More Inspo....

Hi Blogland. Another Cuttlebug Spot Design Team Challenge for you today. Throughout January our themes have been "Inspiration".. Where do you get yours from?
Well, today we were asked to take inspiration from a magazine... You may recall our first challenge of the year was inspiration from a Book. I said at the time I don't really have the time to read, so therefore I have even less time to check out a magazine. Although I do occasionally flick through the Financial Times or the Independent Newspapers. Ok, more like the Sun or the News of the World!!
For this project I worked backwards. I knew what I wanted to do and use, so I therefore found an article from an on line magazine to match the inspiration...And here it is. The magazine was about gardens, and specifically gates!!.. Yeah! Not my cup of tea and doesn't exactly rock my world either, but it takes all sorts to make the world go round!!
And here is the project I came up with. It's a play on a New Home card I recently sent to a friend who has just moved..
And here's an "Andy" step by step for you if you fancy giving something similar a go..I started off by cutting out my Flower Shapes. I used a Marianne Designs Creatable Die (LR0128 Flower Fantasy). To cut these dies through the Cuttlebug you will need your A and B plates followed by your card stock and dies.Finishing of the "sandwich" with your C plate and pass through the machine.Once cut you are ready to emboss the image. Turn the dies over and place on top of an A and B plate.Add your "Tan" mat,and then this time another B plate. NOT a C plate as the "sandwich" will be too thick to go through the machine.Once embossed I coloured in the centre of each Flower using a Copic Pen (Lionet Gold Y28)and flicked the pen from the centre of the flower outwards.I then curved the petals of the flowers over the edge of my desk to add dimension.Added a foam pad to the centre of the larger flowerand popped the smaller one on top.Finishing off with a "blob" of Glossy Accents in the centre.Cool eh?!Now for the vine... You will need the Extra Long Cuttlebug plates to cut out this die fully, but if you are only going to use a bit of the die then the standard plates will be fine.
Again, to cut you will need your A and B platesfollowed by your card stock and diefinishing off with your C plate.To emboss the die, turn it over so the cutting side is facing upwards.Add your "Tan" mat and then your B plate.I used the No Shims Maxi mat as this is the one I had to hand at the timeand just did the process twice, but normally I would have used the larger 12" x 12" Tan mat which I could have cut to size.Et Viola!!Now for the brick wall.. This has proved a very popular Embossing Folder since I used it on my last project. It's a 5" x 7" Folder and at only £3.99 a bargain to boot!!
I coloured some light Cream card stock with Frayed Burlap Distressing Ink, popped it into the Embossing Folder and passed it through the Cuttlebug.I then went over the image with some Pumice Stone Distressing Ink to bring out the brick work patternand then cut the image to the size I needed.To give the brick wall a little bit of interest I punched an edge along the top using the Martha Stewart Double Arches Deep Edger Punch Around the Page Punch.I then added the wall images to my gate image. The gate was cut at 7.5" from the Ornamental Iron Cricut Cartridge.Time for the background.. I was struggling of bit with this one... But eventually came across some card stock from the Bird Song Collection from the current Do Crafts promotion Which fitted the theme perfectly.Unfortunately I had already opened up the 12" x 12" version before I realised that the images were repeated in the 8" x 8" version. However the 12" version had a large tree image printed on it which was better for the project. The scaled down 8" version I decided to use for the back of the card.So, I added the tree paper to the front of a side folding Easel Card (Instructions can be found here). Measured my gate and wall images against the front of the card and trimmed them to size.Added some hefty "blobs" of Silicone Gel to the backand mounted it to the base card.Whilst this was drying I mounted the 8" tree image onto some Gold Mirror cardand added it to the inside of the side folding easel card.I then added the Vineand the flowers as my easel card "Stopper".Finishing off with my "New Home" sentiment...And there you go... When it's closed,and open
Don't forget to pop on over to the Cuttlebug Spot to see what all the other Design Team Members have come up with for this weeks theme...
Have a great day and thanks for checking us out.
See you soon.
Andy..

Keeping it simple... or maybe not!!

Hi Everyone, we all have to make cards or projects in a hurry sometimes..! You know, that last minute Birthday card, j'eese it's not as if it's not the same day every year! (except for leap year peeps!) is it??!! Anyway, today's project is definitely not a last minute job..
It may look simple (and effective, I hope) but it certainly takes a little time to make. It encompasses (big word!) several different techniques which I am going to be using in a Tim Holtz lesson I am doing tomorrow.. The idea came from his blog (The Twelve Tags of Christmas), take a look, it's truly inspirational..
The finished card reminds me of the film "Schindler's' List", a great film, if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. The reason it reminds me of this film is because it is shot entirely in Black and White apart from a young girl in a Red coat, the Red Rose on the card reminds me of this..
Here's how it was made... Heavy post alert, you'll need a cuppa for this one...I cut 3 x 2" Flowers in Grunge Paper using a Flower from The Mothers' Day Cricut Cartridge.I coloured each one with Red Pepper Alcohol Ink on both sidesand highlighted areas with Cranberry Alcohol Inkto give a little more colour dimension.
Flower #1, make a cut from the edge to the centre.
Flower #2, cut out one petal.Flower #3, cut out two petals.So you have a set of flowers like this.on the back of Flower #1, apply some Glossy Accents to the back of one of the petals and over lap it with the petal next to it,holding it in place with a paperclip.Repeat this process for Flowers #2 & #3.
With the off cut from Flower #3, roll the edge of one of the petals over a pencil to give a bit of dimension.With the other petal, roll it in on itself and glue in place with some Glossy Accents, add a paperclip if required. This shouldn't take long to dry. Once it is dry, cut off the pointed end. This will become the centre of you Rose and if the end is left on then the centre will stick out too far.
Once all the layers are dry, glue them together with Glossy Accents and allow to dry, again this shouldn't take too long.Once dry I added some Fired Brick Distress Stickes.. Now I don't usually use these, favouring more the standard Stickles with a little more sparkle in them, but being true to Sir Tim's ideology of distress & age I plum pt for the distress look applying a generous amount to each petal. eeeakkkk.. It didn't look good at first, but once the Distress Stickles had dried the effect was more appealing...
This is the Rose done with for now, so you can put it to one side to dry.
Next, take Four pieces of extra thick card stock or chipboard cut to 5" squares.
Line each edge, on both sides with double sided tape.
Take a selection of designer papers cut 6" x 6". To keep the Sir Tim theme going I chose papers from one of his new paper stacks "Vintage Shabby" which is a selection of Grey's, Blue's and yes Pink's all in a "Vintage Shabby" theme, hence the name.. Doh!Lay one of your 5" cardboard square onto your paper and mitre the corner.Fold back the edges making a neat coaster.Repeat this 3 more times.Work out which will be your front and back pages
and your inside pages,and lay them face down in front of you applying double sided tape across the inside of the front and back pages.Apply some complementary ribbon across this tape.
Apply double sided tape around all the edges, this will help to hold the ribbon in placeand allow you to stick the inside covers.
I stamped a simple sentiment in Black Momento ink. Again the sentiment was from one of Tim's "Stampers Anonymous" sets.I attached the now dry Rose with a small leaf to the front of the card.Finishing off with a magnifying gem to highlight my sentiment.Here's a pic with the camera flash on to show the Rose in all it's glory..
As I said, simple in it's effect and although a lot of work to make it's totally worth it. Have fun in the lesson tomorrow ladies.
Thanks for checking us out, see you soon.
Pinnacles.