Mother's Day

We learned this card making technique at an all-day class (well, in one half of the day!) and I decided it was time to put the ideas into practice. My Mother-in-Law has a very green lounge so I decided to use green papers for this card. You can see in the photos below the 12×12 scrapbook papers I chose and also the card I used for the base and the letters cut out ready for drawing round. They are traced on the reverse of the card (mirror image) and then stuck onto the decorative paper before cutting round them. The more observant of you may notice that I actually cut the card before I’d stuck the papers on – a mistake whilst reading the instructions, just meant extra cutting! Paper was glued and trimmed on the reverse of all pieces too.

12x12 papers

Selected letters

Ready for glueing

Diluted PVA

Glue and trimmed

A bit dull!

Decorating

I’ve had a couple of sets of alphabet punches (upper- and lower-case) for ages – bought them at CostCo a long time ago, so I punched out the relevant letters to start each line of the poem I glued to the back of each page:

M-O-T-H-E-R

“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold;
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER,” A word that means the world to me.

I ‘tidied-up’ the edges with a paint dauber but….. it wasn’t neat and looked rather ugly so I had to disguise with some glitter glue. It did brighten-up the pages though so it was a happy accident I guess. I then glued verses to the front of the card pieces and rummaged through my stash of embellishments to decorate the whole thing.

Punches

M-O-T-H-E-R

Brightening up

Other side view

1st page

Duty

2nd page

Eye-to-eye

3rd page

So true!

4th page

Irish proverb

5th page (1)

5th page (2)

Too sickly?!!

Finishing

The crop-o-dile bites through this thick card sooooo easily! I joined the whole card together with a couple of split rings and tied some ribbons and yarns to those. The tag was punched (Sizzix die with my Wizard) from some of the paper-covered card left-over from cutting down the ‘pages’ so that they’re all the same size. We wrote the personal message on the back of this.

Below are a couple of close-ups of the finished article – I do hope she likes it after all this effort!!

Finished

Tag & fibres

No stopping me now!

It is a special birthday for another friend of ours this week (actually the wife of the other 60th birthday card I blogged earlier) and so I made another of these cards. Her name, Barbara, is a bit too long for this technique so I used her nick-name instead. Same process as previously but this time I edged the pieces with peel-offs and, on the front, I made one of those cute little paper flowers that are popular just now.

BABS

Joined with ribbon

Front cover

Paper flower

1st page

2nd page

3rd page

This was for a special occasion so worthy of a bit of effort. It was a ‘milestone’ birthday for Amy’s mum (Amy is my future daughter-in-law and the carver of the pumpkin on a previous post) and we’d been invited out to celebrate with Hazel and a lot of friends and family.

I used a lovely metallic purple cardstock for the card (and for the box) and some ivory pearlescent cardstock for contrast. The stamped design is from Elusive Images and I embossed in silver both the lady’s head and the wording.

I attached a tag on the back with the greeting and a little mauve ribbon finished it nicely. I struggled to keep the corners of the box glued together, it’s a heavy cardstock and kept popping open so I attached square silver snaps from We R Memory Keepers.

Reverse

Main image

Cherish

Boxed

Hazel and I

Everybody should have a brooch!

It really is mandatory to wear a badge announcing your age on such an occasion and so – to make sure she did have at least one – I decided I’d make one for her.

I warmed an old CD and cut a wedge out of it (warming makes the CD soften slightly and is easier to cut just using regular scissors) and then used UTEE in clear at first and then a couple of colours to build up a nice thickness. I then inked-up an illuminated ‘H’ stamp and pressed that into the warm UTEE. I put some purple microbeads around the edges and then wound some wired beads along a couple of the edges. I made the danglies from shrink plastic which I cut out in the Wizard with Nestabilities  and hung them from a couple of holes in the bottom of the ‘wedge’. I made the holes with my trusty Crop-a-dile, easy-peasy with that! The danglies were clear embossed as well to add some nice shine.

