Gothic 30th Birthday card

And now for something a little different.

I don't get many opportunities to make gothic cards but do enjoy making them. 

The card I am sharing today is a commissioned 30th birthday card and I have used the stunning artwork from Magik Graphics.

As this was a special birthday card, I thought that an 8 x 8 twisted easel would work really well, not only to display the artwork on the card but as a more effective freestanding card that can also fold relatively flat depending on the stopper that you use on the card.

I used 300gsm black colour core card stock for the card base and a layer of silver satin board to separate the base card from the topper.

The topper from the Magik Graphics Beliza Mortals CD Rom was chosen for the striking satin border with its steel grey lace edge. The graphics are so sharp that even when printed off, no definition is lost and you don't have to print on your full ink printer settings either, which means that you still get premium quality without using all your ink.

The striking topper for the base of the card is from the Magic Graphics Midnight Roses CD Rom. I had been given a brief that Lori's favourite colour was purple, keeping that in mind and whilst looking at the roses on the topper I remembered that I had some plum roses in my stash that would make a great stopper and compliment the ones on the card.

As crafters we often make and share between each other and one of my many talented crafty friends also loves to make flowers and some time ago  Sharon Diarrassouba made and sent me some of these gorgeous handmade roses, which I have used on a few projects. These ones were just the right colour for this project and I'm sure she will be happy to know that they have been put to very good use once again. 

On the base of the card, I used the matching insert , when the card is closed it will just appear on the back, which is better when receiving a boxed card. This time I have mounted the insert on some Hunkydory aubergine mirri card as it looked better than the silver satin board for the insert. 

If you have made a keepsake card, it also needs a nice box to go with it. The image chosen for the box wasn't in the colour they ideally wanted, but they loved the image, so  after asking permission from Susan Andrews to change the hue to lavender, I was really happy how it all turned out. I also used the Dreamees poinsettia embossing folder to line the base and lid of the box as I really like the textured effect.

The word and letter dies are by Crafters Companion and the little leaf dies are Dreamees die cut from silver satin board. Speaking of Crafters Companion, I still use my Ultimate Pro every time I make cards, along with my A3 box board. Probably my first major craft purchase and still going strong. Sometimes you just can't beat the old faithfuls can you.

I also used pinflair glue gel to stick the flowers down and it also gave the flower that I used for stopper on the card a good firm base to stick down on. The only other thing I added which is a bit difficult to see in the pictures are some metallic gems on the corners of the card base.

There is another gothic card in the pipeline but unfortunately, I can not share that at present. In the meantime, perhaps i will make a few that I can.

 Happy Crafting