On the first day of Christmas...

I'm a bit apprehensive about this card! I made it last week to give to a young friend who is supposed to be leaving for a holiday in Thailand tomorrow. She was very pleased with it, but in view of the terrible floods in that country I'm wondering if she will actually be able to go. She has made all her own arrangements so doesn't even have a travel agent to advise her, and although I know the trip has been over a year in the planning so she will be bitterly disappointed if she has to cancel, the important thing is her safety. My heart goes out to the Thai people trying to live in such conditions, too - I should think the last thing they need right now are tourists!

This is the first in a set from Pinbroidery and I think it's a great design! Much quicker to stitch than I expected, but if I continue with all 12 I don't think I shall want to send them.....maybe I could use them as part of our holiday decorations instead :) Stitched using Kreinik Cord, which is a single ply metallic thread.

More parchment

This Christmas card was made using a stencil designed by Alison Yeates, one of the tutors on last week's parchment course. I've always felt that the use of such stencils was sort of cheating but having discovered how versatile they are, with many design elements to use in different ways, I put my scruples aside and thought I'd try it. I love the result! And there's enough 'real' parching skills in the execution that my scruples have been banished entirely and I'm keen to try another design :)

Parchment craft

I spent last week on a parchment craft course with Alison Yeates and Christine Coleman. I haven't done very much before although I started many years ago, and the given projects really stretched me because they were largely geared to colouring with different media, whereas my preference is for whitework. Besides, I don't have an artistic bone in my body and rate my skill as on a level with a backward two year old! We started 5 projects but had only 4½ days so most will be completed at home; these two were the smallest and I finished  them today.

The pumpkin was coloured using polychromos pencils, which are excellent for blending. Quite a lot of what you see here was Christine's work - despite watching her demonstrations closely and thinking I was doing it just the same, she took an eraser to much of my efforts and with a deft touch showed me again what it ought to look like! :) I did enjoy perforating and cutting the border though: much more my style! The panel is mounted on copper mirri card which complements the orange pumpkin very well.

The second piece, apart from the border, isn't true parchment craft but it does make quite an attractive card: the motifs were cut from a paper serviette and stuck onto parchment. The pink colouring round the peacock was done with a polychromos pencil softened with a blending medium and the whole overlays a piece of shaded blue card.

I apologise for the crooked scans - I'm not sure if it's good or bad that they are tilted in opposite directions...

Now I plan to finish the largest project which shouldn't take me too long, so I hope to back blogging very soon.

Two cards

By Thursday of last week I was in a state of mild panic: it had been our wedding anniversary the previous day and I hadn't made a card for DH; his birthday was on Friday and I was completely out of inspiration, and I still had to make a Golden Wedding card for Saturday! This is what I produced in a short space of time - not the greatest card I've ever made, but nor was it too bad

On Friday I was so bugged about the GW card that I wandered round the house doing everything except make a card - things were so desperate that I almost did the ironing!!! Needless to say, once I sat down things were much better and although I didn't set out to make an easel card this is how it evolved....and I was actually pleased with it when finished

I've had a rather rough time over the past 5 months (culminating last week with our son emigrating to Canada) and my mojo has been on a long vacation but I'm hoping to be back on an even keel now. There's a lull in upcoming birthdays so I plan to go back to making Christmas cards and entering the Bah! Humbug! challenges, and the others I still have listed in my sidebar.

Hey, I'm on a roll!

Third card in a week, after so little in the past four months: I hope it isn't overkill! After all, I still have a lot of Christmas cards to make as well as more birthday and anniversary cards, but they will have to wait for a few days as we shall be having our last lot of visitors this weekend, arriving tomorrow.

This card is for a friend who is a keen gardener. Both the design and the words are from Joanna Sheen and the embossing is a Cuttlebug folder.

Ruby Wedding

Friends are celebrating their Ruby Wedding tomorrow and this is the card I've made for them. Nothing original, it's a pattern I've used several times for ruby, sapphire(45) emerald (55) and diamond(60) anniversaries and it always makes an impact. The design is by a Dutch lady on the World of Crafters forum and is an advanced form of iris folding: it doesn't spiral inwards and finish with an iris like the basic designs I made last Christmas (and showed in detail here ), and it has exposed corners which can be tricky to get neat, but although it took quite a time to complete I'm pleased with the final result.

Wedgwood Style Birthday Card

It's been a long time since I did any card making; I'm ashamed to say I've missed at least three birthdays in that time, however my excuse is that it's been a busy month with visitors and attending two folk dance festivals. Now the weather has decided that summer is over, autumn draws near and settling down in the craft room is a very good idea, so here's the first of my offerings using a stamp I bought when my sister was staying with me and needed to be taken to a big craft shop.....well, that's my story!

The image is by Hero Arts, stamped using Versamark with detail white embossing powder. I swear the plain blue squares had straight edges and right angled corners when I cut them - can't think how they got themselves so crooked! (and they really don't look as bad on the real thing.)