Champagne and hearts

Celebrating Good Times!

I got the idea most likely from Pinterest, and then had to go out and find small heart designs.  I found a couple of cute Dovecraft sets of tiny hearts, not too badly priced.  Halfway through I lost one of the tinier hearts and bought a replacement set.  (Which I obviously found as soon as the new set arrived!)

Time To and Celebrate came via a magazine, along with the champagne/cork/champagne glass dies.

I also had a small embossing folder with hearts that I really fancied using.  The papers were all out of my paper stash.  I really liked the backing paper with the pink roses.  I think it helps to ground the flow of hearts up and the right hand side of the card.

It took a while to sort out the placement of everything, espcially getting the embossed parts of the paper to fit in with my design.

To show a little more the detail - here's a larger picture of the dies.  I cut the celebrate die out twice to make it pop out a little and give it some definition.

The champagne bottle is two dies with the colours swopped, so you get a red bottle with silver labels.  Same with the champagne glasses.

I tried the Time To as just letters but they got lost on the card so I went to reverse image and backed it onto black card.

Some extra detial on the hearts here.  Each heart is folded and stuck down with a thin line of glue on the fold.

I used a comination of heart dies, combining large hearts with small ones to create depth or extra coverage.

In the inside, I used a lovely vellum quote on some equally lovely paper.

Stamping Christmas

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,

how did you get to be so colourful?

Well, you buy a fun pack of colourful stamps and get stamping! 

Buying a magazine or two for the stamps doesn't hurt either.  Or did I buy them?  Hmmm



I like using brown paper card stock as it really sets the stamps off when you're stamping in different colours.  It's a nice 'woody' backdrop to the trees too.  Another major plus is that there's no need to fuss about with backing papers. 

How are thy leaves so verdant!

But even in winter is thy prime.

Sympathy

In Sympathy

These cards can be hard to get right, more so for the message than what toppers and images are used.

I ended up going on to Pinterest for inspiration, and found the card on the right. Sorry for the naff image but i think you get the idea.



And I think I matched it pretty good!  

I'd some die cut butterflies from a magazine I'd bought, and using my die cutter to cut out the layered circles created a nice 3D effect.  

I die cut out a tag to put the sympathy words in, and then punched in a couple of eyelets to thread in the ribbon.

Side by side, not bad!

Wedding Day

Here comes the bride,

and here comes the gnashing of teeth and trying to get the hearts to behave.  

In my mind's eye, I'd thought that the purple paper would offset the whiteness of the dress and the other toppers but it didn't.  I then thought four hearts would do the trick.  Nope!

How did I get a crease in the paper?

Time running out led to a complete rethink and lo!  New colour scheme (brown), pretty backing paper (flowers on brown paper), extra hearts and I think the final card looks a 100 times better. 

minus one heart though...can you spot the difference?

Let’s get married

Wedding Day Cards, 

Nom some cake, and

have so many stylised icons, it can be heard to pick on a theme.  Hearts, dresses, cakes, champagne, rings, horseshoes, confetti, bells, and so on.

I'd bought some wedding card toppers and just needed the right paper and the right positioning.  I added in some hearts out of my stash, and voila!

have a glass or two of sparkly

Christmas beginnings

Christmas!  

Full of cheer, good tidings and curses as I try and make a card I actually like!

Dodgy edging but I like the toppers

Last year I tried various formats: card toppers, quilling and being creative with left over decorations.

Think i messed up on the snow and backing paper

Yeah, not quite right! And the card warped with the glue

Not sure I got it right with any of them!  Still, they kept me busy and you've got to start somewhere, right?

Bonus - here's a wreath.  The basis is a wreath from Poundland that I stripped down, leaving the red flowers and pine cones.  I then added in holly from the garden, using thin metal wire to hold it all together.  

Fathers Day Spinning Card

Fathers Day rolls around every year,

with the eternal question of 'what to do? Well, here's my 'to do'.  A flip card!

I can never seem to measure anything correctly, and this wasn't an exception as it needed some slight adjustment to make sure the corners of the middle flip piece didn't catch on the rest of the card.

   I really liked the way the card looks and flips between the dog and the message.  

Even better was that I finally used some of the pet paper I'd got from a magazine.  And it wasn't a cat! 

Raaaah! 

I carried on the dog theme with making the envelope out of the same paper.  I had to add some extra paper (orange) as it wasn't quite large enough for the envelope.

Anyone for cricket?

Anyone for cricket?

Pins and more pins!

Or do you prefer tennis?

I'm not sure a racket would have been any easier! It was hard working out how to quill the bat and ball. 

In retrospect I shouldn't have put a surrounding line where the ball hits the bat.

Pre flowers, looking better?

for the field I used hand made green paper because it has that nice uneven effect that can emulate grass.  Dotted in some flowers and I was done?  Nope!

The card felt unbalanced in some way.  Possibly I'd put the field in too high, too much white space below it?  Well, I added in a bunch of flowers which also didn't feel quite right.  Mrrrrrrr.  

Still I enjoyed making this card, and looking back if I do a similar style card I'm sure I'll do better.

Patchwork cards

Quilting a card is a fun way of using up those pretty scraps of paper you just can’t bear to let go and consign to the recycle bin.


Add some stitches with a pen/colour of choice and you’re off!  

It's a littler easier said than done but it's still easier than sewing an actual quilt!   

Those scraps too had to fit in with each other just right, and it took some fussing about with them before I was happy with the end image.     

I also added in an extra detail by overlapping a corner scrap, bottom left. 

I forget I'd need to add some text.  Luckily I had a blankish square I could use.  

I added the name with some red spangly letters and finished it off with a couple of cute flower toppers out of my stash.

Baby boom time

New baby on the block?

If yes, then here's a cute card to welcome a new baby.

Keeping it simple can do wonders for most things, card making included. 

Add some gems and ribbon, and low budget stickers are all you need to do the trick. 

Thanks...for all the fish

My first card with a quilled kitty.

Not too sure about the ballon as its a bit lumpy but I liked that I found a use for the flower topper the cat sirs on.

I managed to smudge the card and had to use a white pen to hide it. Hense the bits of white you can see.

It takes two

Another engagement and we're off again! This time the tail holds a balloon and another balloon has the ring.

 I like the ring better but not entirely sure the card tells the story I was going for, lol. The ring's not floating away, it's coming towards the cat!

Flower power

A quick birthday card I made at work for a friend.

I'm not the greatest artist but can manage a flower 😁 

I used pens I found in my desk drawer and added a pearl to the centre of the flower. 

Simple but effective.