Tracy's Creative Adventures

Beccy's Place - digital stamp - sentiment - Aussie Wreath
X-Press It A4 Blending Card

Copic markers - branches - G21 + R12 + YR23 + E08-57
Copic markers - leaves - G21 + YG63 + G94 + BG96
Copic markers - damage to leaves - YR23 + E08-57 + BG96
Copic markers - red flowers - R14-17-27 + YR23
Copic markers - buds / caps - YG63 + G21 + R12-14
(+ Y11 over top to add a slightly brighter glossy shine)
Pretty Pink Posh - Sparkling Clear Sequins
Stickles - Stardust - to fill the hole in the sequins
Kaisercraft - weave cardstock - Crimson
Sizzix Big Shot
Kaisercraft - decorative die - Doilies
Sizzix - nesting dies - Circles
Helmar 450 Quick Dry adhesive - to adhere the layers

Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Adhesive - to adhere the ric rac & sequins

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Aud Sentiments Challenge Blog - Challenge #236 – Anything Goes + A Sentiment

Colour Crazy Challenge - Week 37 – Anything Goes

Crafty Catz - Challenge #476 – Anything Goes – no twist

This week we are letting our creative juices flow with

Crafty Gals Corner Challenges are bi-weekly.
Each crafter may only submit 3 projects per challenge.

Wild Orchid Crafts

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Today I have used the Pegasus digital stamp by Ppinkydolls, one of our generous sponsors this fortnight, to make a cheery rainbow shaker card.

I printed the image using my toner printer on A5 X-Press It blending card, heat set then started colouring with Copic markers.  I finished off the image with a touch of clear Wink Of Stella on the unicorn wings.



Next came the challenging (for me) part ... making a rainbow with a window.

I took a sheet of copy paper, cut it down to A5 size and adhered it to a sheet of X-Press It Double Sided Adhesive Sheet.  I cut 1" strips of textured cardstock to make my rainbow.

I aligned the A5 sheet of copy paper on my craft mat and secured it in place with some repositionable adhesive tabs underneath, then peeled off the protective layer from the adhesive sheet.  I carefully placed the yellow strip on the panel, ensuring it aligned with the grid on my craft mat.  Next came the green strip and all the others, working from the middle to the outer edges.  The edges of the red and purple strips had to be trimmed off, so did the excess strips from the top and bottom.
The result, an A5 rainbow.
I took the rainbow panel and printed the sentiment.

The science geek in me likes (no, needs), everything to be measured and even, so the next bit was a bit of a challenge.  I placed the largest oval die from my nesting dies with the cutting edge facing up on the middle of my craft mat, secured with some washi tape.  I took another A5 piece of copy paper, marked the middle of the edges and aligned it on my trusty craft mat, over the oval die then used my fingers to "emboss" the outer edge of the die into the paper.  I took my ruler and measured the distance of the widest edges of the oval from the middle of each side and found that it wasn't perfectly centred but it was quick and easy to work out the exact distance they needed to be.  I marked the middle of each side of my rainbow panel and marked the distance from each of these points that the oval die needed to touch to make my centred shaker window.  I aligned the die with the marks and secured it in place with washi tape on the inner edge of the die (so that if there was any tearing when it was pulled away, it would not affect the card front) and ran it through my Big Shot.  I am thrilled with how well it cut and how well centred the window was, well worth the extra measuring!

I cut two sheets of foam to be 1/4" smaller than A5 and adhered them together with liquid adhesive.  I took the front rainbow panel and used pencil to mark the oval size on the foam, cutting out a window about 1/8" larger diameter using scissors.  
I cut an acetate panel to A5 size for the front of the window.  No, I know it doesn't need to be that big but the rainbow strips on the copy paper felt a little flimsy, so the acetate was to give it extra strength.  I adhered the acetate in place using liquid adhesive, being careful to not be too close to the inner edge of the window.
I adhered the rainbow panel and foam layers together using liquid adhesive.

Shakers look sad when standing upright, as all the contents sink down to the bottom of the window, so I like to adhere some around the image in the window, so that it isn't left bare.  To do this, I took a variety of sparkling clear sequins and placed them around the image in the window area and "tested" their position by placing the rainbow window panel over it.  Once the position of the sequins was "right", I adhered them in place with liquid adhesive, adding a sprinkle of clear glitter over the panel to capture any excess.  This was so that the loose sequins and beads in the shaker didn't all want to stick to them.

I added a bundle of different sized sequins and clear seed beads over the middle of the image panel in readiness to becoming a shaker card.
I went over the acetate window and inner edges of the foam window with my powder tool to minimise any static and de-sticky any excess adhesive, then adhered the rainbow window card front down on to the card base with liquid adhesive, carefully aligning the outer edges.

The hard part was waiting a few minutes for the adhesive to dry
... I really wanted to test my shaker and look at it standing up.
I think the cluster of sequins and beads gathered at the bottom of the window look pretty against the "ground" under the image.  What do you think?


Of course there are always more pics to share ...
so here are another couple of views of my rainbow shaker card.

Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Adhesive - to adhere the acetate & foam layers

This fortnight we are all about sticky things!

We want to see things stuck on your projects,
things like Washi Tape, Sequins and Enamel Dots and more.

   

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Today I have used the super cute Unicorn Besty digital stamp by Ppinkydolls, one of our generous sponsors this fortnight.

I printed the image on X-Press It blending card, heat set then started colouring with Copic markers.  I spent some time learning more about unicorns before the colouring began, with some fun blending lessons.  Copic markers with the same saturation number (1st number after the colour letter/s) or the same brightness number (the 2nd number after the colour letter/s) blend well together and make for interesting new colours.  My unicorn's mane is a combination of E00-BV00-B00, with a touch of E11 to add a richness to the darkest portions created with E00.

On a side note, I did have a little experiment before I finished colouring and thought I would share another couple of blending combos using some smaller image panels.
BG01-YG01-R01              BG00-YR12-YG13

Back to my birthday card.  After the colouring was completed I trimmed the image panel down and matted with black cardstock, trimming it to a 1/16" border with my Perfect Layers ruler (a very cool tool).  I made a huge square top folding card base (... dare I confess that it's 8x8"?!), matted it with black cardstock in readiness for some sparkle.  I cut two panels of heavy glitter cardstock (it's from Kaisercraft, so much sparkle, a pleasure to cut and no, I repeat NO, loose glitter).  I made a glitter tape rainbow along the side of the darker blue panel, looping the strips around the back to keep them securely in place.  I adhered the glitter panels to the card base, then the image panel.  I cut three clouds from crystal glitter cardstock and covered them with sequins in a variety of sizes.  The clouds were overlapped and popped in place with foam squares of different thicknesses.  I went a bit sequin crazy when I started adding the "sparkling rain" ... warning, sparkling clear sequins are addictive and fun!  The sentiment panel was a combination of fonts, printed on the same cardstock as the image panel (so that the whites matched) with the black matting trimmed down to 1/16".  I popped the sentiment panel with foam squares.


Helmar 450 Quick Dry adhesive - to adhere the layers