I made this for B’s birthday, we had a very civilised high tea two weeks ago. Recently B ran a steampunk game set on a zeppelin at a gaming convention, and I used that as inspiration for her birthday card (plus I wanted to play around with some new ideas I had).
I had the idea of dye cutting flowers and gears from different dye sets and layering them together. The gears have been cut on craft cardstock, stained with vintage photo distress ink, and then when that dried swiped with Copper Brilliance Ink for a metallic look. The tatter flowers were cut from the same papers that I was using to layer on the card. The images are from Graphic 45’s Old Curiosity Shop collection (Automaton, butterfly panel, harlequin board, number panel) and the flourish background paper – also used for the flower – is by Kaisercraft. The corner has been stamped with a gear stamp from Kanban stamps, part of a steampunk set, also in Vintage Photo distress ink, which has also been used to swipe the edges of all the papers and cardstock. Sticky backed gems were placed in the centre of the flowers.
Inside, I used the rest of the harlequin border strip in the centre on the bottom, and stamped the gears on either side. The birthday message was stamped in the centre of the panel, and the bottom edge was swiped with vintage photo ink.
With the envelope, I wanted to include the flourish motif that was on the front of the card, so I stamped my flourish stamp off the edge a few times before adding the gears in the top left and lower right corners to tie it all together. I swiped the ink along the left hand side in the same colour. A single tattered flower was placed on the lower right side in the same pink flourish paper with three gems in the centre.
It is a nicely designed card; certainly stands out. I didn’t pick up on the gears/flower theme until I looked up close, however!
I originally had the idea of stacking multiple gears and flowers in one pile, from largest to smallest. However the different types and thicknesses of cardstock and paper meant that didn’t work out. I’ll try that some other time. However I think it still worked to have the single gear / flower combinations on each side.