coloured with inks and Perfect Pearls) and more Dew Drops.

As a final touch I made a tiny fortune teller sign to sit on the step.

The wagon is at it's new home, and I am pleased to hear that the recipient was very happy with it.