my Crafty Corner

Cards and other handicrafts made by Jean Straw

Thursday 13 March 2014

Abstract Birthday

This is the card that I made for my sons birthday this week. I was inspired by an article by Joanne Allison in the February issue of Craft Stamper magazine in which she showed several techniques for using Drywall tape, available in the DIY section of many £1 shops. I thought  it would be ideal for making abstract cards suitable for men. By making small snippet sized samples I managed to incorporate most of the techniques she showed. As you can see the tape is in the form of a fine mesh, which is sticky on one side. The first technique, that I used on the right of the card is to simply lay it on as a stencil and ink through it, which I did gently with black soot Distress ink using a piece of cut and dry sponge. The next was to cut a piece of the tape and colour it with a permanent marker, I think I used a Whispers bright red marker. Next I stuck some tape to a snippet of card and covered it with some foil tape, also from a DIY shop I think. I used a paper stump to make sure the mesh really showed up.  It should then have been painted with black acrylic paint but I didn't have any black so I coloured it with a black permanent marker, and then sanded it lightly to reveal the metal. In the magazine this was left with the silver showing but fancied to see it gold so I rubbed some Treasure Brass gilding wax over it. For the last sample I stuck the mesh to a piece of double sided sticky sheet and then onto another snippet of card and tipped some gold glitter over it and used my fingers to press it down and burnish it before tipping off the excess. I realised at this point that it would have looked better if I had coloured the mesh first, but I rescued it by using a fine line black pen to go over the mesh lines. This was a little tricky as the pen kept collecting glitter on the nib and I had to keep cleaning it off, but as I had only made a small sample it wasn't too bad and the result was worth it.  I punched out a couple of stars from this, and one from the black and gold piece and glued them to the card. I stamped the greeting with a Chocolate Baroque clear stamp from the Amazing Birthday set, in the middle of the card and used a gold gel pen to highlight the word Amazing. I'm not sure if this shows in the photo but it might if you click on it to enlarge it. To finish I added the black and red dots with a random dots stamp from Denami Designs and black soot and fired brick Distress inks.
I had fun playing with this and as I now have a large roll of the tape I might well be using it again soon.
As I used little snippets of card for the samples I am going to pop over to the Snippets Playground with it and see what they have been getting up to this week.

I am also entering at Crafty Creations Challenges - Happy Birthday
                          Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Thank you all for looking and for your lovely friendly comments I really appreciate them.


16 comments:

  1. Oh wow Jean - fabulous card! I love that you used that dry wall tape, clever idea - thanks for a great explanation too.

    Hugs

    Di
    xx

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  2. This is a lovely and unusual male card Jean and all the different techniques too. I love the sentiment and the random dots stamp which finish it off beautifully. I'm sure your son will have loved this. Have a lovely weekend. x

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  3. Hi Jean,
    your description of how you made this wonderful card sounds very complex, but the end result is amazing. Such a great idea.
    Lots of crafty love. Jenny L.

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  4. Beautiful card Jean, wow what a lot of work. Thank you for joining TTCRD this week.

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  5. Fantastic card, love how you used the mesh and it seems such a bargain buy.
    Yvonne

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  6. Great use of the mesh and love the colours, fabulous card.

    Kath x

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  7. Awesome techniques with this so-mundane supply. I love it when I read the how-to-s on cards that have 'everyday' items, turned into beautiful craft material. This one is a winner for sure, and I enjoyed seeing the different effects you achieved. Have you tried using electrical tape (it's sort of like a metal but with a sticky backing) with alcohol ink to make flowers? Soda cans work too, but are not sticky back. This is such a wonderful abstract card, and of course that beautiful CB sentiment completely takes it up into the world of elegance. Enlarging did show the gold detail on Amazing. Wonderful card Jean. Clever you on this fantastic piece. TFS & Happy wkend.

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  8. BRILLIANT techniques and nicely explained Jean. Terrific card for a male too. LOVE IT.

    Hugs, Sarn xxx

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  9. I have just seen this in Pixie's picks today. I didn't realise it was yours. It must have got lost while I was struggling with blogger last week. There's a lot of work gone in to making that, but it is a great male card, so well worth the effort. Kate xx

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  10. Wow oh wow! Got to get me some of this tape - reminds me of another craft product that was a lot more expensive, love this! x

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  11. Jean, just saw your pretty card above highlighted at the Playground! Thx for your sweet comments, and I'm having blogger issues too. Places I comment, where I think I'm a follower, try to join again, I'm already a follower. Or else I try to sign in & blogger says it can't find the page. Grrr..comments disappear, I don't think I've hit Publish, so return to check that my comment got published. I think Blogger is being a PITA! Happy Sunday & Hugs

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  12. Oooo! This is clever. I remember using some of this tape at a crop on a layout. Thanks for the reminder. Must look for some.
    Hugs
    xx

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  13. Great guy card! Didn't they call it magic mesh at some point and sell it for large amounts of money to us scrappers...will have to remember to raid the wall repair supplies next time! Thanks for playing with Crafty Creations this go!

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  14. It looks like you had a lot of fun with this - perfect for a manly creation at the same time as being thoroughly interesting.
    Paula (PEP)

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  15. What a fun design Jean.

    Hugs Diane

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  16. This is really cool! It is a perfect masculine card!

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