Inspiration is EVERYWHERE!
And with a little imagination and a touch of creativity you can make a card even resemble a Brighton handbag or a delicious silver bauble. I don't claim to be a cardmaker. My passion is scrapbooking and telling stories through my journaling. But, the ladies in my C3 card class each month at i-Scrap really challenge me to come up with themes and card ideas that are worthy of their talents and expectations.
So when someone mentioned Brighton last month I thought it would be fun to use that as my inspiration for our September class. So, with black, white, and grey cardstock ... some texture plates for my adorable blinged out Big Shot , some clear embossing powder and masking tape, and some silver metallic waterproof tape from Lowes ... I set out to make some cards.
I quickly realized that making black and white cards was going to require a lot of textural interest. That's why my Big Shot texture plates got so much use. And .... so did the heat gun. There's several heat embossed elements that were added for dimension. And, it just wouldn't be a class with Colette without a couple of brand new tips and techniques!
One example of a new technique was the faux leather finish on this card. Inspired by a torn tissue paper faux finish I had watched my sister, Duana, do a couple of years ago, I set about to create a faux leather finish on a piece of cardstock using torn bits of masking tape. The tape was randomly torn and stuck down to a cardstock rectangle, layering the bits one piece on top of another until the cardstock was completely covered. Then I inked it with a black Cat's Eye ink pad and daubed on a few spots of silver ink, sprinkled the whole thing with clear embossing powder and heated it up with the heat gun. Voila! The result was this beautiful grey/black shiny patent finish. I matted it onto a slightly larger rectangle of silver cardstock, cut a window in it to frame a stamped greeting, and adhered it to the card with pop dots. In the class the ladies received an actual silver metallic heart shape charm for their cards. I just happened to use a gold finish for the demonstration card seen here.
I stamped and embossed this beautiful medallion, matted it with shiny silver paper, notched the corners with my circle punch and popped it onto some texturized white cardstock. It's been 'gift wrapped' with a strip of sheer black ribbon, neatly held in place by the square cuts in the black card, and embellished with some black rhinestones.
This card took layering to a whole new dimension! The checkerboard texture on the white cardstock was enhanced using some silvery Pearl Ex (which looks much prettier IRL). Then, the strip of black cardstock, border punched on each side using the Fiskars Treading Water scallop border punch, was attached using this gorgeous patterned ribbon strip. The next layer was a decorative flower, cut on the Cricut and distressed a bit. This was followed by some stamped flourishes. The finishing touch was the layered Bazzill Bling Blossom, black Prima silk flower, clear button flower center ... topped off with a sheer ribbon knot and a decorative stick pin that I slipped a few metallic beads onto.
A couple of the ladies in class chuckled when I used one of my Girl Scout memories to explain the woven ribbon technique in this card. I recalled making 'Sit Upons' from woven strips of newspaper, used to protect our bottoms as we sat in the dirt around a campfire. And the tried and true technique was used here on this card ... substituting old newspaper for beautiful ribbon strips wrapping a square of black foamcore that is matted and placed on top of the textured card. We added a coat of shimmery Stickles to the flower embellishment and a large rhinestone flower center. And, the greeting ... Hello ... was written right onto a clear plastic file tab holder using a Slick Writer.
Finally, the whole Brighton handbag theme was taken literally with this purse inspired card! Layers of embossed papers, some faux stitching done with a white gel pen, and a fun magnetic closure made this a fun card to make. The highlight however was the silver embossed monogram medallion! This was created by placing some metallic tape onto a piece of cardstock. The medallion shape was then cut on the Cricut. A clear letter sticker was placed on top, and then I just used a #2 pencil to doodle the swirlie comma shapes to mimic the Brighton silver texture details.
A Hambly transparent 'slide' was made for a black cardstock box bottom to slide into ... the perfect size to hold all the cards! I told the ladies that it was hard to stop there. It would have been so easy to keep embellishing .. adding a cardstock slide to the clear one, topping it off with a silk flower and a decorative tag! But, you've got to stop somewhere, huh? And for the sake of time ... it still took us 2 1/2 hours to finish the class ... even considering that I had done all the embossing, texturizing, stamping, scoring, and cutting before hand!
It was purely coincidental that so many ladies showed up wearing black and white that morning. But, it was completely appropriate for our black/white theme of the day! I want to thank the C3 ladies ... and a few others who joined our card making festivities ... for being so wonderful .. and so fun! They are all accomplished cardmakers and I love the challenge of creating classes worthy of their talents! Thanks too, to Patti at i-Scrap for her complete trust! She just 'lets me create' without reservation and is nothing but supportive of my efforts!
uh oh. Did I hear someone say Halloween Treats for October? {{{tossing my head back while laughing aloud}}} ha ha ha ha ... I'll get you my pretty!
