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

Magik Graphics - Belleza Mortals CD ATCs

I decided to see if I could use the Magik Graphics Belleza Mortals cd to make a set of ATCs.

First, I started with the Sugar Skull Hattie collection of images and templates within the folder of the cd. I imported the images into Craft Artist and sized them down to just smaller than the ATC size ( 2 . 5   x 3 . 5 inches) and printed onto 210gsm photo paper. The graphics are so sharp that when you manipulate them the resolution and quality are not compromised. I found that they printed out really well using the fast/normal setting on my printer (as my printer is temperamental with cardstock) and using normal/everyday printing (saving on ink).

I decoupage the images and used pinflair glue gel to create some dimension on the cards and layered them onto black cardstock.

Sugar Skull - Hattie

I did exactly the same for six of the collections I chose from the cd, this being Sugar Skull Vivid Candy.

Finishing off with a few embellishments

Sugar Skull - Vivid Candy

Sugar Skull Roxy



Sugar Skull Poppy Blue

Sugar Skull Platinum Flame

Sugar Skull Calypso

These proved to be extremely popular for my swap and I'm so pleased they went down well with the group I swapped them with, as the artwork by Susan Andrews from Magik Graphics is go good and very unique that I wanted to do them justice.

http://magikgraphics.co.uk/

Happy Crafting

Magik Graphics

Magik Graphics make CD Roms that are just that bit different from everyone else's. Susan Andrews mixes the dark side with mystic fantasy extremely well to create some unique graphics for cards and paper craft projects. The images are so crisp that when you print them out they almost look 3D.
Together with her imaginative design team they create some really inspiring samples.

Love the dark gothic images on this cd.  These are a few cards made with it.

http://magikgraphics.co.uk/

This stepper card was made using the backing papers, a coordinating butterfly and a topper from the Magik Graphics Bellza Mortals cd. All I added was a little black lace, black gems and glittered peel offs.

Now this is my favourite image of the cd, absolutely love it. I used the topper and coordinating backing paper. The topper has been backed onto embossed silver mirri board and then onto a piece of wine material that I had in my box.  I added a few heat embossed Dreamees flowers, metal corners, and a large black feather which sits nicely behind the topper.  The card base is a piece of black centura pearl card with a mirri board topper and I have stuck the skull backing paper onto that. I do like to edge the backing paper with ink to get rid of the white edge. In this case I edged it with black ink.

The woven band on the bottom of the topper actually looks like it has been added with the skull bottle cap but it is in fact part of the topper. This goes to show just how sharp the graphics are.


This is just a close up of the topper and flowers used on the card. As you can see, I have used metallic gems on her eyebrow and glossy accent on her eyes and lips for more texture. Ive also use a spectrum noir sparkle clear overlay pen on strands of her white hair to make it shimmer.  The flowers are from the Dreamees Blossoming Buds collection and have been heat embossed with black embossing powder onto Mars red pearlescent paper by Stamps by Chloe.

Magik Graphics also do vintage, flowers and butterflies. This card was make with one of their backing papers their Vintage Steampunk topper.  I have added some hessian lace, a paper coordinating handmade rose made by my friend Sharon (she made me a beautiful batch of these), a few sprigs, 2 gold hat pins and some gems on the topper.  I made this 8x8 card with kraft card and edged the card and toppers with Tim Holtz victorian velvet distress ink.

I always find mens cards a bit of a challenge so was happy when Magik Graphics brought out a mens cd called A Mans World. As this card was to go in the post I didn't put too much on it. On kraft card I used one of  the Magik Graphic backing papers for the base and layered it onto a piece of kraft card for a coordinating topper too. I added hessian and the rustic chain topper, along with the quad bike topper which was already in its rustic frame. I used a little glossy accent on the LIVE sentiment and stamped a birthday with onto some hessian backing paper. With two die cut cogs, that was my card finished and ready to go.

You can purchase individual downloads if you don't wanted to try out a selection of their graphics on cd. Follow the link to their download section on their website below:-

http://magikgraphics.co.uk/13-downloads

Happy Crafting