Creative Expression's Thursday.

Hi Folks

Well hows this for doing completely opposite of yesterday... lol   I like keeping you all on your toes hehe....
I love the vintage traditional styles almost.... I said almost....hmmmm (nope...inky still pips it haha) as much as the inky goodness as was yesterday and the only thing that today's card and yesterday have in common is ..... Cheesecloth, I had a bit lurking on my desk so it ended up on here too haha..
Thank you everyone for yesterdays kind comments  you always astound me with your kindness and I appreciate you all so very much.

So today's tutorial is more how I worked each piece and how to put something like this together without it looking like a huge bundle of mis matched papers and how you can stamp onto already patterned paper subtly to enhance rather than creating a whole backing piece from scratch as I often do.

I feel this card conjures up summer days, with hedgerows of wild roses and billowy clean washing hanging on the line wafting in the breeze, the scent of newly mown grass with flowers newly erupting from their winter slumbers , cream teas and chalk board writing announcing the delectable freshly backed goodies to temp us that day.....

What.... all that from a hand crafted card you say... my mind often wanders off on these little paths of Imaginarim folks and this is how something will spring into my head , like little buds of ideas and I sit down in the room of stash and tings start to appear and I can instantly tell which idea inspired it.
Well there you are a little peak into the workings of a craftaholics mind folks haha..

Without further ado I present today's card ...

"Just A Note". 

This card is of course for Creative Expression's, It is a new month so this means new goodies to work with so today I used some of the gorgeous papers you know I have been enjoying recently made by Couture Creations and some new stamps from our Phil recently launched.
The range is called Decadent Damask and features not only stamps but an entire range of stunning coloured pastes, glitters and glues from the Cosmic shimmer line of course.

To start...

 I chose some papers from the Vintage Rose Garden 6X6inch paper pad that I liked together , wit ha few matching colours but different patterns. I distressed the edges a little , not too much this time but just enough to give that aged look and of course inked them with Vintage Photo Distress ink, I didn't bring it into the colour of the paper I kept it to the very  edge that was roughened from the distressing tool. (edge of scissors if you don't not have a distressing tool be careful though lovlies..)

 I then hand stitched the edges with a couple of different  stitch styles  mostly just running  and zig zag on the central piece. If you have a machine I love that effect even better as it is so neat but for me this had to do as I do not yet have a machine.

 I took the smallest stamp from Phil's Decandent Damask Corners and Icons stamp set and the strip of paper I was to use to go across almost belly band style and some Antique Linen Distress ink which is actually one of my favourite colours and stamped the Damask Icon several times in a row. I love how well everthing matched thus so far.

 I then put the base together (its's all about that base, all about that base .... no trouble... all about that base ... Singing away here... ish haha)
I used latte , although it looks cream in this light and Soft gold foundations card stock and another piece of hand stitched and distressed paper from the pad.

I zoomed in on the layers and the distressing and stitches for you to view how and which layers have glue and which have a foam separating them without bulking the card too much.

 I chose three papers to go on top of the first green piece and tried them out several ways but featuring the piece with the Damask stamp mainly.I also decided to add some of the damask stamp in a little row vertically down the square piece of paper too, its subtle but I love this look.
The first two I glued flat to the the green paper with a tiny piece of cheese cloth at the top of the pink striped and the belly band piece I added foam to and layreed a larger piece of cheesecloth down with some cosmic shimmer glue before adding the band on top of it, I also added glue to the foam to give it that instant grab adhesion too.

 Next I took some thinner creamy coloured card that is easy to bend and shape and I again used the same stamp and used Antique lined to stamp out lots of the damask stamps onto the left over scrap paper and cut them all out fussy cutting by hand, Once cut I used Tattered lace Distress ink and inked the edges of every piece and on the inside of each piece too.
This is a way to use the stamps you have in a totally different way if you fancy making a home made flower, I knew I wanted a rose on this weeks card and I saw the shape of this stamp and instantly saw petals for this one.

Making the Rose...
 
I started with a little circle of card around an inch in diameter and added a large blob of glue all over the centre but away from the edge , I took a few of the petal and rolled then around a pencil and then began placing them in a circle and overlapping each petal, once all the bottom layer is added I glued a piece of cheesecloth scrunched up in the centre and used a ball tool to really push down into the rose to create a well for the bud I make next to slip into.
Take two petals and glue the bottom half of both and slip them inside each other create a kind of funnel or cone shape and hold til the grab on the glue activates. then take a pokey took or small pencil and roll the edges of the unglued section back, to open it like a rose would be centrally, I too another petal and rolled it up tightly and glued  cut of the bottom and glued it inside that first piece to start the bud forming. I then just went round adding each piece overlapping them by half a petal each time until I got it large enough that I could add to the bottom layer with the cheesecloth we made first.

A country chique rose.

 

So moving on I used another of Phil's stamp sets called The Decadent Damask sentiments. I stamped onto the latte card using Vintage photo ink ad inked the edges and corners well. I mounted it onto a piece of Soft gold card.
Cutting a piece of the crochet ribbon we have here at Creative I laid that down with some double sided tape and of course lots of the little holes in the crochet allow some of the sticky from the tape to be felt through it so I used glitter and tipped it all along the crochet and tapped off the excess which gave the card a very nice sparkle but subtle look. The above sentiment could then be added to the top right of the card with glue and overlapping the crochet ribbon also.

Here is the card so far, I just need to build the Handmade Rose with some leaves and a couple of buds on the left now. I had some leaves in my stash and I bent three of them and glued then to the bottom of the rose I then chose some to glue directly to the card base wit a couple of buds to poke out from under the Rose also. I cut a piece of cheese cloth and frayed all the edge a lot and glued it under the Rose on top of the leaves then I sat the rose on top of it.
My final touches for this piece were a little glitter glue on the edges of some of the paper in a tiny thin sparkly line and also around some of the petals on the Rose too. Lastly I added three Cream 5mm pearls to the top left of the card and three the same to the bottom right on the belly band we created also.

Here is the finished rose before I added the glitter in situ on the card with the leaves.

Here again is the finished card.

I hope you like it  as I say very different from yesterday but I love to be versatile and I made both yesterday's card and today's on the same creative session which  for me comes from an idea written down and a line underneath it then a new idea another line etc etc, then I don't mix them up and try to squeeze too many things in one card etc.

Thank you again for stopping by for all my regular comments and for any new , I love and appreciate the time you use coming here with me and really wold love to be demoing in person meeting you all in person one day too.... 

Huge Huge Hugs for each of you 

Love

Kim 

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