Friday, 30 December 2011

A year in cards

No more new cards for 2011 but a look back at my personal favourites for this year instead.  I only started blogging during May so some of the first few cards are new to my blog.  I tried to pick only one card for each month but for some there a few as it was proving too difficult to make a final choice.  Hope you enjoy having a browse. 

January

 

February

 

March

 

April

 

May

 

June

 

July

 

 August


 

September


October

 
 
 
November

 
December


Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and creative 2012.
Thanks for reading
Liz xx

I'd like to enter this post in the following blog hop
With an "i" For Paper - Review of the Year
Make It Monday - Anything Goes
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Wednesday, 21 December 2011

WOYWW

 


This isn't what's on my table today but it's the reason why I haven't contributed to the WOYWW postings for the past two weeks.  A grand total of 96 Christmas cards which I've nearly finished delivering.  Fortunately I only had one domino effect accident when trying to set this up.


The three snowmen cards and the mouse card on the right were ones I made for Penny Black Saturday Challenges and the penguins card on the left was made for a Sugar Bowl challenge.  I liked how these cards turned out so decided to make batches of them.  The penguin image is from the Sugar Nellie stamp Warm Winter Wishes and has been really well received by my crafting buddies.  I think the non Christmas colour scheme clinched it.  I've seen this image in various colour schemes as it's so versatile to colour and adapt to any backing papers you might have.  The cards in the middle were made using duffex decoupage toppers which I CUT OUT and made up last year but never used.  They've been used this year to make up cards to give male friends and relatives.


This batch of cards was made from a Create and Craft kit I bought a couple of years ago.  The kit gave you forty cards, two each of twenty different designs, with envelopes, embellishments and stickers and die cut decoupage to layer up and attach to the card front.  I had intended to do just that but then did a Nancy Watt and chopped the front off the card and made an A5 card by layering it on top of mint green card  and red paper edged with the Martha Stewart holly punch around the page border punch.  I used the card alphabet embellishments, added some certainly celery and real red ribbon from Stampin' up, some dazzling diamonds glitter from Stampin' up on the fur and on some of the cards a sentiment was added.  A metallic red or gold elastic cord was tied round the spine.  On the back of the original card there was a smaller image of the one on the front so again I did a Nancy and used nestabilities to cut it out and attach to the back to the new card.  The duck and hedgies card at the front was another card I made for a Penny Black Saturday Challenge.


These cards were ones I made using toppers from a Fizzy Moon decoupage pad.  The pad allowed you to make three each of eight different toppers.  Still got six left to use another year.  These are my specials for family and close friends.  The Papeterie had an offer on earlier this year where you could buy a stamp set, brads, a 6"x6" paper pad and a decoupage pad for £15 so I've used elements from these plus I had bought some ribbon extra.. These batches of cards came to a total of 96 and then there were three more to make 99.


These three were made after I had started giving out the others so I couldn't do a complete table of all the cards I'd made this year.  I should have gone on to make one more to make the round 100 but ran out of steam.

Thank you for reading today and may I take this opportunity to say a Merry Christmas to those of you who have taken the time to leave lovely encouraging comments this past year and a thank you to those of you who chosen to follow my ramblings.  Hope you all have a lovely time over the festive period and I look forward to getting my creative hat on again after having my annual sleep in my cracker one.

Best Wishes
Liz xx   
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Tuesday, 20 December 2011

Baby Girl

 

Just over a week ago a new little grand-niece joined the family and this is the card I've made to welcome her arrival.  Keira was a few days overdue but arrived safe and well and was home a few days later.  The teddy bear character images on this one are from a Cuddly Buddly download  Teddy Bear's Alphabet Pink.  I used the My Craft Studio graphics programme to resize and print them and then cut them out using square nestabilities dies.  Because the background looked rather white I used Stampin' up Pink Pirouette ink to colour it in, leaving the die in place to give a white border.  The pink gingham backing paper is from the Cuddly Buddly download A Patchwork of Papers - Pink.

This was quite a simple card to put together and apart from using some ribbon, brads, pink safety pins and Quickutz button die cuts it basically involved layering up different papers.  The Martha Stewart punch around the page set, Eyelet Lace, was used to decorate the edges of the gingham paper.

The sentiment was computer generated and sponged around the edges with the Pink Pirouette ink as was the scalloped edged card.  To finish off a few crystal dot peel offs were added for sparkle.  This is probably my last card creation for this year and delighted that it's for a very happy occasion.


I'd like to enter this card in the following challenge
Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thanks for reading today.
Liz xx
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Monday, 19 December 2011

Butterfly Girl

 

This is a card I've made for my crafting buddy Anne, from the Crafting Bee group, who celebrates her birthday today.  From the two little craft groups I attend there are five ladies with birthdays this month.  There must be a creative streak amongst Sagittarians and Capricorns.  I'd have to agree to that being a Capricorn myself.  Won't agree to being a stubborn old goat though.

