The loveliest dress in the world..?

(Stupid, annoying, horrible, mean..OK you get it-BLOGGER is messing me about AGAIN! Sorry about the sore necks-I have a sore head from trying to mend it believe me and if I don't 'step away from the PC now' I will probably kill it. Sorry.)

Not long after I first started making cards I saw a card in a magazine that I absolutely loved. The card featured this gorgeous dress stamp (though it wasn't identified makerwise) and it was just wonderful. rather helpfully, the name in the magazine matched someone on a forum I visited. I PM'd the lady in question and gushed about her card (alot) before asking her if she'd mind giving me the details of the stamp as I had to have it!

As is prone to happening in this very kind craft world of ours, the lady offered to send me some stamped images. This is one of those images. I still don't have the stamp (though still am desperate for it) and I've never used the images as I still feel so intimidated by the memory of this lady's amazing card all that time ago.

Last night I decided to use the image and to make the prettiest card I possibly could in an attempt to show the beautiful image in all it's glory. I didn't dare use my Copics on it as didn't think the ink would handle it (and anyway Copics would be too bright for this card) and was cautious with watercolours though to my relief it turned out OK.



I wanted a soft, delicate effect; essentially I wanted to create the sort of card you could imagine finding in an old shoe box wrapped in tissue paper at the back of your Granny's wardrobe.





I've never used vellum in this way but desperately wanted it to work so as to truly soften the effect of the image. I had to use the gems as the vellum needs to lie flat in order to see the dress image clearly and couldn't see another way of making the vellum lie flat. Pleading and begging didn't seem to work! I think the gems are OK but it was scary as I kept having to add more to keep the vellum flat and I thought I'd ruin the card...hope I haven't.




I received my new Fiskars border punch in the post yesterday so perfect timing.I'd ordered it a while ago but the shop's been really busy so it's been delayed a bit. To me, it's perfect for this card and I'm really chuffed with it though another craft shop did tell me it could be used on card and thus it was nearly killed within 5 minutes of entering the house when I tried it out on SU card! The moral to this tale-NOPE, not even the new Fiskars punches work on card.

Anyway-hope you like it...

Ingredients:

Stamped image

Stampin Up Pretty in Pink card, ink & taffeta ribbon

Stampin Up designer paper

Fiskars 'Lacy days of Summer' border punch

Sentiment stamp from Anna Griffin

Vellum from stash

Gems c/o Steph

Pearls from Stampin Up

Lace from Scandanaivian shop in my town

Paper flowers from craft shop

Pin, beads etc handmade by me!

I'm back!

it or not I'm back!!!

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted...it's been ages!! What can I say? Time flies, especially around Christmas and energy levels have been very poor. I just haven't had a chance really to blog, bearing in mind the need to provide photographs to reduce the potential of total boredom in reading this!!

Anyway, here I am.

The card above by the way is my first (would you believe) attempt at using my new corner rounder scissors (Fiskars). I had a nightmare trying to obtain a corner punch and when I did find them on web-sites the whole size of 'round corner' was baffling. I then happened across a range of corner rounders/decorators by Fiskars. Great value and really effective I think. It's possible to do a small or large corner (the above are the large corner) and also to do a backwards corner with the corner going into the paper. Blimey, I just can't work out how to explain that feature at all. maybe best if I do a piccie sometime! Anna Griffin papers, Heidi Swapp flowers, some gems and ribbon (can't remember brand of gem and ribbon just from haberdasherer). The chipboard sentiment is K and Company.

I'm not really into these bold cards but fun to try. I don't have any jumbo brads and the card suffers for that I believe. The small brads to hold the flowers in place just don't cut it. Unfortunately, I have a pretty useless shop in my town regarding the suply of materials so I mainly rely on the internet. It's a pain as it's impossible to buy even basic essentials, no flowers, no chipboard anything, no Anna Griffin, no Heidi Swapp/Karen Foster/Tim Holtz.. It's dedicated to the supply of Kanban. (Um).

Back to the card, I'll search for some big brads and I'm sure it'll look alot better.



I rather like the simplicity of this card. I'm really trying to try new things with my cardmaking and use some of the many (read tonnes) of beautiful stash I have. Anna Griffin papers, printed sentiment and ribbon. The dragonfly embellishment is of unknown origin I'm afraid and the Snowdrop image is from a pack of replica cigarette cards by Crafthouse Press. The cigarette cards are available in many topics, and I'm particularly keen on the roses and flowers. The butterfly set though is stunning. I have some matching papers for the roses and butterflies so must have a play.