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

 

24 carrot card!

I am wondering if I have beat some record for myself in making a card for a birthday in advance?  It is my Dad's birthday in the latter-half of June and I decided to make a start on his next year's card in July!  This is mainly because I was addressing my target to make 10 cards in the holidays and was perusing pages of my ancient craft mags and found this idea I quite liked.

 I should point out at this stage, that this card also makes use of some of the other envelopes that I received cards in from kids at school. I like a bit of recycling!

The idea for this card came from Papercraft Inspirations.

It also took AGES and was incredibly fiddly.

You have to make yourself 24 orange triangles and 24 green triangles the latter of which then need to be fringed.  That alone took an age without counting the time to stick every carrot down individually (PVA with a cotton bud FYI).  Then you have the individual letters for the caption and then the sticking down of a layer of green and brown.

Is it any wonder I decided just to draw the fork in with a silver Sharpie pen instead of cutting one out out of silver card.

This requires no tools other than a corner-rounder punch and the alphabet punch. 

I HOPE it looks good. Was it worth the effort?  I guess I have until next June to find out!

xx

Cards for men- more ideas

I almost gave my sister a heart attack when I presented her with birthday and Father's day cards back at the start of April to give to my Dad and Step-Grandad. I'm not always known for my being on time with birthday cards for that part of my family given that they rely on the posting of items. However, I was determined that they would be presented.  June is a busy time for birthdays.

Here is a card for my Dad's 66th birthday. He has always been very fond of boats, having been a leisure sailor with his own boats when I was young. 

I decided to create a 3d boat using a sort of 3d decoupage technique.

Every aspect of this card is recycled.  The sky consisted of torn envelope inards, the brown textured boat bowels were made out of a posh music programme.  The deep blue sea came from some scrap card from 10 years ago. At that time, I filed my pieces of scrap paper according to colour!

As you can see, the boat consists of several layers to make it 'pop' from the card.  3d sticky pads from Poundland give it the gaps between levels. If you can cut geometric shapes with a pair of scissors and use pinking scissors, then this card is a doddle.

 This card was made of off cuts and as you can probably tell from the card base itself, it was also something else in its previous life! I used a Martha Stewart edging punch to make the swirly patterns and layered onto some scrap blue card from above with some stickers that have been lurking in my collection since the very first time I bought the Do Craft magazine- a magazine freebie!

Here's a sneaky tip for you.  You know you can buy those metallic outline stickers from Craft shops.  Well, when you pull off the stickers, you are left with the cut outs from these shapes and you can peel them off and use them for cards too. These were what was left from using the original stickers. That way, you get double for your money! This card was for my relative who is a real handy man!

Any ideas to inspire you here?  Hope that you might gain some ideas from me!

xxx

Boot!

It strikes me that the title Boot! should have been a Terry Pratchett title.  Alas, he died before he could finish it. I've recently finished another Pratchett called 'Wee Free Men' which was utterly brilliant and I was delighted when my favourite characters Esme Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg turned up at the very end!

Obviously, from the picture, you are patently aware I am digressing, so I had better divert back to the main point of the post.  I've had a little bit a of time this weekend to prepare a few posts for the week, so, I hope I may be here in spirit if not totally in mind!

It was WOMOTM's birthday last week and I decided I had exhausted the 'camera' angle for his birthday cards and instead plumped for a walking/hiking angle.

I decided to create a 'walking boot' so I googled "Walking boot colouring template' and looked at various 2D plain ones on the screen.  I then using a nice piece of clean food packaging, created a basic boot shape by drawing it roughly.  I then added some extra bits of black card to make the heel and stuck it below and added some brown paper details on top.  

You can see below, I attempted some sort of 'stitching' on these elements by using a paper-piece (essentially a large needle on a long stick) to pierce holes in the brown.  The silver lace holes were drawn on in silver gel pen once I'd drawn some black bootlaces in Sharpie (none-too neatly)

For the background, I found a bit of old atlas to use as the background (I would have used the Lake District but all the interesting bits were obscured beneath the boot).  Finally, I made some photo corners out of the rest of the food box and embossed them with an old biro and went over in white pen.

The final touch was just to pierce some tiny holes all around the black base card.

I'm pleased to report that WOMOTM liked it (hurrah!) 

It was not too difficult to make this- the only tricky part is lining up and measuring all the different materials that collage on top of the base boot so they are neat and exact.

What do you think?  Suitable for a Wise Old Man Of The Mountain?

Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

xx

Adventures in card-making: A mannish solution

The age-old perennial dilemma for cardmakers is making cards for men.

Girls can be catered for with a plethora of generic items- flowers, cakes, shoes, dresses, patterns, dogs, cats, pretty patterns, any colour is usually acceptable.

Men are more difficult.  So many generic ideas are too girly for them.  Often, we resort to generic 'Man hobbies' for card-making.  

One solution, I feel, is your colour scheme. 

Using metallics and black and a simple minimalist look is something I think can work.  Not making a card overly fussy.

It was our friend's birthday and I decided to keep it simple and literally personalise the card by using his name and simple colours.

A black base card and 3 colours of metallic cards combined with some alphabet punches I was given one birthday and my hard-working star punch.

It actually looked fine without the stars but I thought to add a bit more detail

 Since I had those colours and the punch out, I decided to make another design just laying out a grid of stars with some outline happy birthday stickers making a border up the edge.

I often feel that whilst I love making cards and it is the act of creation I love, I don't want to spend too much money on expensive card-making elements so I do prefer to make this kind of card.

That said, I've had some more expensive elements like these larger outline stickers for a while, so I figured I would use some up to make this Man card.  Literally, you simply layer the stickers onto your choice background card and cut around them.  stick them on with 3D pads to make them stand out.

So... my key for making a simple man card is:

• A simple colour scheme
• Metallics
• Black background
• Simplicity in terms of details.
• Geometric shapes: Squares, stars, triangles...

Linking up to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine and the Daring Cardmakers Weekly challenge which this week is: "Let's hear it for the boys!"

Note it down

That Mahler 6 score has got a lot of use in my craft-escapades over the past couple of months- I think you're going to get bored of seeing it appearing on a ever-expanding collection of missives!
Nonetheless, it's fun trying to see how many ways I can use it!

The above card is for a family member who loves birds and enjoys listening to some classical music. I find it really hard a) buying presents for him and b) making cards for him. He's one of those typical men who it's really hard to purchase things for!  I am very pleased that CBC is not a typical man in that respect!

Anyway, I decided to combine the bird and music idea.  I wanted to try and ensure that it didn't look too girly with birds on but not sure if I succeeded or not. I used a free bird stencil from a magazine ages ago and cut two layers of birds and layered them up with 3d pads to add a little depth, rounded the corners of the card using a corner punch.  It looked a little bare so I added some quilling strips (recycled) to frame it a bit.



This one made use of the origami heart technique I picked up when I made CBC's Valentines card this year but in miniature form.  I used some William Morris sample print outs that someone had printed a couple of years ago to show examples to children at school. It was a bit dog-eared and out of use so I squirreled it away for future usage. I gave it to a girl in my orchestra who plays bassoon on Saturday as she is getting married in Wales next week.  She was surprisingly touched by it and didn't realise I had made it. I'm really glad I gave it to her!  Three of us are getting married from orchestra this year, so it's nice we've been able to discuss and compare notes!


Linking to:


Sarah's Super Handmade Sunday


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays


Cynthia's in and out linking party