Crafty Cardmakers #18 - A Challenging Challenge

Aren't I mean hee hee! The challenge I've set over at Crafty Cardmakers is "A Challenging Challenge." I can see many people running away screaming from this one, some might be a bit curious and the hardened crafters will rub their hands with glee!

What the challenge is is to "Challenge Yourself" in that you need to use materials you haven't used, you know the type that sits around in the back of the drawers for years gathering dust? Or you can do a style outside of your norm, take part in a challenge past or present that you initially ran a mile from such as the more complex sketches or perhaps try a new card fold you keep meaning to try, its all about overcoming the fear and just getting stuck in.

For this challenge I bounced a few ideas around then whilst on a root for something else came across this Slide Mailer I bought from Katys Corner when it was on a corner so it must be around 2004/2005. I also bought the pens from there around the same time.

I've never done a slide mailer before, there were two in the pack and I still have another one (somewhere!) The pens are Marvy metallics which I think I've used to edge cards before but nothing more exciting!

I thought I'd photograph it along the way as if it turned out pants then I had a go and will learn from it so I've started by painting white gesso onto the chipboard mailer and when dry I gave it a light sanding.


Now using a non stick craft sheet I pressed the pens down to release some ink. Its worth noting that you don't need to do them too close together as it spreads quite a lot so I probably did them a bit close.



Me being me thought it would look quite nice with maybe a spritz of gold radiant rain so I sprayed a small amount on for good measure. I then gave it a quick spritz with water, you really don't need much with these.

Now at this point your guess is as good as mine as to how it's going to turn out so here goes! Place your mailer face down onto the ink then lift up and see what you get!

I quite liked the blue and pink so I dried it off with a heat gun and repeated until I got the effect and balance I wanted. Repeat this on all the surfaces.

Dry it all off with a heat gun or leave it to dry out/ With this one I'd sprayed some radiant rain nearby which had accidentally got on the inside, I wiped it with my hand and thought Oooh I likey that so left it :)
It's VERY messy but then I think my hands are in a permanent state like this as I think Jill's and Cath's are too as we're not glove people either!

Next I've coloured in two Sweet Pea stamps. As its a challenge all the sweet peas I've used are new to me and I've not coloured them in before. I used the microscope glass slide to draw round and cut them out adding some black ink at the edges.

I hit a bit of a snag here and was unsure how to mount the images without the glass falling out so help is always at hand at Katy's Corner yahoo group where I whipped over to and got some suggestions and went with dimensional magic to secure the glass to the image and then used glue dots to secure the images into the slide mailer.

Thanks very much for your help here ladies!

The two images are Soft Goth Night and Rising Flame available from Crafts and Me in the UK.

Now working on the front of the mailer I added another new sweet pea, one I was actually a bit scared of, well its the cat in the background I didn't like much as I don't dislike cats I'm just more of a bird person. I coloured Moonlight Whispering in and cut her out and attached to the front. The mask is coloured with sakura stardust pens so its very sparkly which doesn't show then I've used the ickle tiny fairies from Tracey Coates' Starburst Fairies stamp plate from The Stampman and stamped in brilliance white ink embossed with Moonglow Angel Wings peacock embossing powder before stamping the sentiment in brilliance black. This is a fun embossing powder which changes appearance depending on what ink or cardstock you use so its very subtle white with white ink on white and a really nice green over black cardstock.

Onto the back of the mailler and I've stamped the heart image from Tracey's new Artistic Elements stamp sheet embossed with Moonglow Midnight Teal embossing powder. I originally coloured the centre with shimmerz angel wings and gamour dust but it was BRIGHT white and didn't look right at all so I used the pink marvy marker and coloured over the glitter and added some dimensional magic on top.

And finally the inside where the two sweet pea images are mounted and I used the larger fairy group from Tracey's Starburst Fairies again embossed with the angel wings and stamped the sentiment across the middle with the little stars from the same sheet in the corners and then added some teal nail heads which is something I love as they come in long strips you just cut off however many you want :D
And thats job done, my first EVER slide mailer! Cath you really need to give me a swift kick at Port Sunny for not using these sooner lol!

I hope you come over and have a go at my challenge at Crafty Cardmakers as you never know what you might discover!