Dream Catcher

Today I have a dreamcatcher to share that I made as a birthday gift for a friend to accompany the card that I had made. This follows on from my last post Friendship & Flowers.

Using one of the mdf dreamcatchers from my A4 carrier sheet and mdf words from the "Inspiring words" embellishment sheet by The Dreamees, I gave them both a coat of matt medium before painting them with my dinky inkie reinker in lemon drizzle by The Dreamees. 

It gave the mdf a golden shimmer.  I did give them a few coats, letting them dry between each coat to make the most of that shimmer.

I repeated this process for the mdf feathers using my dinky inkie sparkle reinkers and actually managed to get a picture with the shimmer which isn't always easy to capture. It's one of the reasons that I love these inks, especially in reinker form, they give just enough shimmer to a project without overdoing the sparkle.

As my dreamcatcher is about 95cm in diameter and 2cm thick I needed to be mindful about what I was going to hang on it. So I thought the organza ribbon would be perfect as I had lots of charms, beads, and gems that would catch the sunlight, adding a little twinkle.

To balance the dreamcatcher out and so that the ribbons would hang better, I added an embellishment to each side of the ribbons. This also covered up any glue from attaching the ribbon.

I die cut some tiny flowers from pearlescent card to sit on the base of the dreamcatcher and stuck a ring of gems in the centre of the dreamcatcher.

I also made sure that the back of the dreamcatcher was finished off neatly and added the same row of die-cut flowers. I then thread some metallic silver yarn through the holes in the dreamcatcher, making a hanging loop at the top and adding a few seed beads to the ends for decoration and to stop them from fraying.

I wanted the dreamcatcher to be light enough for the gentle breeze the catch the ribbons and the light reflect of the shimmer in the paint, along with the embellishments.

I made a box to match the card that I had made earlier, saving a few of the pink peony flowers that I had stamped and embossed with white embossing powder for the top of the box.

I didn't actually get around to making my own dreamcatcher, which was intended for my garden this summer, but there's no hurry for that one, as there's always next year now and it will be one thing less in my garden at the moment to keep that squirrel out of mischief.

Have a great day whatever you have planned

Happy Crafting

Friendship & Flowers card

Its been a little while since I have updated my blog so thought I'd share one of the birthday cards that I made a little while back. I started to make it and then there was a large gap before I was able to finish it off, along with something else that was supposed to go with it.

On the  8x8 inch white card blank I used a layer of sage green card followed by one of the design papers from The Dreamees Rose Garden paper pads. Along the edge of the card,  I decoupaged a few leaves and petals of the roses to define the design and add a little dimension.

I also added one of The Dreamees MDF paintbrush embellishments, which I decorated with white jute ribbon to mimic the brush head and a little piece of the luxury wallpaper that I had saved (obtained as a sample) on the brush.

My thinking behind the paintbrush was simply, paint a garden of flowers, friends are the flowers in the garden of life. Instead of paint on a paintbrush, lots of flowers in all shapes and sizes that will be carried in the wind.

For the flowers, I used a mix of Fleurs flower foam, card, vellum, and random snippets from my Dreamees papers.  I wanted my flowers to be quite varied in type and texture and this is where those little dies come in really handy.  From my Dreamees flower dies I used:- Delicate florals, Beautiful Babysun petals, Fancy Florets, Loops & Lace embellishments. I  didn't use a die for the rosettes.

I've added glossy accent for dew drops on petals and a sparkle pen to add a few dots of twinkle here and there.

I created the wording and backed it onto the same sage card and attached it to the antique pink satin ribbon. I also added a flat-backed pearl string and a flower pearl charm onto the paintbrush. 

As these flowers were quite small I had to be careful not to introduce too much heat when finishing the foam flowers, as they had the tendency to keep shrinking. I used a mix of pollen stamens, pearls and gems for the centres.  I love making flowers.

Using another one of the design papers from the Rose Garden paper pad I decorated the gift box I made to put the card in and added a flower that I made using a peony flower stamp.

To go with this card I decorated a dreamcatcher, which will follow in another blog post.

Have a great day whatever you have planned

Happy Crafting