Love you!

Well I splashed out about bought myself some more MFT dies. I love that company – their dies are awesome quality and they ship same/next day – important when they’re shipping overseas as it means I get it as soon as I possibly can this end!

This card is quite a good one for the man in your life. It’s very much “no frills” and to the point. I like the simplicity of it – but don’t be fooled, it did take quite a while to complete.

I like the colour scheme – the grey on ivory is subtle but is balanced well with the pillar-box red hearts and handwriting.

I have done a video – it’s quite a long one, as I’m a bit out of practice ;-$ but I hope you enjoy it anyway and find it useful and inspiring.

Enjoy!

Wedding cards…

I made a few wedding cards recently. I wanted them to be a little different to the usual slushy cards that are sometimes a bit ‘twee’ for my liking.

And these are bold, bright, and very cheerful! Perfect for weddings.

There’s a lot of detail going on here. But I love the rich colours, especially on the red card, which is my favourite. These cards are accented with perfect pearls and just doodled with a white gel pen. The gold glitter blings it up to really get into the extravagance of the day!

I also very much love the sentiments. Hero Arts are great at coming up with just the right sentiment.

The other card I did was similar to the red one, but with a different colour scheme, and without the background stamp.

No video today. It was my 30th birthday yesterday, so I’ve not been at my craft desk for a good few days - I’ve been celebrating with family & friends! Back soon with a video tutorial for a thank you card though – gotta thank folks for all their lovely thoughtful gifts ;)

Butterfly Birthday

Quick post today – just wanted to show you a couple of cards for different occasions using a similar design.

It’s so easy to change a card design to suit your needs. Here I’ve just exchanged butterflies with hearts, and I have an anniversary card as well as a birthday card.

Super quick this way too, as you only have to think up one layout! =)

Anyway, the video is below as usual. Please don’t forget to rate my videos and subscribe to me over at my YT Channel. Also, if you ‘follow’ my Facebook and Twitter pages, then you’ll always know when my next video/blog post is up.

Watch video below | Watch at YouTube

Happy Anniversary

Super late in sharing this one with you guys. I was going through some of my old card photos and spotted this one and couldn’t remember ever blogging about it. So I’m doing it now!

I used this gorgeous flocked paper pack from GCD Studios called Paris Nights – scrumptious! The card was for my parent’s wedding anniversary this August just gone. And the reason I didn’t share it, was because I made it in such a rush before heading off to Australia, that blogging it was the last thing on my mind. 

So no video tonight…but instead I’m trying to make and share more cards with you all more regularly, even if I don’t have time for a video post. I find myself sometimes NOT crafting because I felt I always have to record my work. And sometimes I just don’t feel like it; I just want to craft in my own sweet time!

However, that said, I recorded a video today for the cutest little card I’ve made in a long time, so I hope to have that up by mid-week, if not sooner…sneak peak tomorrow! =)

Until then, happy crafting!

Happy Anni

This card was a commission I did for someone last month, but have only got around to posting just now!
My two best friends have just got married last weekend, and I have been super busy doing all the stationary for their wedding, which went off wonderfully (thank goodness!). [I hope to share the stationary I did for them soon. It’s super scrumptious – I only wish I knew half the techniques I used on it for back when I got married, and my stationary would have no doubt been similar…]


Back to this card – I love the American Craft Thicker stickers – they add a nice bit of bling to the overall card. The patchwork quilt heart was all hand drawn and cut out (rather laboriously) but I’m sure there is definitely a simpler way of doing this technique, I just didn’t think it through properly when I was doing it for the video, but you get the idea anyway I’m sure =)

The video is below, I hope you enjoy watching it & happy crafting!

Watch here | Watch over at YouTube

A couple of quick cards to show you…

It was my mother and father-in-law’s wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I’d whip them up a quick card…this was super fast and easy AND it gave me a great excuse to break out my new Deep Edge Garden Trellis punch by Martha Stewart which I purchased from the wonderful Joanna Sheen for the brilliant price of £15.99 inc P&P – and that really is a bargain, cos this punch is HEAVY!  And I truly love this punch. I will be breaking it out in a video tutorial soon I’m sure =)

I also used a bunch of my flower punches to build a few custom flowers using patterned paper and some plain vellum. The sentiment is from a set I have fallen in love with called Jane’s Script by Woodware – it’s a very cute handwritten font, which is delicate enough for just about any card, but strong enough not to be overwhelmed by a relatively simple design.


