Dream Catcher

I’ve come back from a week up north visiting my five and four year old nephews and swapped kiddie crafting for some real crafting, of the card making variety.  This little sweetie, Indian Tia, was the featured digi a little while ago at Some Odd Girl.

I wasn’t really sure about the colours for her skin so I checked out the one coloured by one of the DT, Leah, and fortunately she posted her colours so I just used the same.  Go check out her awesome card on her blog.

Copic colours I used were:

Hair C-5, C-7, 100, B06

Skin E000, E00, E11, E04, E08, R20

Eyes and Hair Ties E31, E33, E35

Dress Fringe, Headband, Jewel BG10, BG11, BG15

Dress, Headband and Shoes B02, B04, B06

Feathers and Jewel R22, R24, R37, R59

Feathers C-1, C-3

The background paper is from the DCWV Stardust Matstack, it has a lovely night-sky look to it that fitted perfectly with the theme of dreaming I wanted to do on the card.  The red letterpressed strip is the Mojave Cuttlebug folder, I’m still perfectly my inking technique so the white border isn’t so nice and white!

To go with Indian Tia I wanted to make a dreamcatcher, which seemed so much easier on the instructions I downloaded.  I cut a rectangle on my Cricut using the George cart and another smaller one inside as the base, I just used cardstock and really I needed something heavier to hold the shape better.  For the willow I used raffia, which I then inked with Tim Holtz Gathered Twigs.  I learned that raffia does not take ink very well, definitely not something to be done quickly as it took some time to dry.  I really wanted to use baker’s twine on the dreamcatcher but couldn’t find it in a store here and there wasn’t time to order some so I had to settle for hemp cord.  The feather started out life white and I inked it with Tim Holtz Festive Berries.  Turns out feathers are even less inclined to take ink, at least this one was, so I ended up spraying it with clear shellac as it was still wet after 24 hours!

I found the sentiment by googling for Indian sayings about dreams, it was just perfect for the friend I’m planning on sending this card to.  I didn’t have a die the right size to make the banner shape so I drew it around the sentiment in Photoshop and then cut around it with my craft knife.

The whole card follows the November sketch challenge sketch over at Some Odd Girl.  I am going to enter this card in this challenge as well as MarkerPop’s Coloring Challenge #11.

Thanks for stopping by!

Day dreaming

I have something entirely different from all my Halloween tags to post today, although my project does feature another Simply B Stamps' stamp, this one being Fall Breeze Chris.

Copic colours I used were:

Hair E30, E31, E33

Skin E000, E00, E02, E11, E13 (E95 cheeks)

Eyes E33, E35, E37

T-shirt       E30, E31, E33, YR12, YR31

Under-shirt YR12, YR14, YR16, YR68

Pants E33, E35, E37

Scarf R22, R24, R27, R59, R89, YR00, YR02, YR07

Shoes 100, C-3, C-5, C-7

Leaves R22, R24, R27, YR12, YR14, YR16, YR23

Grass G02, G05, G07

Rake E53, E55, E57, W-1, W-3, W-5, W-7

Once I finished the colouring I decided to cut my image out using a Grand Circle Nestie, but that left me with a whole lot of white background to fill.  I used chalks before on some paper flowers and wasn’t impressed enough to increase my chalk collection above the one set I have but wow, now I see why people love chalks.  I love the effect it gave on this; maybe the special colouring paper is just a better medium for chalks.  At any rate, the sky turned out great for a cold, windy autumn day.

After chalking the sky I discovered another problem, my circle was bigger than a standard 5x7 card.  At first I thought I would just overhang the edge for an interesting effect but then I saw this awesome card Corinne from the SBS DT made, for which she kindly provided instructions.  So my image became my first ever shadowbox.

Instead of a card I decided to add some string so this could be a wall hanging instead.  The frame started out as a piece of cream cardstock which I had to cut using my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System circles.  Turns out only the smallest two circles from the Grand Nestie circle set will fit in the Cuttlebug, too bad I didn’t bother to check how grand they were before I bought them.  On the bright side, gives me an excuse to buy a Friskars’ Fuse in the future ;-) 

I inked the frame with Gathered Twigs distress ink and then added Gingersnap Smooch Spritz.  I’d used the Best Glue Ever to adhere the walls of my shadowbox (I didn’t have a glue gun handy) and some had leaked out (BTW I don’t think this product is well named, if you want a glue that never stops being sticky then maybe it is but otherwise…argh!..glue on your fingers and everything you touch!) so I added some Molasses Smooch and mica to stop the sticky around the inner edge.

To cover the joins on the bottom I looped some brown lace from Webster’s Pages and secured the loops with tiny bronze brads before gluing it to the inner circle.  Next I made two simple looped flowers with some orange ribbon from my Secret Pumpkin Sister Swap stash, again using a brad to secure the loops.  The wooden buttons were from my stash; I filled the button holes with bronze brads and used Glossy Accents to glue the buttons to the ribbon flowers and the flowers to the shadow box.  The paper leaves were also from my Secret Pumpkin Sister Swap stash.

I added the same lace around the edge and layered this with the ribbon.  I wanted to do the lovely loops Corinne had done but again the Best Glue Ever let me down and no matter how hard I tried to hold down the loop it just got stuck to my finger and lifted off to then lie flat.

All the sticky fingers aside I like how this turned out.  So much so that I’m entering it over at the Simply Challenged Challenges’ Fall Colors challenge, which was to use olive green, mustard, orange, brown, red and an SBS stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!