The Key

I get the chance to practice on men's cards quite a lot as I am surrounded by them at work! Bound to be when you work in the fishing industry. Here is a card I made for my boss last week for his birthday. The key belonged to a padlock that breathed it's last gasp and held some ancient attachment for him and he complained that he did not want to replace it with the shiny new key for the modern replacement lock. I jokingly said we could make the key into a piece of art work and from then on I couldn't stop thinking about it all day and came up with this.

I used one of my fab new Paperartsy stamps on this (it was in the subscription gift from The Craft Stamper magazine). I used a piece of American Traditional Designs paper called letters & keys as the background for both the main card and the focal image and added the wrought iron stamp around the edges in Distress Ink walnut stain and using a blending tool rubbed a little more around the edges for a graded aged look. I inked the key with Ranger alcohol inks in pesto, espresso and terracotta and attached by using some matching quilting thread to tie around it (you might just make it out on the close up, although it does blend in really well) and a blob of silicon glue at the other end to stop it moving around. I used the same colour alcohol inks on a piece of metal tape and attached the word "explore" on top.

The keyhole is a metal brad off QVC a while back, attached with black brads and I printed out the wording and inked this around the edge to distress as well before matting onto gold mirri card and attaching with the same brads. He seemed to like the result!

Only a few arty weeks till Christmas, must get my cards in the post.