A starter for 82.

Okay so last night I charged myself, in a spellbinder deprivation induced rage, to make Nana's birthday card. (Nana is actually my fiancés Nana, I ran out of grandparents in 2010)

I'd had an idea set in my mind since I put in a recent order for my first batch of Spellbinders dies (a selection of the Imperial Gold dies and Medallion 7) but since they failed to arrive in time I had to improvise with my meagre Sizzix collection.

To begin with I sat down for the first time with my brand new pro markers (skin tones set 1&2 and pastel tones one and fished out my Contemporary Christmas 2011 set and took a deep breath. I grabbed my black pigment ink, my acrylic block and my Somebunny to Love stamps and got to work. I know that I'm not the best stamper so I knew I'd make a pigs ear of it.

Taking two doubled up sheets of copy paper (I knew the ink would bleed through so I used a second sheet to catch and mess) I stamped the adorable little bunny a few times on each sheet and started colouring. I thought back over the past 18 months that I have been crafting to all the pro marker demonstrations and just had a play. (If you want to do a better job look up Joanna Sheen's tutorials on YouTube)

An hour and a bit later I settled on the coloured image I was going to use and I raided my stash for some bits to build a card. I selected a printed hessian effect to tie in with the neutrals, a pale sort of almost purple colour glitter card to tie in with the pastels and a rainbow mirror board, just because. I threw in some pastel purple grosgrain ribbon, some pearl cabochons and a tiny amount of glitter to tie it together. I also used a rose and lace print 12x12 paper for the base mat and insert.

After a nightmare cutting the insert with a blunt craft knife (I need new blades for my trimmer) I assembled the card. When I die cut all of the pieces I cut a piece from the wrong side of the hessian to get a white piece to mount the coloured image on because I'd only used copier paper.
I cut two of the smaller tag, using one on the inside too and I stamped and heat embossed both sentiments in black. I also used my Ivory pro marker to run around the edge of the shaped mats.

I might have lost my train of thought half way through as my Spellbinders just arrived. I'm going to be busy today!

Crafty hugs to everyone!