Four more for February

I've been quite busy on the card making front but don't seem to have much to show for my endeavours....the stitched cards take a while to put together (and I can't show one yet because the intended recipient does occasionally read my blog!) but here's a couple of Christmas cards using the same pattern but embellished and mounted slightly differently.

The one on the left is as shown on the original pattern: I wanted to use a die cut greeting but because the flower motif intrudes on the space there wasn't room for a longer second line. A straight peel off looked too skinny and the angled version was definitely an improvement. When I did the pattern again I turned it through 180* and was able to use my Britannia Die and achieved (I think) a better relationship between space and lettering. I have another ready stitched but not mounted - I may turn it through 90* from the original and see which looks best.

Our young neighbour was 4 last Monday and this is what I made for her. Originally it was coloured with pencils but looked rather dull so I went over it with Promarkers - it doesn't have the perfect finish that other people manage to get but I'm hoping that Florence wasn't too miffed :) The pink die cut was a lucky find in my scrap box - originally it hadn't cut cleanly and I'd discarded it, but by replacing it in the die and passing it through the Cuttlebug again it came out perfectly. Even more amazing was it being the perfect size for the picture! The balloons in the corner were made with a small punch.

My sister introduced me to Pinterest recently and like every other user I'm finding it quite addictive. Yesterday I decided my next make should be based on one of the many cards I have pinned and this is it - certainly unlike my usual style, and quite different enough from the original that I doubt anyone would recognise it as a derivative. The punched flowers usefully disposed of quite a lot of scraps; it was the first time I had used this particular embossing folder, and it's rare for me to use ribbon, so quite an adventurous card overall.

The Flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la!

...bring promise of merry sunshine according to WS Gilbert and we could certainly do with some! These two cards were made yesterday using papers from a special floral issue of Making Cards magazine published a couple of years ago. The poppies are for my niece in America who loves red; having covered the base card and made the tag with peel off sentiment (yes, I know it's not centred or straight but why change the habit of a lifetime?) I was stuck for what to do with it. I don't often use ribbon but thought this might be the right occasion, and the shaded green which I bought 3 years ago seemed just the thing. There was still something lacking.....and then I remembered that on one of my craft boards a member has been showing off several cards using the Memory Box die called 'Prim Poppies'. Eureka! I have that die too (and have actually used it a couple of times). Coloured with Promarkers and tucked under the ribbon with a couple of sticky spots to hold it in place, it finished the card off beautifully.

The second card is a bit of a cheat because I copied the design of one in the magazine, using the same papers and toppers but constructing it differently although the finished effect is very similar. The top layer of the base card is folded back on itself and the picture of the basket of flowers stuck on that side, overlapping the inside. It actually wasn't as crooked as it appears in the picture (Honest!) and is now on its way to Spain, where the need for a glimpse of spring may not be as urgently required as it is here in soggy England but may serve to remind our friend of  what she is missing in other ways.

Three cards

The past three weeks have been very busy and my crafting has been done in odd, snatched moments. I've also done a lot of sorting/tidying in my craft room, having bought a storage unit which fits on top of my desk and now holds my card stock sorted by colour on individual shelves. I bought a unit for just that purpose a year ago but found that because it was it low down in poor light I couldn't see the card; the advantage of the 'Best Craft Storage' system is that all fittings are interchangeable, so having moved the paper shelves to above eye level, and put drawers in the floor unit, it all works perfectly. I've even had enough clear space on my desk top to finish off the three cards shown here!

There isn't much to say about the first two -: more of Emy's lovely beaded alphabet, the first being mounted with the addition of a Martha Stewart 'Punch Around the Page' punch. The turquoise base and the brown mat are both in pearlised card. K is for Karen, our dear ex-DIL, who loves purple.....

This was supposed to be the same as the card shown in my previous post - I knew I had another blue card blank and when I started to make it one evening I was a little surprised that the electric light drained the colour out so much. It was only next day that I found I had mistakenly been working on a dull grey blank instead! Rather than scrap it I covered the snowflake with a previously made poinsettia to brighten it up and added a lot more silver flecks plus the red greeting, I was pleased with the final effect and will no doubt be getting rid of several more subdued blanks in similar fashion.

I have added another post back dated to 31 December to show cards made but not scanned previously. I'm missing about 10 more but some are very similar to others I made last year, and several I cannot borrow back for various reasons so will have to remain unseen. No doubt I shall repeat them at some later date!

M is for Mary

A couple more stitched cards today, made together for convenience which for once puts me ahead of the game! These will not be rushed to the post box at the last minute, these will be stamped, addressed and stored in a prominent place with a sticky note bearing the necessary posting dates in late February and March(!) so they can be sent in good time! The purple version is for  Mary, aged 101, while the green is for Mel (Melanie) on one of my crafting boards.

