Believe Tag 2: Armed and Dangerous

Well, not so much armed and dangerous as a sequel :) A long while back I posted a tag here that I'd made for a swap I was involved in (see it here).

At the time I said I wasn't very happy with it and would give it some more thought. I've only just realised that I forgot to post the final version, so I'm correcting that omission now! I almost (but not quite!) like the back better than the front, LOL Click on either image to see a larger version.


Front: The Santa stamp is one of Sir T!m's, the "BELIEVE" was printed from the computer. The bookplate was gilded and sanded. The "25" was cut on the Cricut and then inked and stamped. The baubles were cut with a circle punch, the hanging loops on them were cut on the Cricut. The toy soldier was cut from a piece of PP. The snowflakes in the background were stamped and embossed in white then the 2 shades of distress ink blue and black were applied with foam.

Back: Stamps by Elements (a Canadian company who were going to let me spend a day with them when I was in Vancouver, observing how stamps are made, but our diaries never matched up!). Coloured with Distress Ink pads applied with a water brush.

Citizen Kane ATC

Another trip down the dimly-lit staircase into the archives, this also hasn't been seen on here before.

Back in the day (you know, in the days of yore), I was on a forum that had an ATC challenge every Friday evening, and one week the theme was "favourite movie". Citizen Kane is one of those movies that always comes top, or near top, of the movie polls, but that no one actually likes. I must be the exception, I LOVE this movie, so it was a clear choice for this project!

I made a triptych ATC (you don't even want to know how much work it took to get those shaped doors to match up with the images on both sides of them!). You can see it closed and open here, along with the sleeve pocket I made to store it in. Obviously, this is another of my pieces before I started stamping! I hope you like :) Click on the image for a more detailed view, comments welcomed!

Contest Winner!

The winner of yesterdays contest was....

Rockin Robin Caldwell!

Congratulations Robin, if you email me we can sort out your prize!

Thanks to everyone who took part, and for your kind comments!

The Line, The Cross and the Curve

Today we are continuing our trip through past projects that I have never blogged. I'm so pleased to finally show this one here, as it's one of my favourites, and was a LOT of work! LOL

Well over a year ago I was invited by Scrapbook Sisters (a great store by the way, that runs some great classes!) to be guest designer on their blog. They sent me a Melissa Francis kraft paper covered chipboard box with concertina book, and after several days, this was the result!

I covered the box with my favourite cardstock of the time, which was one from a collection from Costco, then sanded and inked it to distress it. The copper bookplates were distressed with acrylic paint and sanding and stamped images were inserted to represent the line, the cross and the curve. The inside of the lid was primed with red paint and then gilded, while the inside of the box itself was painted a deep, rich red.
The book is loosely based around the idea of dreams, and the words used on the book cover come from the Kate Bush song "The Red Shoes" which was featured in her movie "The Line, The Cross and the Curve" and they say:

"With no words and no song,
you can dance a dream with your body on.
And this curve is your smile.
And this cross is your heart.
And this line is your path."

There are too many pages to write about each one individually, so I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves! Click on any image to see a more detailed view.

Moo Frame Gift

Not the greatest of photos, but hopefully clear enough for you to see what's going on here. I really must do something to try and improve my cameraphone skills!! LOL

I made this aaaaaaaaages ago as a Christmas present for a friend, but couldn't blog it in case they saw it, and then life got in the way and the photos have just been languishing on my computer, staring glumly at my mouse pointer as it kept passing them by! LOL

My previous framed moo projects used deep frames that I got from Tesco, but they stopped selling them and I had to start looking around for other frames to use. It's not easy to find frames with enough space behind the glass to add dimensional elements, but eventually Ikea stepped up to the plate with this square frame.

Using a different frame meant designing a different mount to fit it, which I duly did in Inkscape and cut with SCAL. This time I also cut a 1 inch border frame to go on top of the mount, which I think makes it look a little more "finished", don't you think?
Each individual panel was stamped, inked, embossed etc and then fixed to the back of the mount. The bird with the secret compartment where you can hide little embellishments was designed in Inkscape and cut on the Cricut, and then stamped and inked. Mort with his pin curl was placed behind glass in a copper memory frame and attached to one of Tim Holtz's keys, which had been rubbed with a little white acrylic paint on my finger to make the lettering pop.

Thanks for taking a look, I hope you like it! :) Click on any picture to enlarge it.