Monday 10 May 2010

Changing Boxes

It is my friend’s birthday in a few days time, the cards have been completed & her present has been wrapped but i wanted to decorate a box to house her cards.

Aintree Craft Show were throwing these boxes away, asked could i have a couple to decorate and the lady said great better than throwing them away. Looks like they housed Martha Stewart punches.

IMG_0738 Stripped the bar code and painted with different colours of acrylic paint, most of them pearlised or metallic .

IMG_0734Covered the whole box in white then applied wild berry, bronze, gold and sapphire blue paint randomly.  

I have been playing with the new Tim Holtz Alterations Bigz Dies earlier this week and made a loo roll card with an ornate top.

IMG_0681 Above are the pages before binding them together with gold ribbon. The bits that were left over after taking the loo roll inner through the Big Shot have made the hinges for the Card box. Painted them black to accentuate the card box colours as below.

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Next thing to do was to add three tags reflecting the theme used for the loo roll card which is birds. Used Paper Artsy images from the Hot Pick plates 1004 and 1005 to create the tags.  Used mica sprays to create the background paper before overstamping and cutting the images out.

IMG_0732Here are the cards that will go inside; have posted the loo roll card before on a previous entry.

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Off to play with more of my craft stash. Thanks for stopping by :-)

Sunday 9 May 2010

Playing with Tim Holtz Alterations

Never made my own rubber stamp before, today I made a border stamp from one of Tim Holtz’s Alterations Dies.  Bought some Funky Foam A4 size

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IMG_0719Covered the back of an A4 sheet of the foam with red tape which is very sticky.  Cut the sheet in half and put the sheet over the Die. Ran this through a Big Shot manual die cutting machine and the green shapes are the results.  Peeled the backs of to reveal the sticky back and stuck to very thick acetate (this acetate comes from the packaging that houses the Sizzix Dies).

IMG_0720Cut the acetate to slightly larger than the funky foam stamp so can handle them and then had a go at stamping. The results are not that good but good enough for me to see what i needed to get right next time I made a stamp.  

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I ran over the acetate with a brayer to try and help achieve a clear and consistent  border, didn’t work but doesn’t look too bad.  The shapes that accompany the border are shapes that were taken from the funky foam to be able to get a perfect border.  They look quite good and am hoping to complete a card quite soon using all the above elements if possible.

Have been saving some drinks cans as i read they can be recycled and treated the same as the metal we buy to use with Walnut Hollow kits.  I tried putting the prepared cans through the Big Shot using another of Tim Holtz’s Alterations Bigz Dies.  Used the Angel Heart die and this is the result.

IMG_0728Need to be careful when handling the cans as the edges can be a little sharp so wouldn’t recommend trying this method with young children.  Just need to alcohol ink these elements and see how they look when completed.

Off to do some more stamps and to cut out from some more drinks cans.  Thanks for stopping by :-)