Music Lover Card and Tag

"Men's cards are difficult to come up with ideas for", that's what crafting companies keep telling us, while trying to sell us another card kit full of pictures of boats, trains and footballers.  I don't normally have too many problems coming up with ideas for cards for men, sometimes, just changing the colour and type of embellishment, can quickly change a generic scheme into something more masculine.  I also like the idea of a (possibly meaningful) background paper with a sentiment as the embellishment and have used this idea many times for cards - keeping it all really simple.

There is an endless selection of papers around which are perfect for men's cards but on this occasion I wanted to make some thing a little more personal.  I do love the process of starting out with some blank white card and ending up with a beautiful backing paper all made from scratch.  Of course, this is then your original paper, which you can scan and print, using over and over again.

For my music lover themed background paper I thought I would get hold of some old concert ticket stubs and scan them, I got a few more just searching Google images.  With images of ticket stubs pasted into MSWord I printed them out onto 160gsm card in greyscale.

I cut out the tickets and inked them with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink using a foam applicator tool.

After arranging the tickets onto a piece of card slightly smaller than A5, and happy with the layout I stuck the tickets down with Tombow glue stick (this glue wont leave a visible residue on your project).  Any overhanging pieces were trimmed from the reverse (as with the tag, below) then the panel was matted onto some dark brown paper.

This was then stuck onto a A5 card folded from a sheet of A4 Stampin' Up Soft Suede card - the perfect colour for a vintage look.

As a final embellishment I prepared '50' from some mock croc paper which matched up perfectly.

Using a grid marked out on some scrap card, I prepared the number templates freehand then cut out in the accent paper, fixing to the front of the card with dimensional glue.

I prepared a matching oversized tag, collaging the whole tag with aged ticket stubs.  Stringing with crochet lace the tag was embellished with a small tissue tape rosette studded with a co-ordinating brad.

Polymer Clay Workshop

Some of my first crafty projects years ago, involved Fimo polymer clay and lately I have been marvelling at the amazing effects in Donna Kato's book 'The Art of Polymer Clay, Millefiori Techniques' very pretty, although way above my skill level.

A new class 'Polymer Clay Tiles' at the new location for The Craft Studio in Nottingham, seemed more my thing, so I signed up!

Yet another lovely group of Crafters arrived for the class, and we immediately set about softening up our clay with, and, as is traditional at The Craft Studio, a good cup of tea.  Meanwhile the very talented tutor Brit Wellens showed us some samples and some of the equipment and moulds we would be using during the evening, as well as sharing with us the wisdom of 'dirty' clay colours, allowing us to make the most of mica powder highlights later on.

Inspired by Brit's samples and the amazing selection of mica colours, we got to work rolling out our clay, pressing it into moulds, creating texture with moulding mats and cutting our tiles.

An application of mica powders from an amazing choice of different colours and the tiles were ready to cure.

At home you would probably cure your clay in the oven, at the studio, we used our Melt Pots - I'm always pleased to find another use for mine and they are perfect for small projects like these.

I am really pleased with the results, they are perfect for use as embellishments on loads of projects.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class and I'm sure it will be running again, along with a polymer clay beads class also tutored by Brit.