I made the octagonal box in the same cardstock I’d used for the Bookatrix and then pinned it to Hazels top so she had no choice but to humour me!!

H is for Hazel

Boxed Brooch

She *did* wear it

Dangly bits

Main image

A very good friend of ours, one of our GoldWing buddies, was sixty in December so I decided to make him a special card. It took me hours just looking through all our photographs to find suitable ones to use on the Tri-Shutter Card – partly because I get sidetracked very easily and get involved in reminiscing rather than just researching!

So, I did find plenty of photos I could use and noticed a theme or two running through them – he’s either eating or has got his arms round someone.

I won’t go into details of how the card was made, it’s readily available on the net and I’ve posted another version myself once before (see here) with links in that post to where I got the instructions from originally.

They can be made any size really, I usually prefer a shorter card but this time, because I’d got a lot of piccies I couldn’t choose between, I went for almost a full A4 piece of card to begin with.

I matted all the photos onto paper rectangles which I had rounded the corners of using my Corner Chomper, the papers were mainly  from a coordinating paper stack in manly colours with some hand-made paper on the front which I coloured with complementary inks. The ‘60′ on the front was cut out with a Nestie circle and then layered up onto a couple of larger ones, this hangs from some tartan ribbon threaded through the paper using my paper tagger. (It is true that she who dies with the most gadgets wins, isn’t it?)

The sentiment was printed onto the photo paper alongside all the pictures, as were the ‘60′ digits, and cut out with Nestability scalloped ovals before being stacked-up with 3d foam between for a bit of depth. I used a flourish on the back to wind between some photos, and a few brads and other embellishments here and there.

I’ve mentioned before that these hairy biker types do love to dress up! You can see that in some of these photos – if it’s not fancy dress (e.g. Halloween and Burns Night) then it’s proper fancy dress in the kilt! I’ve added a couple of extra photos showing that they really were in focus! When I crop the pictures and then blow-up the photos again they lose a lot of definition, the actual ones on the card were all sharp and clear, honest!

Front of Card

Back of card

Burns Night

Hair for once!

With his wife

More eating!

Back panel

Nesties for sentiment

With Barbara again

Derek & Barbara

With other Girls

Walker Tartan

Kilted

Dressed to cook?

Holly Wreath

Many years ago a lovely lady called Pauline started to run a Holly Wreath Class in the community hall of Llanasa. She advertised it through the W.I. and it was incredibly popular. Obviously, being near Christmas, the weather was cold, and the hall was equally cold and totally charmless! We huddled near the wall heaters, sat on hard benches etc.. but came home with some beautiful wreaths.

Pauline ran these for many years and then took the odd holiday (from the UK and from the classes!) and so, when she phoned me to say she was doing another one last December I jumped at the chance of going again. Although I know how to do the assembly myself, and certainly could manage without her tuition, the very act of sitting in a nicely decorated and warm room (same hall having had some money spent on it) with a bunch of other ladies making holly wreaths is a great start to the ‘Season’ and sooooooo much fun!

So, on December 18th Jan and I drove along to Llanasa, met up with Denise and Sue and sat in our ‘naughty corner’ ( I don’t know why Polly – she’s changed her name – thinks we deserve to sit at the back of the room on our own, we’re not really disruptive ) and were met with the usual strange collection of items.

Necessary items!

Garbage bag?

Are we all confused?

The base ring

Closer view

The bin-bag

………is used to wrap around the hoop as a base for the greenery. It was cut into strips, tied on at one end, wrapped and then tied off again when completely covered. Once that was done then the fun starts. A huge mound of ‘green’, foliage which smelt wonderful but which I can’t remember the name of!!! was added in smallish bits around the whole of the plastic-wrapped wreath.

I almost forgot! Before we started anything we had to have a cuppa and a warm, handmade mince pie and Mum, sorry – Polly – insisted we drank the bottle of water she’d provided too!

