Steampunk Silhouette Fairy

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Uh oh it's Friday the 13th today so I'll be touching wood and encouraging my fur baby Jinx to run in front of me (but not trip me up like he usually does!) as he's a black cat and considered lucky in the UK. With a bit of luck and avoidance of going ANYWHERE I should be ok lol. In all honesty I'm not that superstitious and the only reason I'll be staying indoors is because we're expecting a parcel today. I've had a sleepless night - it was just one of those times when my brain wouldn't switch off long enough for me to fall asleep - so I pulled an all nighter and did a bit of crafting. I coloured in a Kaisercraft stamped image from the "Suga Pop" range which features a couple of cutesy owls (I love owls) but I haven't bothered to take a photo as it was just ProMarker practice. However I have taken a few pics of a steampunk fairy picture I've made for my sister. 

Steampunk silhouette fairy with metal/card gears and butterfly

 Regular readers of this blog will notice that this is an old favourite of mine in fact I made my sister a card using this image for her birthday last December and she liked it so much that when I offered to make her one in the colours of her choice, she jumped at it. Teresa asked me to make her a picture (for framing) using lilacs and purples so I hope she likes what I've made for her. I started off with a 5.5" square piece of cream card (I used cream because I have loads but prefer to use white card stock for toppers and card bases and for this project the original colour is covered with distress inks) and I covered it with Seedless Preserve Distress ink using a blending tool then I went round the edges towards the centre but leaving a space with Dusty Concorde. I blended both inks together until I got a smooth finish as desired. I stamped the fairy image using Memento Tuxedo Black ink but carefully wiped away the central parts (the veins) of the wings so that I could stamp them with cogs and gears. I also stamped the star dust and mushrooms at this point. My Wink of Stella brush pen is nearly out of ink so after swiping it over the steampunked wings I got a new WOS pen out and prepped it, unfortunately I squeezed a little too vigorously and too much ink came out. Although it's called clear the fluid which the shimmer is suspended in actually has a silver tint to it and as too much liquid came out of the brush tip, my wings ended up silvery instead of it having a bleaching effect on the Distress inks as it usually does. I don't mind too much though because although it almost obscures the cogs and gears etc that I stamped if you move the panel to a different angle you can see them through the shimmer which gives them an ethereal appearance - I imagine a steampunk fairy's wings to be half clockwork and half magic. The solid fairy image didn't stamp as dark as I would have liked so I went over it with a black WOS brush marker. I covered the mushroom caps with a layer of clear WOS and added splodges of it to the star dust sprinkles. I added some silhouetted flowers and leaves from a Lindsay Mason stamp set as shown. Once I was happy with this image I layered it onto black card stock then onto purple/lilac holographic card. I cut a sheet of lilac shimmer card that came from Crafter's Companion (I won it a few years ago in a card making competition with some stamps, rock-a-blocks and spray and stick) to 7 1/4" square and layered this underneath the holographic card. Finally I cut a sheet of dark purple ribbed card to 8" square and added the fairy layered topper to the centre. 

Close up of "Steampunked" wings

Slightly different angle showing steampunk fairy

The pictures above show the ethereal cogs and gears in the fairy's wings. To highlight the steampunk elements of the fairy I decided to add some metal embellishments to the finished piece. I usually add a butterfly rub-on to this image but instead added a metal butterfly using a Dovecrafts 'Metallics' mini brad (I punched a small hole through all the layers first using a WRMK crop-a-dile hole punch) I bent the wings up slightly to add interest to the butterfly. I got a cogs and gears die set from ECAP a while back and used them to cut out card shapes which I either painted with copper Cosmic Shimmer paints (absolutely love these paints!) or I covered them with Versamark ink and double embossed them using silver and copper embossing powders. I'm really pleased with how my homemade cogs and gears turned out because the embossed ones are on par with the metal bought ones. I got a selection of made and bought cogs and gears and added them to the bottom right of the panel using different sized brads - I've even found some Woodware screw top brads which look very steampunky! With the exception of the second from the top cog, the gears and cogs can be moved but unfortunately they don't really move each other - I'm going to frame this eventually so having moving parts isn't exactly a priority.

