Tag Archives: Cards

Christmas kids crafting

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This week my daughter has been quite poorly. The change in the weather has brought out all the bugs! So after a couple of days in bed I decided we could do a bit of crafting for Christmas. I’ve been making some Christmas cards, getting ready for my Christmas craft stall and for some orders. As I was making cards, she wanted to make cards too. Out came the Christmas bit box and we thought it would be fun to get a bit messy, so there was lots of ink, pens, glitter and stamps.

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It’s such fun making Christmas cards. My daughter still loves stickers too, so peel offs were greatly in evidence too.

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These will be her cards to her teachers and Grandparents this year. Stamping was great fun. So I think there maybe some ink pads and stamp sets in her stocking this year.

There’s nothing nicer than a kitchen covered in glitter!!! And only one more week to half term.

Happy crafting
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Birthdays

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Like many families, I have a run of birthdays in certain times of the year. We have loads in January and February and then again in August and September. So the last few weeks I’ve been trying to fit in making some cards for my own use! It’s not always easy finding the time to make cards for us to use as a family, particularly in the Summer holidays. Every time I get some things out to use, my daughter wants to use all the same stuff! Typical I suppose, it doesn’t matter if I gave her some things for her to use, she just wants to do the same as me. It’s starting to get very expensive!!

Anyway, I have a few male birthdays in the family around this time of year and they all have their hobbies. Not all of them are easy to find relevant toppers for either. My brother turned 40 this year and he loves football, so I dug out some footballing paper. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of being 40, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. So I made this explosion card using lots of different papers and then cut out the numbers and added them on small paper springs, so that they popped out. I like the effect, not to sure he was as thrilled with it!! Ha ha.

Exploding 40th Birthday Card

Next was a friend that I used to work with, he’s fairly recently bought a small boat and likes to spend his weekends, messing about on it. Finding boats to add to cards is reasonably straightforward. I hope he liked it!

Sailing Birthday Card

Next week is my hubby’s birthday, but he’s off to the USA on a work trip. So this year , for one year only, he’s having his birthday early this weekend. He is a major cycle fiend and loves both watching track and road cycling, and road cycling himself. He’s been taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge this Summer and has been out on his bake even more than usual. Trying to find good quality road bike toppers and papers is really difficult. I found a small set a few years ago and that has come out again for his birthday card. This one was chosen by my daughter.

Cyclist Birthday Card

I hope they all liked their cards, as I had some fun making them. It’s good to have some card making time again. I have lots more ideas for some cards that I hope to be able to fit in over the holidays!

Happy birthday crafting
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Dinosaurs

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The other day I had a request for a card with a dinosaur theme! With a daughter that loves dinosaurs I thought this would be relatively easy to find something with dinosaurs on. Surely there would be baking papers and some pictures of dinosaurs somewhere in the house.

Alas I was wrong. I couldn’t find anything, so it was time to get the pens out and start drawing. I decided as the card was for a little girl starting school, that I would go with a cuter style dinosaur. My daughter certainly approved of the diplodocus. I thought instead of colouring the picture by hand, I would paper-piece the scene together. It was great to practice my cutting skills, although very time consuming.

It’s not quite finished as I’m either going to add a speech bubble with a personalised good luck message from the diplodocus, or a stegosaurus with a personalised leaf.

I’d love some feedback on this one, what do you think of the idea?

Dinosaur Card

Happy crafting
x

Crafting in the sun

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I can’t believe how hot it’s been so far this Summer.  And it’s the school holidays too!  I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve been struggling to do anything let alone any crafting.

My house has a South facing back garden with the patio is raised above the garden and it’s been like a sauna sitting out.  I’ve been hiding inside as much as I can but that hasn’t been easy either.

I struggle to knit in the summer as my hands get very hot which often makes my needles stick or worse, squeak.  But this year I’ve been using my bamboo knitting needles and I’ve managed to start a new knitting project as a well done present for my daughters’ brilliant school report.

I have also managed to do a little crochet, but I’ve found using yarn a very hot business, so I’ve been making some cards ready for personalisation and orders.

Card insert

I’ve taken a liking to ripping paper!

I’m looking forward to some slightly cooler, or at least less humid weather so I can get on with some more crafts.

Happy crafting
x

Bury Show Results

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Well I can’t quite believe it, here are my entries in the show tent before judging.

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There were more entries than last year. I didn’t place with my crochet comforter. I’m a bit disappointed with that. First prize was a knitted pink blanket, Second was a little knitted jacket, and third was the Humpty. Maybe I should have made a full blanket….

But aside from that I did much better with my card. It was given first place. I can’t quite believe it, as it was so very different from all the other entries.

