My Craft Studio Samples for Academy Magazine (Issue 2)

Hi everyone

Hope everyone is doing well, I have been trying to get my Project Life holiday album going.  It is so difficult deciding which photos you want to include ... I took hundreds of photos when I was away so can't include them all, then there's the journalling and the keepsakes to fit in too.  I know everyone says that you should hand write all the journalling, but I tried and I didn't like it so I am journalling by PC!

Anyway on to the samples.  This is just a really quick description of the the cards and how I made them. Most of it will be fairly obvious to all of you who use MCS regularly, but if you don't use MCS or have any questions drop me a line and I will do my best to answer it.  Before I show you I must again apologise for my photography.  I wasn't in my usual crafting cave and it was late, so I had to use what was around as a background, so here goes:

This is a simple chocolate bar wrapper.  I took a bar of Galaxy and carefully unwrapped the outer layer.  I put some folds in the original wrapper so I could measure where my images would need to be placed.  I used the same papers for most of my samples as I thought they were really lovely, particularly the one with the script on it.  I took some of the flower images into MCS then cropped and flipped them until I had a row of flowers and then placed the fairy behind it.  I used the two doilies from the CD that I used on a couple of the samples, added a sentiment with the text function in MCS and then cut out some butterflies from the All Occasions Dies Small Butterflies Set, added a couple of pearls and it was done.

This card started with a plain 8x8 card base and I printed the whole card front and then glued it on.  I used the same doilies as before as the main focus on the card.  I took one of the topper images and faded the edges down and covered up the sentiment that came on the topper with two layers of the Nesting Scallops from Little B Dies which I pre printed with a sentiment on the PC and glittered round the edges.  I then added the four corners from the Spellbinders Moroccan Accents set and a couple more All Occasions Butterflies, added some pearls and glitter and it was done.

This was a quickie Pillow Box from the CD printed off and folded.  I glittered all round the pattern, added a couple more butterflies and the sentiment tags from my stash and it was complete.

Above and below show the back and front of bag that I embossed and cut out from the Crafters Companion Ulti Bags Board.  I used MCS to do the sentiment on the front with the fairies and used the beautiful paper again.  After inking round all the embossed lines with distress ink I cut out lots of flowers using the Flower Border and Tiny Flowers Dies By Chloe and stuck them on in all the places you could see my ropey cutting out!  I added some gems, pearls and glitter and that completed the front, with a piece of ribbon and some more flowers finishing off the back.

The fifth sample is an A5 card that I designed on MCS and then printed off whole and just folded to make the card base.  It has a doily from the CD which is printed on the card base and I cut out the tags out by hand after creating them in MCS - you will notice the similar doilies on the sentiment to the ones on the chocolate wrapper.  The card and tags looked a bit bland so I inked round all of them for a bit of definition.   I spent ages tying the bow, so long in fact that I ordered a Bow It All online in frustration!  The ribbon is looks much paler in real life, and after adding a gems from my stash, a brad to the tags and lots of glitter, it was good to go.

This is a gatefold and was a first for me after seeing something similar at a craft show at the Motorcycle Museum recently.  It was quite nice when finished, but I need to do some refining as it weighed a ton!  I started with two white 8x8 cards, stuck the backs together and then trimmed the fronts at 4 inches at both sides.  I did the matting and layering in MCS and added the lace corners before printing out and glittering the very edge.

The centre is made from three of Sue Wilson's Italian collection Decorative Frames.  It took ages to get them lined up as I wanted to be able to view them from the front and the back.  I also needed to trim them slightly so they opened and closed easily.  I added more of the All Occasions Butterflies, a ton of glitter, some pearls and a cameo from my stash, then moved on to the inside.

Above half open and below fully open.  For the matting and layering on the outside I used the same design as for the outside but removed the lace corners at the top and added the 'L' from the alphabet to all the corners as well as the fairy that matched the centre image.  The middle is one of the toppers from the CD.  Again I added the 'L' from the alphabet to the corners and spent ages using the scissor tool in MCS to cut out the top flower from the L to use as the embellishment under the sentiment.  I then glittered round all the panels and stuck them on to the base card.

There were two bloopers this time, the first was a sample which was just too bad to even show on here and the other was my 'glitter station' ended up on the floor upside down ... arrgghh!  The sample gone bad was a door hanger that read 'Katie's Room' on one side and 'If you're not a fairy ... KEEP OUT' on the other.  I tried my hand at beeswax and the melt pot, I may have been put off for life!  It was almost as much of a mess as the glittered carpet, there is so much wax on it the words are barely visible.  Oh well, beeswax obviously isn't for me!

I hope everyone has a good and crafty week.  Let me know what you think of the cards and thanks for reading.