Paintbox Poppets and Serif Craft Artist Professional

Hello everyone

Today I am going to share a card I made for my friend's birthday - she used to be a dancer when she was young and is still a keen ballet fan so I thought that this Paintbox Poppets image of a young ballet dancer would be just right for her card.

I used my cd Paintbox Poppets from Crafters Companion, but designed the whole card, including insert, in my Craft Artist Professional software.  This allowed me to see exactly what the card would look like when it was finished and "tweak" the bits I wasn't happy with before printing anything out.  This is what I did in CAP first.

All the elements I have used on this, with the exception of the lace, are from the Crafters Companion cd.  I outlined the topper on the left, the sentiment and the ribbon border by clicking on them and increasing the line size.  I then used the colour picker to take a deeper pink out of the image and changed the line colour so it looks as though they have all been matted onto another layer.  I used the cutout studio to take the main image of the little dancer and then merged this into the backing paper on the right.  I also cut out the bouquet at the dancer's feet and used this as an embellishment, which is tucked in behind the sentiment.

I also used CAP to make a matching insert.  Here is how it looks in CAP

I used the stencil facility in CAP to make my scalloped layers and used the elements I had previously cut out to embellish my insert.

Once all the designing work was done I had to decide how I was going to actually make up my card and eventually decided to use the front of the card as a topper and to layer up the main image and the sentiment.  A little tip for anyone making a card this way - when you print your card out pages 1 and 3 (ie the front and the back of the card) print out onto one A4 sheet so if you want to print additional elements, but you are going to use just the card front as a topper, then put your elements onto page 3 and you will get everything you need printed out onto one sheet.

And here is the finished card.

The photo isn't great - I have had problems uploading it so have had to reduce the file size considerably to get it to upload.  Anyway, I have Spary and Sparkled both the topper and the sentiment with iridescent before adding them to the card using foam pads.  I have layered up the printed topper onto some Coredinations card in a matching colour and used a white prescored scalloped 6x6 card base.

And here is what the finished insert looks like

Again I have had to reduce the file size in order to upload this.

I am very pleased with the finished card and hope my friend will be too when I deliver it to her later today.

If anyone is interested in joining the Serif Craft Artist Users Group I set up on Facebook, then please click here and ask to be added to the group.

Thank you for dropping in to see my card.

Catherine x