Sing us a Song, You're the Piano man

Our youngest son Ben plays the piano and sings, often his own songs, but also covers of other people, and one of his favourites is Billy Joel's "Sing us a Song, You're the Piano Man", so when I saw a lovely 3D piano inside an exploding box, featured in Pixie's Snippets Playground several week ago, I just knew I had to make it for Ben. The original, was made by Alice for her young niece, and you can see it here. This was my inspiration, but I think I managed to put my own stamp on it. I bought the template from Card Carousel. It arrived in PDF format so the first thing I did was to change it into a svg so I could cut it with my Silhouette cameo, giving a much more accurate cut-out to work with.

I assembled the piano and left it over-night to dry completely. Then I added embellishments and filled the empty top with small flowers, some of which I made, but most were purchased ones from my stash. They needed a lot of glue to stay in place, but once it was all dry, it felt quite robust.

Then I turned my attention to the box. It went together well, and I had already got it in my mind how it would be decorated. I cut and assembled it from sturdy blue card and then added a white panel to each inner side, which had been embossed with a music folder and lightly rubbed with Memento Paris Dusk ink.

I have a selection of musical sayings and images in my silhouette library, either saved when I have seen them somewhere on the net, or purchased from the silhouette store, and I used four of these as embellishments on the inside of the box. I cut them from navy vinyl and used transfer tape to place them on the embossed panels. These are the four designs I used. And below is the box when it is open.

For the outside of the box I used panels of printed backing paper and another musical image, the same one on all four sides.

The lid was made with the same paper and image but I used a larger image with a lighter shade of blue vinyl, and added a punched lace trim around the edge. (Marianne punch).

I was only able to make this for Ben because I knew I would be travelling to UK in January and could hand deliver it. I wrapped it in bubble wrap and placed it in a large ice-cream tub in my luggage, and miraculously it arrive undamaged.

It was his birthday on Monday of this week, and he kept it until then to unwrap, and I am happy to say he loved it. So much so that he posted a video on Facebook, of how it opens to reveal the piano, and it has received lots of nice comments, so it was worth all the work.

Sparkling Poinsettia Candles for Rudolph Day

Because I have done very little crafting lately, I seem to have a pile of new stash that hasn't yet seen light of day, so I have chosen a new stamp set for my cards - Sparkling Poinsettia Candles by Heartfelt Creations. And here is my first card.

I stamped the image twice onto white paper and coloured one with copic markers. I chose fairly traditional colours. 

Next I cut  a mount with the largest of the Spellbinders Elegant oval die set. I laid the die over my image and drew around it's centre opening, and cut it out, cutting around a few leaves and petals that extended beyond it. 

I made a mask for the candle and dusted a yellow glow around it.

Then I chose a backing paper from my snippets box - from a magazine giveaway I think, and assembled the card. 

I stamped a sentiment from the same set, with a versafine pad and heat embossed it with gold powder. Sadly it seems I have kept my gold powder for too long, and it is no longer very gold, so I must have a hunt, because I am sure I bought a new one recently.

Finally I added yellow glitter glue to the candle flame and the centres of the flowers, and a little clear frosting to the leaves.

I was pleased with the result and as I had another stamped image, I made a second card using less traditional colours. (I had stamped two images intending to decoupage the flowers, but as postage of dimensional cards is becoming a problem, I decided that one layer was enough). This time my backing paper did not have its own edge so I cut a holly border using a Signature die. The sentiment is a peel-off.

I really want to keep up with my Christmas card making this year as I failed miserably last year and had my usual last minute rush, so last night I made four more toppers, experimenting with different colour combinations. Some worked better than others, but the one I was least sure about (orange candle) ended up as the one I liked best!

I chose a backing card for each one and cut the matching mounts as above. Then I rummaged through my Christmas snippets box and found coordinating backing papers, so now they are ready to assemble and I just have to find/make some embellishments and I will have a set of six to add to my collection.

So now I will link these to the Rudolph Day Challenge at Scraps of Life by Scrappy Mo, and also at Pixie's Snippets Playground.

Happy Rudolph Day everyone.

Blue butterflies for the Butterfly Challenge.

I  feel that I am getting back into the swing of things after my holiday and visitor, and as I sat wondering what I could make last night, I suddenly realised that there are still two days left to enter Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge where the theme is 'S' for Stamping or Sapphire, or both, and of course, a butterfly or two, so here is what I made.

Menu:

Dark blue (Sapphire?) card from my stash for the base card and trellis which are cut with a Memory Box die.

Pale blue paper strips under trellis are snippets from an old magazine giveaway.

The centre panel is a piece from my huge collection of white snippets.

Butterflies are by Crafty Individuals. Each one is two stamps. The bottom layer - the fill in - was stamped with a Brilliance rainbow pad, and the top layer - the detail - was stamped using an Archival dark blue pad.

The butterflies were masked while I stamped the flowers in the background, using the same ink pad, and a new set of Altnew stamps called Persian motifs.

The sentiment is from another Altnew set.

So I will quickly link this up with Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge#48 and see who else has fluttered by,

and with  Pixie's Snippets Playground.

Now to make some Christmas cards for Rudolph Day on Thursday!