So, after the base layer of green was firmly attached then we got to add some holly. The variegated leaves and the lovely red berries made a super contrast to the plain greens of the base.

Denise and her holly

Always in threes

Holly added

The Holly and the Ivy, now they are……

sorry, must remember that it’s January and I shouldn’t be singing Carols any more Obviously, the next step was adding some ivy, Polly and her family managed to find some lovely pieces with the berries (seeds? not sure what you call them really) and although they didn’t look awfully exciting at first we knew that with a few squirts of paint later on they would really stand out proudly.

Adding Ivy

Sue + holly & ivy

Pretty already

The ladies

………did look very serious but it was purely concentration, there was a lot of laughter and chatter. There were far fewer ’students’ this year than previously and it was lovely – so much more intimate and it gave Polly time to visit all who needed her.

Lunch Time

The first year or two we took a packed lunch, then Polly started providing soup and rolls for our lunches. We used to have to clear a space in front of us and eat there but now…. how upmarket is Llanasa? A separate room, tablecloths, tureens and posh soup bowls! The soup was every bit as delicious and it looks on the photos and there was masses of it. We had to follow this with a cuppa and mince pies.

Politely waiting

Thick, hot & hearty

Jan playing 'mum'

Back to work

……all refreshed and ready to go. Pine cones, cinnamon sticks, dried orange slices got wired and nestled in amongst the foliage. Again, these looked so very different when sprayed with paint but lovely in their natural state too.

Pine cones

Here? or here?

Closer view

A Bow

….is all that’s needed to finish the wreath. I am notoriously bad at making bows and have always had to have help but this year I arrived with mine all prepared! I have some glorious ribbon from CostCo and a bow-maker so mine came ready tied in my basket.

My Bow

How pleased am I?

Denise is happy

This one's lovely...

...so is this one

Sue's is pretty too

Jan is concentrating

Getting help with a bow?

Chaos versus Calm

…try as she might, Denise cannot be untidy or unruly with hers. I am the opposite – my wreath is always rather wild! It really doesn’t matter, each and every one of the wreaths was different and each beautiful. A quick blitz with some gold or silver spray paint and the cones and berries got a lovely highlight.

Then, we were forced to have another cuppa and eat more mince pies!

That was before making a table centrepiece using a candle which we had been told to bring with us and more foliage etc… unfortunately, I don’t have a single photo of any of them! Must have been too busy trying to get it right that I totally forgot to chronicle it.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Polly/Pauline, the day was fantastic. Also to her family; two daughters who helped us all out with everything and to her husband, Peter, who knows his place is in the kitchen and stays there brewing-up and washing-up with the odd foray out into the cold for more supplies when requested!

Comparing chaos & calm

Chaos!

Calm!

Xmas Card

A few years ago I decided to go green and not send Christmas Cards – instead I donated the money to charity. A couple of years later I decided that I really did enjoy making cards too much to carry on being green so I’ve gone back to old ways. This year, I had all my cards made by early November, only around 75 of them, and I’ve taken some snaps – mainly so that I can remember what I did for next year when I start again. I do keep promising myself that I’ll make a few cards each month rather than all at once – it’ll never happen!

I didn’t do too many of the same ‘cos I find that gets boring, the only ones I made many multiples of are for our GoldWing Club friends and I’ve tried to match the images with the bikes that each of them own. If you notice the one with a penguin riding – that’s for a friend who has just sold his Wing to buy a smaller bike!

The two blue cards labelled ‘Winter Wonderland’ were made for a competition at the Happy Stampers October Festival where the colours were limited to blue, white and silver – the table of entries looked so beautiful being all the same colours. It’s a little hard to see the card on the right but the image is a triple embossed tag stamped with a Tim Holtz stamp. The beads are hand-made using stamped paper and dipped in a melt-pot. The background of both of them uses kitchen foil wrapped around card and run through the Wizard in a Cuttlebug folder.