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Woo hoo. Time to start thinking about an entry for next year.

Happy crafting
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Bury Show Entries…..

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Well, I’ve been busy making for the 71st Bury Show tomorrow. I’m going to enter two categories this year, the handmade greeting card, and the knitted or crochet item for a baby or toddler.

I enjoyed making the handbag card so much the other day that I thought I’d make another for my entry.

Bury Show Card Entry

I thought I’d try something a bit different with the knitted or crochet item. I didn’t have time to make a full blanket, so I made four different granny squares in yellow acrylic baby yarn with blue and pink shapes in the centres. I joined them together and then crocheted a border using alternate rows of yellow, blue and pink, followed by a frilly edge. It was the perfect size to make into a blankie / comforter, so I added a crocheted rabbit to the centre.

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I hope to do better than the two third places from last year.

Happy crafting
x

Card Candi

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I’ve had a bag of Craftwork Cards, Card-candi for ages now and hardly used it at all. I think the only thing I’ve used it for is to add occasional details on the corners or edges of cards. It’s great for that, but I though I should maybe try something new with it.

Having seen a number of the shows on Create and Craft TV, I was inspired to try making some simple flowers from the card candi. As my daughter has a couple of school friend birthday parties coming up, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to use some pink and make some little flowers.

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This card candi is a really different product and comes in all sorts of colours and designs. I think I will be investing in more in the future. It’s great to use with the kids too as you can make all types of designs with it. My daughter likes making patterns and caterpillars with it. My next project is to do some experimenting and investigating you tube for more ideas.

What do you make with yours?

Happy crafting
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Shabby Chic?

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The shabby chic style seems set to continue as a trend in home decor and cardmaking. It hasn’t been a trend that I have taken too. Don’t get me wrong, I do like examples of it, however, it hasn’t been something I have been able to make successfully.

But since my lovely relaxed holiday I have been open to trying some new things and thought I’d have a go at making the shabby chic look fit in with my clean and simple style. I like to use fonts in my work, though I often don’t get the opportunity. This week I was asked to make a couple of wedding cards using the word ‘LOVE’ as the focus.

I found a lovely free font which I was able to resize to make it the main topper. I had seen some other cards with ripped pieces of papers used to mat and layer, so I thought I’d give it a try. This is what I came up with….

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Wedding Love card

It was great fun to go through all my papers and putting them together. A great way of using up some of the bits in my bit box. I love the kraft card, and I am going to experiment further with my paper crimper, to give some additional texture to the cards. I think the shabby look of the papers works well in contrast with the shaped card.

I’d love to hear what you do with shabby chic or what you think of my cards.

Happy crafting
x

Father’s Day

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With Father’s Day coming up in a few weeks time – Sunday June 15th – I thought I’d look at some of the Dad related items I have available.

My Dad loves football and golf, so I’ve made a number of simple Father’s Day cards using these as my inspiration.

Football Dad and Spider

Football Dad and Spider

Golf Dad

Golf Dad

I really love the embossing board that I used to make these cards. It’s fun to use up leftover pieces of papers. My Dad really liked his golf card last year. These cards also include handmade shrink plastic charms. These are great fun to do with the kids too. My 5 year old daughter loves watching them shrink to tiny charms.

I am taking orders for any of the cards on my sale page and I can make orders to your requirements. Just drop me an e-mail or send me a message on my facebook page.

So don’t forget your Dad on Father’s Day.

Happy crafting
x

Masculine cards

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I have been somewhat pre-occupied with crochet recently. Since I managed to get the hang of reading patterns and double crochet I have spent all my crafting time with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook.

This week I’ve resolved to try not to pick up my crochet hook until the evening, and to spend some time making some cards. In particular male cards. I’ve always struggled to make masculine cards. The men in my family aren’t all into classic cars, ships and football! So on Sunday I raided my card and paper stash looking for some masculine style inspiration. I came up with a collection of decoupage from Docrafts, called Home to Roost and a Hunkydory kit, For the Boys.

I set myself up on the kitchen table, watching the birds in the garden, I really started to connect with the Home to Roost kit. I don’t generally do very much decoupage, but this is a lovely set of designs. The lovely little bird details are beautifully painted and make gorgeous little finishing touches. So here are some of the cards I made.

Gardeners Bench

Gardeners Bench

Wellies

Wellies

I then had some ideas to make some cards for boys and out came the Hunkydory kit. I was inspired my daughter’s recent school topic of ‘space’ and made the following cards for boys (or girls) birthdays.

Spaceman

Spaceman

Alien

Alien

I plan to make some more cards that can be used for men too. Any suggestions for themes for men and boys?

Happy crafting
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