This next card clashes somewhat with the first card – and was sent to the mother-in-law on the same day (eek) – but I just wanted to use some really bright colours with the Hero Arts CLINGS Antique Brocade stamp I got recently as the main focal point. Super simple card, but packs an eyeful of punch, lol! And not a corner rounder in sight; a rarity for me.

I’ll be back with a video tutorial soon. Just had a lovely weekend away with the girls – my friend Liz treated us to a night at a luxury hotel, with a spa facility, which was absolute bliss. So I couldn’t do any card making this weekend, but for once I wasn’t complaining! Although I did manage to squeeze in a quick trip to the craft fair at the NEC yesterday…so some new gizmos and products will be appearing in my next videos. Bye for now!

Monochrome Wedding Card

Wedding card are such lovely cards to make! I just love all the romance and happy tears at the ceremony ;0)
Today’s card is for a wedding I went to a while back. I’ve just been a little slow in getting the video edited and published!! Mainly cos I went to the wedding as part of my holiday to Gibraltar and I’ve been a little busy catching up ever since I got back…

This is a super simple card. It really did not take long at all! And I’m loving the monochrome feel (quite popular at weddings these days – but not this one, they had a purple theme). I didn’t know the colour scheme at the time, so I went for safety colours of black and white. This could be altered to say “two hearts” or “I *heart* U” to make it less formal. But for a wedding card, I chose “love” as the sentiment.

 
Here’s a picture of the happy couple on their big day…

Below is the video. As usual, please click on the HQ button in the right hand corner after pressing play to see it in its highest quality. If you enjoy the video, it would be great if you can hop over to YT to rate and subscribe to my channel!
Thanks for watching! ;0)

Creating a background using digital stamps

This card was inspired by a recent card I saw on Kristina's blog. I know it looks nothing like her card, but as soon as I saw hers, the design and colour scheme for this card came straight to mind, and this is almost exactly how I imagined it, apart from the pink heart. I don’t like the pink heart a whole lot, but I thought I’d show you guys the finished result anyway…

I think if I was making this again, I would probably print out another, larger heart onto the lavender cardstock, embossing in silver, then layer beneath the smaller dark purple heart. I may even change this card to reflect that as I’m really not feeling that pink heart. Or just stick with the single dark purple heart as the whole focal piece?

Anyway, the whole point of this was to use Mujka’s digital design for the background left hand side (above), as this is what sprang to mind when watching Kristina make her card I talked about earlier.

I simply love this ornate pattern, which was originally designed for wedding RSVPs and invites etc. So that’s why I think it works well on this love themed card. You can download this for free at MyGrafico once their new site is up and running again. I’m already looking forward to it as I’m sure it’s going to be great! :0)
Tonight I sat and planned about 8 cards in my sketchbook (!) so I have a load to get making, and a rare day to myself tomorrow, so I will have fun playing & get a few of them videoed to show over the next few weeks.

The Big day!

I wanted to make a wedding card with a BIG flower on it. So I made one that nearly didn't fit in the envelope it was so big!!!

Seriously, I've made this with some leftover tissue paper in bright pink. It's a really simple process explained in detail in the video below, but essentially, it's loads of circles (in two different sizes) scrunched up, then held together with a brad. I have embossed a pattern onto the tissue paper before assembling it, but this is completely optional. It's hard to see in the photo's but in real life it adds a nice 'twinkle' to the flower.

I originally wanted to use a rub on in the circle cut out on the right, but unfortunately, the rub on refused to rub onto the paper...so much so that I trashed the base card by rubbing so hard I practically embossed a hole in the card! But it was fortunate, cos in the end I preferred the kraft coloured base card!

...and no faux stitching! This must be a record for me! ;0)

Anyway, please have a look at the video below. I hope it inspires you to make a tissue paper flower, cos they're so quick and so much fun. This idea was my own take on a combination of a few ideas I've seen on blogs recently - there are some really good recycling ideas out there at the moment!

As usual, please click on the HQ button in the corner of the video after pressing play, this will give you a much better quality viewing. Please hop over to YouTube to rate & subscribe, and leave a comment over there or on my blog. Thanks for watching! ;0)

Happy Anniversary to my Folks!

