80th birthday card

not a lot of blogging lately as all of my time is being spent on either commissions or building up some stock for my first craft fair, which is now less than a week away!

This is a commission I was asked to do for an 80th birthday.  The brief was 'mauve' and the birthday 'girl' had sent invitations to her friends featuring the Jenny Joseph poem 'Warning' so I based the card on that.

For some reason I can't get the photo to upload the right way round here, the hat should be in the top left corner and the flowers bottom right but you get the idea...

The hat was cut on the craft robo lite from a free file found on the UK Scrappers forum. I designed the word 'eighty' myself on the robo and the wording on the white mat was done in Word.  The flowers were bought from Hobbycraft and the leaves are from the wedding cake flowers my colleague gave me a few months ago.

Of course there's also a matching box - I should be able to make these in my sleep now but still get the measurements wrong...

I've got a website!

Came across a link to Weebly a couple of days ago and thought I'd have a go at building me a website.  It's pretty basic and sometimes frustrating using the templates to format it (I don't know HTML - one of the things on my learn-to-do list but not quite as satisfying as making pretty cards, lol)


Anyway the important thing is Cupcakes and Custard has a website for potential customers to look at instead of just my facebook page, now all I need to do (as well as make lots more cards/canvasses) is to make some business cards ready for the Craft Fair...

Too busy crafting...

to get round to blogging!


But, here's a quick peek of one of today's creations - I'm trying to stock up for the craft fair I'm doing on Sunday 29th August - not long now, eek!

The card is very similar to the box I made for the 21st birthday card last week.  I'm not happy with the proportions of this one (5" x 7", cut down from a 10" x 7" card so the fold is on the short side), will try it on an 8 x 8 square card next time.  A very simple card though, shapes cut on Craft Robo Lite - teacups were a free download from UK Scrappers website, the bunting I managed to 'design' myself! The papers are a selection from the Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose collection - think these are my favourite PP papers of all time...the 2 fonts used are called Auburn and Hiccups both from Kevin & Amanda, I think they complement each other really well...Edges were 'inked' with a Blush Promarker and teacups trimmed with a little bit of paper lace.

my first exploding box

Create and Craft TV has a lot to answer for...! I was just about to make a 60th birthday card to send to a colleague and was planning to do a variation on the handbag  card.  But before I could put knife to paper I spotted an exploding box as one of the demo samples on Create and Craft and thought 'I can do that!'

So, the result of my first exploding box...I'm very proud of it!

The letters and numbers were cut on the trusty Craft Robo Lite, but believe it or not I added all the polka dots by hand! Glitter peel-offs from Papermania and flowers are leftovers from the Forever Friends wall decor sets.

upcycling

I spent a happy day last weekend cutting up the lovely birthday cards I'd received and 'remodelling' or 'upcycling' them.  Will post more pictures soon but this is one of my favourites...

I forgot to take a pic of my cards before I got at them with scissors and guillotine but here's a pic of what this one looked like, its the one at the top...

with the addition of some black and ivory cardstock I came up with this

and then realised I didn't want to part with it just yet! So what's a girl to do but get out the craft box and recreate the topper.  The shoe is cut from vinyl using the Craft Robo Lite and the box from some cardstock that I got in a bargain pack last year and have never been able to find a use for until now!

Silver Wedding Card

another commission, usual 8 inch square format (to think I used to make mainly 4 inch square cards!). This one includes a shaker box cut from mirror card with nestabilities and filled with silver punched hearts and gems. The personalised text and sentiment are done with Meltdust from My Craft Studio  and the bow is gathered together with a 'make your own' brad from Papermania. Numbers were cut on the Craft Robo Lite from self-adhesive glitter vinyl

I went to town a bit on the insert of this one with a bit of 'bling'

Teapot Mark II

It seems it's not just me who loves the Union flag teapot design... My favourite customer brought more work my way, this time a commission from her daughter for a 21st birthday card for someone who loves drinking tea...

she wanted one of my 8 inch square cards with matching box, and I have to say I love this box as much as the card - may just have to reproduce as a smaller scale card...

what do you think of the little handmade paper teabag peeking out of the cup...?

Papers are a mix of Pink Petticoat and My Minds Eye, cut on Craft Robo Lite. Self-adhesive paper lace made by Creatability, and rub-ons made myself with special rub-on transfer paper from Grafix (bought at Hobbycraft, about £10 for 4 A4 sheets so will be using it sparingly!)