Valentine’s Day card

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! (a little late though)

So yesterday (Saturday) I woke up 3.30 in the morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep. At 6.00 I decided to get out of bed and paint my nails instead…yeah I’m a bit weird like that.. I did a Valentine’s inspired nail design of course. If you want to see how they turned out I have posted a picture on my instagram: @lilla_konstnaren, and have lots of other nail pics there too.

I also found a little inspiration to make a Valentine’s card for my honey. I had this idea to make a background with a gradient/ombré in pink.

 

 

So I diecut some card stock with my hexagon die and stamped every little hexagon with pink ink. I used a circle stamp that was bigger than the paper pieces, just to have something to cover them in color with. At first I thought I’d just take the ink pad and drag it in the paper before diecutting, but since I only have two different kinds of pink it would have been tricky to do. Plus it makes the color a lot darker than if you would just stamp it. Instead I stamped the dark and the light pink a few times to get as much color on there as possible.

When doing the pieces in between those colors, I first stamped the dark pink once and then the light pink, I think, three times over the dark pink. It’s not perfect, the two darkest shades were just a little too close in color and the light shade was maybe too far off, but I think it works overall. Maybe it just means that I need one more pink ink pad, what do I know? ..

Julia

 

Shaker card

Hello all!

A couple of days ago we decided to clean up our workroom space here at home. We kind of ”forgot” about that room after moving, since we didn’t have a solution for it yet. But now we felt that to be able to use the room properly, before redecorating, we needed to at least unpack the last two boxes that has been standing there all this time, and figure out a temporary solution. We had to compromise to make it work. But even though it might not be a beautiful sight right now, it’s at least practical and I can live with that for a while.

But I haven’t really been feeling like crafting for a long while. Instead I have been practicing a lot of piano and guitar and I think that there is no creative energy left for making cards right now. I have also been doing some nail art lately and if you’re interested in seeing some pictures of that, go check out my instagram: @lilla_konstnaren. But I have a card to share today, it’s one I made for a friend’s birthday back in December. I wanted to try something different and shaker cards have been so popular lately. I’ve been itching to try it out!

 

The background is put together with patterned paper from the Amy Tangerine Plus One paper pad, which is one of my favorites! To make the window I diecut a circle with my Big Shot and put a piece of acetate, so that you can see the sentiment and all the sequins and glitter behind. I embossed a diecut frame in gold to separate all the patterns from sentiment and draw the attention to the focal point. The sentiment is also heat embossed in gold to match the frame. To make the sequins move, I put two layers of foam tape, making sure that there were no gaps where they could slip out. For a finishing touch I put som gold Stickles on the flowers on some of the patterned paper.

This is actually my second try. The first time I only put one layer of foam tape around the frame and it sort of locked the biggest sequins in. So I had to do some card surgery, as Kristina Werner would say, and take everything of and do it all again. But I managed to save the patterned paper piece. It would have been pretty irritating if I would’ve had to do that part all over again. Luckily, no harm was done.

What do you guys think? Have you ever made a shaker card before? Did you run in to any difficulties? Hope your day has been great!

Julia

Clean and simple

Hi everyone!

Well.. I realized that it’s been kinda quiet over here for a while. There’s been a lot happening lately, so I haven’t had the time to post. During the fall we had a few visits to the vet, since we discovered that Miranda, our cat, had gotten new lumps on her tummy. After taking some tests we decided that we wanted them removed. The surgery went well and she recovered quickly. A while after the surgery we got the testresults they took from the lumps and it turned out to be malignant. So it was the right thing to remove them. But Miranda is 13 years old so I was worried that the surgery would tear on her. So this has been on my mind a lot. But she seems to be fine now though.

We moved to a bigger place a couple of weeks ago and so we have been busy cleaning out the old apartment and settling in the new one. It’s been quite stressful, but now that we moved and everything is in order I feel relieved. The best part is that the craftroom…hrm I mean.. the office.. is A LOT bigger. So now we have a lot of room for both our desks and also our guitars and keyboards.

But right now, my desk is cluttered with stuff. We plan to reorganize our desk space in the future and so I don’t want to put anything up on the walls before we know how we want it. Therefore all the stuff that I had on shelves on the wall is now laying on my desk.

So this is the mess that is my desk.. I haven’t really created anything since we moved because of it. But I got a card to share from a few weeks ago:

It’s a very clean and simple card, which I’ve been kinda into lately. The blue card stock in the background is a foil card stock. I think it made the card a bit more interesting. What do you think? Hope everyone has had a great start of the new year.

 

Julia

 

Frozen frenzy

 

Hi everyone!

Hope your weekend was great! On Saturday we´re going to my sister’s to celebrate my oldest niece’s birthday. She turns five so it’s a big one. As always I try to come up with fun home made gifts. My niece loves the movie Frozen and I thought it would be fun to make something on that theme.