My folks are an inspiration. They've been married for 35 years and still going strong. That is remarkable in this day and age, and gives me something to aspire to with my husband to be when we finally tie the knot next Friday!

I wanted this to be quite a modern card, but still traditional enough not to make light of the fact that they've been happily married for so long. So I've kept it fresh and simple, but used a very extravagant 'Happy Anniversary' script to posh it up.

The silver heart was hand-drawn and made with silver embossed clear shrink plastic. Note to self - emboss the shape AFTER shrinking, otherwise you end up with an ungodly mess of white hot dripping embossing liquid, which does hurt if it gets on your skin - I have the burn to prove it :-) oops!

The Happy Anniversary was traced onto the card, then black embossed using my glue pen for the powder to stick to. I wish I had such an ornate stamp, but I'm really poor at the moment, what with my naff job and my wedding next week, so I'm improvising!!!

The hole in the card feature was made with nestabilities dies. I did the same on the inside to hide the wire fixing to hold the heart in place.

Wedded bliss and bling

I had a horrible time with this card trying to get the rub on to rub off! I was so angry with it not working...I had to re do the actual card I sent to the happy couple because this card has got so many indents from where I was trying to get the rub on to work; it looks a right mess, although from the photo you'd never know ;o)

I had used Papermania rub ons once before and had the same problem, but that time I wrote to DoCrafts asking for an explanation - why weren't there rub ons rubbing on and what can I do about it?!? Apparently, there were some faulty batches that slipped through their quality testing. They sent me loads of freebie goodies to apologise, which was lovely, however, that doesn't help that loads of craft shops/sites with old PM stock are stiill selling these defective rub ons - and you don't know until you get them home!

Anyway, rant over and back to the card...the stamp was a PM ornate stamp that I used a decoupage effect with by stamping it several times and cutting out and layering to highlight the shapes in the stamp. I then used a felt tip (!) to colour various parts in and glue and glitter to glitter the detail. I love the rich effect this gives and it suited the bride and groom in question down to a T!

Wedded bliss!

This was a card a friend asked me to do for a wedding she couldn't go to. It was out in New Zealand, so the couple had a small do when they got back for those that couldn't make it. So their card could have a personalised photo of them on their big day.

I love this card. The bride is Asian, and the rich reds and glitter fit her personality and culture perfectly. I don't often use Anita's Outline stickers because I think they look tacky...sorry, but it's just my opinion...but I think the heart has worked well here to finish the card off nicely.

The close up below shows how the layering was acheived using a part of a Papermania Ornate stamp with 3d stickys and a brad to finish the effect.

Favour box layout

This is the favour box template I am using for my wedding this August. You can print it out directly onto A4 paper. You should cut along all of the lines, then score between all of the dots. I will add a picture of the finished box later. I designed this box so that there is NO GLUE REQUIRED because making loads of favour boxes just gets silly if you have to glue them all aswell. Also, the box requires no lid; the flaps on top just slot together two times (smaller flaps first) and you have a very strong box to store your goodies in. Obviously, you will need to do something more decorative with the outside flaps, but I've left this as the basic design so it is not in any way restricted.

Feel free to use this design in your own work! I'd be flattered! Just post a link back to this entry please ;-)

3rd April 2009 - Janette, as requested, I've taken some pictures of the box made up. I've made the flaps a little bit more interesting by altering the final template, but the basic template is as above.

 

Wedding card

I've wanted to do a blog for ages, and now I've finally got around to it! I was asked to do this card for a work colleague LAST NIGHT to give to her today (nothing like last minute, eh?!), so I think I've made the best of what I could...her wedding 'theme' is lilac, not one of my favourite colours to work with so your comments on how it's turned out would be most appreciated.

I made this card by using a blank white cardstock (all I had!) covered with some patterned purple paper. Originally I'd ran the edges down a purple ink pad, but I didn't like the effect as the paper was too flimsy to do it properly. I stamped the writing stamp twice onto cream paper and used the second imprint, which was more muted. Then I added a flower (silk?) with an eyelet.

The two hearts were drawn free-hand on the reverse of the paper and cut out using a craft knife. I'm looking forward to getting my Cuttlebug so I can do this quicker and with more ease...but this gives the general idea.

I added the stamped 'Congratulations' in the absence of anything more weddingy, using a corner punch to cut out the notches, mounted it on the card using 3d stickys. I embellished it with a couple of ribbons and left the inside blank for people to write their own messages.