This card is covered in butterflies galore from various sources.  The stamped image is from The Stamp Man and is included on one of their own Aspect of Designs unmounted sheets called Butterfly Beauties.  It's a lovely collection of stamps and it was because I had seen two cards which Anne had made using this set of stamps that I decided to buy the sheet for myself and then use it to make a card for her.  The image was stamped using Versamark ink and then embossed using Stampendous Disco Black embossing powder.  I just love the sparkle from this in night light.  Daffodil delight ink was sponged aroung the edge of the image but the result looked too yellow so I unearthed an ordinary brush pen which was nearer the colour, from a set of pens from Woolworths so that shows how old it is, and went over the top.


The black holographic backing card came from a Create and Craft Kit and was matted on plain black card and mustard/yellow card.  I was going to make this a black and white card but decided to add a dash of colour using Stampin' up grosgrain ribbon, which I think is so saffron, and card in my stash to match.  Some of the butterfly embellishments were cut from this card and white card using the Beautiful Wings embosslits die from Stampin' up.  This was a new technique for me as usually I've cut shapes and then had to emboss them afterwards in an embossing folder.  The cut and embossing together gave a cleaner finish to the die cut and even some of the butterflies had embossed borders.  I was delighted with the outcome.  The other butterflies were silver peel offs stuck to acetate, cut out and then after folding back the wings they were attached to the card with super glue.  There are a couple of black peel off butterflies too.

The final butterfly touch was to cut out backing panels and edge them using the butterfly punch around the page set from Martha Stewart.  The Happy Birthday paper in the centre of the panels is from a Cuddly Buddly download a Patchwork of Papers - Blue printed in greyscale.  The final touches were some crystal dot peel offs and a Happy Birthday  peel off.

Hope you had a lovely birthday Anne.

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges
Make It Monday - Anything Goes
The Stamp Man Challenge - Techniques

Thanks for reading today
Liz xx
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Saturday, 17 December 2011

Dolphins

 

I haven't taken time to add to my blog lately as Christmas card making has taken over but in amongst it all this is an easel card I made for an order.  The brief was that the lady really liked dophins so that's what I went with although I had no images.  A google images search for dophin digital stamps took me to this image from Stitchy Bear Stamps called Leaping Dolphins.  I felt this image was appropriate to put on a card for a lady celebrating her sixtieth birthday and instead of colouring it I left it in the raw black and white format and selected embellishments and papers to create a monochrome card.

To frame the image I tried to create a porthole effect and used a compass cutter to cut out the circle layers and then decorataed it with eyelets and little dolphin embellishments which were made using a Quickutz die. Little crystal peeloff dots were added in between to represent air bubbles.  The Happy Birthday, gingham and spotted backing papers were from a Cuddly Buddly download, A Patchworwk of Papers - Blue, and printed in greyscale.

For the base panel I tried to create a scene of dolphins playing in the waves and layered up Quickutz diecuts of waves and dolphins and then personalised it with alphabet die cuts to spell sixty.  The final embellishment was some black grosgrain ribbon from Stampin' up.


The easel stops were made using layered up circles cut using Spellbinders nestabilities dies. Although it brought the Christmas production line to a halt it was a refreshing diversion from the glitter and snowflakes to create this card.

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges
One Stitch At A Time Challenge 92 - Use a Digi
Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Thanks for reading
Liz xx
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Thursday, 1 December 2011

Penny Black Saturday Challenge Week 179 - Christmas/Red+Embossing

 

This is my entry for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge this week where the theme is Christmas with Red and Embossing.  For the main image I've chosed the Penny Black stamp Sweet Snowman once again and coloured him with Promarkers.  I'm not trying to sound like Bruce Forsyth but this one is fast becoming my favourite and I've bought a second one for my Mum to put in her Christmas parcel.  Hope she likes him as much as I do.  It's a great stamp to practice Promarker shading with.

 
The snowflake and Seasons Greetings card are from Kanban and the Real Red ribbon and Riding Hood red ink which was sponged around the main image and snowflakes were from Stampin'up.  The snowflakes were cut using a small punch and Spellbinders Create a Flake 1 die set and glittered using Stampin' up Dazzling Diamnds glitter.  I didn't have a red brad left to put in the centre of the snowflake so I took a silver one, dabbed it in versamark ink and then into Stampendous stamp-n-stuff red tinsel embossing powder and heat embossed it.  After a couple more coats I had a red glittery brad.  If you want to try this make sure you grip the brad using a wooden clothes peg so as not to burn your fingers.

The white card under the main image was embossed using an embossing folder and the Cuttlebug swiss dots folder was used to emboss little dots around the snowman.  First I held the stamped image up to the light and drew a pencil line around the snowman so that I wouldn't emboss any dots over him.

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges

Thanks for reading
Liz xx
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