6 easy-peasy Valentines cards you can make yourself

Hi there,

Last year, I did a few posts (here and here) about some easy Valentines cards you could make yourself for your loved one. This year, I decided to think up a few designs you could do yourself with not really any specialist craft equipment.  I hope these inspire you to give the card-making thing a go!


1. The simple Dot-to-dot interactive card



The first one is the simplest of all. All you need is a piece of white card, a ruler, pencil and a red gel pen.   How about a Dot to dot postcard (or card) for your loved one.  I simply drew myself a few grid-lines to ensure it was even and not wonky and then drew the design in pencil which I went over in red gel pen.  Nice to have an interactive card

2.  The origami heart card


 I should begin this with a disclaimer that I am egregious at origami so if I can do this, you can! How to Orange shows you how to make the heart which is really easy, just size it up to the size you want, making sure you cut a rectangle with the width half of the length.  This entire card was recycled- old music, red packaging from a Christmas card and a photo-card envelope. Choose a colour and paper of your choice.

3.  The scribble hearts


Also entirely made out of scrap of the same sources, this was purely an experiement. On a fragment of black card, I put a heart stencil (made from punching for the cards below) and scribbled over it with a gold Sharpie. Did this three times. Edged it with a ruler and then mounted onto scrap card.  Use double-sided tape for a neat finish.

4.  The textured hearts

Again, you just need some scrap card (black) and some textured card. The brown corrugated cardboard came from the wrapping of a Bacon-roll I had one morning from the BP petrol station- the plastic wrapper is surrounded by this perfectly good card.  The red COULD come from the old Costa coffee exteriors (I used to use these a lot) but I just used some I had. Used the Sharpie again to doodle Love all over the black, mounted it, drew red spots with the gel pen and wrapped a piece of Bakers twine from a Christmas present and finito! I used 3d pads to give the hearts some height.

5.  The DIY polka dot heart card

 I used a scalloped heart punch to punch these hearts but you could just cut them free-hand.  I then coloured each one with polka dots in different gel pens.Mounted them on 3d sticky pads (can be got from Poundland) and stuck at jaunty angles.

5. The Pink Elephant picture inspired Doodle heart card

The last design was inspired by the inspiration picture for the Pink Elephant Craft Challenge this week

To design a card inspired by the picture. In the same way as the former card, I punched 9 hearts and had fun doodling them with different patterns in red.

Did as shown and finally added my handwriting to finish the card.

CBC might get one of these next week or I might make another one. After all, these could all be used for wedding/engagement general girly greetings cards.

Did these help you in any way? I'd love to know if you decided to make your own cards at all?



Linking to:

Pink elephant challenge


Creative Mondays

 Brilliant Blog posts with Honest Mum


 You're gonna love it Tuesday

282820

It was CBC's birthday last week and I was hunting through my pile of craft mags when I spotted an Owl card in one of them. CBC likes owls so I was mystified to search through the annals of my mind to discover I had never made him an owl card!  The card design was similarish to this so I decided to do my own version based on what I had- It did use a pale blue card base and orange feet so at least I stuck to that. It was mostly a case of cutting out shapes, assemvling (I just did mine free-hand- you didn't need templates for these) and sticking on with either Prittstick or 3d sticky-pads (plus a little white gel pen for the gleam in the eyes).  I was pleased to make use of the gingham card- this is made out of a sort of disposable party container.  I bought a pile of them when I was last in Bali about 8 years ago for my friend Kate's little boy's 3rd birthday which he celebrated out there when my Gamelan group went out to play for the Bali International Arts festival.  Kate asked me to go and get things for the party which I dutifully did. I bought far too many of these containers (a pack of 10 cost about 10p) so I just took them home in my suitcase thinking they'd be good for craft-projects- they are scalloped edged so I was pleased that that shape-edge was already pre-cut for me.

As I was picmonkeying the photo, I was reminded of a GENIUS advert that an insurance company did when I was about 13-14.  Guardian Direct's logo was an Owl and their contact number was 0800 28 28 20 (say it outloud) and I remembered it for years!  You can see the original advert here- it's the first video- skip to about 2:30 to see it in action!  At the time it came out, I was learning Mozart's Concerto for Flute in G major and in the first movement, there was this tricky rhythm with these grace-notes which my flute teacher told me to say, "Toowhit toowhit toowhoo" to remember (I've never forgotten it to this day) at which point, I said, "282820", told him about the advert and he wrote it into my flute music where it is still written in his handwriting. He died about 12 years ago which I was incredibly sad about but I smile when I hear the Mozart G concerto and remember this ( You can hear the concert here: Listen from 2:14 but the Owl bit is at 2:18-19!)

How about that for the power of advertising!

Incidently, CBC had a nice birthday, although I was a bit rubbish as I had had an awful headache all day and I was really flagging during our dinner out. We got home at 8.30 and I promptly fell asleep but unfortunately then woke up at midnight with head really pounding and barely slept a wink, alternating between cold shivers and hot sweats, tossing, turning and felt dreadful in the morning still with headache even worse- hiding from the light like some sort of vampire.  Poor CBC- hope he liked his presents though!

I am linking to Claire Justine's Creative Mondays with my card.


and the Pink Elephant Monday Challenge with my favourite pastel shade- light blue!

Ribbon heart- easy Valentines card for the fashion-blogger or wearer-of-clothes to make!

Ok- so all of you fashion-bloggers who don't make cards (and Nicole, I am sure you might still have some of these and have not chucked them away!) and indeed anyone who has clothes, (fashion bloggers will obviously have more clothes to scavenge from) here's a really easy idea for a Valentines card (or other occasion that the recipient wouldn't mind hearts and ribbons).

You will need:

• Those annoying ribbon tags that come on the shoulders of tops and dresses- snip them off. Or those from tags of clothes that come with ribbons.
• Scissors
• Double-sided tape (or glue- but can be messier)
• A card blank
• Optional- pinking shears, decorative scissors or border punch. heart punch or scrap-card to make a template.

1.  Locate all those clothes with annoying ribbons for putting them on hangers that always show when you wear them.  Snip them off and display proudly.  

2.  Select the colours you want and store the rest in a jar of some sort to be used for various craft projects in the future (Weirdly, many of mine were pinky-purply)

3.   Iron said ribbons on a low heat setting.
4.  I cut a heart border with an X-cut punch at the bottom but if you've just got your ribbons and no fancy scissors, forget this.  Take some double-sided sticky tape and stick down strips across the middle (measure where the middle is and mark with a pencil line (do measure how much sticky-tape you will need for your ribbons' widths).


5.  Sort out the colours you want in what order.  I took a picture of them at this point in order to remember the order (here, you will also get the idea of how much sticky tape you will need.
6.  When happy, stick them down- I smooth them across slowly as I lead the ribbon with my other hand.  (I left a small amount of ribbon hanging off the initial edge and then left the other end hanging off.
7.  When you've got them down, trim the ends of the ribbons to the edge of the card.  If you have material scissors, use those- I just used Poundland scissors and my edges were a little ragged.
8. I trimmed some hearts from red funky foam (suit to your colour-scheme) - make a template or use a craft punch  and stuck a small square of double-sided sticky-tape to the back.

And dan naaaaaaa!!!! You have your finished card.

Yes, it's very simple and plain but that's what I was aiming for- simple and easy to make.

Plus, CBC gave me a very good idea- he said- when the person has finished with the card (if not sentimental like me and keep every handmade card you've ever been given), they can trim along the edges of the ribbon and have a lovely bookmark!

I am linking up to:

The Pink Elephant card challenge whose theme this week is LOVE!

The Daring Card Makers challenge whose theme this week is STRIPES

Claire Justine's Creative Mondays

Do check out all these blogs- Claire has upcycled some amazing shoes and the cards on both the card websites are absolutely amazing- so intricate and well-thought out! I don't think I could ever make anything that amazing!

It seems weird that I am blogging twice in an evening but I realised that both the challenges ended tomorrow and was so keen to join up so I hotfooted it through our bog-like garden to the shed to hunt with mobile-phone torch app for ribbons, tape, punches and card. It's now very late. Sigh.x

Do be sure to check out my Swansong.... my other post of the night!

Pencils and ribbons!

Aloha! I hail here, fresh from an evening of lindy-hop!  It's just the best form of dance, it makes you feel so exuberant!  I want to do it well!!!! Got to go to regular classes!

Linking up to Lakota's 'Tah Dah! Tuesday' next week when it comes up!  (I shall be in Kent!) Back to my usual cards for the link-up!  Oh how I lack imagination! One day I will be linking up with some full-sized stonking-great Bayeaux tapestry-type contribution (Or maybe not? In your dreams girlie!)
Made 2 cards here:

One for CBC's art-genius sister- last year I made her origami pencils- this year, the humble cocktail stick is transformed into technicolour stationery! (Sorry about bad reflected photo! You get the idea though!)

 This card has been 'in the make' for about a year.  it is a variation on a design from my favourite mag, Papercraft inspirations, which was supposed to be lavender.  However, since I had the perfect-sized piece of electric blue ribbon, therefore, bluebells seemed in order.

Also it is serendipitous that the Daring Cardmakers blog has issued a challenge involving knots this week, so I am linking up to them with this design. As is usual with a Kezzie design, recycled elements, however small are a must so here I have recycled some white with lilac spots card for the background, the green stems are 2 envelopes, the pink ribbon comes from a top.

Likewise, through another blog, I discovered that the Pink elephant challenge blog was also linking up ribbon cards!I love discovering new crafty blogs!!!  So here I am with the cunning-use of knotted ribbon!!

I love seeing what people can do with ribbon!  Alas that I were more creative!

Also linking up to Annie the Felt-Fairy's 'Make a month' challenge- this is one of my August attempts!