The Range – The Art of Cobwebs

Well my goodness, it’s been quiet around this blog for the last month, hasn’t it! I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say: Life sometimes gets in the way and it can take up valuable crafting time. How dare it!

“What a darn cheek”, I hear you say. I agree. How VERY dare it, indeed!

I’ve been trying to fit a little crafting time in, and one of the things which was on the list of ‘To Do’, was an anniversary card for my truly lovely neighbours. Big M (aka Mr. Cobs) learnt that they were going on a fabulous holiday to celebrate their wedding anniversary, so he shared the news with me and of course … I instantly went into ‘must make a card’ mode, and this, dear readers, is what this lovely blog post is about.

I’ll put in as many details as possible in case this card inspires you to make something similar for someone you know. But if I leave anything out, please feel free to ask in a comment. Comments are moderated (to delete ‘spam’ before it gets onto the blog) – so your ‘question’ or comment won’t appear on the blog straight away. But I will reply asap, I promise, cross my heart, hold up my pinky finger and say “Honour Bright”. (yerrsss…. Shirley Temple was a part of my growing up. My mother loved the films).

Anyway … let’s get on with it, shall we?

The ‘base’ card I used was a 5×5″ ready scored card (by Craftwork Cards), in a beautiful soft biscuit colour, with white polka dots. I began by cutting half of the front of the card off, diagonally, and then on the reverse of the cut off piece of card, I sprayed it with plain cold water from a very fine mist spray. I let the water penetrate the card and after a moment or two, I curled the card round a little tube, to give it that lovely curve you see in the photograph above. If you do this – hold the card there for a moment, to kind of ‘set’ the curve and give it a memory of where you want it to be. Then set it on one side to dry while you get your papers chosen and cut to size.

For this project I chose papers from Docrafts ‘Papermania’ in their Parisienne Blue range. The doily is also from this range. I cut a 12×12 into 6″ squares, then cut one square diagonally, and also cut a doily in the same way.

I fixed the triangle of paper and the doily to the curved piece of card first, (you might find this easier to do if you drape the curved card over the edge of your desk and work with it that way), then fixed a 6×6 sheet of the paper to the card, as shown.

I attached the curve back onto the card again, and using strong red tape, I taped it down to the front of the card. I then punched two holes through the curved piece of card, and the card front (now attached, beneath it) and then ensured the curve stayed exactly where I wanted it to be by using a tie of thin organza ribbon through the punched holes.

My attention then turned to the back, and I made a card stand for the back, so that the wallet card would stand up when it was finished. (Imagine a school photograph, which has one of those stiff fold out bits on the reverse, enabling you to stand the photo up without a frame. The card stands I make are the same sort of thing). I then finally fixed the ‘loose’ front in place, along the inner bottom, thereby creating a wallet style card.

I added some metal, vintage style corners in place, using some strong glue and my craft clamps. (Bought some time ago from The Range for next to nothing. I HIGHLY recommend them!)

Corners fixed in place and not moving, …. then came the fun stuff!

The Roses came from my stash. I buy flowers anywhere I find them. If I see flowers which I know would work perfectly on cards (or albums etc), I buy them straight away. Finding the right flowers when you need them can be a task and a half sometimes, so I try to have a selection already in the craft room so that I have them when I need them.

The roses I chose for this card are a kind of delicate to touch, silky flowers and I fell in love with them because of their softly folded petals and the way they curled at the edges. I tucked them into the curve of the card and added silky green leaves wherever I thought they were needed.

I made a big bow using some wide, pretty blue Organza and added a satin ribbon from the Parisienne Blue range on top, to layer, and also tie the biscuity colour of the card into the ribbons, and finally, I added a large rose to the centre of the ribbons and fixed it in place.

Next came the tags which I wanted to tuck into the pocket. I used some beautiful royalty free images and also stamped a ‘post card’ onto some card, then vintaged it up using a warm brown ink pad and duster brush.

All around the edges of the tags I kind of sprinkly, embossed some very fine, golden embossing powder to give them a bit of pizzazz. The stamped message that you can just about see on the tag behind the postcard above reads:

Marriage
1. A legal commitment to live as
husband and wife
2. Wedlock
3. A close and intimate association
4. A pledge.

Which kind of sums it all up in a few words, doesn’t it?. I loved it! It was perfect for this tag.

And finally … this card would never have fit into a regular envelope, so I made it a matching box, which I lined with contrasting papers from the same Papermania Parisienne Blue range …

The card was ready and waiting for my neighbours when they came home from their holiday.

Thank you so much for coming and spending some time with me. I’m sorry that it’s been a bit quiet around here, Thank you to those of you who so kindly kept me in your prayers and sent me messages. You touched my heart in so many ways and kept me plodding along. Thank you. I want to say I love you, for it. And I do – but not in a creepy way you understand! . . . aw, you know what I mean. (chuckling to myself here).

Have a truly blessed rest of your day. I hope your weekend is fabulous and that the sun shines warm upon your face …. just not so hot that it melts you though!

Heaps of love and squishy stuff …

Although I know it’s a little early for Roses to be popping up in the garden (at least, it is here, in England) I simply couldn’t resist these papers any longer and had to get my hands on them.