I found a postcard with Anna and Elsa on it in a toy store and decided to make a frame for it. Of course I had to make a frame in white to match the movie. I wanted the effect of frost and snow, with lots of snow flakes and glitter. Here’s how it turned out:

 

I started by layering some modeling paste through a stencil, that I thought fitted well with the theme, on a few random areas on the frame. Then I glued down a LOT of beads on the areas with no modeling paste. Then when dried I painted the whole frame in white. I got the idea with the beads from Finnabair who have used them on a few projects. It’s a great way to add some texture. To give the frame a little more dimension, I put some Inka Gold in aquamarine, violet and platinum on a few places. This also gives the impression of reflected snow.

Then I decorated with a bunch of snowflakes in different sizes and shapes. I painted wood veneer snowflakes in white and a little Inka Gold to match the rest. I also filled them in with my clear wink of stella marker for added shimmer. I punched out som snowflakes from a hand punch I had laying around and embossed them with platinum embossing powder. Then I dry brushed on some white paint to make them blend in a little more.

The focal point of the frame is the roses with leaves in the front. The roses were originally white, but I decided to paint them anyway to match the rest of the project. Then I embossed both the roses and leaves in platinum embossing powder and then painted on some more white in a few places to imitate snow. I then finished it of by drowning them in glitter. I used some stickles in crystal, aqua and starry night and also some transparent dry glitter.

Then I put everything together and after I glued down all the snowflakes I decorated the frame some more with rhinestones and transparent sequins in different sizes. I put small dots of stickles all around the frame and also areas of the dry glitter.

It’s a lot going on here, but because everything is cohesive, it doesn’t come off as busy.

And a few detail shots:

 

It was hard to catch all the glitter and shimmer with the camera. It looks so much better in real life.

I also made a birthday card for her (of course):

I used the oh so cute Sugar Rush stamp set from Paper Smootches to make the cupcakes. In the set there’s three different smileys that you can put on the cupcakes, which I think is adorable! I stamped all the different parts of the cupcakes on different pattern papers and embossed them in white embossing powder. Then I cut everything out and paper pieced it together. To top it off I decorated the cupcakes with my clear wink of stella pen for a little shimmer and filled in all the topping with glossy accents. I also put a little wink of stella on some of the stripes on the background paper to bring it all together.

This was a long one! Thanks for reading to the end and I hope you enjoyed it!

 

Julia

Crafty goodness!

Hi everyone!

About two weeks ago I was giggling happy because I got a big package from Simon Says Stamp filled with crafty goodness! It was the first time I ordered something from them and I wasn’t disappointed. I had dreamed – I’m not kidding – about the day I got to try Hero Arts shadow inks and Simon’s stamps and inks. And – not to forget – Wink of Stella glitter brush marker. There is no words for how happy I was when my package arrived. But when I finally opened it and took out all the fun stuff it took me nearly four days before I actually started making something out of it. I guess I was a little overwhelmed by it all. I had thought about using these things for at least six months, maybe even longer, and have had a lot of great ideas for cards. But when I finally got to use them my head just went blank. But then I just sat down at my desk and started stamping without any specific idea in mind and everything just fell into place. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you just let go of any expectations or demands and just create. (I guess my unwillingness to study also had something to do with my sudden urge to craft. Hmm…)

But enough rambling! I wanted to share some cards I made out of all the great new stuff I got. So here it is:

And here’s another card I made for a friends daughter’s christening:

Julia

Fun news – Cards for SALE at Sorby Gårdsbutik

Hello everyone!

I haven’t been around much lately, but today I have some fun news. Starting next week some of my cards can be bought at a store at Gotland called Sorby Gårdsbutik. So if you’re in the neighbourhood, stop by and take a look! Don’t forget to check out all the other cool stuff in the store too. If you want to get more information about Sorby Gårdsbutik hop on over to their Facebook page.
Anyhow, I’ve put together a little gallery for you with all the cards that is available:

 

 

Julia

Card with mosaic pattern

Hi everyone!

Today I’m gonna share a card I made for my aunt. She wanted a goodbye card for a co-worker. I got a few guide-lines on what she wanted the card to look like. Kind of earthy colors, not to much poofy and girly stuff, like lace and bows. I got the feeling she wanted something that had a bohemian and a little vintage vibe going on.This is what I came up with:

She was very happy with the result and said that it was spot on. That made me really happy, because it can be so hard to get it right, when you don’t know the person that is getting the card. But my aunt said that her co-worker liked the card very much so I guess I did a good job!

I wanted to show you guys how I did the card, or at least the part with the ”mosaic pattern”. First I decided what kind of shape I wanted my pieces to be. I chose a sort of diamond shape. I thought that would be kind of interesting, and a fun twist. I chose two patterned papers with a small pattern and three others without a pattern so that the background wouldn’t be too overwhelming.