Guess which gears and cogs are the metal ones?

The clue is the screw brads *grin*

Another angle - the wings are now silver!

I hope you've enjoyed this project, I shall be on the look out for a suitable frame (a box frame would be good) and once it's framed I'll add a finished project photo to this post. I really hope my sister likes it too. As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them in the box below and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx

A sprinkle of fairy dust....

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook! This week I need two cards for two special people - my sister-in-law Susan and my dear friend Jean. I've made a card for Sue and I'd like to share it with you.

Birthday card for my Sister-In-Law who's celebrating a significant birthday on Friday!

Originally this card was only 5" x 5" but I managed to mess up the verse inside so cut the card front off with a pair of scissors (next time I'd use a paper trimmer cos this is wonky!) I started off by colouring the card using Salty Ocean distress ink and a blender tool then added Dusty Concord until I had the desired effect. I stamped the main fairy image from a Lavinia Stamps set that I got free with papercraft essentials magazine sometime this year. I also stamped the three toadstools and the fairy dust twice using Memento Tuxedo black ink. The fairy wishes sentiment on the bottom right hand side came from a fairy stamp set that I got through the post yesterday with Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine (may not be available quite yet in the shops - subbies get it early). I coloured over the fairy wings with clear Wink of Stella and as it's a water colour and distress inks are water reactive, it bleached the wings as well as making them shimmer which I really like. I added some WOS to the toadstool caps too for added interest and shimmer. I coloured the fairy dust using some jelly gel glitter pens by Sikorea (not a spelling error, just a knock off brand from a pound shop type of place but actually really sparkly!). The butterflies are rub-ons from Crafters' Companion - a range called "Fairyopolis" (*I checked my packaging and I got the name wrong - this is the correct spelling, sorry for any confusion caused!) and it's hard to see on this photo but I added WOS to their wings too. Actually please excuse the quality of this photo, it really doesn't do this card justice (my camera is quite old and falling to bits - I have the battery fastened on with washi tape!). I mounted this finished panel onto black holographic glitter card then mounted this panel onto a 6" x 6" piece of Dovecraft "Fantasy" designer papers which features fairies and dragons, I've had it for years and wish I'd bought two packs as the dragons would look fantastic on a "Game of Thrones" themed card. I mounted this panel onto some more black holographic glitter card and added this panel to some silver holographic card. I matted this onto some plain black card which I added some clear WOS to as this card just screams to be blinged up. Finally I cut a piece of cream card stock to 7.5" x 7.5" and blended Salty Ocean and Dusty Concord distress inks onto it until I got a smooth blended effect. I added clear WOS to the edges of the card then centred the main panel onto it before sticking the finished topper onto a scalloped edged 8" x 8" card blank.

Here are a few more photos of the card.

PRODUCTS USED:

Lavinia Stamps "The Clouds Are Lined With Silver.."

Dovecraft 6" x 6" "Fantasy" Designer Paper Pack (DCDP72) copyright 2007 (blimey I have had these a long time!)

Crafters' Companion *"Fairyopolis"*  (see note in main text) rub-ons

Sikorea 10 Colour Jelly Gel glitter pens

Memento Tuxedo Black ink

Tim Holtz Distress inks in Salty Ocean & Dusty Concord

Blending tool and pads

Clear Wink of Stella (WOS) brush marker

cream card stock

Black holographic glitter card (The Works)

Silver holographic card (The Works)

Black card stock (the Works)

Scalloped Edged 8" x 8" card blank and envelope (from local craft shop)

I hope you've enjoyed my latest card, as always please leave any comments or questions below and I'll answer them as soon as I can both here and on your blogs if you have them. I will add another post once I've made the birthday card for Jean (I have an idea or two!) and if I enter the Passion for ProMarkers Challenge on Tuesday. So until then - keep crafting!

With love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx