Girly Birthday Card

I used a white base for this A5 card, with a slightly smaller piece of black matted on top. I cut four rectangles of the two papers - not sure what brand they are, it doesn't say anywhere on them - and made one large rectangle. I think if I did it in future I would cut one full sized piece and stick the two contrasting pieces to it - a bit of a waste when you're as short of stash as I am but definitely easier. I'm not sure if you can see it properly from the photo but some of the flowers on both papers are outlined in silver, so I wanted to carry that on in the other layers. I cut the middle layer from some silver card I pinched from Cory's craft box (I swear that boy has more than I do!) and used my ticket punch for the corners. On top of that is another rectangle of black. The flowers are single layers of what are actually 3D peel offs, stuck onto acetate and coloured from the back using the peel off markers from Imag-e-nation. I popped them up on glue dots for a bit of dimension, and added the greeting - again with peel offs, as I don't have enough stamps :(

Hope you like it, and thanks for looking!

Cards for Father's Day and a Birthday

Ok, so I know Father's Day was a while ago, but never mind! These were made for my dad, and for my Grandad from my mum.





For the background I used Basic Grey paper, and used my sanding block to soften the edges a bit, as I did with all of the layers. The dp is from my local craft shop, but I don't know who from. The layer with the lettering on is cream card coloured with chalks, and peel offs. I finished it with 3 page pebbles.




This card looks simple, and had I had a bit more stash it would've been! I knew what I wanted to do with this card, and I had the dp but no paper that matched for the background. So I dug out the coffee - can't stand the stuff personally, but it seems it does have it's uses! - and stained a piece of white cs. When it was dry, I added darker patches with more coffee and chalks.


The dp is mounted on some paper I got from the freebie pack from Readicut - you can't see it but it's metallic. The tag - which is off of some clothes from Asda - is also covered in this paper, and the edges have been sanded. The ribbon is American Crafts, and I finished the corner with some mini brads.





For this card I layered pink cs onto the base, and the green and patterned paper are a double sided dp layered on more white. The page pebbles use the same paper, and the Cuttlebugged butterfly is one from Dimps (thanks!). Simple but effective.

Thanks for looking

Sketch pad

I made this using my Bind-it-All. It's A5 size, so just right for popping in a bag (well, one of my cavernous hold-alls, anyway!) and carrying around with me, for when I'm feeling 'inspired'!

The paper I used for the cover is Basic Grey, and on the inside I used a blue to match that in the paper. The letters are from a pack that Dawn from the Imag-e-nation forum sent me, so thanks Dawn! I left them as they were, as they did have a very light pattern on them and I think they show up well against the background. The ribbons are from American Crafts and Dovecraft.

A few new things

This is the first of several posts I'll make today, seems as I haven't posted for three months.... which is just shocking!

Beaded Pens

I've wanted to make these for ages, and I finally bit the bullet and ordered some Mini Micro beads from PennyWise Arts - which arrived in a week and I was only charged $8 for shipping, so I would definitely recommend them. The pens are from Tesco - a pack of 6 is £1.00.

I cut a piece of paper the length of the clear part of the pen and wide enough to wrap around with a slight overlap, then used 3mm dst to attach it to the pen. All of the pens here used 6x6 DCWV paper - the patterns are scaled down, and on an area as small as the pen I prefer this to bigger pieces.

I then cut a piece of double sided tape from an A4 sheet (from Stix2), the same size as the paper. I attached it to the pen ** CAREFULLY **, as it's pretty much permanent; then I removed the other side of the tape and rolled it in the beads. I rolled it around between my hands for a couple of minutes just to make sure they all stick - as yet, they're all still on there!

Well, I hope that made sense... here's the picture

Thanks for looking

A Thank You card

Just a quick post today, as I've still got some more thankyou cards to do after Cory's birthday.



This card is just over 4" square. I used a piece of DCWV paper from a 6x6 block and cut it a couple of mm smaller all round. The scallop circle is done with the 3" punch, from the same cs as the base (from the Paper Mill Shop - before they changed their prices and box sizes - they don't do that colour any more!). I stamped the image which is 'Sketchbook Dragonfly' from Stampendous, coloured it using the Whispers Pastel set, cut it out and stuck it onto the scallop. I added the dots with a white Sakura pen, and added a couple of primas with a Dovecraft brad.



Thanks for reading!

Birthday Banner

Two posts in one day, can you believe it?!


I made this banner for Cory's birthday. Now, until now I've always bought banners - it never even occured to me to make one! Duh! So I was sitting there after I bought the Dovecraft Masculine pack, thinking 'what am I going to make with all this 'male' type paper, as I have so few male cards to make?' I thought it would be relegated to a drawer and forgotten about, until I thought of doing this:





Sorry it's not a great picture, but the weather's been awful and I just couldn't get a decent photo.
You can see better if you click it. (Please try to ignore the fact that the patterns are out of sequence... not sure how I managed it, but it bugs me every time I look at it!)


I made the triangles with plain white cs, and I got 3 triangles from a sheet - turn an A4 sheet so it's landscape and mark at 14 and 28cm from the left. Turn it around and mark at 7 and 21cm from the right hand side. You can connect the lines, but I just used a metal rule and a craft knife to cut them. I cut the dp 5mm smaller all round and used dst to attach them to the cs. The scallop squares were done using my 2" Woodware punch, and the letters are some stickers I bought ages ago - can't remember where, though - and never used so I thought I'd try them.


I joined them together using a length of white 5mm ribbon from the bargain box at the local craft shop. I just popped a tiny piece of dst behind the ribbon on the back of the triangle to stop it slipping, or I know I would be constantly straightening them up! One thing though - this size triangle means that the banner is about 6 feet long! Didn't think to add it all up before I started cutting....


Thanks for reading

Cory had a great birthday!

Well it was Cory's birthday yesterday... can't believe he's 4 already! We took him to Marwell Zoo for the day, and he loved it. Him and Jack were on their best behaviour too, not a single moan between them, but they did get super-hyper and didn't go to bed til 9 - about 3 hours after I could've happily crashed out! He saw all his favourite animals - giraffes, tigers, penguins, hippos and rhinos - so he was really happy with that, as he missed the giraffes when we went to London zoo last year. We didn't tell him where we were going, so it wasn't until he saw the huge picture of a tiger at the entrance that he kind of guessed where we were.















Sorry, none of the photos have been edited at all, as none of my programs seem to want to co-operate today!



Here's the card I made for him:





It was a pretty simple card in terms of the layering - the base is misc. yellow 12x12 cardstock, layered with the same cs in orange and green. I drew the picture, which took a fair while, and did the border separately - next time I'll draw the border and the picture on the same piece of paper, it's far too fiddly cutting the border out and risk ripping it. Now I haven't got any of the markers or pencils that I would like and have seen so many brilliant things done with, I just used bulk standard kids coloured pencils from the supermarket. Not the best result in the world, but I think it worked! I used sticky pads to make it stand out a bit. Oh, and I added the flower and brad but I can't remember who they are by.

Now I just have to make some thankyou cards.... Cory's practising his handwriting so he can sign them!