Christmas cards

So there has been basically no activity on this blog for months, and does that reflect how much card making I have been doing??? Sadly, the answer is pretty much. The only cards I have been making are the ones at the monthly workshops, and I have even missed the last two of those.

However, a couple of weekends ago, I suddenly starting making things again! Strange but true. Some of the photos are average, but you get the idea I am sure! Then today, a friend from the US wanted to see what I have been making, and so I posted them here! Then tonight, I was thinking,...I really should do a proper post, so here we are!




This card is a tri-fold card. All the way through making it I was unconvinced at how it would work out, but once I put it all together, I loved it, and now have made 3 in this colour, 3 in green, and will be making more to send out to people!



This one was just an idea I wanted to try with stripes of glitter. I have to say that I was pretty pleased with the way it worked out, but I think that if I make it again I will put the white card with the stripes on against a different colour card or something.




This was another messing around one, and in the end I was quite pleased with how it worked out, but it was a pain in the butt sticking all those little HO's on there!


I really like this one, and am probably going to make more of them. I also made one with 5 stars too. The fact that both the paper and the card are shimmery doesn't really show up, but IRL you can see it.



These two were made using the offcuts of the stars for the card above. The funny think is I was showing a girl at work and she loved them! Didn't have the heart to tell her that they literally took a couple of minutes to do!



Because I have actually been playing around, I do have a few more ideas, but we will see how we go in terms of actually putting them all together!


In the next couple of days I will post the cards that we were doing at the workshops.

Just needed some inspiration!

What I actually need to do is make a stockpile of cards that I can adapt for messages like Hi, Enjoy and Have a good day!

I am sending a book to an online friend who has just come home from living in Korea, so just needed to whip up something quick to send with the book. Not bad for a very quick effort.

These are the same bottletop stickers that I used for my sister's birthday card. I've got two more lots of them to use. I know when I am going to use one, but I want to move away from using it on black when I do make that card!

Catching up!

Well...it's been a while since I posted, but I guess that is because I haven't really been doing much card making! Still been buying up big equipment wise, and still have a wish list, but not making much! I do think about making things though. I actually need to make a Thank You card in the next few days...maybe posting tonight will help my inspiration to kick in....or my motivation at the very least!

The biggest piece of equipment that I bought was a heat gun for embossing...haven't even taken it out of the box yet though! How slack is that?


Since the last time I posted we have had two classes, so I thought that I should post those at the very least.

The first one was the Easter class, and the focus was on using glitter. I made this card for my son, but then ended up leaving it behind when we went away so maybe he will get it next year.




We also made a bookmark using the same technique. I would like to make more bookmarks but I will have to buy a laminator, so I will wait to see when they come on sale and get one then! Unfortunately I couldn't get a very good scan of this, but you'll get the idea! Where ever you see the white lines there is actually glitter there.



Actually the class where we did this was pretty disappointing in terms of learning new things. The teacher is pregnant and has just gone back to full time work so doesn't have the time to focus on this stuff...and you could tell. Fortunately, there is someone else who she can hand onto and we did some good stuff in her first class.

The focus in this one was punching, although you probably won't be able to tell that from the pictures! The first thing that she had us make were these cute little gift boxes...well hers were cute but so fiddly to make. Mine are a little deformed! But I still have the template so one of these days I can have another go and see if I can get the lids on properly! When the leader made hers they all sat together beautifully and then she had some punched flowers stuck on the top. Here are mine:



She also had three cards for us to make but in the end I only got to make two because the boxes took so long. The first was a Mother's Day card. One cool thing was that I finally got to use the sticker maker I bought when I went to the craft show a couple of months ago! Worked a treat.



The last card I made could have been a Mother's Day card as well, but in the end I made it into a Happy Birthday one. It hasn't photographed very well because there were lots of shimmering bits on this card. The pink was torn along the edge to give it a less than perfect seem if you like, and then the punched flowers were added along the seem. I liked this one and it was pretty simple. I could do something similar again I am sure.



Next class is not this Friday night but the one after, and it will be the new girl teaching again. I look forward to seeing what she has us doing this time!

Easter Cards

The workshop that I am going to once a month has a set challenge each month, which I think I have mentioned before. This month was supposed to be stamping, but now that is being changed to next month, and this month's challenge is going to be Easter.

I don't have a problem with changing challenges but my question is....do people give cards at Easter? I don't think I have ever given or received, or seen anyone else give or receive!

Two in one day

I actually made this one on Friday as well as the one in the last post. This one was made using the papers in the packs that I buy, and will be used for the stamping challenge.

Somewhat surprisingly, I am actually pretty happy with this one. The only thing I should have done differently is inked in blue around the edges of the green card, but you know, that's pretty good for me to find that as the only thing I could have done differently!




My son has gone a bit card making mad over the last two days, even making me a birthday card.




My birthday isn't until June!

Something I whipped up earlier

Well, not exactly, but you know...





I am going to be sending a book to a friend of mine soon, and she really liked lighthouses, so I was trying to make a card that featured one. In the end I ended up with seashells as opposed to lighthouses, but you know, things don't always end up precisely how you plan! So, the lighthouse is on the inside of the card!





The other thing is that for the workshop thing that I go to each month we have a theme for things that we need to do, and this month's is stamping. I wanted to try stamping on vellum, so this seemed like as good a opportunity as any.





As usual I am not 100% happy, but I am not sure that I ever will be. Most of the time I end up thinking that the cards I make need something...something a bit extra, but I still haven't quite worked out what that something is!

The papers are actually from some packs that I got from some packs that my local scrapbooking shop puts together each month. The owner puts together 4 packs that contain a few different pieces of coordinating papers, plus some embellishments of some kind. I've been buying them for the last couple of months, simply because I am not very adventurous when it comes to putting different packs of paper together, so in theory I am using them to get some inspiration. In reality, I like to sit there and look at them for a little while when I pull them out to look at them. This is the first time I ever got around to using any of them! In addition to the three different papers that I used there is also a brown card that goes with the pack that I couldn't really fit into this card.

Of course, as soon as I start making a card my son decides that he wants to make one as well. This time he was remarkably self controlled and didn't go completely overboard. And he managed to use the lighthouses!

Just a few more....

I actually went to a friend's house a few weeks ago and the theory was that we were going to do some crafting. By the time we chatted, and then went to three different scrapping related shops and then messed around I didn't get too many cards made, but these are what I did get done.

The first one is similar to the 50th birthday card that I made last month but just in a different colour. Only problem with this one is that I don't really like the Happy Birthday stamp that I have, and it doesn't always stamp cleanly, and it didn't this time. Given that this was the last thing that I did on this card, it will have to do. Oh well, I could always say that I did it deliberately....




For some reason I had a large amount of punched out purple flowers of all different sizes. Whilst my friend was chat, chat, chatting away, I was just playing around putting all of them on a piece of paper. In the end, I thought "why not" and went ahead and stuck them down. Some were stuck down using magic mount to give an additional bit of dimension.




This one was another, just messing around with pieces of paper card that didn't take very long to put together. Another friend has just had a baby girl so I bought this into work. One of my colleagues at work was really impressed with it, which kind of surprised me because this literally took minutes to put together. She is even talking about starting to make some of her own cards, but we'll see whether she really does or not. The tiny ribbon was stuck on using a sticker maker. I have seen the refills in the shops, but can't seem to find the actually maker in any of those same shops. It will turn up eventually I suppose, when I am not really looking for it. The other thing my friend had was this cool tool for making holes for brads, but I haven't been able to find those where she said she got it from either!