When all the pieces where cut I started placing them on a piece of card stock until I was happy with the result. Before adhering the pieces I applied a little distress ink in vintage photo to the card stock. I wanted a little of the card stock to show through, to mimic ceramic tiles.

Then I adhered the diamond shapes to the card stock and trimmed the edges. The sentiment is a quote that my aunt chose for the card. It’s in swedish and says: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. Because the sentiment was quite long, and also because my aunt wanted a lot of space for all the co-workers to write their names on the inside, this is quite a large card. I usually make cards in the standard note card size, 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inches. Before I got started it felt kind of intimidating to fill such a big space on a card. But when I had the idea ready everything just fell in place.

Because she said she wanted earth tones I thought that the patterned papers were to bright and stood out too much. I then decided to take them down a bit by applying gesso randomly on the piece. I left a few spots clean, so that the colors would pop a bit. After that I stamped some random images around the piece in distress ink. I stamped off once before stamping on the card, for a more faded effect. Then I applied some modeling paste through a crafter’s workshop stencil around the edges to bridge the gap between the ”mosaic piece” and the card base. When the modeling paste had dried, I inked the edges a bit for an aged look, but also to bring down the stark white that the modeling paste comes in. I could have mixed in some color in the paste before applying, but this worked just fine as I wanted just a little more brownish color.

When my background was done I started working on the sentiment. I printed out the quote and cut it into three strips and inked the edges with a little distress ink. Then I placed them in the center of the card and applied a little Inktense water color pencil in charcoal grey to integrate the sentiment into the background. When that was done I felt that the card needed something more. I couldn’t use something girly, like rhinestones or something like that so I decided on stars. I don’t own a star punch or a star die, so instead I stamped stars on white card stock using different distress inks and cut them out by hand. I chose colors that would match the background, to bring it all together. I moved my stars around for a while before deciding on where to adhere them. When adhered, I put a little glossy accents on them to make them stand out a bit more. I love using glossy accents for home made embellishments.

I also printed out a complementing sentiment on the inside of the card: The future is yours and added a few stars around it to balance it up with the front of the card.

It took a little more time to make this card than it usually does when I make the regular card size, but it was a fun project!

Hope you all enjoyed it!

Julia

Update

Hej allihopa!

Nu var det väldigt längesen jag tittade in här! Jag har haft en massa plugg att göra så tiden har bara runnit iväg. Men nu har äntligen sommaren börjat för min del! Så från och med nu kommer jag kunna uppdatera här mer oftare. Jag har en massa kort att visa er! Jag har också bestämt mig för att börja skriva på engelska här på bloggen. Så kan många fler ta del av vad jag skriver.

I det här inlägget tänkte jag visa två grattiskort som jag gjorde nyligen. Det första kortet jag tänkte visa er är ett grattiskort jag gjorde till min morfar som fyller år snart.

Hi everyone!

It’s been a really long time since I posted here! I’ve been busy with school. Time flies. But now my summer finally has started! Yay! Which means I’m going to be able to post here more often. I have a lot of crafty projects to share with you! I’ve decided to start writing in english on my blog so that more people can read my posts.

Today I’m gonna show you two birthday cards that I made just recently. The first card I’m going to show you is one I made for my grandfather, his birthday is coming up.

Förra fredagen var vi förbi Slöjddetaljer i Stockholm där jag passade på att köpa på mig lite nya grejer. Bland annat ett par embossingfoldrar från Sissix, inklusive den på bilden. Det var första gången jag testade att använda en embossingfolder och jag måste säga att det var väldigt roligt! De ger mig många idéer! Den här embossingfoldern är faktiskt från ett set med jultema (mönstret ska tydligen vara julgranar) men det går ju att använda till andra projekt också. Mönsterpapperna är också nya, jag köpte en paper pad från Basic Grey med en massa papper med olika geometriska mönster och mycket färger. Den gröna remsan är en bit washitejp som jag fäst på cardstock och klippt ut. Bokstäverna är från en nyinköpt bokstavsdie från Tim Holtz som jag testade för första gången. Det är kul att kunna variera sig med text på många olika sätt. Jag satte på lite glossy accents på bokstäverna, knöt en bit natursnöre runt kortet och satte ett litet utstansat hjärta nära knuten på snöret.

Nästa kort är också ett grattiskort. Vi var på inflyttnings/födelsedagsfest i helgen. Ett väldigt bra tillfälle att få leka lite med några nya distress inks!

