More is more...

This card came about from one of my failed printing attempts for my last post. Annoyingly my printer was only printing part of the image on some of the cards.  On this one it printed the whole rose image but no sentiment.

Preview

My 'rescue' job was very simple...I've added a Craftwork Cards sentiment circle which I've coloured and glittered on the edge, and a length of chiffon ribbon.  The image is coloured with chalks as in my last post, and the scallops on the card blank also picked up with chalks.

I've got something in mind for another half-printed card in the next day or two - watch this space!

Less is more week 6

Just a quickie today as I'm in full crafting mode and don't want to waste any precious time!

This is my entry for this week's Less Is More challenge - a one layer card, off the edge.

I've used a digital stamp from Digistamp Boutique. Have had my eye on these and this was the perfect excuse to buy them.  My printer has been a little temperamental though so there were quite a few false starts with the printing directly to card base technique.

I've coloured the image with chalks, and couldn't resist picking up the edges of the scalloped card blank with the pink chalk too, sorry Chrissie and Mandi!  I also added a little touch of crystal Stickles to the centres of the roses.

Less is more...

that's the name of a this brand new challenge blog and I'm looking forward to playing along regularly as I definitely prefer the clean and simple look.

The first challenge is a colour challenge, using pink, black and white and there are lots of fabulous entries already, there are obviously a lot of clean and simple folk about...

My card mainly uses items I got in one of my bargain £5 Craftwork Cards goody bags, with a few gems from my stash.  The ribbons was 'recycled at source' - I stole it from the packaging of a Christmas gift I bought for a niece.  She'd have just thrown it in the bin...!

I've just noticed that 1 of my layers is a bit skew-whiff on this pic but don't have time to take another photo tonight - please forgive me!

As well as the Less is More challenge I'm also going to enter this into the Totally Papercrafts Challenge - Clean and Simple

Vintage Heart

I don't really 'do' Valentines cards but there are a lot of love and heart-related posts out there in blogland right now...

But hearts don't just have to be Valentines, right?

I've used  Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose papers, on a Craftwork Cards scalloped card blank.  The scalloped heart was cut using my Craft Robo Lite, and the edges 'inked' with a Promarker.

I'm entering this for the Shabby Tea Room challenge - I know, no blogging for 2 months and I enter 2 challenges in 2 days...get me!

Forever Friends

This is the first card I've made from the Forever Friends Black and Gold CD-Rom bought from Create and Craft.

Annoyingly the CD-Rom won't install on my laptop so I had to dust off the desktop PC to make the card. Its a very simple card as I wanted to see the quality of the printed images before spending too much time on 'designing' with the CD. The main image was printed as a single layer from one of the background papers (I think!) and the sentiment and corners cut out separately. The card base is a 6" square scalloped card from Craftwork Cards.

I'm entering this into the Forever Friends Challenge, where the theme is 'Stars'.

Last Commission of 2010...

...I'm still crossing my fingers as I type this that the birthday 'boy' really is called John, and is 65, because if he's not I've got a quick repair job to do!

This card (and box of course!) was requested by a lady who's seen lots of my commission cards over the last few months and wanted something special for her husband.  The main brief I was given was 'travel' which is definitely very different from anything I've done in the past, so as usual I had a bit of a panic before coming up with this design.  First the box....

which you'll notice is a perfect match for the card itself...

Once again the card is 8 inches square, and all the images were sourced from the internet.  Thank goodness for Photoshop as I couldn't find a map background that I liked.  This one started out larger and multicoloured so I cropped it and converted to a sepia tone so the landmark photos would stand out more.  If I'd been better prepared I would probably have asked about destinations that were significant to John, but as it was I just chose some iconic, easily recognisable images. I've since heard that Egypt, the USA and possibly Italy do feature in the couple's travel plans, so I hope John likes it!  I'm also hoping he's not a big stamp-collector as he might notice that the postcard says its from Hawaii but the stamp is Belgian (Photoshop strikes again, lol!)....All that aside I'm really pleased with the way this has turned out :-)

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

another of those projects that evolved as I went along. I had the basic idea for a decorated mirror in my head but originally was going to do a faux-mosaic look with pink papers. After fiddling about for a while trying to work out the best size for the squares and the spacing I considered covering the whole of the front of the frame with the paper.  Eventually I came up with this design...

The dangly ribbons are to clip hair-slides etc on to keep them tidy.  I've seen lots of similar things in blogland but liked the idea of using them with a mirror.  The flowers at the ends of the ribbons are cut from fleece using the same Hello Kitty Sizzix flower die as I've used for those on the mirror.  I've weighted them with pennies to help them hang properly.  The lettering was cut with my Craft Robo Lite and the paper is a Pink Petticoat download.  

The mirror incidentally was bought from Ikea over 10 years ago and never used (it was pine but I've painted lightly with white acrylic), and I've just checked the website and they still sell them!  Think I'll pick up a few more next time I go...

Reindeer? No I think its snow....

I started a tradition several Christmases ago of making an ornament for my friend Catherine as part of her Christmas card.  Unfortunately I don't think I have photos of any of the previous creations but they range from a classy cross stitched mini stocking (which is the one that started it all) to an extremely tacky felt Christmas tree caked in sequins.

This year I've aimed for a more classy feel, and gone with felt again. I found this fab t-shirt tutorial with a reindeer motif.  I was just going to use ordinary synthetic craft felt but my local craft shop didn't have any browns in and I've been stuck at home with the snow.  I was just about to give it up as a bad job when I remembered I had a brown felted jumper lying around somewhere, and voila, everything fell into place...

