Jack's First Card

My youngest Jack, has got the bug for colouring in images with my promarkers. Since he did a fabulous job with this bear, I said that if he wanted to he could make it into a card and send it to someone. We needed to keep the design simple, so he told me what colour he wanted to back the bear onto, which cuttlebug embossing folder he wanted to you and how he wanted the layout of the card to look. He ran the card through the cuttlebug, punched the flowers out and added gold stickles to the middle of the the purple punched flowers, and to the centre of the embossed ones. He put the glue on the flowers and stuck them down, and the only thing I did was to stick the image to the backing purple paper and then to the card.

Jack would like to enter this card into the Just Cute Bears Challenge - Bear Necessities; and the Cowgirl's Sunday Challenge - Anything Goes

The card is winging it over to one of the ladies on the MSE thread to go with another card I am sending her - hope she likes it.

Another swirly paper card

I've spent this afternoon making another card, as the kids are behaving, all the housework is done, so I am having some me time without feeling guilty!

I've made this card using a sketch from 'Skipping Stones Design, and incorporated the colours from the current 'Creative Inspirations' challenge which is to use Chocolate and Mint.

I had a lot of off cuts from doing my mum's party invitiations earlier this week, and so this was a fairly quick card for me to make, since I had already done a couple of of spare butterfly toppers. All I have done is made 2 lots of mats of silver, brown and swirly green paper, added a sentiment and a couple of flat back gems and the card is done. Very easy, and I love the simplicity of the sketch.

Challenges entered: Skipping Stones Design - sketch; Creative Inspirations - chocolate and mint; Pollycraft - happy birthday; Shelley's Images Blog - happy birthday; Charisma Cardz Challenge - anything but a square; Craftalicious Challenge - birthdays

A Gatefold Party Invitation

My mum is a having an important birthday at the end of September, and decided that she would like to find a lovely restaurant to have a lunch party for some of the family. Like you do, I offered to make her some invites.

Her request was to have something green on it as it is her favourite colour, but apart from that the design was up to me.

I'd seen this beautiful swirly green and white paper in a local craft shop a few months ago, as I thought it was really pretty and would make some fabulous cards.

Eventually I decided to make a gatefold card and bring together the colours green and silver and incorporate the butterfly that I often use into the design.

I only had to make 7 luckily because I had not appreciated how long it would take to cut out all the layers for each card -13 on each card if you include the matting under the butterfly.

I've been making them for a while, as they are so time consuming to do, but here is the finished result. I was happy with them and my mum loved them.

For the inside I have added a piece of mirrored card, and on top of that put the details of the party on.

The sparkly butterfly cut on the craft robo, and was matted on white card, then swirly green paper and finally a silver oval, and attached to the card using 3d foam pads.

Yesterday through the post I rececived our invite to the party, and knowing what it was I asked my youngest Jack to answer it. When he took it out of the envelope, he said 'wow mummy, this is a pretty card, I wonder who made it'. With a big smile on my face, I said I did, and he gave me a big kiss, as it was really pretty. He is only 7 bless him, but I love him to pieces for making my day!

Teachers Gifts for the End of Term

I have really been stressing about a teachers gift for the end of term, and panicking that I wouldn't get things sorted in time. So yesterday was my day off, and I set to work on the gifts.


A couple of weeks ago whilst blog hopping, I saw some really pretty boxes, which got me thinking that I could do something similar.

So I first had to make some mini chocolate chip cookies, to go in the boxes.

I'd already decided the colour scheme of the boxes was going to be pink and purple so that they matched perfectly with the teachers thank you cards that I blogged last week.

So I went about making some tags for the boxes. For this I used exactly the same card that I had for the cards, and cut 2 labels using Labels 4 Nestablities. I had also decided to add an eyelet to the label for a better result for threading the ribbon, and also because I hardly every use my cropadile! The 'Thank you' is part of the 'with gratitude' cuttlebug die that I picked up from Hobbycraft at the weekend for £4.00 - a real bargin as it came with another embossing folder.

