Serif Twosome

Hello again, what a lovely sunny day we've had today, makes up for the week of rain!

This time I've got two Serif Cards in one post.  Both made for my nephews, you will see my nieces and nephews names pop up quite a bit in my posts as I mostly make cards just for me or my mum to send.

Both cards in this post are created in Serif Craft Artist 2, and as there isn't much technique actually making the cards after you have designed them on the PC, I have included two!  The thing I like about Craft Artist is that you can get great looking (in my humble opinion!) results fairly easily and can undo and redo until you get it right.  I have to say that I had a copy of Craft Artist for AGES and didn't use it until I saw Michelle Jackson-Mogford (Michelle's Blog) demonstrating on Create and Craft and I just had to have a go!

The first card is so new, I haven't even given it to him yet.  I used the Purple Ronnie digikits that I downloaded recently from Daisytrail, there are some really different sentiments and phrases, as well as lots of funny embellishments.  This was my first go at a double easel and it didn't go quite as smoothly as it could have as I ended up cutting a slice out of the middle of the folding part of the card between the two easels.

I used an A4 sized page and created the two easel parts (with a blooper as usual! ... more of that later) and the two shields.  I used the decoupage tool for the first time on the shields to give a different look.  On the second A4 page I created the base of the card and the Happy Birthday message.

To assemble I folded over the front of the A5 card and scored it down the middle to fold it to make the two easels.  I glued the base of the card down and then stuck the shields on with foam pads to act as stoppers for the easels, I put them at different depths so the easels would stand up at different angles (it was at this stage I realised that my easels wouldn't fit on the card properly so I had to cut the base card down to size.  After cutting out a slice of the base card I added the easels and then made a triangle of card and added the Happy Birthday message.  I bent the triangle of card back slightly so that when the easels are put flat the Happy Birthday would also fold a bit so I can get it in the envelope.  After that I added Card Candi and a bit of gold glitter which doesn't show up very well in the photo and there it was!

The second card, although created in Craft Artist, uses images from the Polkadoodles Pretty Tuff CD.  As Joe likes fishing and football, I went with that theme!

I used three papers for this 6x6 card, first I printed one design directly onto the card and although it doesn't show very well I inked round the edges using Ink Dusters.  Then in Craft Artist I opened an A4 page and brought on the star paper as the background, then in the top half of the page I added the figure and other embellishments adding shadows to them all and then created the text in the bottom section of the A4 page.

I went to my metal dies binder and found my favourite Spellbinders set Labels 1, and cut out the top and the bottom half of the page in different sized labels and then got a matching paper and cut out two more Labels.  I use Labels 1 all the time they are so useful for sentiments, frames, backing for the main element of the card, even as the card itself when I use the large ones. Anyway, back to the card!  I got out one of my fine liner pens and drew some dots and lines round the borders of the Labels as they needed something to make them stand out on the page.  All that was left to do was punch out the sentiment and a larger circle to mat it onto, added the buttons tied with a bit of bakers twine and that was that!

The bloopers for this time, both on the first card.  Firstly I couldn't get the easels to fit correctly so I cut out the middle strip between the two easels.  Secondly when I was in Craft Artist and I was matting and layering my rectangles, I removed the black borders on the right hand easel, but there they still were on the left hand easel.  Now I look at it I think I prefer the side with the black borders after all!!

Before I go I would like some advice ... I want to stick my heat proof craft sheet onto something.  I tried using an old cutting mat and some Collal glue, and you could say it didn't go well!!  First of all it didn't stick very well and second, I had a couple of goes with my Melt Pot (that's a whole other story!) and forgot that the cutting mat wasn't heat resistant.  So now I have a hilly, not stuck down very well craft sheet.  So my questions are 1) what glue do I use to stick it and 2) what do I stick my craft sheet onto?  Any help would be much appreciated.

Have a great and crafty week and thanks for stopping by.