I love the texture of the felt (the jumper was ribbed).  The antlers were also a 'make-do' that has worked out very well - they're made of 2 pieces of papermania self-adhesive flock-type stuff stuck back to back . My original plan was to use a glittery pom-pom for his nose but good taste won the day and I decided to needle-felt his nose on to this one. A couple of buttons, a jingle bell and a bit of running stitch and I love the result.  I think I'll have to make one of these for my own tree, maybe mine will have the glittery nose ;-)

Calorie-free Cupcake...

I've wanted to make one of these cupcake pincushions ever since I first came across these beauties by Betz White over 2 years ago...

Hers are made from recycled felted knitwear but no matter how hard I search my local charity shops I just can't find wool garments in these gorgeous pastel colours.

So in the meantime I've compromised and used fleece fabric and I'm pretty pleased with how my first attempt has turned out...

I've made this one as part of the Christmas present for my best friend who bought me Betz's book 2 years ago and has been waiting to see a cupcake ever since!  I did make the 'cherry' myself, felting your own beads can be very addictive...

I've got an idea now for something else to go with this, so watch this space....

Hello Kitty...

This is a clock I've made for my sister who is busy decorating 2 bedrooms in preparation for (hopefully) adopting 3 gorgeous sisters.  Please keep your fingers crossed that all goes to plan!  I've got loads of block canvasses sat around so offered to make a clock for each room.

This is for the eldest of the girls who is 6 and will have her own bedroom with a Hello Kitty theme, please excuse the clashing yellow background on the photo...

Its a 12 inch square canvas with the background painted in 2 shades of pink.  The Hello Kitty image has been coloured with acrylic paint for the white areas and Promarkers for the rest.  I was going to use rub-downs for the numbers but found these stickers (5 sheets for £1) in our new local pound shop, and yes you've guessed it, I coloured them with Promarkers!

I sealed the finished canvas with Mod Podge then glued on the marabou trim with a hot glue gun before attaching the clock mechanism.  Simples....

My sis has yet to see the clock in real-life but I sent her this pic and she loves it! Just clock number 2 to create now, as well as some other bits of stuff I want to make for them - its great having lots of little girls to craft for!

Fairy Special Birthday Wishes...

this is the card I made for my niece Adel - yes an unconventional spelling of the name, but it means personalised gifts/cards can be even more special as you don't come across them in the shops.

The image is a digi-stamp from Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine, given as a freebie if you bought the mag or available to buy individually from the website. I paper-pieced the image digitally using papers from Zoe Pearn but left her skin and hair blank and hand-coloured with Promarkers. I've used Stickles on the wings and crown, which played havoc with trying to get a decent photo, sorry!

I've used rub-ons to add her name and age, although I'd usually do this digitally before printing too.  The spotty backing paper is also from Zoe Pearn and I ran the scalloped card base through the printer too so it co-ordinated perfectly.  Finished off with a little quilted star.

Here come the girls...part 2

This is the 2nd of the cards created for Ivy.  I wanted the 2 cards to be completely different and think I've achieved that while still keeping them feminine

The image and backing paper are from 2 different Debbi Moore Glitter and Glitz CDs.  The image is actually from the Art-Deco Christmas CD but there wasn't a suitable matching paper so I used one from the Magic Moments CD.

Other than a little bit of Photoshop Elements trickery to create the sentiment box the card was very simple to put together. It doesn't shop up very well in the pictures here but the ribbon is a forest green chiffon mounted onto textured silver card. A generous sprinkling of stick-on gems adds instant glamour. 

 This is the first time I've used these CDs (since buying them last Christmas!) but I love how this one turned out so think I'll be using them a lot more now!

Here come the girls...

from 80th birthday cards for men to 80th birthday cards for women, well just the one woman, but 2 cards.

Sticking with the 8 inch square card and matching box formula that has been so popular I decided to go all out feminine on this card.

I loved these decoupaged teacups but as with a lot of my crafty stuff, I didn't want to 'waste' them but thought they'd be perfect for this special card.

The background paper is from a Zoe Pearn digikit called Little Joys.  I used Photoshop Elements to add the text which I then dry-embossed after printing to give a bit of dimension.  I just used my embossing tool over the text from the front to start with, then turned the paper over and embossed the same lines from the back to give a raised effect on the front.

The roses are all from Hobbycraft and I've accented the scalloped border (trimmed from scalloped 12 x 12 paper) with clear dew drops bought from Crafty Emma's Store. A couple of peel-off butterflies coloured with glitter on the back to fill in some empty space and there we have it...

Look before you stick...

today's card is another of my 'special' commission cards, for a gentleman's 80th birthday.

Part of my brief was that he is a tour guide at Auckland Castle, the official residence of the Bishop of Durham, so I decided to make my own backing paper using text from their website. I printed it onto parchment style paper, then crumpled and tore it and inked it with distress ink to make it look antiquey.

The waistcoat stamp was borrowed from a friend and stamped onto paper from a DCWV Latte stack.  I stamped it twice and layered it up for a bit of dimension.

The peel-off was from a charity shop buy (5 sheets of peel-offs for £1) stuck onto more of the parchment.

And 'look before you stick'? Well, having played about with the layout before sticking anything down, I realised at the last minute that I was about to draw attention to 1 particular word in the text that could cause a bit of a distraction....

Can't imagine what that might have done to an 80-year old and his pals :-s

 A quick shuffle round saved the day!