The papers – beautifully named: “You Were Never Lovelier” – are acid and lignin free scrapbooking papers. All of them are of the ‘oooooOOooo’ and the ‘aaaaaaAAaahh’ type of paper!

I knew I wanted to make a cross-over type card, so set to work with my cardstock and guillotine. I LOVE cross-over cards – I think because it enables me to really ‘dress up’ a card. I also adore embellishments, and I particularly love making tags, so making a cross-over card gives me chance to almost have a party with embellishments strewn all over my desk!

Once the basic shape was built, I cut and added the papers and the beautiful vintage, crocheted lace.

The card itself has three large soft, pink, (fabric-type) roses, some paper roses, and some filler flowers. The little wooden bird-cage (available in almost all crafty outlets) I painted with Gesso and then tinted over the top of it. The string of pearls which winds itself along the card and around the flowers – are just ‘craft pearls’ on a string, and you can buy these for very little, again in lots of place, but I recently saw some in The Range (here in the UK) in a bag filled with a choice of either white or cream; LOTS of pearls and I’m almost sure that they were less than £2 (English pounds). To fix these pearls into place – I use Cosmic Shimmer glue – sparingly. You don’t need tons of glue. Just a bit here and there. (You can click to view the photographs in a larger size – but don’t forget to click ‘back’ so that you can come back to continue reading).

The crocheted cotton lace I used on the card is genuinely vintage lace. I bought it as part of a bag full of lace on Ebay about five years ago. The lady I bought it from was parting with some of her Grandmothers sewing stuff after Grandma had been called home. She told me that her Grandmother used to keep any lace from things which had worn out, got damaged etc, and due to be thrown away (or used as dusters/cleaning cloths etc.), and she would use the lace on other clothes or all sorts of things. But the Granddaughter wasn’t a sewing gal and had no room to keep things, so she put the bag filled with lace on eBay and I was lucky enough to win it. (I was thrilled down to my toes when it arrived and wrote a thank you email to the lady who I’d bought it off, telling her how wonderful the lace was and how honoured I was to be the new owner of Grandma’s lace.).

I made three inserts for this card, and all three can be ‘viewed’ on both sides. You can see one side of the tags in the photograph above, and the other side of the tags in the photo below:

The long, tall tag in the centre of the photo above is a bookmark. The little tag laying to the right hand side of the photo (on your right as you look at the photo) is a postcard on both sides of the card. And the final tag – the large one at the right of the centre – has an ’empty’ postcard on the one side – which is blank so that a message can be written from the sender of the card – and on the reverse side it has a beautiful poem by Helen Steiner Rice – which I ‘built’ on the computer using the fabulous image of the roses and the poem.

A Bunch of Roses 3a - Roses — close up of the large ‘fabric type’ roses

A Bunch of Roses 3b - Butterfly — Close up of the butterfly. I hand stamped onto some cardstock then glazed & once dry I added the tiny gems.

The tags fit neatly inside the fold over card, and the card itself has a stand on the back of it, (die cut on my Big Shot) – which stands the card in the same way children’s school photographs stand up. They have that fold out stand on the back, with a little curved piece which folds down and holds the stand firmly so that the card stands up apparently without any help! (I looks just like a magic trick when you see one of these cards standing up all by itself. All it’s missing is the flick of the wrist and swish of the wand! Oh … and ‘abracadabra‘! lol)

Obviously the card couldn’t go into a regular envelope, so I made it a box:

The sentiment on the little tag in the top right corner, was stamped – firstly with brown ink, then with black – which helped to give it a more vintage feel.

The card fits perfectly into the box . . .

This would be a lovely card for Mothers Day – or a Birthday, or a ‘hello’ card, a ‘cheer you up’ card, anniversary card, or an ‘I love you and wanted to show you’ type of card! It’s one of those cards which fits all the regular types of ‘card days’.

The big ribbon bow on the front of the card … isn’t tied into an ‘un-equal bow’, – it’s very much a balanced bow, but the angle of the card, combined with the angle I’ve taken the photographs at, has made it look like the bottom loop of the bow isn’t as generous as the top loop. It’s sadly a trick of the camera/eye. (and the nutcase holding the camera who’s rubbish at taking photographs! <sigh> tsk tsk). lol

But … if I may be serious for a moment:

I know the blog has been a bit quiet over the past couple of weeks. Apologies for that. Poor health is to blame, – but I’m hoping that my doctor will, this week, get the results of a gazillion tests and x-rays I had to have done, and that he will finally be able to tell me what the heck is causing this horrible ‘chest infection’ (or whatever it is) and will be able to ‘fix’ me once and for all!

Thank you so much for coming to share this card with me. I’m thrilled that you do. Honestly. But … what really brings me out in fun bumps (aka: goosebumps) are ‘comments’. It’s such a joy to put a name to a visitor, so please, don’t be shy. Do tap your fingers on your keyboard and say hello! :o)

Sending crafting love your way, and wishing you . . . . a truly blessed rest of your day!

I’m entering this card into the following challenges: