Yesterday's other card

My mojo may have returned after being AWOL but it didn't like being worked too hard! Sarah's card with the butterflies wasn't very elaborate and didn't take too long to make, so I thought I would continue the good work and make a card for a friend's birthday next Wednesday. Oh dear! It seems I'm unable to concentrate if I have time in hand....I was fairly satisfied with the final result, although it might have looked better with a symmetrical design, but I sweated gallons before I reached that point.

First I picked up the pad of autumn papers I bought recently. Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly will know I'm an autumn nut and I tried hard to come up with a good idea, but it just wasn't right for this particular friend who is a dainty pink and blue person rather than a striking yellow and orange one. So the papers went back in the drawer. I suddenly thought of the willow pattern china stamps by Joanna Sheen which I've had for a couple of years and used only a few times on ATCs. There was my blue! And including the big plate gave me an excuse for using my new Eyelet Nesties as well - the largest was a perfect fit. So far so good.

Then it was downhill all the way, or do I mean uphill? Nothing was quite right. I tried a MS border punch with similar eyelets but got the spacing wrong the first time and couldn't make the second attempt fit anywhere. I then stamped more of the china as the background using Versamark ink, looked at the square mid blue card thus produced, added the strip of ribbon and felt it was all wrong, so I cut the front off and tried it as an easel card, sticking that same front onto dark blue. No, it needed a light edge - and besides, the end of the ribbon on the back showed - so I unstuck it (being thankful I'd only used a glue stick and not my tape gun), cut a white mat and remounted it all. Oh, and at some point I was trimming slivers off edges because I realised that the finished card was going to be a hair's breadth too big for the available envelope, which it was anyway so went into a much bigger one folded over. No, I didn't attempt to make one the right size...

Still with me? We now have an easel card with blank inside and no support for the front edge. I think it took another half an hour minimum before I fixed the final piece, with the jugs, like the plate, stamped in Brilliance Mediterranean Blue. It only took three attempts to add a small insert sheet with a punched border at the bottom (those MS punches really do not like single sheets of thin paper and it's high time I remembered) and the best happening of the day was not smudging the stamped greeting.

Now all I have to do is remember to post the thing in good time.

Made a card today!

My first card in three weeks - I think my mojo has been two timing but it was forced home today and I actually produced a couple of cards; the pics of one, however, are waiting to be uploaded from the camera so that will have to be a separate post.

This card is for an online friend in Scotland whose birthday is tomorrow so I have little hope it will arrive in time, but since she lives alone and is having a very bad time with her health maybe she will enjoy stretching her birthday a bit (and she certainly won't be expecting a card from me). I've had the verse for years but never used it, likewise the butterfly paper, and I felt quite virtuous for using up several scraps. Mind you, I seemed to have more scraps when I'd finished than when I started but isn't that always the way?

There isn't a lot to say about it: the stamp is by Clarity, the punch is Arched Lattice by Martha Stewart. Happy birthday Sarah...

One Out of Two: Must Try Harder!

It was our wedding anniversary yesterday and I'm ashamed to say that I didn't make my husband a card. I was full of good intentions on Saturday evening, having spent the day at a craft shop's demo day, but by Sunday morning all inspiration had flown and it didn't return on Monday. However DH totally forgot our anniversary, so honours were even.

It's his birthday tomorrow and I've just made this card kneeling on the floor of my workroom in the most ridiculous cramped conditions! The trouble is that I usually work on the dining table, but the dining room gives direct access to the garden and DH has been trimming the hedge and cutting the lawn so he's been in and out like a fiddler's elbow. My craft room is too small (OK, too untidy) for a table so rather than risk him seeing his card before The Day I worked behind a closed door. That didn't stop him coming into the living room via another door when I was using the scanner there, but then occasionally our house resembles a French farce with characters entering and leaving rooms with multiple doors and unintentionally pursuing each other while the cats look on in amazement. Their only concern is who will stop long enough in one place to feed them.

Anyway, the card is made in two shades of Bazzill card, with leaf paper by Nancy Watts from Making Cards magazine. The bird is by Stampin Up stamped in Versafine sepia and cut with a Nestie and the background sponged with Vintage Photo distress ink. The brown leaf was a button but I chopped the shank off so it lay flat. And the punch is my latest Martha Stewart acquisition, Iron Gate.

Summer? What summer?

Yes, summer is definitely on its way out and I'm marking the progress through the year with yet another change of photograph in the heading: this was taken at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley a couple of years ago. It was a gorgeous day in October when the autumn colours were at their best against a vivid blue sky, but I don't want to anticipate autumn too soon so I'll keep the red and gold maples for another day.

