My Craft Studio

Today I have moved away from the kits for a change

I bought the new My Craft Studio CD

Setting the scene - SHOP FRONT

And have to say once it was installed to my PC I loved it!

For those who know me, I really struggle with MCS so to get this one installed and actually use it was a milestone for me!

To start with I topped up the inks on my printer - I have a CISS system installed so its just a case of top the cylinders up - but as I seem to do every time, I ended up with overspill - as can be seen in the cards I am showing today!

I started out by printing the Craft Shop - it was just so appropriate for me - my all time favourite colour is Purple - I even have purple in the user name on some sites and my own craft forum!

So the shop front is in shades of purples - but it has a shop number too...that number is 35 - my house number!! (See piccy above)

And everyone who visits me is brought up to my craft room and they all say I have my very own craft shop here!

Anyway I was up through the night so made a start on the shop front - as I said I had spills of ink so even though the sheets were damaged I thought I would still make the kit up to see how it all went then I would reprint and make one to actually use...

I got 3/4 of it made and hit a stumbling block - well a roof - and it just baffled me beyond belief - could it be I was too tired to think straight or was I missing something simple? I gave up! But don't worry as I have been thinking about this all day and I know what I will now do with it - so watch this space tomorrow!

While browsing the CD I came across a section called DESIGN SHEETS - had a nosey and loved what I saw - so went ahead and printed out 3 sheets.

The sheet had an A5 piece of backing paper, a selection of toppers, a ribbon border and a sentiment so perfect for those last minute makes!

The only materials I had to add were card stock for the A5 card and some card for matting and layering.

This card is made using a sheet of brown card stock - and then the backing paper was attached to it leaving an even border. The ribbon border was attached to a length of gold linen mirri card and then positioned along the opening edge of the card. The main image was matted onto a piece of brown core`dinations card which I had cut using a label nestability then put through the cuttlebug in the Swiss Dots embossing folder - as it came out I lightly rubbed over the embossed dots with my Tim Holtz sanding block to give a distressed look. This was them positioned centrally on the card and the sentiment was matted onto an off cut of brown pearlescent card and fixed at an angle across the bottom right corner. To finish I added 4 shiny gold card candy to the border and 2 more to the bottom left corner. If you look at the top of the card you can see the dark stains when the ink had splattered but it fits so well on this card that I didn't try to hide it. Finishing touch was gold glamour dust added to the clock face.

The next in this collection was made using a sheet of black card stock to form my card base - I then used an A5 piece of thick red vellum to cover the card leaving a fine border all round. Then I secured the backing paper from the sheet to the red using double sided tape and again leaving a narrow border all round the card. I used about 2/3rds of the ribbon border which I fixed to the red vellum leaving a wide border - this was positioned to the left side with equal space above and below the border. The image was also attached to red vellum and placed central on  the card. I used a red pro marker to add a hint of colour to the edge here and there on the image as well as colouring the canopy roof. I chose a different sentiment from my stash and again edged it with red before fixing in place. I used clear glamour dust to highlight the topper and some of the backing paper. The last thing was to add some shiny solver card candy, one was at either side of the sentiment, one in the bottom left corner of the topper and the two along top left and two down bottom right hand side to finish.

And the last card I made was done using dark blue card stock for the base card, the backing paper on this sheet was a sort of tan colour with blue highlights here and there...so I matted the backing paper onto brown card stock and stuck this to the blue card base. I used brown card stock to mat the ribbon border and attached it to the left side of the card. The topper was matted to blue card and fixed in place with double sided tape - I actually found we small buttons that I wanted to use to threaded some narrow beige ribbon through each and tied in a knot before trimming short - these were stuck just below the image with silicone glue. The sentiment was matted onto brown then blue card and fixed to the lower right of the card. Gold card candy was fixed with tiny sticky pads to the top left and bottom right of the topper panel and also one top and one bottom at open edge of the card. The photo doesn't really show but I outlined the designs on the topper with the glamour dust to finish.

The great thing about these sheets is the cards can be made flat so will go in the post on a normal stamp - that in itself is a bonus these days.

Thanks for looking and I do hope you enjoyed the cards - I know I have gone on and on - just hope I didn't bore you too much!