Inspiration

It was David’s birthday on the 30th and so we took the opportunity for a ‘family meal’ with his brother, Stuart, and his fiancée, Amy. We walked across to a local hotel – Plas Ifan, Northop Hall – and had a fabulous meal and whilst there Amy was compelled to buy one of their home-grown pumpkins and have a go at carving it – they had done some beauties!

On the way home, David managed to catch the moon and hold it for a moment, just the right sort of gift for him! Our food was very good, we all chose something totally different – Steak & Guiness Pie; Pork Steak; Peppered Chicken; Chicken Curry and a Mushroom Nut Roast.

David's lunar moment

Great carving

The meal

Preparation

I went online to find details of how to carve a pumpkin – neither Amy nor I had done one before – and all instructions said to start simply, usually with one of those gap-toothed faces you see everywhere.

I told Amy this and so she chose her extremely complicated company logo – Amy pole dancing – as the simple image! She attached it to the pumpkin with a pin and used another to pierce the skin around the design outline.

The Beginning

Simple!!!!

Outlining

Nearly there

1st stage done

Hollowing

For some reason, Amy thought I’d be a good person to cut the circular lid! As you can see – I can’t actually cut a decent circle. Still, I did manage to angle the knife so that the lid would have some flesh to sit on and not fall back through. We thought about using the flesh for something edible but ended up not actually removing too much of the meat of it, just the seeds and fibres. It was soooooo hard to dig out with a spoon so we just thinned it a little around the area we were working on and left the rest intact. (do you like the way I say ‘we’, as if I actually did anything towards it!?)

Circular!

the Lava Pit

Yuck!

Work in Progress

The following photos show Amy attacking the pumpkin with great gusto – it really doesn’t look much and I’m convinced it’s going to be a failure. At the very least, she’s going to slip with that knife at the last minute and make a mess of it!

See - I was there!

Amy Pumpkin Head

Result!

Well, we all had to take our doubts back! Every one of us is so impressed with the finished product. Can you see all those fine details in the fan and the hair? For a beginner, this is outstanding – well done Amy!

Star Book

The afternoon session saw Gloria and Sue swap places and Sue proceeded to show us how to make this fabulous Star Book.

Again, we didn’t know what we were due to produce but had duly brought along ‘themed’ stamps as directed. My theme was ‘Christmas’, Jan’s was ‘Faces’. Others you can probably recognise if you look through the slide show on the previous post, Workshop part 1.

We were given a neat little package with all the card and paper cut to the proper sizes – makes life so much easier! Step 1 was to cover the outside boards with some lovely papers and leave aside, pegged/clamped, to dry thoroughly.

The seven main cards, seven middle cards and then the seven inner-most pages were all folded in half before we set about decorating the inner pages. I used stamps mainly from the Non Sequitur plate 64 – Winter Holidays with the odd snowflake from a Stamps Away montage set. I added a little colour to the pages with sponges before stamping – red to depict xmas and black for all the images and then edged in green. Unfortunately, the stamp pad shredded whilst I was doing the edging (I’m not sure I’d even used it before this occasion) and dropped little green blobs of sponge on the pages here and there. Of course, when I came to blow these bits off, they smudged! What a mess, I shall probably have to go in later and see if I can disguise them.

I added a small square stud to each page for continuity (or because I’d brought them along and felt I should use them!)  and then went back to the outer boards and taped some ribbon along both pieces for the closure/hanger. Then it was time to stick the dark folded card onto the outside boards. The lighter grey was next and then the decorated pages. It’s a lovely item, would make a great gift and, once again, I’m inspired to make these in lots of different themes.

As before, I’ll put a the photos below. If you choose to view as a slideshow then you can see them full screen size by clicking the bottom right-hand button. These are mainly of my book but there’s one showing Jan’s ‘faces’ and another close up of a pretty floral one.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

 

Workshop

We have just had a full day crafting – isn’t that every crafter’s idea of a perfect day? Several hours amongst friends playing with stamps and inks!

