Take ONE tool...

You know me- I like my workhorse tools in my craft making endeavours.  

My Woodware extra large daisy punch and its medium  and small equivalents are such hard-working items. You can see them/buy them here.

As is often the way when I make cards, I make one card and then, since I've got the tools out, I often feel inspired to make a card with the same method but a different design. I do have many cards in my card collection but it's nice to have a choice. 

One great thing about designs that use paper punches is that you can make a card out of relatively little, so if you are on a budget or want your children to have a low-cost activity, you can use any scraps of paper.

My top sources of punching material are:

tissue boxes, junk mail, used envelopes, thick wrapping paper, magazines with a print background.

Anyway, I digress.  Onto the cards.

To make any of the daisies I've made you must:

• Punch 3 identical sized daisies in the same colour.
• Fetch a ruler and an embossing tool and a piece of funkyfoam.
• roughly 'draw' lines with your embossing tool along the petals of each flower- this will make them appear more ridged and they will also curl in rendering a more 3D effect.
• Layer them on top of each other so there are no gaps between petals.
• Punch a circle to go in the middle.

I have a lot of aperture (cards with a pre-cut hole) cards in my collection which I find very hard to use (in fact, there are some I'm quite sure I'll never fathom using! Why did I buy them!?) but I discovered that the daisy fitted in this circle apeture. I drew some gold spots onto yellow paper, plus added a line to the top and bottom and added some Marie Curie daffodil stickers to the line. To be honest, I'm not particularly pleased with this but it will do.

All these are made out of some paper scraps from packaging or paperwork and I used the medium paper punch.  Simple but this is my favourite.

Similar to the last one, if you think you've seen that scalloped gingham before, that would be because it comes from the same container as the ice-cream card from a few weeks ago! This one feels a little sparse but I like simplicity.

This one is probably my favourite of the lot- it's the colours! The background is a panel from a tissue box (free!!!!) and it didn't take much to make this but it works (I hope).

They're all different but unified by the same method of constructing the daisy!

Have you made any cards recently? DO share if so!

xx
Sarah-Jane made her first foray into card-making, these are super and The  Dormouse at View from the teapot, shared some  beautiful cards she made (she makes unbelievably beautiful Zentangles too, of which I am a proud owner!)

Linking with Claire Justine at Creative Mondays!

xx