Last friday we stopped by Slöjddetaljer in Stockholm and I bought some new fun stuff to play with. A few embossing folders from Sissix, like the one in the picture, among other things. It was my first time using an embossing folder and I must say that it was a lot of fun! I get a lot of ideas allready! This embossing folder were actually from a christmas themed set(the pattern is supposed to be christmas trees) but I think it’s OK to use them whenever. You can’t really see that it is christmas trees anyways. The patterned papers are also new, I bought a paper pad from Basic Grey. It has a lot of geometric prints and bright colors in it. The green strip is just washi tape that I adhered to a piece of card stock and trimmed. The letters are from a (also new) die from Tim Holtz that I tried out for the first time. I think it’s fun to have a lot of different options for the sentiment. Then I put a little glossy accents on the letters to dress them up a bit, tied some twine around the card and put a little punched heart near the knot of the twine.

The second card is also a birthday card. On saturday we were invited to a housewarming/birthday party. A perfect time to break out some new distress inks and play a little!

Här skapade jag en färgglad förgrund i färgerna Ripe Persimon, Picked Raspberry och Squeezed Lemonade. Så klara och glada färger! Härligt! Sen embossade jag en text med silvrigt embossingpulver. Till bakgrunden testade jag en annan embossingfolder från samma set som den på det förra kortet. Det här mönstret får mig att tänka på gammaldags tapeter. Som pricken över i:et strödde jag några paljetter runt texten. Sen ritade jag fejkstygn för att rama in det färgglada pappret och knöt en rosett runt toppen av kortet.

Here I made a colorful centrepiece. The colors I used were Ripe Persimon, Picked Raspberry and Squeezed Lemonade. Such bright and cheerful colors! Love it! Then I heat embossed a sentiment using silver embossing powder. For this background I used the other embossing folder from the same christmas set as on the first card. This pattern makes me think of vintage wallpaper. To finish the card off I sprinkled some sequins around the sentiment. Then I drew som dash lines around the inked piece to frame it a bit more and tied some twine around the top of the card in a bow.

Julia

Dyluisions ink spray

Hej hej!

För några veckor sen var jag och Jonathan bjudna på 25-årsfest. Så här blev kortet:

Jag har köpt ett par nya Dylusions sprayflaskor som jag ville testa. Det är såna härligt klara färger! Jag använde mig av samma teknik som när man gör bakgrunder med Distress inks. Först sprayar jag de färgerna jag vill ha på ett underlag som är non-stick, till exempel ett non-stick craft sheet, eller ett non-stickbakplåtspapper. Sedan lägger jag mitt papper direkt på färgen, drar upp pappret och torkar med min heat tool. Sedan upprepar jag detta tills jag är nöjd med resultatet. För en cool distressed effekt kan man droppa vatten över, vilket gör att färgen bleks på de ställena vattendropparna hamnar.

Jag satte dit ett par remsor linnetygtejp på kortbasen, bakom bakgrunden. Sedan började jag jobba med grattishälsningen. Jag stansade ut en cirkel i vitt cardstock med min Big Shot i en storlek som passade texten. Först stämplade jag ordet ”happy” i svart, permanent ink. Därefter guldembossade jag ordet ”birthday” så att det överlappade ordet över något. Jag valde medvetet en ”enkel” font och en snirklig, för att ge bäst kontrast. Hade jag till exempel valt två kursiva fonter hade det sett väldigt rörigt ut.

Jag testade först att sätta dit cirkeln som den var, men tyckte att det saknades något så jag stansade ut en ram. Först lät jag den vara vit, men ändrade mig sen och gjorde lite faux metal på den i guld. Det gjorde tricket!

Som pricken över i:et skvätte jag lite guldsprayfärg diagonalt över kortet och limmade dit små guldstjärnor intill några av färgdropparna. Jag stansade även ut ett rött hjärta som jag dekorerade med stickles glitterlim och ett lager av glossy accents(3D-lim). För att binda ihop allting ritade jag fejkstygn runt kortet i svart penna.

Hoppas ni alla får en härlig påsk med mycket påskgodis! 

Kram Julia

Washitejp som accent

Hej!

Idag tänkte jag visa Alla Hjärtans Dag-kortet jag gjorde till Jonathan. Lite sent kanske – jag vet – men det här kortet funkar ju annars också. 

Kortet började med en idé om att klippa ut delar av washitejp och dekorera med. Jag har en ganska bred washitejp från Ikea som det står ”LOVE” på i cirklar. Sedan hade jag en annan som hade diagonala ränder i vitt och rosa. Den första tejpade jag fast på ett vanligt vitt cardstock och helt enkelt klippte ut cirklarna med bokstäver. Den andra gjorde jag först likadant med, men sen testade jag att överlappa flera lager av tejpen för att skapa ett nytt mönster. Ni kan se på bilderna under hur jag gjorde.

   

Sedan stansade jag ut hjärtan som jag satte fäste på kortet med 3D-kuddar så de skulle bli lite upphöjda. De utklippta bokstäverna fäste jag ovanpå och täckte dem med glossy accents så de skulle se lite ut som puffy stickers.

 

Kram Julia