Well here it is...

the leaving card I was talking about making yesterday!  I've done the whole of the front of the card ready to take into work.  I must admit I did think about having tubs of flowers so that the people I work with could be involved with making some of the flowers, but because they have their own part to do inside the card and there are nine of them which means that time wise it will be a struggle to fit everything in.  Far better to let them really concentrate on their own section.

The card is a huge A4 gate fold one - it had to be to allow space inside for everyone to have their section.  I've used Kanban floral card, silver mirri and plain matching lilac.  The door image is a stamp by Dimension Fourth and is a really useful size.  Perfect for hanging a Christmas Wreath on as I did on my card here and also cutting open to have hidden verses inside the door.

I've added a silver peel off sentiment to an added closure on the front of the card and other silver peel offs to trim the doors including the numbers of the houses to make the card very personal.

Inside the card each person is going to have their own section - I've cut pieces of white card (lots of to cover for accidents) ready to be decorated and then stuck inside the card.  The idea is for each person to stamp their name (clear letter stamps) and then decorate with flowers, motor bikes or rock guitars depending on who it is.  Hopefully each one will have a small passport sized photo of the person added too.  

When they've done this I can attach the lilac frames I've already cut (Spellbinder frame die) on top of their work and then add their completed part to the card inner. I won't be able to show this part obviously for the privacy of the people I work with, but trust me it should work she says 'crossing' her fingers and muttering 'Please don't let anyone drop an ink pad anywhere they shouldn't'.  I've laid the pieces of card out with the frames on top inside the card and it looked promising!  Gulp!!

My card is also just right for the challenge at ...

• Cute Card Thursday where the theme is Mono Mania
  

Well, wish me luck and good luck to everyone else for today too.  Wonder if it's worth buying a lottery ticket on the way to work - hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm maybe!

Happy Mother's Day to all...

Had a lovely meal at Shelley's yesterday and really looking forward to spending the day with Laura today.  I strongly suspect that a package that arrived the other day with her name on had stamps in it.  Wonder if it was and what they are!!!  oh so exciting!

Today's cards are the last of my Mother's day ones.  The shoe card is the one I've made Laura to give her Gran.  Laura loves shoes and Gran loves flowers so it seemed like a great combination on a card.  The image is a free one available at Ooh-la-la Creations and is a sample from the CD 'Shoes in Bloom'.  There were two images on the free sheet and unfortunately I worked with the one with the sentiment on it and it was only when I'd completed the card that I noticed the spelling error, but not to worry Gran won't notice.  The side panel with the smaller shoes was made in my Serif Home Office programme.  

Challenges...

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday - love their sketches - this weeks was tweaked a little, but I think the basic layout is still there.
• Cupcake Craft Challenge - Flower Power
• Alphabet Challenge - tag (mine may be small but it's an important one with 'Gran' on it)
• Secret Crafter - Anything Goes

My last Mother's Day card is mine to my Mum.  It's a style of card I've done before for someone's birthday, but as I already had the vellum fan blades in my box already cut out (and I was running really short of time - what's new?) I decided to put the card together to give mum.

The fan blades were stamped using the large fan blade stamp by Dimension Fourth.  Love that stamp - turned upside down it makes a fabulous dress skirt too.  Must give that a go next week - maybe for Shelley's birthday card.

Challenges...

• Rainbow Lady - Mother's Day

Both cards are for the challenges at ...

• Creative Card Crew - Celebrate
• Cute Card Thursday - Celebrations

Have a lovely Mother's Day everyone and see you tomorrow for the new challenge at The Pink Elephant. 

Update on the package - it was a House Mouse stamp - yeah - loads of very fat mice who have been over indulging on water melon.  Really cute.  How lucky am I?

FANtastic...

 

Usually when I've used this fan blade stamp by Dimension Fourth I've stamped it on to vellum and embossed it in white or silver.  Today I decided to try stamping it on to patterned paper.  I just had to dive into that fabulous HOTP paper pad again, that Max gave me in York.  Each and every one of the papers in it are just so gorgeous and easy to use.  I love it Max - if you are reading this - thank you so much!

I used one of the sheets with the patterned border to create the inside of the card and then stamped and embossed the fan blades on to the matching totally patterned sheet. I also stamped a fan blade on to white card to make a template to use to cut the shape of the fan on the front of the card.  Then  I cut out each stamped blade and attached them to the front.

In the photo above you can see the shaped front of the card and below shows the card closed up.

I coloured clear gemstones black using a black Sakura Permapaque pen.  I actually tried a black Promarker first, but that gave more of a sapphire type of black stone.  The sentiment is from a clear sheet of sentiments by Hero Arts.

Challenges...

• SophistiCat Challenge - Flourishes and bling
• Rainbow Lady - Create a fan
• Alphabet Challenge - Stamping

Thanks everyone for looking and for your fantastic comments.  They really do cheer me up each day.

Ann xxx

Christmas Snow Buddies...

I do hope nobody is tired of seeing Messy Rabbit yet!!

This time my card is a scenic one, where Messy is playing out with his Snowman buddy underneath the 'Merry Christmas' signpost.

I created the scene using several different stamps...

the signpost is the lower part of the Flower Soft unmounted lamp post
the door is by Dimension Fourth
the wreath (on shrink plastic) and Messy with Snowman buddy are by Joanna Sheen.

I built the whole scene up on a 8" x 8" base card. The brick patterned background was created using a Fiskar's embossing plate run through my wizard and then touched up with a hand embossing too on areas that had not been embossed as clearly as I would have liked.

The door was stamped on very light brown coloured card and then I coloured some areas deeper using Promarkers. A gold brad forms the door handle and the edge of a peel off sheet was cut to form the letter box.

The wreath is one of the stamps from the new Messy Rabbit Christmas range by Joanna Sheen and luckily when shrunk down it was the perfect size to hang on the door.


I decided to really go for it and have the door opening with a Christmas message inside.

The card's inner has a Christmas greeting printed on it and using the stamps again and masks I created another picture of Messy and the lamp posts. This card certainly kept me out of mischief for longer than most!!!


Luckily my card fits in with quite a few challenges this week...

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Christmas
My Time to Craft - Snow Buddies
La-La Land Crafts - embossing
ABC Challenge - embossing

Thank you once again for looking and leaving such amazing comments. I've been blown away by them this week. Have a great day everyone.

Pink Elephant Part Two...

This is my other contribution for our challenge at the Pink Elephant. This week we have a double theme and everyone can choose whether to make a card for Mum or do some recycling.

This is my card for the Mum theme - a vellum fan attached to a pale blue mat and embellished with gemstones. The stamp is the large fan blade by Dimension Fourth and was stamped on to vellum and embossed in silver 6 times before being cut out and fastened together using a jewelled brad.

After I had made the card a friend called round, saw the card and asked if I could do one for her to give an elderly relative, which led to me doing the pink version below.

I think I prefer the pink one and that's unusual for me - maybe Laura is having a bad influence on me!

Both cards include two of my favourite things - rubber stamping and vellum. I love stamping on vellum and embossing it - it's a beautiful effect. Favourite things is the theme at Dutch Dare this week so my two cards are both suitable for their challenge.