If I take May as the start of summer the season ended as it began, because once again the month was notable for visitors and dancing! I exaggerate a little, since only my sister came to visit and she stayed for less than 4 days, but we filled that precious time together with laughter and visiting old haunts from our childhood because she now lives in Somerset and I live just a few miles away from where we grew up. The month finished with a terrific long weekend spent folk dancing near Warwick, which is always a highlight of our year though tinged with sadness that it's the last of the festivals and a very long time to the next one in May 2011. I filled the rest of the month annotating my new book of dances and am now waiting for the proof reading to be completed......unfortunately I can't help tweaking and 'improving' the text each time I look at it so the marked copy I receive back from DD will bear little relation to what I have on the DTP!


Apart from the Get well card of my last post I made no cards at all during August. I need to get back into the habit, though, as it is a friend's birthday on Friday, our wedding anniversary next week (42 years) and DH's birthday 2 days later and I haven't given a thought to any cards yet. The easel card shown here was made at the weekend for friends Mark & Faye celebratng their Silver Wedding tomorrow; the base card is palest mauve pearlescent and the centre panel, mounted on the same mauve and matted on plain silver, is white and silver paper that looks like lace - a strip of the same paper backs the raised panel inside. Since I haven't shown it before I'm also showing the card I made for Mark's parents when they had their Golden Wedding 5 years ago.

Oriental Get Well Soon

Just a quick card today. An online friend is having a bad time in hospital and I made this to send her a get well note. I don't usually do 'cut 'n' stick' designs but I've had these Oriental washi papers for years and decided it was time I opened the packet, then couldn't think how I was going to use them! There are 20 uniquely patterned 4" squares plus some co-ordinating plain colours; the card turned out better than I first thought so I may be using this layout again to use up some more of the papers. But I trust it won't be for the same friend - she is forced to spend a lot of time in bed because of ill health so I'm really hoping the doctors at last have her sorted and that she will be home very soon.

Wheee - I've had a face lift!

Well, not me, only my blog! Someone on SplitCoastStampers has just started blogging after asking for help and I had a look at what she has produced so far. It was gorgeous! As a result I've been exploring for myself what is available on Blogger and have had great fun playing with new colours and backgrounds - I'd no idea so much was possible. However, once I found the maple leaves everything else was forgotten so I hope you're all impressed and like the new wallpaper :)

Jack of All Trades and Master of None!

I've neglected my blog for the past ten days because I've been busy putting together a new book of folk dances. I've published two previously, the last one being 5 years ago, but the big difference this time is that I'm using a desktop publisher myself instead of leaving it entirely to DH. Of course, it's a very steep learning curve and I'm very grateful for his help; he has edited the motor club monthly newsletter/magazine for over 12 years now so has it at his fingertips but unfortunately he isn't good at understanding why I have problems! Still, the dance instructions are all imported to the page layout, I now have to add the extra information like recommended recordings and the reason for the titles (I always find that fascinating in other people's books so have included it in all of mine) then it will examined by my daughter who's a trained proof reader and finally emailed to the printer. It's a very different process from my first book which was published in 1998 - I remember crawling over the floor trying to work out which pages had to be printed side by side and what went on the reverse so that when the sheets were folded and collated they appeared in the right order!

The other excitement in the past week is news of the story I wrote for the WI competition mentioned on my blog for 27 June. Entries are first judged at County level and the top 3 from each go forward to the national finals: last Tuesday I had a phone call to say I had been picked as one of the Hampshire winners. I was utterly amazed because it is almost the first thing I have written since I left school. I mentioned in that blog entry that I've previously done a course at the WI college on story telling and I had to write a couple of brief stories for that; since then I've composed another to tell as an entertainment 'spot' during a folk dance, but I really don't think of myself as a writer. Or I didn't.....I think I'm now sufficiently encouraged to see what else I can produce. I don't claim any greatness for this story, by the way - it was limited to 500 words, and although there are 7200 WI members in Hampshire there were only 39 entries. It will be judged against 150 others nationally so I'm not expecting any further success, but I shall be reading it from the stage at the County meeting in October which will be a great thrill.


Finally, to some cards! It's been a long time since I used some of the older techniques I've enjoyed in the past, other than iris folding which I've done a few times in the past year. This week I found my ornaré templates and paper stitching materials. I made a stitched and beaded Christmas card front which has yet to be mounted so I'll show that when complete, but for now here is one for a friend who was among my first lacemaking students over 30 years ago and will be 93 this month. I enjoy paper pricking and as it is similar to making a pattern for bobbin lacemaking it seems very appropriate for Eva. The rose is a single layer but I used foam pads behind the big flower to give an illusion of 3D.

The bottle shaped card is made from a template by WS Designs and the stamps are also by WSD. I chalked the grapes and used gold paper for the neck; our friend lives in Spain amid vineyards and olive groves so it seems another ideal choice.