April Memory Book Page

Today I am sharing April's flip-flap memory book pages from the monthly group swap that I have been involved in.

I try to use as many Dreamees products where possible to comply with the swap but more importantly, it's about having fun creating. 

There's a bit of a bunny theme going on here and I kind of enjoy creating a scene when using my little critter stamps as its so easy to mix and match lots of your sets to work together.

For these book pages I was working with a black and another colour of choice, so I decided to go with the Dreamees sensational sepia paper pad throughout.

One of the design papers created the backdrop for the scene of  "the carrot hunt" for my Easter bunnies

On the adjacent page a portrait of the golden bunny nestled in some die cut fretwork frill flowers. I decided to use some of Debbi Moore's metal magic for the bunny and a couple of the sentiments. This is amazing stuff. It works very much like an embossing powder except you stamp into it when it has reached its melting point. It sets like an embellishment in about 20 minutes. Also, this stuff lasts ages.

On the reverse side of my book page I have gone for a creativity theme.

The mdf dream catcher has been painted with black gesso and then covered with sparkly black embossing powder. On the background, I used texture paste through a brick stencil and then spritzed it with a Pretty Gets Gritty pearl spray in toffee, also adding some to the paper roses.

On my last page, I chose one of the Dreamees recipe stamps and created some artist easels with inspirational quotes.

Finally, I added some ATC cards, which always complete my book pages, one made with Dreamees stamps and the other using the Just Fly digi stamp by Vera Lane Studios.

Have a great day, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

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

Dream Catcher

I have got a little collection of birthday makes to share today for one of my friends that I made for her just before Christmas and these are all gothic themed.

This is quite a large mdf dream catcher that I made for my friend from the Dreamees.   I didn't have black gesso so I used black acrylic paint, applied with one of those dome sponges shaped like an egg. Mine happens to be makeup sponges from Primark as they are cheaper than the proper craft ones you can buy, but they are great to apply paint to mdf like this as I find that you don't get brush/streak lines on your mdf when dry.

I found some go-to beads in my stash that have a good mix of black, silver, smokey and clear textured shaped beads for projects like this and threaded some onto some clear twine, using some large studded gems for the front of the feathers.

I decorated the dream catcher with flowers made from Fleurs flower forming foam using the Dreamees Sweet Sunflower dies. I used the crocus patch colourways for the foam and a purple faber castell oil pastel on the edges of the petals to add tone to the flowers before moulding the foam to give them some shape.

I used a mix of black and purple stamens in my flowers and added some foliage from the Fretwork Fronds also by the Dreamees in purple card and adding black feathers that I purchased from Hobbycraft.

I used a silver acrylic paint pen the mdf wording and added some black braiding to hang the dream catcher up.

To go with the dream catcher I also made a frame card using paper and graphics from the Beliza Mortals CD by  Magik Graphics. The flower was made using the Build a Peony flower stamp by the Dreamees, which has been heat embossed onto black vellum using silver Wow embossing powder.

The image on the inside has been decoupaged into the curtained disc on the topper.

To finish with, I added an 8x8 card to match which was printed onto glossy cardstock when I made it, hence the reflection on the card, which always makes taking photos a challenge when you have a light background also. 

Magik Graphics have some amazing gothic, pagan, mystical graphics and more and there is no loss of definition when you print your images and design papers off even on regular printer settings.

I really enjoyed making these and it's to have a change of genre to craft with.

Happy Crafting