Anything but square for a kid...

The challenge this week at http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com/ is create a card that is anything but square shaped. All sorts of ideas have gone through my head - christmas stockings - crackers - etc, but when I saw this amazing fold up/stand up card in this month's Making Cards magazine I just had to give it a try.

It was great fun to do and fits in to a C5 envelope (although if you are following the measurements from the magazine cut the strips to 14cm rather than 16 cm).

The card also fits the challenge at http://tandastamps.blogspot.com/ where we are asked to make cards for kids. The card is for my daughter Laura (okay she is 23 but if she sees that I have made a halloween card for Shelley and not her then she will throw a genuine 5 year old type tantrum).

This photo shows the mechanism to make the card stand up.

Then by simply pulling the side tabs the card lays flat to go in the envelope. Thank you so much to Glynis Clark who originally designed the mechanism for the magazine. I shall be using this time and time again.

Materials used:

• Tanda stamps
• black card
• black corrugated card
• white card
• hand drawn bat (wow!!!!)
• water colours and sakura stardust pens
• unknown sentiment stamp
  
  
  

Something for a friend...

I couldn't sleep last night cause I wanted to make a start on this folder card. How sad is that? I even thought about getting up, but one foot out of the bed told me that it was too cold!!! So I set my alarm and got up really early to make a start.

I wanted to make a folder to hold stamped images for a very dear friend who has suddenly decided that she really likes the Penny Black animal stamps. I feel responsible - so the least I can do is send her some images to start her off. I know she doesn't look on my blog often so I'm hoping to get away with posting this today as the project fits the bill for the challenge at http://stampchallenges.blogspot.com/

Joyce I'm so sorry if the surprise is spoilt for you!

This is the first page of the folder (photo taken before I decided that stitching lines were needed down the diagonal too).

Here is page two with added embellishments.

Finally a picture of the folder showing the pages open.

I know the bow on the front is rather large but I wanted to make sure there was plenty left to tie it all up once the images were placed inside. It has now been trimmed.

Materials used:

• lilac pearlescent flap cards by Kanban (two are fastened together to complete this folder)


• silver mirri card


• Penny Black stamps


• Great Impressions mouse stamp


• Stamps Away dot alphabet set


• Stampin up bear print stamp


• cuttlebug swiss dots folder


• white organza ribbon


• embellishments from stash

Spooky doodling...

I really thought I wasn't going to have time to craft today. It was my mum's birthday so we were pretty busy cake making and partying for her. She's was 85 today.

Anyway this evening I did intend to wind down but then got tempted to do something for Halloween and ended up making this Halloween card for Shelley. The middle is cut out using circle nestabilities and the witch image is stamped on the white inner card along with a Halloween sentiment and some extra bats. I also used clear alphabet stamps to stamp Shelley's name.

I hope I am not too late to enter this in the challenge at http://thisthursday.wordpress.com/ as I have been wanting to get round to this spooky challenge all week.

I also think that my cobweb doodles fit the criteria at http://www.mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.com/ where they want to see crafters doodling and drawing on their cards. Luckily the drawings can be really simple ones which is just as well for me!!

Materials used:

• circle scalloped nestability dies
• black card
• orange card
• white inner card
• witch stamp by Tanda
• bats and Halloween sentiment unknown company (but not a good one as they have fallen off the wood)
• clear alphabet stamps by Stamps Away
• Sakura pens used as paint for moon and cauldron on image

Birthday card for Grandma...

This card was created using a frame image from Joanna Sheen's CD 'The Cardmaker's Year'. I must admit that I took the image to an art programme and resized it to ensure it was just the size I needed for my A5 card. I printed the image several times to enable me to decoupage the roses. They are also glittered as Grandma loves glitter!!!

The die cut ovals are cut and embossed using the Wizard machine. I also embossed lines to both hold and emphasise the gold organza ribbon on the card. As the challenge at http://lotstodocallenges.blogspot.com/ is embossing I think (at a push) this card may be suitable for their embossing challenge this week.

The sentiment is computer generated and printed on to the same colour backing paper as the frame image. It looks slightly askew in the photo but in reality is straight - honest!!

Materials used:

• Joanna Sheen's CD 'The Cardmakers Year'
• gold card
• cream pearlescent for matting and layering
• oval Wizard dies
• fine glitter
• gold organza ribbon

Using clipart...

I think we have so many fabulous materials available to us that sometimes it's easy to forget that clipart freely available from many sources on the internet can be also be used. At http://artygirlzchallengeblog.blogspot.com/ this week the challenge was to be creative using clip art.

I have some clipart books and CD sets by Dover publications so rather than searching the web I decided to use an image from one of them. I picked out a beautiful picture of a little girl at her writing table. I then made it into a decoupage sheet for the card size I wanted to achieve using the CD Decoupage builder. I also used the programme to create matching backing paper.

Last card for the box Irene - good eh?

Materials used:

• Floral Vignettes Book and CD Rom by Dover Publications
• Decoupage Builder 3D
• Satin photo paper
• cream pearlescent card
• gold paper used for matting and layering
• gold corner and sentiment peel offs

Teddy birthday card...

I seem to have had a teddy phase recently so was really pleased to see the challenge at http://www.mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.com/ this week was teddies. I used a Clarity clear stamp of a teddy on a tricycle for my main image and blue gingham and plain blue circle nestability die cuts to frame him.

Materials used:

• Teddy on a trycycle by Clarity Stamps
• plain blue card and blue gingham
• white water colour card
• white organza ribbon
• silver sentiment and corner peel offs