Handicrafts by Kate Perry and other ramblings

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Take your pick

It was one of those days when nothing worked quite how you planned it would. But I had a card from a crafting friend this week exhorting me to 'Embrace imperfections' so that's what I decided to do while making these cards. (My sister is arriving tonight for a week of Spanish sunshine, so there is no time to try again). I was making a card with a Christmas tree on it and decided to use an old favourite - a Lucido stencil.

I like to use embossing paste with this but mine is very old and I found my glitter snow was too dry to use. Next I tried the white paste but I was taking more off than I was spreading on. I dug to the bottom of the bottle and used what I could, and gave it a lift by sprinkling the damp paste with very fine white glitter. When it was dry I found I quite liked the textured effect this produced, so I went on to mount it up on silver mirricard and then printed paper, and made a fairly satisfactory card. The little silver stitched stars are a nice detail, so a strip of ribbon and a tree charm were all that was needed to complete it. (I had a few problems photographing this one. The sun has made a lot of shadows and I couldn't avoid the blue sky or my own reflection in the mirricard).
Next I tried my gold paste which is much newer and this spread easily, but I do find this is wetter anyway, and it tends to warp the card when it is used in a large area. However, I had found a piece of black card in my stash, that at some time I had sprayed with gold mica, and I used that for the stencil and mounted it on some quite heavy gold card which helped it to lie flat again. I echoed the gold stitched stars in black on the mount, and added a large gold star to the main tree. A small piece of black and gold sticky ribbon finished it off.

As a last resort I ran the stencil and some white card through my Cuttlebug, and added a little colour to the raised image with chalks. I used some green glitter thread to stitch the stars, and then mounted this up. I added green ribbon a few beads and a charm, and I had a third card.

None of these are quite what I intended to make but all are reasonable, so I am entering them in the Bah! Humbug! Challenge 12, Christmas Trees. This challenge is only supposed to be one card, so BH team, you will have to take your pick!

As the second card is made on a 12½ cm. square base, and the third one on a 14½ cm. square base, I am also entering them in Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge, which this week is simply to make a square card.

3 comments:

Hazel said...

I love all of them. I know it wasn't what you originally intended, but I love the texture of the white on the first card. The gold on the second card is very striking and I love the little touches of the thread stars, charm etc on the third one as well as the subtle chalking. Thank you for joining in my CHNC challenge 13 - hope to see you again soon (next week there will be a sponsored random prize) x

Saskia said...

I do love the first one! I think I have that tree as well. I used to cut out the large tree and emboss the others.

Max said...

Oooooooh .... Well I like all 3 versions Kate - proof indeed that there's no such thing as RIGHT and WRONG when it comes to craft - it's all about experimenting and playing to see what happens! There are no restrictions on entries at Bah! Humbug! so we'll happily accept all of them for our tree challenge and thank you very much lol.
Luv'n'Stuff
Max
xx
Max's Craft Creations
Bah! Humbug! Challenges DT