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I also made a couple more Christmas cards to achieve my set target of 5 for the month - they are of the same basic design with slightly differing holographic snowflakes. The spots are silver waste from sheets of peel off stickers and the sentiment is cut with a Cheery Lynn die in silver mirri card. Silver never scans satisfactorily so squint a little, ignore the dark lines, lighten the blue a couple of shades, imagine the whole card a little more delicate and you'll have a better idea of what it is really like.

Posting Early For Christmas!

Well, here are my first cards of 2014! I have joined a challenge on SplitCoast Stampers and said I will aim to make 5 every month; last year my target was 8 and I managed it in only two months - January and December! Having had two poor years of crafting (and blogging) I really hope to do much better this year and despite being unwell since Christmas I'm happy to have made a good start. Actually, I've eased into it with a bit of cheating: the candle panel was stitched in November but then got forgotten until I mounted it yesterday. The purple card was the last-but-one made just a few days before Christmas. I was in a hurry to make 10 for my craft group meeting on the 20th - too much of a hurry, because I was using a lovely 'Merry Christmas' die by Cheery Lynn and managed to stick it on upside down on card number 9! In removing the diecut I damaged the backing paper in the middle so had to make the card again from scratch (since they were all the same except for colour I couldn't have an odd one) then I decided to salvage the damaged card with a solid centre using a fancy Nestie, a classic oval and a rubber stamp I've had for about 20 years. It turned out so well that I used the design for a birthday card for a member of the same group on the 30th, subbing butterflies for holly leaves.

The poinsettia card won't be duplicated too much - it took several hours to stitch but is, I think, very pretty. I have another pricked ready but may use a different colour for the flower and turn it into a birthday card. The decoupage motif came from a recent issue of Making Cards magazine and was cut out several weeks ago and then forgotten, until it emerged when moving stuff around to make room for the Christmas tree.

Since yesterday I've almost finished stitching two of the initial birthday cards that I enjoyed making last year. I'll make them up and show them ASAP even though one is for a crafting friend's birthday in February and the other our friend Mary's 101st in March. I don't have any to make for January (our son's was made to go with the birthday cake I sent to Canada last month - he was away over Christmas so had it a couple of days late on his return, but as I pointed out, he kept us waiting from 23 December to 2 January when he was born, so I was just getting my own back! )  I wish I had scanned the cards I made from September to the end of the year but my heart wasn't in it so I can't show them. Never mind, here's to a fresh start with renewed enthusiasm. 

Happy New Year!

Just to say I shall be back with a proper post very soon - I have 3 cards waiting to be scanned so it should be in the next day or two. During the last quarter of 2013 I made a few cards but didn't scan any, hence the lack of blog entries, but the break seems to have had the right effect of leaving me champing at the bit to get back to crafting. Thank you to those who have left kind comments in my absence: I hope 2014 is a happy and creative year for us all.

In retrospect...

As previously stated, I did make cards in the last quarter of 2013 but there were about a dozen which were sent without being scanned and so were not shown on my blog. I have been able to borrow back a couple which I gave to my best friend for her birthday and Christmas, so having scanned them I will pre-date this post to the last day of the year and add any others I'm able to get hold of - several were very similar to some shown previously. In fact, this C is for Carol but only a few months previously C had been for Claire (in similar colours too!) The base card is pearlised so the green is not a good reproduction - it actually matches the thread much better in reality. And at least the beaded Christmas card was a new design.

I have just remembered that there's a picture in my file of a card I threatened to show last summer but said it would serve as an Awful Warning rather than a Good Example. In fact, it turned out rather better than first indicated although it still leaves much to be desired. The initial idea wasn't bad, but it would have been better on a smaller card than the A5 I used. This blue card is just one sheet of many that I bought at a craft show last year - that particular stall is so seductive, with single colour packs laid out in rows of graduated shading.....blues from the palest baby blue to a rich indigo, reds from pastel pink to deep crimson, et cetera. I bought several packs and had to be forcibly restrained from buying two or three more of each.

Having made my basic dandelion card (stamps by Inkylicious, with detail white embossing powder) I decided it needed something more, so stamped the floating seeds all round the border using Versamark ink - only to see it disappear as I watched! So I tried again using a blue inkpad, and the same thing happened. That card is a sponge!!! It's fine for matting but absolutely useless for stamping - and funnily enough a friend found exactly the same thing that same day, as we discovered one morning later in the week when we had coffee together. I put the card aside in a rather disgruntled mood, but not long afterwards I went to a gathering of local craft friends and learnt how to make various types of small bows to use as embellishments. One involved punching two holes close together and threading a short length of ribbon back and forth to make a faux bow; I tried it using a white and silver organza ribbon, added another piece across the width and couldn't believe how much better it looked. And here it is.