Yes .. it really does! More about that in a minute.
I wanted to make a vintage style card which was more simple in design, and going through my folder of images I came across this beautiful, old fashioned styled, children at play, and instantly knew this was ‘the’ one! I chose a 6×6″ white cardstock onto which I layered some Damask type printed card in a pale pinky beige colour. I tore around the edges of the ‘Damask’ card and then curled and distressed it with a little Cocoa ink and a colour duster. I then added two small paper doilies and distressed them just a little using what was remaining of the Cocoa ink on the colour duster, just to take the doilies from stark white, to something softer in colour.
I then chose a piece of plaid cardstock on which to mount the image of the children playing a game of Chicken and Fox – but before adhering the image I added a length of crocheted cotton lace in a pale pink, about two-thirds of the way down the plaid card. Using foam tape, I then fixed the image to the plaid card, and then again using foam tape, I fixed everything to the damask style card. Everything was now in place and all I had to do was add a little ‘fun stuff’.
I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to pop onto this card… CHICKENS! Little Cobs (5-year-old Grandson) has a bucket of little animals – horses, cows, ducks, chickens, etc – in his bedroom (here in our cottage), and I thought that he had so many of these that he really wouldn’t miss a chicken and a chick, so went rifling through his animals and found the very things. One lovely reddy brown chicken, and one fabulously funny, little yellow chick. I fixed them to the card, down towards the bottom.
I added some ‘bulrushes’to the left hand side of the image (which I’ve had in my stash for such a long time that I can’t even remember buying them!), and some sage green flowers – made out of handmade paper. I used teeny buttons for the centres of the flowers in a very pale green. Then picking up the red in the image I added tiny wee red buttons on the plaid card, and then finished everything off with a vintage green bow to the middle of the opening edge of the card.
And that, as the say, is all there is to it.
BUT… I promised you a little more detail of the Fox and Chicken game…. The rhyme which accompanies the game appears on the front of the card …
COME MASTER FOX AND TRY YOUR BEST, MY PRETTY CHICKS, TO CATCH. I DO NOT MEAN TO LET THEM GO, FOR I SHALL BE YOUR MATCH.
I’d never heard of this game, but apparently it really is a game which was played by children around the 1930’s onwards. The image actually came with the details of how to play …
… which I fixed to the back of the card, so that whoever this card ended up with could play the game themselves, with their own children or Grandchildren!
I have to admit that I really love this fun,quirky little card. It has so much good, old fashioned fun and lots of warmth and love, and you could send this to an adult or to a child.
Well now … changing the subject…
Can you believe that it’s Thursday already? This week seems to have started a couple of hours ago and it’s racing towards the end of it already! How does that happen?What happens to ‘Time’ as you get older? It goes so fast! What say you?
Wishing you a peace filled Thursday, without any gremlins getting into it and making mischief!
Sending squidges from me in my corner, to you in yours. Have a blessed day my friends ~
I’ve done something crafty which is a bit different from my ‘normal’ and I hope you find this post an enjoyable read.
Where I live there are a small handful of local shops: Somewhere to buy newspapers and a few groceries; a pet store; a charity shop; and a ‘Store 21’. (That’s what it’s called). Now I love all of these shops. They’re just down the road from my home and although I don’t visit them all that often, when I do visit, I always come home with something that I’m excited about.
Last time I visited Store 21 (about a month or so ago) I picked up something in their sale. It was a little pale brown box with a hinged lid, and a clear, viewing glass window within the lid. It was really cheap – something like 99p (about $1.45 for USA folks) – and the size was perfect for the tools I use at my craft desk, over and over and over again, alllll the time.
Four different types of tweezers: 2 different needle nose tweezers; a pair of flat end tweezers; and a pair of slanted (eyebrow plucking) tweezers. A Tim Holtz pick. A paper edge ruffer upper (I have no idea what they’re really called but I like my description. lol). Eraser, pens, small scissors – and one or two other bits and pieces.
If I move onto another desk, I have to take all this junk important equipment, with me, so when I saw the little box I thought it was a great way of having everything stored in one place and easily ‘moveable’. So I bought it.
It’s worked brilliantly. I’ve loved it. But it wasn’t originally designed for this purpose. It was meant to be for spare change. It actually had the word: ‘COINS‘ in wood, attached to the front.
On Saturday I sat at my desk wondering what to make … and my eye wandered over my desk. “I wonder if I could get that ‘COINS’ off that box without damaging the box?” I thought to myself. No sooner was the thought, a deed. I took my little flat nose tweezers and gently eased the end of one side behind the ‘S’ …. “oooo, it’s coming away!” … . . . . . . {c.r.a.c.k.} … “aaah nuts. It’s broken. Ah well, I’ve started now so I’ve got to get the rest off”.… and in I went with the tweezers again … pushing, easing, moving, wiggling . . . until eventually the whole of the word had parted company with the box.
I sat back and looked at the result. (and sighed) . . . Well now it just looked sad. It was a box without a purpose. I suddenly felt really guilty about robbing it of its identity.
“Well I’m going to have to do something about you now, aren’t I!” – I told the box.
I should say that at this point I was at a loss at what to do with the little (sad-looking) box.
Napkin it?No.
Cover it with decorative tissue paper?No.
Turn it into something amazing with some Graphic 45 papers and some paper flowers & adornments?No.
I knew there was only one option .. paint it.
I decided on folksy/country-style – (which has always been my favourite to be honest) – so, that decided – I thought I’d keep it simple because the box was too small for anything fancy.
I totally forgot to take a photograph of the box before I began this ‘change’, but I did remember just after I applied a coat of Gesso, so here I am, offering you a sequence of photos, with captions, on:-
. . . The Doing Up of the Little Bitty Box.
The broken ‘COINS’. I’m showing you the inside of the box so that you can see what the colour originally was before I began throwing paint around.All that junk … {cough} I mean the important equipment you see up in that corner there … that’s all the stuff which lives in the Little Bitty Box.The Gesso attacked the poor defenceless Little Bitty Box and made it ‘white’ (ish)So … what are you going to paint on this box then?Want to see a bit more of the madness on my desk? (And this is just one of four desks I have in my craft room. I love this one … It’s deep and loooong)Oooooo errr! Cream paint on top of the Gesso. Red paint around the tops and bottom of the box. Green paint up the corners. What’s next I wonder?Well who would have guessed that this dope would have put checker board pattern on this little box? Does she not know that she has stupid fingers and can’t draw a straight line, let alone paint one!Ok .. done the front and one side and it doesn’t look tooooo bad …. but she’s got two other sides to go. This is a car crash waiting to happen. Any second now she’s going to drop that paint brush and paint will go everywhere!. {snigger}Time to do the back …Well knock me down with a feather. She’s done it! checker board on all four sides!But wait a minute …. what’s she up to? What on earth is that blob all about?What on earth is that? Is it a cloud? A marshmallow? Cotton wool ball?Ohhh … it’s a folksy country-style Sheep! I wonder why she decided on a sheep?She’s stuck bits of sticky backed felt to the bottom of the box so that it doesn’t scratch her glass mats.Finally …. in its rightful place, with all those tools tucked snug inside it. That little bitty box has lived in that space since the day it came home. Works perfectly!
The sheep? … I painted that because there are these teeny-weeny sheep all around my craft room. Hidden in little spots. (There’s even one which glows in the dark). They’re not ‘my‘ sheep. They belonged to my daughter who collected little sheep, anywhere she found them, when she was younger, and now, (that she’s ‘grown up’) they’ve all gathered in my craft room and are keeping me company. They make me smile. Apart from the glow in the dark one. He totally freaks me out when I turn the light off at night-time, and glance around the room to see if there are any ‘standby’ lights still on, in case I’ve forgotten to turn something off. (normally the printer). There he stands … glowing like a tiny green fluffy cloud with a black face and green glowing smiley eyes. FREAKY is an understatement!
