I made this card for the November VSN “Cabaret” challenge, "Cameo Appearance". Hostess Diane (diane617) came up with the idea to have us make a cameo-like image. She directed that we use an oval shape in the layout and have a lighter, embossed image mounted on a darker background.
She gave us a link to a store where we could look at some examples of cameos to get ideas. I caught myself drooling LOL. I could have done some serious damage to our budget if I’d had some time to shop! I loved the cameos of butterflies and I had the perfect stamp – a butterfly in flight, about an inch and a half wide and with enough detail to guide me for embossing.
I also happened to have some paper by Creative Memories that was perfect for this – it has a soft, marbled appearance that really mimics the shading of the stone – a look I would have been hard pressed to recreate otherwise. I have it in pale orange and green. The orange is almost identical to the true color of most “orangey” cameos, but the green was a better fit for my background.
Two things really helped me a lot with this challenge. The first is that my friend Joan recently came to visit, toting a huge box of craft materials from her late motherÂ’s card-making days. Joan also makes cards but our styles and crafting techniques are very different. She knew that many of her motherÂ’s things were things sheÂ’d never use but that I would love.
The second was the Jasmine cartridge for the Cricut Expression. It was the first one outside of the one that came with it that I ever bought, and itÂ’s still my favorite. It has some lovely foundation shapes for mounting initials and I used a scalloped oval to make a jewelry finding for the cameo. I set the machine to cut five different layers, not entirely sure what was going to work and ultimately used only two.
For the basic background, I used a scrap of paper with a vintage style floral print. I also have a stamp with a vintage collage and I stamped it off and then stamped it on a scrap of cream colored cardstock and tore the edges. If time wasn’t an issue I would have spent more of it to “antique” this just a little. As it was, I simply brushed the torn edges with gold ink.
I stamped the butterfly on a small piece of the same scrap of cream colored cardstock and embossed the veining and some other details. After a few mis-steps with this, I found that you don’t need to emboss a lot, just enough to give an illusion of depth, and a smaller tip does a much better job of it – I used the tiniest one I have. Cameos are silhouettes in 3-D so you just want to give some hint of a dimensional surface with some raised lines. I cut it out, mounted it in my “jewelry finding”, and then built a little vintage montage around it from Joan’s mom’s treasures and my own “bling bar”.
I was really rushing to put this together and after it was done and I went to set up to photo it, I discovered that I had built onto the card backwards! I never checked that I had the card base oriented correctly when I started to put it together. What a knucklehead!
Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 GMT Views: 982
Favorited:2
Registered: March 5, 2007 Location: Coatesville, Pennsylvania Posts: 44920
Tue, Nov 18, 2008 @ 6:20 AM
Absolutely exquisite!!!! Just gorgeous!
------------------------------ Lesley Proud Fan Club and RAK Member He is the GOD of the Impossible!!!! Kookzi the Rookzie Punchkateer It is by the grace of God that we take our next breath.
Registered: April 16, 2006 Location: Stamping with friends when I can Posts: 17694
Tue, Nov 18, 2008 @ 1:17 PM
OMG Cathy, what a tale, I love that serendipity provided you with just the right pieces to put together this beautiful card. Everything about it is wonderful, the jewelry findings, the flowers, the gem. I noticed you are an insane embellisher and think it is soooooo appropriate. Thanks for playing in my challenge.