Always something recycled...

 Cards

This weekend. I decided to make a start on the next batch of birthday cards I'll be needing for relatives. 

As always, I always get inspired by recycling some sort of waste and I maintain that you do not need to spend much money to make cards, you just need some creativity and vision. I might not be able to sell these but I hope they are pleasing enough for the recipient. 

This first one is a cardboard postcard made from the mailing box that C's contact lenses came in. The lego blocks were the wrapping that a present I received came in. I cut out the lego pieces from it and spelt out Finlay's name. I did consider sticking each piece onto cardboard so the tiles were 3D but in the end, decided it was too fiddly and I wasn't totally certain that the entire name would fit on the length of cardboard I had. It only just did! I added the sparkly border as a last minute addition. Do you think it needs anything else? I've got till mid-July to adjust it 

The inspiration for these next two was the punched flowers. C was recycling a whole load of exercise books from school and I noticed they had nice lavender and orangey covers. I carefully removed any identifying names from all the covers so they could go in the recycling (shredding the names) and saved the covers to punch a load of flowers with my craft punch. I also punched some from some sort of pink worksheets he has. I layered two on top of each other so they looked more 3d and then used my watercolour pencils to add some detail to all the flowers. With the cat card, I think I cut the cat from some sort of packaging a while back. I then added some dots and heart paw prints in the background. I used a Martha Stewart Corner punch on the white one as the card was much thinner so it would go through the corner.

I'm jolly pleased with these. 

What do you think?

Xx

Flower fairy

 I didn't share the card I made for my Mum for Mother's Day so I thought I'd share it.

I only got around to making it at 11.30pm at night and realised that all my glues had dried up so I was limited with what I could use.

I found this unusual shaped card piece which I found a Flower fairy outline sticker for. I stuck that in the centre and then used my watercolour pencils to colour it in but I tried to do it lightly for a stained glass effect. I then added a light border around the edge of the card.  The final touch was adding some tiny butterfly stickers all around the fairy.

I think she liked it and I was pleased with it considering I was limited with what I could do!

Now need to get some new glue...

xx

Violin

 Here's a card I made for our friend's 90th birthday.

We went to our music camp to celebrate with her. The celebrations included chamber music, an orchestra session, drinks and nibbles and a 3 course dinner.

We arrived around 2.30pm- CBC went to play chamber music and I had a walk in the woods with a friend Ellie.  We had tea at around 4pm and then we played Beethoven' Pastoral symphony with the birthday girl leading. After that, we had drinks and delicious canapes.  The dinner was really lovely and the barn had been so beautifully decorated. There was an absolute mound of cheese to eat after the 3 courses- it was a real feast!!! We chatted to lots of lovely friends and finally left waaaay too late. We arrived home at around 1.15am!!!

The birthday girl is a violinist who is also a keen gardener. After the success of my floral piano card, I decided to adapt the design I used for a card for CBC. I printed off a picture of the side of a violin and used it as a template to cut around some purple floral paper (realised I missed a trick of using paper with pansies on so we could have the pun of violas with a viola). I then drew on the F hole and the purfling around the edge of the fiddle shape. I stuck it to some lilac card and decided I wanted a patterned edge so I used my flower paper edge punch to decorate the edge.

The final detail was to add a Happy Birthday in irritatingly small silver outline stickers.

As an extra geeky touch, I wrote the birthday girl 's name in fancy Calligraphy on the envelope and used the Segno for the S of her name.

What do you think? Xx

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
 

Kitties!!!

Good Evening!

No TARDIS Tuesday today as I had a very busy weekend and forgot to sort anything.  

It was my lovely niece's 15th birthday and we were due to meet her.

It was about 12pm and I hadn't made her a card but I had an idea based on one I saw on Instagram.

Here is the finished card:

I made two little kitty templates from cardboard and then I gathered some used envelopes from the recycling bin.  I used it to quickly cut out the kitty shapes.  I ended up needing one more pattern and I saw the front of CBC's Amnesty International Magazine which had a blue floral pattern.

I laid the kitties in three rows and then went to look for my gluestick which was almost completely empty and falling out the tube so I used it sparingly, sticking them down with only their ends attached and their heads loose.  This ended up working well as they look more 3D with their heads loose.

