Gothic Book Box

I have finally finished my gothic book box which has been a work in progress project and I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.

All the inspiration for this project was taken from Sue Andrews - Magik Graphics mixed media live Facebook group.

I chose this beautiful image of the Midnight Roses CD by Magik Graphics, which decided the colourways for my box.

I used Pebeo high density modeling paste through one of Stamperia's stencils.  This texture paste is nice and smooth and leaves a great defined texture to your project but I would have preferred it in a jar rather than in a tube. It did dry pretty quickly but as I'm a slow crafter I normally leave things to dry overnight anyway.

The book box was given a coating of black gesso except for the inner edges which I painted in buff acrylic paint to look like pages, adding some texture to mimic the edges of the pages. My new favourite paint is the Finnibair metallics range. It's difficult to capture the true colour and shimmer in a picture but for this project, I picked plum, which was the closest to the colours in the image.  I dry brushed the colour, leaving some of the black to show through.

I think the gilding wax always finishes a project off and really highlights all that texture on your project.  I also used the alchemy tag moulds by Stamperia to create the tag and some of the embellishments for my box using air dried clay.

I knew those broken chains that I kept would come in handy one day. Attached to one of the tags that I had made, it was a perfect hanging embellishment. This was attached with a little leatherette cord, inside the top of the box. This is why as crafters we keep all these random little bits and pieces.

I can get a  bit carried away when I have a pot of gilding wax in my hands. Even the brass butterfly and key had touch of wax to lift them and the rose paper flower just didn't look right with its green stem, so that had to go too.

This now sits in my bedroom.  I don't keep many things that I make as I am so used to making for others and a lot of my own craft projects tend to sit on the back burner with the garden ones being the ones that do eventually get finished as that is where I tend to spend a lot of time.

As I am stepping away from making as many cards now, I'm hoping to focus more on some mixed media projects

Have a great day, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

added to:  The River of Creativity Challenge  (Shoutout for May challenge)

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

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