Graphics Fairy – The Art of Cobwebs

Another vintage style Christmas card – this time made for my Grandsons Teacher at Nursery School. She’s a fabulous lady who I love dearly, and has such a lovely way with the little folk in her care. I wanted to thank her for just being the lovely person that she is and for the incredible job she does.

I had an idea of what sort of card I wanted to make, but couldn’t find the right image to base the card around … until I found this one on the Graphics Fairy ~

This image had the right vintage feel about it, and it was a little boy in the picture building a snowman – and since my Grandson is obsessed with Olaf (the snowman in the film ‘Frozen’) at the moment, I felt this was the perfect image. I re-sized it, matted and layered it onto some lovely linen finish, plain coloured card stock, in a soft beige and a lovely vintage red, then glittered around the edge to make the image sparkle and draw attention to the image and make it stand out from the card.

I have some little wooden ‘adornments’, and from the assortment I chose a birdcage to gild with gilding flakes – so that I could have it ready to attach when I needed it.

The base on which I ‘built’ this card was a 6 x 6 Kraft card with a high gsm – so that it would be weighty enough to take the adornments which I wanted to attach to the card.

The papers I used to cover the card are all part of a pack of Christmas papers which I obtained free with a magazine a while ago. They’re really lovely papers – but the red coloured, 12 days of Christmas, paper I chose for the front was a little too red, so I knocked the colour back by using some Gesso, just applied roughly across the paper once it was adhered to the front.

I’d found some lovely vintage style lace for sale in a local charity shop a while back – and knew that it would be perfect for this card, so added a length to both the top and bottom front of card.

Before I added the vintage picture, I put a little cheesecloth behind the picture, to give it a soft outline, then added the picture and then draped some rayon seam binding around the front in the curvy way I wanted it to lay – but before I finally attached it I threaded a pendant charm onto it, and placed it on the card in the centre of the leading edge. I then fixed the pendant and ribbon into place.

I added some Christmas white paper roses and leaves, and the gilded birdcage, . . . then came the twinkling part! I chose four glitters and roughly mixed them – a gold, a copper, a silver and a little mix of some teeny tiny glitter gems. They’re not exactly glitter – but they aren’t gems either. I’m not sure how to explain them, and I can’t remember where I bought them from as I remember I had to decant them as the original packet split, so I don’t have anything left which I can check up on the name of this glitter sadly. They make a difference to the glitter mix, as it makes it look more ‘opulent’. Fabulous result, which I just love! In places, I also added some teeny tiny gilding flakes – which gave a different depth to the whole project. (You can see some of those tiny pieces of gilding flakes in the photo above which shows a close up of the gilded birdcage.)

And finally . . .

I pinned a Tim Holtz ‘Keepsake’ pin down in the corner of the card, simply because it kind of fitted the whole feeling which I was trying to ‘build’ into the card itself.

I did make a matching box to this card – but again, because I was in such a hurry to get caught up with myself (after being poorly for weeks on end), I totally forgot to take a picture of the box before I gave the card to the teacher last week.

The inside of the card was lined with pale biscuity coloured paper, and I used ribbons inside, in a lovely shade of pink, and the vintage wine coloured ribbon you see on the front – just to add that final touch which made the inside as pretty as the outside.

Well … I’m still trying to catch up and I’m hoping to craft up a storm in my craft room today – so I’ll hopefully see you later.

Have a truly wonderful Monday, – whatever you’re doing.

Love ~

Before I begin – apologies for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. I’ve been quite poorly – and still not quite fully well – but feeling improved, I’m now so far behind with my Christmas crafting that I don’t think everything’s going to be done! But I’ve been into my craft room a couple of times and began crafting the Christmas cards which I wanted to make a little more special – like this lovely vintage style card which I made for my Avon lady.

It all began with this beautiful little girl who’s carrying her very own Christmas Tree. She’s a royalty free image courtesy of the Graphics Fairy (LOVE Graphics Fairy big time!). The photo above is not true to colour – but I didn’t notice this until just now. There seems to be a pink stripe across the middle of the card. It wasn’t there when I printed the image out so it must be light playing with the camera.

The base is a little 6″ x 6″ Kraft card, which was covered front and inside with papers. The music sheet on the front of the card is again the G.Fairy, I resized it for what I needed.

The metal, fancy swirls corner (bottom right) piece was originally silver, but I wanted it to look old, so enamelled it in a bronze/gold, and added a little verdigris powder in a couple of places, just to make it look like it was beginning to corrode in parts and add to the ‘aged’ look.

The snowflake is ‘rusty’ metal and I’ve had a handful of them in my ‘metal embellishments’ drawer for so long that I can’t remember where I got them from, but I dragged a tiny bit of Stickles along some of the ‘arms’ of the snowflake, in order to give it that magical twinkle.

I added paper roses, lace and some bakers twine, then finished it off with a little string of Christmas lights – which I bought a good length of about five years ago and put in a safe place in my craft room…. I’ve just this month found them again! tsk tsk.

Finally, I added glitter around the roses and the matting & layering of the picture – just to add a little twinkle.

I made a matching box for this card, but forgot to take a photograph, and the card has already been given to my Avon lady. She’s a lovely gal … and so dedicated and patient. I barely buy anything from her – (the older I’ve got the more sensitive my skin has become and I can’t wear Avon cosmetics) – I tend to buy things like the gorgeous fabric and air fresheners and stuff like that. But, bless her heart, she comes and delivers a brochure when they’re due, in sun, rain, wind, or snow (all of which can be experienced in one day here in the UK) and so I felt she deserved a card which I’d spent a little more time on.

Have to admit … this card looks prettier in real life than it does on the photographs. It has a sort of personality which comes over as warm, friendly and kind of romantic. Shame the photographs don’t show it as well as they could. I shall put that down to my rubbish camera work.

Well that’s this card done and dusted! If I’ve missed mentioning anything, or you want to know a particular thing just ask away in a comment, and I’ll answer any questions in a reply.

It’s great to be back posting. I’ve missed everyone and missed sharing stuff with you. I’m now hoping that I continue to get better so that I can get some serious crafting done!

Sending love . . . and hoping that you aren’t getting snowed in under masses of Christmas wrapping paper and tape!