Playing with Bookatrix!

Been playing again!  I was in Home Bargains the other day and found a set of 8 small cards with assorted girly designs in pink/black/white/silver.  Was bored last night and started to look at what I could do with them.  I chose the lady with the powder compact and cut out the oval design to use as a cameo and thought it would look nice on a Bookatrix.  


I wanted to add some flowers to it but didn't want to swamp the book so I decided to experiment with a stand that would allow me to add the flowers but not take anything away from the "book".  In the end I found that an "easel" made from a sheet of A4 white pearlised card was just what I needed.  I added 3 flowers made from white pearlised paper using the design on the reverse of the Bookatrix board, for the pink ones I coloured them using my Dusky Pink Promarker and finished them off with buttons as their centre.  I also coloured the peel offs and the bling on the bookmark with the same Dusky Pink Promarker.


All I need now is a Birthday Girl to send it to!

Birthday Card for Gena - 1

Been busy making not one but two Birthday Cards for my friend Gena.  

Why two? Well this one is from my 11 year old to his (not so fairy) Godmother and the other is from my hubby and me.

I got a couple of Hot Off The Press CDRoMs containing tags and backgrounds as part of a kit so I printed off some of the papers to use on this card.  I found a really nice pale pink organza ribbon with some nice flowers printed on it and a cute picot-style flowered edge, I also dug out some lace from my craft box to use as a background to the main embellishment. The HOTP kit also had a template for some assorted flowers and flourishes so I used that to make the flower with contrasting papers.  The lower and top set of petals, the button centre for the flower and the ribbon for the tag were all coloured with a Dusky Pink Promarker.  

Birthday Card for Gena - 2

This one is from Hubby and me and the papers came from a Hot Off The Press "Paper Flair Pop Up Card Kit".  I didn't realise there was so much cutting out involved looked so easy when it was demonstrated on the telly!  I had to do it in several stages cos my hands were getting too sore!

I'm not sure if you can see it but I've used Sakura Clear Stardust and Gold Stardust pens to highlight some of the details on the front of the card including the butterfly wings and sections of the background. 

I layered the papers onto a heavy pearlised card but somehow, although the front fitted the front of the card perfectly, the inside piece seemed too small.  As the pearlised card was white, I used my Henna Promarker to go round the border to try and make it not so obvious and it gave the card rather a nice bronze metallic appearance. 

The only narrow ribbon I had for the box lid was a white organza so I coloured it with the same Henna Promarker used to colour the card to match with the rest.

Birthday Card for a JCB Driver

Hubby announced today that it's his friend Davy's Birthday on Sunday.  He also said that Davy is always telling people about the lovely Christmas card I made him last year (methinks this was a wee hint!).


What to do was the next problem but as he's a JCB Driver I decided to see what I had on that sort of theme that might just be suitable.


The brick backgrounds came from MCS Everyday Men's CD & the coloured plaques from Simply Silhouettes.  The brickwork was embossed to give a texture to the card and the JCB image is slightly decoupaged.  A couple of raised "bricks" are added to the flat section keep the easel part upright.  


As I went to print off the plain brick background for the flat part of the card the MCS Professional graphics programme decided to play up yet again.  This time it locked up and has frozen me out, won't let me do anything - can't even close the window it's in.  I ended up having to open up another window and start again.  Wish MCS would fix the problems and send me an update that actually works - 4th time lucky maybe!  

Big Sis' Birthday

This is the card I made for my older sister's Birthday - I won't say how old she is though. 

I picked up some Indian handmade paper recently and decided to use it as the background over an aperture card from a pack I had in my craft box. I used some Sakura Stardust pens to pick out the floral embossed design on the paper. I then put a floral peel-off coloured with Promarkers on to some acetate and coloured it's petals with the Stardust pens then backed it with some matching pink glitter card.  Unfortunately the photo has actually come out quite dark, it looks so much better in real life! 

New Home Card

Our neighbours are moving house today, finished it about an hour before their Daughter came round to say "bye" to our Son.  They won't be going too far but it's sad to see them go.

For this card I've used MCS Countryside Garden.  I cropped down one of the ready to print DL cards and cropped the background from the matching "Element Sheet".  The envelope and tags were also cropped out, copied and then used as decoupage.  I used my Sakura Clear Star pen to go over the pattern and scalloped edge and followed this with the Sakura Clear Glaze pen to give a raised feel to the design.  I also used the Clear Glaze to go over the text to give an embossed look.

Wedding Anniversay

A wee bit late in posting this one, our 13th Wedding Anniversary was over a week ago and I'm just getting round to putting it on now.

I've used MCS Enchanted Romance images and backgrounds.  Decided to try something different by cutting out the main image and using a gold gel pen and an old mouse mat I went over the outlines to emphasise them and give a debossed effect.  The central heart is raised off the card, the leaves have been shaped and the flower decoupaged and the end of the lace strip rolled to give movement.  Sakura clear glaze highlights have also been added.

My fingers have been really sore recently and it seemed to take forever to get this finished as I kept having to stop and leave what I was doing to give them a rest - it was bringing a whole new meaning to suffering for your art!

Fab's Big Christmas Cards Challenge Wk 14

My second attempt in Fab's Challenge, the theme this week is Brads and/or Steel Gray (Grey) colour.  The backgrounds came from a freebie MCS Christmas CD and the metal, typewriter key-style lettering is a free download again from MCS - the "brads" are of the faux variety cos I didn't have any!

Wedding Card

Finally got round to buying the Bookatrix Board I'd promised myself ages ago.  First card made using it is this Wedding Card with a matching acetate window box.  I really surprised myself at being able to take a photo of the acetate box without any glare on it.

I hadn't planned on my first Bookatrix card being a wedding card but as my sister-in-law surprised us all a few weeks ago by announcing that she and her partner had just got married it seemed a good place to start. Tomorrow we are having a small get together for them at a local restaurant to celebrate.

Lothian Craft April Card Candy Competition

My entry into the Lothian Craft April Card Candy Competition.  A card I've just made to send to my cat daft friend (she has around 7 or 8 now - I've lost count!!!)

Backgrounds are from MCS "Back to Basics" CD, the Cats & Tag images are from the MCS "Enchanted Romance" CD. I've used Sakura clear glaze to outline the cats, highlight the text & the cat's noses while Sakura Stardust Gold has been used to highlight all the borders.