Aw .. but anyhooo ….Thank you so much for coming and spending a bit of fun time with me and my little bitty box.(Yes I really do call it that). I have to admit that it’s left me feeling that I want to paint something else now! I know that ‘painting’ is a bit of a ‘different from the normal’ type of thing for me to be posting on my blog, … but I hope you’ve had a smile at the pictures and their captions. ‘Make room for some fun in your life’ is my motto … and there’s ALWAYS room for fun!
I love to hear from you so please feel free to tap a comment out on your keyboard. I love to get to know everyone who’s visiting. I don’t always comment back, because I like to think that your comment will show up over to the right here (in the last ten comments section) and give you some free advertising for your own blog. If I comment, then it puts my comments over there → – and you don’t need to see my comments … you need other visitors to see yours so that they come and have a look around your blog. But … I read every single comment without fail, and I do respond if there is a question you want to ask. So ask away and I promise to reply to questions.
But anyway, for now … I wish you an excellent day!
I rarely make Christmas cards. You can buy a box of Christmas cards so cheaply that it kind of feels like it’s a bit wasteful to spend lots of money (not to mention time) to make them myself. We crafters know exactly how much it actually costs for our supplies – and believe me it’s not cheap!
But this year I thought that I could justify making them as I had a plethora of card stock, and I if I used my Card-io stamps then I could make them really cheaply, with very little in the way of adornments or embellishments.(Watch out for more about Cardio stamps soon. I’m going to do a write-up in my ‘Craft Products I recommend’ category on my blog here – so look out for that one.) Over the next few days I’ll post a card a day of a selection of the Card-io cards which I’ve made for friends and neighbours this year.
Today is the turn of the Christmas Wreath Card.
Pretty, isn’t it! And yet it’s made SO simply that you probably wouldn’t believe it. Made using just four tiny little clear stamps. The only embellishments on this card are some pale pink flat back pearls (used as little berries on the wreath), and a tie of a tiny bit of ribbon for the bow on the top of the wreath – oh, and a little sprinkle of some glitter.
I know that in the photograph the wreath looks as if it has quite some depth – but it’s actually totally flat, apart from the pale pink pearls. The clever bit is in the stamping. If you use a second and sometimes third generation of stamping then you’ll ‘build in’ some depth. If you look around the edge of the card itself, you’ll see what I mean by ‘second generation’.
second generation stamping
You can see a dark stamped image … but between the darker images, you’ll see a second, paler image. Well – that’s second generation stamping. I stamped the image once, then without inking up the stamp again, I stamped the image again – this time pressing just a little harder on the stamp to ensure that the image printed out. This is what gives a depth to a stamped image. It looks like something is there, in the background.
Because the wreath is a little more heavily stamped, you don’t see the second generation stamping too easily – but it’s there. It kind of tricks your brain into thinking that what you’re seeing is actually a shadow of the darker stamped image, and so makes the darker images look as if they’re dimensional and stand out proud of the card. Hence the deception of depth.
Crafty stuff I used to make this card:
White 6×6 ready scored card stock.
An assortment (4) of small individual Card-io stamps
Whisper Archival Ink Pads (a pinky peachy raspberry colour and a dull brown)
Memento Ink Pad (in a warm brown)
Ranger Archival Ink Pad (black)
Pinflair Glue
Translucent Glitter Dust
Anita’s flat back pearls from their Gemstone Wheel.
Short length of tartan/plaid ribbon.
This was a really quick to make card and it didn’t need any die cutting, measuring, cutting (other than the ribbon) or any great deal of ‘working it out’. I knew I wanted to make a wreath. I knew I wanted it to look festive but in colours other than red and green (so over-used at Christmas!) – and I wanted the edges of the card to be coloured to tone with the wreath.
I had such a fun time making this … but then … I was using Card-io stamps, and I always have a fun craft time with them. ButI’ll do you a write-up about them and then you can make your own decision on whether to buy some for yourself!
Wishing you a blessed and trouble-free Tuesday, love from ~
The Art of Cobwebs 