Introducing the Art Deco Ladies in 'Floral Celebration' ... :) :)

 Hello!! :)

I 've been 'umm'ing and 'ah'ing about which of the several things I want to share on here would be next and eventually decided that I'd just get on and show you the card I made for my Gran's 80th birthday this week- it's my favourite of all the things I want to share :) It was a bit of an epic under-taking and, to be honest, actually ended-up taking a fairly insane amount of time (ie. most of last week!!) but I really enjoyed making it and am as sure as it's possible to be that my Gran will love it as much as I do, so totally worth it all!! :) There's quite a lot going on in the card, I've probably included more pics than strictly necessary and knowing me there'll be a lot of words, too, but I hope you'll bear with me!! :S  Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

The card from the front, as it's designed to stand in a slight curve :) It's basically two 6" Sq. Easel cards turned on their sides and stuck together at the back with another piece of card, but I did end up varying the placement of the fold, putting it closer to the spine of the card blank, as it just didn't stand right with the fold in the centre as per a normal easel- this way it has a much smoother 'curve' to it :) All the papers are from my new Basic Grey Kioshi Pad, which I've had my eye on for a while before finally deciding to get it just a couple of weeks ago, and when I looked through it the colour-scheme for this card just fell into place :)

The images are from a stamp set called Deco-lightful by Dimension Forth. I first saw them on C&C around this time last year and, as my Gran (and I!!) both love Art Deco and Twenties inspired ladies, I immediately knew they'd be perfect to make a special card for her this year- I had to wait 'til they came back in stock in January to get them but, since then they've been sat in my drawer just waiting to be used- I told myself my Gran's card would be the first one I'd use them on and I've stuck to that, though it's not been easy to resist playing!! :) The images are stamped in Memento London Fog for a softer look then coloured with  Promarkers- I think I'm finally getting a bit more used to the PMs and having less disasters and I certainly don't think I could've done these beautiful stamps any kind of justice with any other medium I've tried so far :) I used: Lilac and Lavender with Duck Egg and Pastel Green, as well as some Amethyst for accenting and to bring the stronger colours from the ribbon and purple paper in to the image. They're mounted on Nestie Labels cut from linen-textured silver cardstock with a satiny finish. The background paper is the prettiest shade of green from the Kioshi pad, edged with a little Milled Lavender DI, the swirls are Marrianne D cut from the Kioshi, too, and the ribbon is Anita's :)

The flowers are probably my favourite part of the whole thing as they're so totally different to anything I would normally do- since I already knew this card would need to go in a box to post it, I let myself play with out the usual restrictions :) They're made following this tutorial, which I discovered a few months back on Leanne's blog- thank you so much for sharing it Leanne, I've just been waiting for a special card to try them out on :) It basically involved die-cutting a huge number of different sized circles and then cutting spirals into them before quilling them into these pretty flowers :) I used three different types of cardstock- pearl, textured and plain- in slightly different shades and dabbed Milled Lavender all around the cut edges once the glue (I actually used Anita's Clear Glaze) had dried and followed that with about half a bottle of Crystal Stickles ... it took about three sessions for me to get them done- one to cut the circles, one to cut, quill and glue them and one to ink and glitter them plus an age to arrange them, which was by far the hardest/fiddliest part (they're stuck on with Silicone to make sure they'd stay at whatever angle I wanted them- mostly!! lol- but I had so much fun creating them from scratch!! :)  :)

  

A close up of the charm and an even closer veiw of the flowers!! :) lol- I couldn't resist!! :)

These pics show the 'inside' greeting panel and the decoration at the sides, which you can hardly see except when it's pulled right open but the satin card I used to stick the two easels together just looked a little plain and forlorn with out something so I quickly stamped and embossed this flower bouquet from the Deco stamp set and coloured it with Brilliance inks and a waterbrush :) The ribbon behind the Nestie labels is white coloured with the same PMs as the dresses, the label is edged with more DI and Stickles and the sentiment words are from several co-ordinating Woodware Clear sets and a SeeDs Alpahbet set (the '80th').

This is just to show the way the 'easels' are folded off-centre and the shape of the card a bit better :) I'm not sure any of my pics really show the '3D-ness' of the flowers that well but they only just fitted into the 2.5cm deep box!!

And, finally(!!), the little decoration I added to the front of the box we sent it in (inside a jiffy bag!) :)

Thank you so much for sticking with me through all of that!! :) I hope you think it was worth it...I'll find out tomorrow if my Gran does!! :)

Just one thing left to do now and, having already established that I went a bit mad with making the card and with photographing it, I figured I should go mad with challenges as well!! So, I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges: My Partner In Crafting Crime - Shine On You Crazy Diamond (if the copious quantity of Stickles counts!?!) :) ; Charisma Cardz - More Than One Fold :) ; Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight - Fancy Folds :) ; Craftalicious - Anything Goes :) ; Craft Your Days Away - Recipe- 1 Circle (at least), 2 Papers, 3 Ribbons (my circles were made into the flowers- too many to count!! :) ) :) ; Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Ribbon :) ; The ABC Challenge - F is for Flowers :) ; Allsorts - Let's Play Bingo (I chose the 3rd Column- Pearls, Stickles and Ribbon) :)  ; Papertake Weekly - 3 of a Kind (I used three Nestie panels and three different types of cardstock for my flowers) :) ; Wild Orchid Challenge - Pastels :) ; OSAAT- Embellish with your favourite things (Stickles, pearls and my new fav flowers!!) :) ; A Pocket Full of Posies - Champagne and Roses- A Celebration Card :) ; Lexi's Creations - Birthdays - Happy birthday to Lexi's Creations blog!! :) ; and Crafty Cardmakers - Use A Freebie (I used colours of Promarkers which I won as blog candy so they were free- if that doesn't count then please delete my entry!! :) ) :) 

Phew- now I *just* have to link them all...I might be back- sometime next year when I'm finished!!! ;) In the meantime, I hope you're all well and thank you so much for all the lovely comments on my last couple of posts- I think the Sepia Christmas idea will be getting plenty of use this year as a great way to make quicker cards as people seem to like it as much as I do!! :)

hugs,