At that point, we had to leave for K's birthday but I hadn't finished the card so I had to draw on the kitty faces and whiskers plus the Happy Birthday greeting as we drove! It looks a bit wiggly but I am really pleased with it!

Below, is the original card I was inspired by!

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Katharina Tarta Crafts (@katharina_tarta_crafts)

We travelled to Southend to a Cat Cafe called Kittea Cakes Cat Cafe.

They serve fairly simple food and drinks - sandwiches, toasties, jacket potatoes and various drinks.

When we arrived, one of those hairless cats, called Noodles, had jumped up onto a recently vacated table and started drinking someone's left over milkshake.

There were lots of hidey places and peaceful zones where the cats could escape to. If the cats are asleep, you need to leave them alone and not pick them up but you can stroke them and they can come and sit on your lap.  The staff gave some treats for us to give to the cats (I didn't take any).

Everyone else stroked some cats. I stroked one but didn't really go up to many cats.

And then...

A lovely cat called Pumpkin decided, 

I WAS ITS PLACE TO SLEEP!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

Pumpkin got super comfy and really relaxed after a while.  K and CBC and everyone else looked on enviously as I kitty purred away and slept!

Sadly, it was all to soon time to go.

We headed back to my sister's house for cakes and pressies.   K was very pleased with my pressies.

I had had a concert at Chelmsford Cathedral the day before (SIX HOURS OF WAITING BETWEEN MY REHEARSAL ENDING AND MY MOMENT IN THE CONCERT!!!!) and as soon as I got out of the rehearsal, I headed to the shopping centre in Chelmsford and managed to get 2 beauty products she wanted for cheaper by picking up a Superdrug beauty card. Then, to my delight, the Nike Pro leggings she wanted, were £10 of in JD sports that day so I got those.  I also bought her a Super dry starry top from the charity shop and a couple of other bits.

I then headed to Oxfam books where the music section had had some amazing donations- I got some great choral music and some piano duet books for CBC for Christmas plus 2 great children's books.

I then headed to Hotel Chocolat where I ordered a Dark mint hot chocolate with chocolate whipped cream.  As I used my own cup, they gave me a £1 discount. It was delicious!

I headed to Banana Tree for dinner where I was joined by 2 violinists, one of whom is on the committee of my main orchestra. It was really nice to get to know her a bit better.  She is also a charity shop lover and we had gone to Oxfam together. We had a fun dinner and then headed to the cathedral.

It was a beautiful concert but I got home very, very late, considering I was only playing for a short part of the concert with my first note around 9.15pm.   I had about 800 bars rest.

Our Friday night was also busy as we went to see a wonderful vocal quintet called Apollo Five in Southend Plaza centre!  Sunday night was also busy as we went to see a classical guitarist at the Oslo in Hackney Central called Rosie Bennett.

Twas a great social weekend!x

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 3

 Here's the next batch of cards I made over the Easter holidays.

I started with a strip of patterned paper which I stuck to a pink card blank.  The ice-cream cones were made from an old brown envelope and the ice-creams from scrap papers. Not 100% convinced by this one. I've made better ice-creams.

This one isn't much of a change but the letters came from a 3D birthday card I was given with the letters on various levels. I reimagined them in this guise.

Hazel might recognise this card as she sent him to me originally and I decided he needed a second life so I cut and gave him new deckled corners and then mounted him on patterned blue paper (which I used a border punch on) and a pink card to match his glasses.

One year, my sister gave me a really nice (and clever birthday present). She had this dress punch so she punched me a whole lot of dresses in different patterned papers so I had my own batch for making cards. She put them in a moisturiser tub so that was good reuse. I decided to match the drss with some flowers and a complementary spotty backing. The dress is held up with foam squares to make it look more 3D.

Is there one you like better here?

xx

Cards 2!

 I shared a post last week which showed some of the stash of cards which I made over the Easter holidays.  Thank you for your kind comments on these.

Today's collection are all a bit more varied than last time.

This first one started with some scraps of yellow card which I had punched using my edging punch.I think they came from an old school exercise book. The blue tropical card was actually a tissue box which a colleague was chucking out- it was too pretty to waste! The butterflies are outline stickers from a large stash I have!

The next card features a felt flower I cut freehand some years ago and forgot about! I found the perfect paper to go underneath it and the small yellow flowers came from an egg box! The purple flower is a bit wonky but I don't mind!

