Valentines cards from the recycling

I mentioned to CBC that it would be nice to have a Valentines card this year (I ended up not getting one last year due to him skiing and then realised I should probably get on and make one.

I decided I would like to recycle one or two elements that I had saved for the card. I ended up making two.

This first one utilised a circle that held a Patisserie Valerie cake which CBC had brought home - it was virtually clean so I snaffled it away- it immediately said POCKET WATCH to me so I then cut some hearts out of the Patisserie Valerie box which I had also saved which has some heart-patterned gold card and serendipitously, held exactly 12 hearts around the edge. I then added some  silver outline stickers for the numbers and then made hands out of a bit more of the packaging. In retrospect, I wish I had mounted the hearts on 3d sticky pads so they stood out a bit more.

Here you can see the heart patterning a bit better but not the numbers so well.

I then wrote the wording freehand and added some little hand-drawn hearts.

The second card made use of some patterned insides of envelopes I'd saved to make some more kitty cards as well as some spotty paper from an old card insert. I mounted them with their heads floating and hand wrote the greeting.  I also used a corner cutter on both cards.

Which one do you like best?

xx
 

Three Cards

 It's been a while since I either made any cards or posted any pictures of those I have made.

Since next weekend I will be seeing my sister and Dad for their birthdays, I realised I hadn't actually made them cards! I thought I had but I hadn't!

Often, I don't have an idea in mind for a card until I look at some item of material in my crafting supply. 
I had recently bought a new flower crafting punch for £4 in the charity shop. It was a triple punch so it had 3 different flower shapes which it cut which you can either use separately or together. CBC had ripped open a magenta envelope very messily so I decided to salvage as much of it as I could so I punched as many flower as I could out of it and put the remainder in the recycling.

As I went into the dining room, I saw the little pot of pink flowers and decided to use those.

In addition, I also spied a roll of floral washi-tape in a pencil case. I grabbed a frame card from my card stash.

I used washi-tape to cover the frame- happily, it had pink flowers on it.

Next, I grabbed a set of pink flowers and a tool which looks like a thick-nibbed ballpoint pen. When you rub it  in circles all over the flower, on top of a piece of funky foam, the flower starts to curl at the edges and look 3D. I did that with all the layers of the flower and proceeded to do that with all the pink flowers I had. 

I then laid them out inside the frame. Would you believe I had punched the EXACT amount needed to fill the space! I glued the flowers on top of each other using prittstick and then added a little centre using my silver Sharpie pen and glued them down.

I'm rather pleased with it and hope she likes it!

Next, I decided to do the same technique on some orange flowers I'd punched out of the concert tickets which I had snaffled from the recycle bin at CBC's work.  Using the frame taken out from the previous card, I placed the flowers on top of it and decided to add green stems using a fine liner pen. I layered this on top of a gingham card I've had in my stash forever! I have sent this card to an Insta pal who loves florals but has been suffering with her mental health recently. I really hope she likes it!

As with my sister's card, I had no preconceived ideas about what I was going to do for Dad's card but my eye fell on this piece of gold and green patterned packaging I'd saved from a toiletry gift pack from Christmas and cut a panel from it.

I simply then used my alphabet mini craft-punches to spell out the letters plus a few stars using some blue metallic card. I used the corner-rounder punch to round the edges.

It was really fun to make some cards again and I hope to make some more soon!

Cards 4

Hi there,

I thought it was time to share the next batch of cards I made during the Easter holiday.

I was sent a present with a really cute label on it featuring metallic brogue shoes! I decided to reuse it in a totally recycled/reused card. The base card which is in complimentary gold and blue was actually a Patisserie Valerie Cake box which CBC saved for me "Because I thought it would be good for cards!". I added some stars which were made from some other reused packaging including that School prospectus again! I think this is my favourite one! I used a corner punch to make the edges more attractive!

The next card was also made using some reused materials.  A plant catalogue had some really lovely foliage pages in good quality paper so I punched some scallop squares and then mounted some flowers punched from an old red envelope. I layered 2 flowers atop each other to make it more daisy-like. For the centres and the orange decorations around each square, I used a sunburst paper punch again using some old coloured envelopes for the materials.

For my 40th, I was bought some tulips and a chocolate bar by my Year 2 colleagues.  The chocolate bar came in a pretty box so I cut the front of it and mounted it onto Dahlia paperas the colours seemed complimentary.  Finally, I mounted this onto a white base card and used a corner punch for the final touch.

The last card was my Dad's birthday card. I used the box from a pack of Seasalt socks I bought for CBC and cut all the writing from it.  I mounted it onto 3d pads.  To create a little beach effect at the bottom, I ripped some pieces of brown envelope and old school exercise book to create dunes and waves. I used some coloured blue pencils to add some extra colour.

And that's nearly all the cards I made I think!

xx

 

CARDS!

It's been a while since I shared  photos of cards I have made.

In the Easter holidays, as part of my big tidying up activities, I FINALLY put away all the craft stuff I had got out over a year ago for mine and CBC's Valentines craft day in lockdown that had, ahem, been cluttering up the dining room table along with a myriad school articles.

But before I did it, I had a mammoth card-making session or two. I believe I ended up making around 22 all in all which was good for replenishing my stock of homemade cards for occasions.

Here's 4 that I made.

What all of these have in common is that they all use the blue card that came from the school prospectuses I fished out of the recycling and used for my Christmas cards.  All of them use some sort of recycled elements in addition to the blue base-card.

1. (Top left) just uses gold stars. These came from some packaging or other. It might be a bit simple but sometimes you just want a simple card that says "Well done" or something of that ilk. That's the aim of this one.

2. (Top right) This one is possibly aimed at my nephew-in-law.  I had some cute bubble stickers with sports on and I used them on some reused corrugated cardboard with some Easter egg box stars.

3.  (Bottom left)- This made use of some Taiwanese Pineapple cake box packaging. It was a lovely box. The cakes, not so much.  The flowers were all made out of shades of orange and yellow from egg boxes and other such packaging.

4. (Bottom right). More of the pineapple box with an old school book cover! My craft-punches get most used out of all my stash!

More to come anon!

Hope you are well!

x

Eco-Christmas cards 2021

I made a pledge to myself that if I came across something that I could make sure ends up in recycling, that I would try to ensure it reaches a place where it could be recycled. At school,I was using the Office scanner and I noticed a large pile of ex-school Induction pack covers ripped and put into the recycling.

Using this card and the tools below, I made 23 cards (the majority of these envelopeless postcards to add to the eco-dimension). The ones I sent in the post all reused old envelopes with decorative rectangles of blue envelope inards to cover up the previous usage. 

4 craft punches

1 embossing tool

1 embossing stamp

Guillotine

 

They may be simple But, I hope, effective.

Xxx

2 handmade cards

Hi there,

I thought I'd share two recent cards I made for family members.

The first was for my Mum's 70th birthday.

The mosaic tiles are all cut out from card packaging so anyone could make this card if they raid their recycling bin and have a base card and some glue.

The butterflies were made from an old birthday card envelope and I just used a gel pen to add some silver details.

 This second card was for my Brother In Law and he loves Scrabble. I cut out the tiles from the packaging of Scrabble magnets packaging.

Hope you are well and had a lovely day.

I was roasting hot at school today and the aircon was not working in the music room which in a room with only 2 high up windows that open a fraction, was unbearable!  I hope it is more bearable tomorrow!

xx

P.S. For anyone who wanted to know what the Pictionary pictures were they were:

Mineral Water

and 

Hopping Mad!