Album Cover Challenge

 

Is there an album or artist that seems to dominate your playlist? I’ve always been a bit of a Blur fan/geek. Their music has seen me through my studies, work & personal life and their albums are my go to when I craft too! For our DT makes these past 2 weeks we’ve been creating some fan art based on some of our favourite albums. It’s difficult for me to choose my favourite Blur album as they are all so very different. However, my artistic choice is ‘The Magic Whip’. Artist, Tony Hung, created the original ‘The Magic Whip’ art work and the band recently celebrated the album’s tenth anniversary. (https://www.facebook.com/reel/681264711129222)

For my reinterpretation of ‘The Magic Whip’ I’ve created a ‘Circle Easel Card’ using the ‘Better with Ice-Cream’, ‘Calm over Chaos’, Resilient Bonsai’, ‘Particle’ and ‘Birthday Wishes’ stamp sets. All are available from Visible Image.

This is the first ‘Circle Easel’ card I’ve ever made – so it was very much trial and error. I learned a lot putting this card together. To help, I’ve split this blog into 2 sections. One is about making a ‘Circle Easel Card,’ the next is about how I put it all together.

5 Easy Steps to Creating a ‘Circle Easel Card’

When I’ve picked up a craft magazine I’ve always wondered how they make these wonderful and different style cards. Some are just dies you can buy to create the shapes, but others like the ‘Circle Easel Card’ can be easily made using a simple selection of circle dies and some card.

You will need:

Black card blank & envelope (6”x6”) (or a colour of your choice)

Black card (A4) (or a colour of your choice)

White card (A4) (or a colour of your choice)

Acrylic Glue & 3D mounts

Die Cutter

Selection of Circle dies

Step 1

I found the simplest way to get started was to use a card blank. I then chose a circle die that was slightly less than 6” in diameter to cut out a circle card. You do this by placing the die onto the card but leave a little bit of the die over-hanging the card fold.

Step 2 – Creating the Easel

• Once your circle card has been card – label up parts (A) and (B).
• Fold part (B) in half inwards towards the card fold. Making sure this is horizontal to the card fold.

Step 3 - Creating your Card Toppers

How you create your card toppers is entirely up to you. However I chose to do a matt & layered look to my album cover card. I die cut out:

1 x large circle in black card (the same one used to cut out the easel card)

2 x smaller circles in black card (one for (A) & one for (B))

1 x even smaller circle in white (the same size as the largest ‘Particle’ round stamp)

Step 4 – Add your Card Toppers

Once I decorated the card toppers I matt and layered the card by sticking:

• the large circle die cut to the flap of the easel card facing forward (B) using acrylic glue
• the smaller black circle die cut on top of the previous at (B).
• the smaller black circle die cut to (A).
• the smaller die cut into the centre of the smaller black circle die cut at (A)

Step 5 – Add your Card Stopper

To provide some stability to your card when standing up you can add a ‘card stopper’. This is just a sentiment glued to the centre of (A) but layered up using some 3D mounts.

Your card should now be complete.

Decorating the Card

There are quite a few decorative pieces to this card so I started by creating the ice-cream. I did this by stamping the ice-cream cone from the ‘Better with Ice-Cream’ stamp set onto some black card using Versamark and heat embossed it with Wow superfine opaque bright white embossing powder. The cone was then fussy cut out and painted using some white and gold Perfect Pearls. They give a lovely shimmer. Some ‘Candied Apple’ distress oxide was then painted onto the ice-cream to emulate the style of the album image.

The Japanese text from the ‘Calm over Chaos’ stamp set and the circle from the ‘Resilient Bonsai’ set was stamped onto some black card in the same way before being fussy cut out. The circle was coloured in with some white Perfect Pearls and topped with some Ranger glossy accents.

Up next, I took a small black circle die cut and stamped the alternative Japanese text from the ‘Resilient Bonsai’ stamp set all over it using Versamark before heat embossing with Wow superfine clear gloss embossing powder. The circle was then edged with gold archival ink.

For the bottom of the easel card I wanted to add a nod to the CD image of the album which is bright yellow. I stamped the largest circles from the ‘Particle’ stamp set onto the white die cut using Versamark and heat embossed with Wow superfine metallic gold rich embossing powder before colouring over the top with ‘Mustard Seed’ distress ink. This was then glued to the smaller black die cut.

The greeting sentiment from the ‘Birthday Wishes’ stamp set was stamped onto black card using Versamark and heat embossed with Wow superfine opaque bright white embossing powder and fussy cut out. This was then layered into the middle of the ‘Particle’ stamped image using acrylic glue and some 3D mounts.

Finally, all the elements were added to the easel card using acrylic glue and 3D mounts. Some black gems were also glued to the background for added interest.

I hope you like my homage to one of my favourite albums. I had great fun making it and it won’t be the last easel card I make.

X Rachel X

Disclaimer:

We took on a creative challenge: reinterpret a favourite album cover as a card design

Original Album: The Magic Whip by Blur

Inspired by: The Magic Whip by Blur

This is a tribute piece – no affiliation with the original artist or label.

Artist: Blur

Original Album artwork © Blur/Tony Hung under exclusive licence to Parlophone Records Limited. Used here for artistic reference, comparison and tribute purposes only. We do not own the rights.

The original album artworks included in this post are shown strictly for reference and educational comparison. All album imagery remains the property of their respective copyright holders. These reinterpretations are non-commercial fan works and are not endorsed by or affiliated with the original artists or labels.

Album Cover – Full Product List

Visible Image Stamp Sets – ‘Better with Ice-Cream’, ‘Calm over Chaos’, Resilient Bonsai’, ‘Particle’ and ‘Birthday Wishes’.

Inks – Versamark/Distress Oxide – ‘Candied Apple’

Perfect Pearls – White and Gold

Embossing Powders - Wow superfine opaque bright white/Wow superfine clear gloss/Wow superfine metallic gold rich

White 330gsm card (suitable for mixed media)/Black 330gsm card/Black 6”x6” card blank

Anti-static pad – to use before embossing

Stamping blocks/craft mat/stamping foam mat

Circle Dies (mixed sizes around 6” diameter)

Die Cutter

Heat gun/Embossing heat gun

Tim Holtz snips/scissors – for fussy cutting

Black gems

Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue

3D foam mounts (1mm x 1mm & 5mm x 5mm)

Album Cover Reel

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