This was a really easy card to make. I think I bought this white card topper (feels a bit lazy!) about 14 years ago!  The only addition was the silver glittery background which was part of someone's Christmas cracker that again I snaffled!

The dog was a layered sticker that came in a pack I believe. I layered it onto the inside of a card I received and finally used a thin layer of double-sided sticky tape and carefully stuck on tiny pink iridescent stars. I have owned the pot of tiny pink stars since I was 10. My Mum bought me the best present. It was a 3 layered tool/craft box which had lots of containers of heart and star sequins in a myriad of colours. Everyone received sequinny cards for years! I still have the originals now!

I created this sweetie jar using some reused plastic quite a few years ago but never actually used it! I finally stuck it to the card and added an edging mosaic of matching squares. In retrospect, I wish I had added some white gel pen reflections to make the sweeties look more shiny and 3D- it's not quite right but I am sure I can find some use for it!

My final card here uses my old favourite school prospectus blue! I used a Martha Stewart corner punch to edge this one (Fun fact: My stepmum has this same corner punch and I really wanted the same one but it had sold out on QVC where she got it from and it was £40 from craft sites online. About 2 years ago, a friend of Mum's was getting rid of craft stuff and GAVE me the very punch I had wanted 10 years before!). I added a gift tag which had been attached to a card from a child at school and then punched 6 gold stars from some packaging I had.

Do you have a favourite?

x

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

Handmade Valentines card ideas

Here's a post from February 2017 where I shared ideas for eco-friendly or handmade cards. Should you feel like dabbling in a burst of creativity, then here's your chance to be inspired

Super easy, eco-friendly Valentines Cards ideas

Hi there,

Just in case you have left it too late to buy a card or you fancy making your own, I thought I'd link to a few previous posts of mine in which I have shared simple ways to make cards:

 6 easy peasy Valentines cards you can make yourself

This Dot to dot post card was one of the 6 ideas I suggested in the post above.  This one, as you can see, is ridiculously easy to make.

Dot to Dot

Envelope hearts

As part of a Heart swap back in 2012, I made a box of heart cards for Tracy, my partner and this is a design I have made numerous times for engagement cards which uses recycled envelope inards in contrasting patterns. It could work well for Valentines too!

Heart swap post

The card below was the card I made for Tracy to accompany the gift, but I don't see why this couldn't work as a simple Valentines card. I used the heart stickers I had used as masks to paint her a heart mug, as they were still sticky, rather than chucking them away.

Just add stickers...

Citrus hearts

These card are not Valentines cards as such but since they contain hearts, they could be a nice non-soppy idea for someone in your life!

Hearty drink 

A slice of my heart

Ribbon hearts idea

If you click the link in the caption, you can see how I made this card by utilising those annoying ribbons in clothing that are for hangers but stick out of jumpers and dresses annoyingly.

Ribbons from clothing card

Buttons:
 Buttons can act like Mosaic pieces and I love a good mosaic! All the below were a case of arranging and sticking with PVA glue or sticky tape! If you save those buttons from clothing but never seem to use them, now is your time!

Button heart idea

The wedding card that could be a Valentines.

Rainbow buttons

Yet another button card... The background blue is from a Tissue box!

Office Essentials holepunch card

I had sooo much traffic to this Valentines idea post a few years ago, I think it was because it said the phrase, Office Essentials in it! Anyway, this one is another very non-soppy idea and rather like the buttons is a form of mosaic but with hole-punched pieces from some paper that was going into the recycling.

Holepunch valentines

Origami hearts:
 If you look for a You tube tutorial, this is where I got this idea from for Origami hearts. These ones were made out of old envelopes! I am TERRIBLE at Origami but I found these super easy and I even managed to get one of the girls in the office to make one for her boyfriend by showing her how.

Origami hearts

Scrap card mosaic:

Most of the card in this mosaic for my husband came from tissue boxes, junk mail or other packaging except for the holographic one- have a look and see what packaging can be used!

And finally, here is yet another mosaic card idea,but this was the first Valentines my now-husband made for me back in 2010, so it's not just me who likes to give the crafty idea a go!!!! If I can find any of his other ones, I will post them..

Do you have any Valentines cards ideas? Do share if so and let me know if you use any of these!

Much love,

Kezzie xx

Linking up with Creative Mondays at Claire Justine's! So long since I last linked up!