Then I made up 6 boxes: 3 pink and 3 purple, using the same card as for the cards and tags. My OH created the design of the box using the Craft Robo. After many attempts and tweaks we came up with something that both of us were happy with.

You would not belive how long it took to get the template right considering that it is made out of one piece of A4 and four small bits of DST!

To give the box a bit of a lift I decided to emboss the top and flap of the box using the daisy cuttlebug folder (as used on the cards) and it worked beautifully.

Finally, after filling each box with 6 cookies, and adding a piece of ribbon these are the finished results, and I love them!

The kids took them into school today, and their teachers and assistants loved them, so all my hard work was well worth while.

Now I have mastered the boxes, I will be making many more in the future.

I'd like to enter these boxes into the Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - Anything but a Card

A Mans Card

Only realised today, that it was one of my best friends OH's birthday tomorrow, so have had to make a quick card for him tonight. Luckily I had some golfing embellishments in my stash that I could use - think they came from Wilkinsons a while ago.

I have used a plain square white card and matted some silver and green onto it. It really isn't clear from the photo but for the white card under the 3d embellishments I have made another 'watermark' backing sheet, and this time it is of a golfer taking a swing shot, that I got from clipart in word. It looks really effective in the flesh. Another first for me was doing some hand drawn faux stitches, which actually gave the card a lift. Decided to do it on the sentiment to, but went a bit to wonky, but never mind, it is the thought that counts. Nice, simple and easy to make card, and I am please with how it has come out.

I'd like to enter it into the following challenges:

Craftalicious Challenge - Birthdays

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Happy Birthday

The Crazy Challenge - Boys will be Boys

Teachers Cards for the End of Term

I've had a bit of time this afternoon, to finally get on an make the teachers and teaching assistants cards for the kids to give out at the end of term on Friday.

I've made four in pink and four in purple using exactly the same layout and image.

The image is from Squiggyfly, and is one of the ones I won earlier in the year.

Now that I have boosted my promarker collection I have been able to use different shades for different areas.

Really pleased with how they have come out.

I've used a square white card onto which I have matted some pink/purple card, which has been embossed through the cuttlebug with the daisy folder. The image was matted onto gemstone card, and an coordinating shade of pink/purple used with a friskas boarder punch on the left hand side under the image. A piece of ribbon from my stash has also been added in a contrasting colour.

I'd like to enter the pink version into the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz - Pink
Stampavie and more challenge - Anything goes

One Stitch at a Time - Digi Madness
Shelly's Images Blog - Lots of Layers

Been AWOL for a while, but am now back doing what I love

Can't believe it has been almost 3 months since I last blogged. Had a bit of a tough time lately what with one thing and another, and had completely lost my cardmaking mojo. Yesterday I was asked to make a card for a friend based on a bottle of ketchup! The criteria was for there to be a ketchup bottle on it somewhere, the name of the person it was for, and the school name somewhere. It turns out that it is a thank you card of a teacher at her daughters school, and he absolutely loves tomato ketchup, and has it with everything. Well this is what I came up with, another 3d part decoupage card:

The teacher's name is Mr Coleman, and I decided to put a photo of him on the neck of the bottle, and add Est 2010, so he knew when he got it. CPFJ is the name of the school. It isn't a really clear photo but was the only one I could find on the school website.

I have decoupaged the label, bottle top, and label on the neck of the bottle and printed them all out on photo paper, so they are really glossy, although you can't tell from the photo. The picture was then matted onto some silver and red card. I have made the white card background paper, and for the first time tried out 'watermarks' in Word, and have just copied and resized the main bottle lots of times to give the effect on the white card. Really please with the result and my friend loved it.

I'd like to enter it into:

Wanna-b-riches current challenge on MSE which was to use a new technique
Donna's Den of Crafts - Its a Mans World Challenge
Fairy Fun Fridays - For the Boys