Any Old Iron - CD Sunday

It's Jocelyn's turn to pick the theme at CD Sunday and she's chosen 'Any Old Iron'. She wants to see images of 'old iron', metal embellishments, metallic paper etc. Most of the Design team have gone with images and die cuts of old iron or rag and bone men. But I decided to go pretty and pink!

The background paper is from Sharon Duncan's Embossibilities Floral Dreams DVD - there's some really pretty papers on this but sadly Sharon has closed her web site and now only has an eBay shop and Facebook page.

I used Tonic Nuvo glitter drops in the centre of all the daisies, it really sparkles but doesn't show in the photo. I then die cut a layer using a Tonic Topnote Trellis die. It was cut from a paper from the same Cd printed onto sparkly card (I think it's called Iced Diamond card). I backed the die cut with plain photo copy paper as I didn't want the flower backing paper to show through. 

Next comes the 'Any Old Iron' bit! The central topper, flowers and flourishes are all cut from recycled pie dishes. OK so I cheated and swapped 'iron' for aluminium! 

The central topper was run through 2 embossing folders. First the bird in the cage which is a Darice embossing folder then I used an embossing diffuser from Sizzix while I embossed the swirly frame (which was a free gift in a craft magazine). Depending on the shape of diffuser you use it stops the die cutting machine from embossing in certain areas. The bird cage image just fitted inside a small oval diffuser.

I then coloured more aluminium with Promarkers (Cerise and Soft Green) and left them to dry completely overnight before cutting them out. The flourishes were cut using a Cheery Lynn small flourish die, I cut bits off and added them in here and there. The flowers are a Tim Holtz Alterations Movers and Shapers die - Mini Tattered Floral Set. You need the Movers and Shapers base Tray to use these. I glued 2 flowers together and then pushed a pearl brad through the middle. 

If you decide to try this then please be aware the aluminium can be very sharp and not all dies are meant to be used to cut metal. Neither I or the CD Sunday Challenge blog can be held responsible if you cut yourself or damage your dies/die cutting machine. Having said that there are plenty of YouTube videos that show how to do this if you still want to have a go.

The challenge runs until Saturday 8th April at 1pm and Jocelyn has a prize ready for whoever she picks as the winner. Don't forget you must use something from a craft Cd rom (it could just be a sentiment or small bow) and name that Cd in your blog post otherwise you won't be eligible for the prize even though the Design Team may have commented on your entry.

Enjoy Tea/Coffee with CD Sunday

While on holiday last year Margaret, from the design team at CD Sunday, used to call into a cafe and have a coffee. On the wall of the cafe was this amazing painting which Margaret thought would make a great theme for a CD Sunday challenge.

At the top right of the photo were some ugly electricity cables so I opened the photo in Serif Craft Artist, took it into the cut out studio, removed the cables and replaced them with a blue sky. I also cropped the photo as there was a bottle of water at the centre front of the photo and it was quite distracting. I love the photo and can understand why Margaret was enchanted by it.

I wanted my card to reflect the sunny colours we tend to wear when on holiday so chose a colour scheme of pink. green and lemon.

Both the backing papers are from Sharon Duncan's Embossibilities One For The Girls CD. The brown paper has tea pots and tea cups on it and the green one has cupcakes and sprinkles.

The cake stand full of macaroons was a first for me. I rarely do any stamping and colouring but this was 2 seperate stamps - an empty cake stand and one macaroon. I stamped the one macaroon onto the top edge of a post it note and cut it out. I used this as a mask to stamp the lower row of macaroons. I then stamped 3 cakes onto a post it note and cut out the mask so that I could stamp the next 2 rows of cakes. The bottom row of cakes was then masked over so that I could stamp the cake stand. Everything was then coloured using my much neglected Promarkers. 

The single cupcake was made from a set of dies - one die for each layer of the cake. I finished the pink layer of cream off by adding some beads as sprinkles. The tower of cups was made from one die of a single cup and saucer, I cut the saucers off 2 of the cups so they would fit inside each other. The flowers and leaves are meant to be popped out but I glued them in. Everything was cut from white card and then coloured in to match. The heart doily was originally white but was coloured in with a pale Promarker and then I went over it with a sparkle pen. 

All the stamps, dies and the doily were free gifts in craft magazines.

The 3 mats were cut from cream pearl card (similar to Centura Pearl) using a Tonic die.  

The challenge runs until Saturday 25th March at 1 pm and don't forget to include at least one item printed from a craft CD and to name that CD in your post to qualify for the prize.