*DRUM ROLL PLEASE* The Big Reveal...

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty corner! A little later than promised I'd like to share with you all my entry to the National Cardmaker of the Year 2014 competition.

My first card is a homage to pop art and is deceptively simple in design but I think it is rather striking. I used the docrafts Santoro's gorguss "The Black Star" stamp set and stamped the main image six times in different coloured inks (Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Dusty Concord, Peacock Feather, Salty Ocean, Scattered Straw, Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade) then punched them out using a square Woodware punch. I cut out a piece of black card just large enough to hold the six images with a thin black border and stuck them down using tape runner as shown above. I stuck the panel towards the top portion of the 6" by 6" card blank because I wanted it to mirror an exhibition in a gallery and to help with that effect I stamped the "simply gorjuss" sentiment that comes with the Black Star stamp set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on white card, and mounted it on foam tape before sticking it under the focal image on the right hand side in the manner of artist information at a gallery. I then rounded the bottom corners to add a little more interest.

















My second card also features a Docrafts Santoro's gorguss stamp set, this time "The Fox". Because my first card is so colourful, I wanted to colour this image in a slightly different way so I decided to colour it in shades of grey using Pro Markers and then with an adapted spotlight technique, I coloured the fox ears and tail in using warm browns and orange Pro Markers. I highlighted the image using a clear Wink of Stella brush marker which is quite hard to see in these photos, but on the smaller image on the right you can just about see the shimmer on the tail, boots and also on the brown leaves. I cut the leaves out using three different X Cut punches (Docrafts) and used white card which I then coloured in using Pro Markers using autumnal shades. I fussy cut the foxy girl image and mounted it on a black card oval using foam squares then stuck the coloured leaves out round the edge using a Zig two way glue pen. I took a 8" by 8" scalloped edge card blank and after trimming a few centimetres off each side stuck down a sheet of striped paper taken from a DCWV "Travel" themed scrapbook stack. I then centred the main image and stuck it down with red liner tape. I decorated the inside and the envelope with the remaining punched leaves and stamped out a verse inside the card. I coloured some white pearls to match the leaves using Pro Markers and added them to the top left and bottom right of the panel.

I think I've left the best until last or at least the most unusual! My final card is a craft plastic gatefold card with belly band in a clockwork theme.

This card took me all night to make (about six hours) but was totally worth it. The hardest part about it was getting the craft plastic to score sufficiently enough to fold into the gatefold shape - I had to repeatedly score and fold on both sides of the craft plastic. I embossed two panels of holographic mirri board using a cuttlebug embossing folder called clocks (I think) which were mounted on the front panels using red liner tape. I then cut panels of the same holographic card to fit the inside of the panels to cover the fact that the tape was very visible from the outside panels - I kept miss-aligning it so in the end I cut a thinner strip of the same card then once that was lined up on one side added a strip of black holographic glitter card from the other, I stamped out some clock faces with different times and covered them with dome stickers so that they looked like pocket watches. I added these to the inside panels. I added another panel of the holographic card to the centre of the main inside panel and stamped out a greeting onto white card then stamped around and off this panel using clock faces and cogs. I then mounted this onto the holographic card. A further panel is mounted onto the back of the card so you can't see the red liner tape through the craft plastic. I stamped out a final clock face and added a dome sticker over it then mounted it onto a holographic circle. I stamped out a Teresa Collins happy birthday ticket sentiment and cut it our and secured it using the clock face. I made a belly band out of black card and added the circle embellishment over where I'd used the adhesive to secure the band. As the photos above show the belly band can be removed to allow the card to be displayed open or left on so the embossed panels are showing.

I hope you've liked sharing my creations, I'm hoping to make some more cards soon and in fact there are another two big card making competitions coming up shortly, both of which require two cards and a paper project. I'm a bit nervous about the projects as I'm primarily a card maker and a very occasional scrapbooker - projects are not my forte!

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about the cards shown or anything else and also please check out my little survey that's currently running - I'd love to know what you'd like to see in future blog posts.

Until then, keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx