Boxed card

My sister-in-law had a momentous birthday this month and so I made her a special card. It took me about 3 evenings of faffing about with it to get it how I wanted but I was happy with the final results. To compound the lengthy business my mother-in-law asked me to make one to give from her so I guess I spent about a whole week working on this birthday (only evenings, I don’t feel I can play in my craft room during the day ).

As our family name is Mackintosh the circular element in the middle just had to be a Mackintosh Bauble from Chocolate Baroque (the set is about to be retired) – two of them back-to-back suspended on white cord.

The flowers were made using Spellbinders Spiral Blossom 2 in a couple of different papers (and tissue for those on the box) and then lightly dusted with a bit of glitter. The butterflies have twisted wire antennae and are sitting on some gorgeous gold/copper wired ribbon. I used a border cut from IronWorks Accents and a couple of layers of Labels 4 one of which I ran through an embossing folder and lightly inked the raised parts.

On the inside, I used the second part of the borders I’d used earlier and cut the other side with Classic RicRac Edgeabilities, the stamped flourishes are from Technique Tuesday and the aperture was cut with Spellbinders Ovals with a second contrasting scalloped oval inside. [I was actually lucky enough to win these Edgeabilities in an online competition – just for leaving a comment on a blog post! ]

Card front

Inside

Flowers

The second card

Well I had to think of something completely different to the one I’d just made so this one is very monochromatic and yet still glittery. A stepper card with lots of layers and bling.

I cut the card base with a Grand Label Nestability and used other Nesties to make the layers from an oriental-style paper. The main image is Michael Strong’s Kimono stamp embossed with a holographic powder over Versamark and cut out with the matching die. One of the Spellbinders Fancy Tags holds a ready-made greeting and there’s a Mackintosh image stamped and silver-embossed on the back panel.

The huge flower is made from a set of blossom Nesties with sunflowers mixing-in between layers. A button in the middle and some silver glitter and it was finished. I do hope she liked them.

Stepper 70th

Flower

Folded Star

This was made for a friend of mine – not a special birthday or anything but she is a special friend. If you Google Folded Star you’ll find lots of tutorials for these in various sizes, mine was made from a piece of 12×12 scrapbook paper and I made sturdy templates out of plain card for future use.

The templates made included those for the designer papers used on the triangles and the trapezoids so the next one will be really easy to make. You can see that on one panel I layered a piece of plain paper (stamped with a small rose image) so there’d be a place to write a greeting. The sentiment is a purchased one which I lightly coloured with distress ink and the flower is actually slightly scented – at least it was when it left here!

I made a double bow following the instructions on Jak Heath’s blog and glued those three tiny flowers on top and then decided it was too white so I masked off the rest of the card and spritzed the bow with some gold glimmer mist. I didn’t take a photo of it after that I’m afraid so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Folded Star inside

Close up

The main image was made using the large Cloisonné Flower which I stamped randomly over some glossy card stock using a Versamark pad. I then sprinkled with fine, clear embossing powder and heat set. Using a brayer I coloured the whole thing with Kaleidacolor Dye Ink in Calypso and then rubbed lightly over the embossed images to remove excess ink from the flowers.

I trimmed this piece down to a suitable size and layered it onto purple card – it’s raised up on 3D foam pads for a bit of height interest. I chose yellow card for the background for a sunny theme (much needed at this time of year!) and used scraps of both the yellow and the purple for accents and layering just to keep it all ‘together’.

I put the trimmings of the main image through the Grand Calibur with the long strip die from the Ironwork Accents set and glued them to the yellow and then the purple card to make the ‘ribbon’ strips. The faux brads were made by punching two different sized circles from the card and rounding them slightly with a large embossing ball tool before sticking them on to the card with rolled-up glue dots to help keep them in shape.

Embossed resist

Die-cut strip

The Sketch

I don’t quite know why I’ve only photographed two of the four birthday cards I mailed in December but somehow I must have forgotten! Can’t imagine what it is about December which would make me forget stuff……

A GoldWinging friend of ours turned fifty last month so I sent him the ‘birdie’ card and the other with the sunflower was given to a dear friend whose age I’ll not broadcast here. This one was made for a sketch challenge at Stamp Club.

50th Birthday Card

Sunflower

Natural light

Commission

I was telephoned – I think it was about July sometime – by a young man who had seen this blog and wanted a special Christmas Card making for his girlfriend.

Once I’d gotten over the shock of (a) a man actually ordering a special card and (b) him planning it incredibly early in the year, I came up with this Telescoping Card. I made another one first (to the specifications I was given – she likes angels, silver, green etc…..) but was not totally happy with it [see here] so started again!

I’ll never make a fortune at this hobby will I? Not if I keep making a spare one as well!

Full Card Front

Telescoping

Angel

The final 6

Well, it’s taken some time (a whole year I guess) but I’ve finally finished all 26 Alphabet Cards. Actually, I have done 27 ‘cos I wasn’t happy with ‘D’ so I did a second version . I think it’s obvious that I left most of the difficult letters to the last – Q, U, X!

What a great challenge this has been and – as a bonus – I’ve got a load of cards made to use throughout the year so I can concentrate on my scrapbooking for a bit.

As before, click on the thumbnail for a larger image and details of my thought processes, enjoy!

K

Q

U

U

X

X

N

N

Y

Suspended star

These are photos of some of the cards I have made for this Christmas, 2011.

Several of them were duplicated – though not identical – they were basically the same idea so I only photographed one of them .

I like to keep a record just so I can look back next year and see what I did and make sure I try something different.

At the bottom of the page I’ll add photographs of the hand-made cards I receive this year – this will be a little later.

Christmas 2011

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

White Christmas

I personally think that black and white is really quite elegant and works well for a Christmas Card. This starts with an A4 white base card folded in half and trimmed slightly (I don’t like the size of the full A4 with a fold, it always looks just a little too big to my mind) and the corners rounded with my Corner Chomper. I trimmed the edge with a Spellbinder Die and glued the cut-out piece on the left to mirror the right side. Black paper inside helps show the decorative edge.

Sparkle

There’s a layer of white textured paper – it’s almost a hand-made type – and on top of that the black card has been embossed half with Swiss Dots and half with Snowflakes and has tiny white with black brads in the corners. On top of these layers there’s two widths of ribbon wrapped around and the narrower one is tied in a bow. If you know me at all you’ll know that I really don’t do bows but I had a go.

The main image is from Chocolate Baroque – Angel of Joy – and I find I’ve been using her quite a lot lately . I stamped her in black and embossed with clear powder before cutting her out and mounting her slightly raised on top of the ribbons. I added some sparkle which is a little hard to see in the photo – sorry about that.

Are you ready for some more?

The alphabet doesn’t sound very long or complicated until you’re tasked with making a card depicting each and every letter. I have tried to be less than obvious with my choices – I think I’ve succeeded with some of the cards but others, as you’ll see, are very, very easy to recognise .

As before, click on the photos to see the descriptions and the clutching at rather dubious straws I may have been guilty of.

A

A

D

D

D

I

M

R

S

T

T

V

V

Z

Z

Xmas Telescoping

I’m going to add some cards I’ve made in the past few months – I’ll add the description under each photo so click on them to enlarge and read about each.

There are a variety of techniques involved although nothing that needs a lot of explanation. These are for quite a few different occasions; birthdays; sympathy; thinking of you; Christmas etc…

Opened telescope

Wings

Sympathy

Sympathy Card

Thumping

I learnt how to ‘thump’ from GinaK at StampTV – see here.

Thinking of you

Thinking of you

Label

Anniversary

20th Anniv

Birthdays

We have three birthdays on three consecutive days in November, good job I made a birthday book some time ago .

David's

Large Cuppa

Smaller Cuppa

Peter

Stuart

Neil

Amy

The Enchanted Forest Stamps by Joanna Sheen can be found here.