We were not told what we would be doing during the two sessions but were advised what to bring along to work with. That’s always tricky – I never have the right stamps/inks with me!    Still, like stamp club, it’s showing a technique which we can take away and replicate using different images and colours etc…. a prototype. Actually, I was delighted with both items and don’t need to hide them away in shame – they both turned out great and I’m full of ideas for different themes now.

The morning was spent with Gloria teaching one half of the group to make a CD Case Calendar. It involves, not unexpectedly, an empty cd case (the clear type) with all the black innards removed. Twelve squares of card were decorated to depict each month by adding colour, images etc. The calendar pages themselves were also lightly coloured so they didn’t ’shout’ at you (being too white!).  I added some beads and glitter (yuck – I hate glitter!!!) when I got home and may add a few more snaps/brads. These can’t be too thick or they won’t sit nicely in the front of the cd case.

I’ve added some more photos taken on the day below, choose to view individual shots or as a slideshow if you wish (or use piclens if you can, it’s sooooo much fun!). If you choose to view as a slideshow then you can see them full screen size by clicking the bottom right-hand button.

By the way, if you recognise your work and would like me to add your name then just let me know and I’ll fix it.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

 

Sympathy/Thanks

Joseph’s Coat is an interesting technique involving the laying down of colour onto glossy card in various layers. If you Google it you’ll find all number of examples (try “Joseph’s Coat craft technique” or you’ll get links to the Technicolour Dreamcoat!).

I started with some pale yellows and oranges on the glossy card with bits of sponge and then stamped the 3 cats – it’s only one cat (which I purchased from Stamp Camp who were at the Happy Stampers Festival again this year) –  using Versamark and embossed with clear powder.

Once that cooled I applied more colours with sponge over the top of it all, allowed it to dry a little and then rubbed off the ink from the embossed cats. The embossing resists the ink yet allows the base colours to show through.

I mounted this onto some red holographic card,  punched the swirl using a Sizzix die and punched a couple of hearts from the same red card I’d used earlier. After they were glued on I outlined with white dots just to make them stand out a little.

I named this card sympathy/thanks which may seem a little strange but I was sending a thank you card to a lovely lady I’ve met through FreeCycle who has just given me a second pile of cat-food trays which can be used for all sorts of crafty things (see the earlier post about the stamp club challenge). When we went to collect them she mentioned that one of her 4 cats was very poorly and didn’t look like she would last much longer and indeed she did pass away the next day. So that’s why the card is both a thanks and a sympathy.

Close up of front

Going Dotty

I’m not very good at this reflection lark but I’m trying and am determined to master it one day. For this card I stamped the bike onto a piece of transparency and then turned it over and rubbed it down onto the slightly glossy card stock. I then inked up the stamp again (black Versafine) and positioned it above the ‘reflected’ image. I did the same with the other stamps using some that I’d just won as a door prize at the Happy Stampers Festival earlier this month. There was a collection of clear stamps in the goody bag called ‘build a scene’ – so I did!

I then tore a doubled piece of scrap paper into some rough mountain shapes and inked them using bits of sponge. I used it double so that I could reverse one piece to give the reflected mountain outlines without having to turn over the piece I used for the top of the card (which risks the ink from the paper transferring to the bottom of the card by accident).

It was looking OK until I tried too hard and decided to add some more trees in the valley! I masked off the hills and stamped the trees but I missed a little bit – they seemed to be floating, not anchored to the ground at all. When I tried to fix this I managed to smudge the ink so I chose to stop there! I punched a circle out of some card and inked a sun and then added a slight blue wash to give the impression (I hope) of some water.

I glued the wire bike in place because…..well, I’d bought some and I had to use at least one! (I bet I’m not the only crafter on the planet who hoards all their ’stuff’!!)