Sweet sweet music

In honour of the Bradford on Avon Music Festival this weekend at the Wiltshire School of Music I have been making musical cards. I only just saw these stamps by Crafty Individuals at the beginning of the week and had to have them, and they came really quickly with some freebies, thanks Crafty Individuals! 

I stamped the music stamp onto some marled card, and cut a frame using a Spellbinders die, which I cut the centre out of to make a frame. The reason you are seeing three photos of this card is because I tried 3 different dies in the centre to get different effects. I embossed the frame then used the die as a stencil to shade it with plum Memento ink, and then cut the music sheet to fit behind. I stamped the piano and instruments and cut them out to add, oh and I should have said the first thing I did was stamp and heat emboss the sentiment using stamps from a Hero Arts clear set.

Do you like this frame the best? I just used a square Nestie in the middle here.

Or this one? I used the next size down of the main die this time.

They are all easel cards, inside I added a panel of the green card, some ribbon with musical notes, some Prima blooms and a gem, and a French horn, or is that a tuba?

Slightly different inside, I used Tim Holtz Ideology tape on this one.

I had high hopes of making more cards using this wonderful Dreamweavers stencil, and I tried it embossing it by passing it through the eBosser ( I had several attempts before getting anything like what I wanted, the one with two pieces of card to shim it worked best but then the machine reversed it and wouldn't accept that a second time, after which all attemps were not so good), then I tried the Big Shot, the Big Shot gave me a better definition, and I tried the embossing paste. I had a few problems with the ebosser and didn't end up with the result I had hoped for. I got in a mess with the paste trying to do the black piano keys only despite have the little brass masking tool, well I just got in a mess! So this one ended up with the dry embossed image cut from the keys, and I used black Promarker pen to mark the embossed notes, words and the black keys. I also used Cordinations Black Magic embossed with a music note folder and sanded, then die cut with Grand Nestabilities die. I mounted them on gold and added Happy Birthday cut out of some printed card I bought ages ago at a show, and I used Sizzix ;Lollipop dies for that.

I am entering the ABC challenge E for embossing, take your pick the cards above all have embossing!

These little characters are stamps which I think I bought from Smiling Summer Girl on ebay many years ago, I think they are mythical folk art figures maybe Mexican and beginning with X but I could be wrong! It is really bugging me that I can't remember what they are called. The set includes the figures in different sizes, so the block comes smaller, and the small individuals come in a bigger size. The sentiment might be from her too. If anyone knows please tell me. Anyway this is a CAS or clean and simple card, I used Kaleidoscope ink and stamped directly onto the card.

When the new stamps arrived I tried to use every bit of the one EZ mount sheet I had left, and some scraps! So the Crafty Individuals had to be mounted so I could use them and as many Krafting Kimmies as I could fit!

Ermmm, I think I need to order some more EZ mount!

Shaun and Richard outside in the cold and very wet laying a new base for the new greenhouse to come, with toughened glass so that Kenny doesn't have any accidents. The old greenhouse is being used as shelter here, and will be going to a new home next week!