Baby card

It's been so long since I made any cards! Can you believe I haven't made anything since Mother's Day?

But I'm back - for now at least - to do a couple of orders, and there's a couple of competitions I want to enter too...... All I have to do now is find a few extra hours in the day, and I'll be away!

So.... this card is for a baby boy (duh!), and, as always it seems, turned out completely different to how I pictured it! I wanted the tag to be plain paper, but it would seem I have every shade of blue except one to match the background dp.



I have no idea where the paper came from. I cut the bottom off when I got it - I have a weird 'thing' about excess stuff; I always peel the backgrounds away from my peel offs too! Yes, you're right, there's a little bit of crazy in my corner of the planet! Anyhoo, I used my EK Success concave corner punch on the, umm, corners and also to do the scalloped edge on the tag. I took the guard off and punched along the edge, using the bottom side of the punch up so you can see where you're punching. You have to punch the white part and place it over the dp.

The baby's face and 'bundle of joy' sentiment are stickers made with microbeads (or something in that vein), again I don't know where they came from because I got rid of the packaging..... The brads are Papermania, and the ribbon is an offcut from my ribbon box.

There was meant to be a whole lot more ribbon, different papers and all sorts of other things but I sat down, got started and then realised I didn't have anything that worked! I've also only ever made one new baby card for a girl, all the rest have been for boys, and I'm starting run out of ideas (shock!) as I don't like to do the same design more than once, and I only have a very limited amount of stash.

I've got another bootie and box to make to go with it, hopefully I'll get that done over the Easter weekend. It's also Cory's 4th birthday in 3 weeks so I'll need to get going on his card. It's my brother's birthday next week too, and it's always really hard to come up with something for him.

Now I need to go and sort my craft room and bedroom as I've just found two fab chests of drawers for £35 each from the furniture recycling centre. They are HUGE, solid wood and I can fit so much stuff into them - and they're just begging to be rubbed down, painted and customised!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all that are had a good one!

Of course, a day like this means I get to make a card. Unfortunately, at the moment, I only seem to make cards for special occasions or the odd order. I never seem to be able to sit down for long enough to just 'create'! I'm sure I'll get back into it - hopefully soon!!

Anyway, this is the card I made for my Mum - it's safe to post it now!

It's quite a long card - 12 inches, by about 3 inches tall. I created the letters using a word processing programme, and after printing them I cut them out. I started with the 'back' piece - the second 'M' - and placed it at the far right of a strip of cardstock. I used DCWV paper and used a patterned piece for the letter and a plain piece for the rest. I did this again on a shorter strip for the 'U', and an even shorter piece for the first 'M'. All of them were backed with another sheet, but I forgot to take a photo. Duh! The left hand side had an inch extra, which I punched and finished with purple Making Memories eyelets (top piece only), tied with ribbon after sticking them together so that it didn't slip.

The letters were sponged with purple and white ColorBox inks, and finished with a butterfly embellishment, some American Crafts ribbon and some Stampendous and Anita's peel offs.

I hope that made sense... reading it back it seems a little jumbled, but I'm sure fellow crafters will get the gist!!

'Twins' card

This card goes with the bootie that I posted yesterday. It doesn't look how I thought it would, but I think it turned out okay. I had planned to use a few buttons etc but I couldn't fit them on without it looking over done.

The letters are some that I found on eBay, bought them for doing a scrapbook for my eldest but never got round to using them. I covered a tag with gingham paper - the same as I used on the box - and added the letter and an eyelet. Put eyelets on the background piece as well and threaded some pale blue ribbon through.

I used my concave punch for the corners and used a Papermania brad on each one. I have to say I'm not overly keen on these brads. They look nice enough, but several had fallen apart when I opened the packet, and some are totally squashed so you can't use them. Also they don't sit straight when they're opened out as they're not bent right. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a bad batch?

I also bought some Whispers Strokes pens today. The pastel set. I could never afford the copics I really want, so figured these would do. I'd not heard many good things about them, but so far I've found the colours are fine for what I want to use them for, namely colouring my nellies!

So, that's what I'm off to do now - colour nellie's whilst watching Alias on DVD for like the gazillionth time!!

Happy Birthday Me... and A Baby Bootie

I made this for a neighbour who has just had twin boys. I love making them, they come together really quickly. There will be a card to go with it, but that's not finished yet!






The boot itself is finished with peel offs - perfect for using them up, and one of the only things I use them for now - and a bow. The label has a cute little sticker, a beaded nappy pin. It's really sparkly and nice, but doesn't really show up too well on the photos. The ribbon has 'baby' written on it - you can just about see it. The buckle is a Papermania brad.

Now, the box. I covered a sheet of card with DCWV pale blue gingham paper. Its about 10cm x 10cm, and 5cm high. The lid was made in the almost the same way, but I cut an aperture in the top and put in a piece of acetate. Again it's finished with peel offs (to hide the joins!) as this time I made the lid and added the paper afterwards. Finally I added another bow, to match the boot.

So, I'm off to enjoy some birthday (cheese)cake... a belgian chocolate one, too!

I've been playing...

... with my new Bind-it-All! I can't believe how easy it is to use - it looks complicated, but it really isn't, and is well worth the money. I got mine for £44.99 from A1 Crafts and it's only £2 postage! Really good service too, it arrived in 2 days.







So, I started with a birthday calendar. I sorted out the pages - nice and easy, half A4 - and I have them now so I can either use them again or change the fonts etc. This took longer than actually putting it together. For the cover, I used a piece of cardstock covered with paper (can't remember where it came from) and used DCWV paper to cover the inside of the cover - the blue piece. The label on the front was done in a word processor program and cut out with a 3" scallop punch, then finished with a microbead sticker. The date pages were printed on plain white card, and the back page is just pink card. It's a bit thicker than normal cardstock, and I got it from The Paper Mill Shop in one of their mixed boxes. I used a 1/2" silver wire.

Now, I'm off to play with my new Sugar Nellie 'Lola' stamps, and see if I can't come up with something that uses both new toys!

Card Organiser

Here's a card organiser I've just finished. I started it a while ago but I've only just managed to get the date pieces done. I used American Crafts double sided 12x12 cardstock, with a pocket for two months worth of cards. The date pieces are just the month with space for you to write in names and dates - I was going to put in a little calendar but figured that it would probably be simpler doing it this way.

Lettering is stamped using See D's 'Dot to Dot' alphabet set in black StazOn. I got the ribbon from the Range, but not sure what make it is. Used a comb binder to do the spine, but only until I can get a Bind-it-All. I have so many ideas for things I want to try when I finally get one! Hopefully it won't be too long a wait.












Oh, and there's new Sugar Nellie stamps out tonight (26th) - a new designer with new characters. I've just ordered a couple... there's free postage at the moment, but not sure how long that's on for, go to Funky Kits for info.

Nothing new...

I've done no crafting today, but I've really got to get my butt into gear and get some stuff done. One of my neighbours is about to have twin boys and I wanted to get a bootie and box done (there's a picture of one I've already done in an earlier post) or do I do two, or a pair in one box? Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one!

I've been selling loads of my old craft stuff - you know those stamps you just have to have when you start out and then never use? Yeah, those... well I just sold a load on eBay, so now I'm on the lookout for some newbies. I've already found MFT and it's sooo much cheaper to get things shipped over.

So, no new stuff but here's a card I did for my brother's birthday last year. No stamping, but the cards on the front are real cards, and really tiny - just perfect for cards! The paper is DCWV, and the words are peel offs (another thing I over spent on at the beginning and now rarely use!)