A 40th Birthday Card

I made this card for a friend's 40^th Birthday. Stamped cocktail glass with just a hint of colour from watercolour crayons. Numbers are die cut with Cuttlebug Hippy Chick alphabet. Background is from DCWV glitter stack.

Another baby card

Here's my second ever baby card, made partly in anticipation of an upcoming birth to a friend who really is not into pink or girly, not that we know the sex of the baby yet. Using another one of the Pebbles Inc stickers, covered with lemon vellum, tiny buttons to hide the glue. Letters are Heidi Swapp ghost letters backed with gingham paper and attached onto 3D foam pads for dimension. A swirly clip, tiny teddy buttons and charm add more detail. The original card is more lemon in real life.

Ruffled Bloom stamp

So here are my first attempts with the Ruffled Bloom stamp that I bought at the Reebok show recently. I also used my Autumn Leaves swirls and flourishes stamps and my new Hero Arts words stamps. Used Versafine Onyx Black ink for all of them and colour washed with Ranger Distress inks in Worn Lipstick and Dried Marigold. One of them has some touches of gold Sakura pen to highlight the flourishes. All four cards were very quick to make, but I'm reasonably pleased with the results.

A baby card

My sister asked me to make a new baby congratulations card for her boss. As I don't have any stamps suitable for baby cards, this gave me an opportunity to use the lovely Pebbles Inc. stickers and the cute teddy bear buttons that I bought at a show.

The sentiment is an image from Pink Petticoat, which I printed onto a square of pearlescent blue paper and then mounted onto a plain white base card. A piece of torn vellum and a strip of satin ribbon sit between that layer and the sticker, which I layered onto silver mirri card and the same blue paper. Three teddy bear buttons finish it off. For the insert, I used more blue vellum and another Pink Petticoat sentiment "A bundle of wonderful".

Some older work

As I've just started this blogging lark and I'm spending more time posting than crafting, I've got a lot of pictures of things that I made a while ago, so I thought I'd post some of my favourites here while I wait for the weekend, when I'll have the chance to create some new pieces.

Here's a card that I made for an unconventional wedding last September:

The wedding was unconventional because the invitation was to a 'Handfasting', so rather than use a more traditional image, I looked on the web for images of handfasting, and of the ones I found I decided to use this one. It's printed onto acetate, and I applied silver foil to the printed words, and wrapped the acetate layer over the top of a sheet of pearly white vellum, onto which I had printed the rose background. Using an Elusive Images stamp, I stamped out two hearts in silver Brilliance ink onto clear shrink plastic. I attached both the vellum and the acetate to the base card with two eyelets, then threaded silver ribbon through the eyelets and attached the hearts and a curly clip before I tied the bow. I was really pleased with this card. The occasion was a bit strange, but that's another story entirely.......

The second project I want to share in this post is the concertina card that I made for my sister's birthday last August. I wanted to use images to reflect her love of fashion, shopping and chocolate, together with some quotes and sentiments that I found on the theme of 'Sisters'. I kept the colour scheme to black, gold, pink and white as far as possible. Sadly, the scanned pictures don't show the gold very well.

Here are two views of the cover, closed and open:

The first double page spread:

The second:

The third:

And finally:
This was my first (and so far only) concertina card and it doesn't contain much stamping, but it is very personalised to the recipient. I think she liked it, as it's still on display in her living room.

What I bought at the Reebok

Yesterday I went to the Make It! show at the Reebok stadium outside Bolton. I really like this show, because you get a good variety of smaller, independent exhibitors there, so there's a really good range of products, rather than the same old DoCrafts stuff on every other stall that you see at some other shows that I could mention - OK I'm talking about GMex and the NEC.

Anyway, this is what I bought:



5 Sakura Silver Shadow pens
5 Sakura Gold Shadow pens
Stampendous Ruffled Bloom stamp
Inkadinkadoo photo stamp
Set of Hero Arts text stamps
Cuttlebug Text Script Embossing Folder
Blonde Moments Sugar Dumpling 6" x 6" pad
Chipboard tag book
Pricking tool ('cos I broke my old one)
Tweezer scissors (in an attempt to improve my decoupage skills)
Bowmaker (to help me use my ribbon mountain)
2 sets of jewel brads in crystal and pink & black.
Set of Peel-off pens - well I don't really use many peel-offs but the pens were very cheap and I might be able to use them on other things.

The question is now - do I finally have everything I need in order to be able to produce some top notch artwork? Do pigs fly??

I'm dying to have a play with them all, but will probably have to wait until next weekend, when we have an extra day for the Bank Holiday - hooray!

Puccini's Muse Stamp

For these cards I was inspired by a colour challenge on the UK Stampers forum, titled Turquoise, Lapis Lazuli and Peridot. For the turquoise and peridot I used fluid chalk inks from the Ocean Breeze set. The lapis lazuli is Versafine Majestic Blue. I've also used the Divine Swirls cuttlebug embossing folder, on DCWV cardstock in the first example and lime green vellum in the second. I love this stamp and am still seeking ideas for how to use it most effectively. I tried to adopt a more 'arty' style for these cards, and I'm not sure if it was successful. I do love these colours though.

My first post

Well this is my first post in my new blog thingy. As I set it up specifically to display my cards and other artwork, here's my first offering. It's a birthday card for my sister-in-law who also makes cards, together with a matching envelope which I made and lined with blue vellum to match the stamped swirls. Stamps used are from the Rhonna Ferrer Swirls and Flourishes sets from Autumn Leaves, silk flowers by Papermania held with Dovecraft crystal brads and a Papermania pearl brad. The greeting is a silver foil EZ-rubon.

I'm not very good at photographing my cards, so I might go back to scanning them in, as this isn't as sharp as it should be and the colours aren't quite right.

Thanks for looking.