Card In A Hurry !

So just before he left the house earlier my other half suddenly asked... "Did you make a birthday card for my Mam?"...

Well I would have if he had given me a bit more notice.

What followed was a mad half hour knocking together probably the quickest card I have made in a while. The rose image is a die-cut decoupage by Hunkydory - very handy for occasions like this. The image took minutes to quickly put together and I cut two strips from the leftover scrap from the image. While the glue dried on these I printed off a computer greeting and insert and had the whole thing put together in about 15 minutes!

I've entered this card into today's challenges at:

Daring Cardmakers - Focus on flowers

Crafts 4 Eternity - Less Is More

In Sympathy...

The challenge at both The Sisterhood of Crafters and The Pink Elephant at the moment is to make a sympathy card, something that nobody actually enjoys making but is more of a neccessary evil. I've used a flower image from the Digistamp Boutique and coloured it using the palest promarkers I have.

I've mounted the image on black paper and added a computer generated greeting. No embellishments, no bling, no ribbon, this takes the clean and simple look to extremes but befits the occasion.

Enjoy Your Retirement!

There seems to be a lot of folk retiring lately - the place I work at is undergoing restructures in every department at the moment and a lot of people are taking advantage of early retirement and redundancy packages, This card is for Terry who I have lift shared with for the past 7 years, a great bloke who is looking forward to putting his feet up!

The image is the wonderful Jim from The Digistamp Boutique, stamped coloured and decoupaged - simple but effective. I've entered this into the following challenges:

Kaboodle Doodles - a project for someone older than me

Penny's Paper-crafty Challenge - masculine

Papelitos Stamps Challenge - masculine

Monochrome Wedding Shoe

Today's card is made with one of my favourite digi images - the gorgeous wedding shoe by just inklined. I made a pink version of this card a few months ago and I've had loads of requests for different coloured versions ever since. The funny thing is I've never used this image for a wedding card!

The shoe is coloured with Spectrum Noir pens - I got a set for my birthday and I'm still experimenting with them as I find them 'wetter' than promarkers. I've decoupaged the front of the shoe for a more 3D effect and added diamantes. The gossamer bow makes this a very touchy feely card.

I've entered this card into the following challenges:

Charisma Cards Challenge - Monochrome

Stamping For The Weekend - Monochromatic

60th Birthday Card

I love making easel cards - they look so different to anything shop bought and are so easy to make. Today's card is a 60th birthday card for an auntie made in this style.

Usually easel card are quite fussy and flowery but I've kept this clean and simple. The numbers are printed from Wordart then hand cut and I've kept embellishments to a minimum. It actually looks much better in 'real life' - the linen card I've used is so white!

I've entered this card into the following challenges:

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Gold, Silver or bronze

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Going round in circles

Crown Bowls Crisis!

I really thought I would have trouble with this card because of the subject - I was asked to make a card with a crown bowls theme! Panic set in because I couldn't find a suitable digi anywhere - there's definitely a gap in the marget for more male sports related digis! Then I remembered that the Jolly Nation decoupage brand had a female bowler and I hoped they would also have a man - luckily they did and my local craft store had one in stock.

These decoupage images have a lovely comic feel to them - just the sort of thing a small boy would want to give daddy. The blue and green colour scheme has a sporty feel to it and I couldn't resist adding some 'masculine bling' in the form of coloured card candi. I also coloured his hair to make him look younger!

I've entered this card into the following challenges:

The Squirrel and Fox Challenge - make it sporty

Less Is More - colour scheme of blue and green

Come and Get It  - adult birthday

Clean and Simple Wedding Invite

I've been asked to make the wedding invitations for a friend's sister and have been putting together a few ideas for her to choose from. As she is getting married abroad she wanted this to be the focus of the card so I have searched high and low for appropriate digi stamps. I found this aeroplane on a child's colouring page and adapted it with hearts in Publisher.

I used the same hearts to make a trail coming from the plane and coloured the images with promarkers.

She's not getting married until next year but as I'll have about 40 to make I want to make an early start. I still need to play about with layout and font - as my other half put it, 'Is that plane nose-diving to a crash landing?' 

I've entered this attempt into the following challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays - featuring things you see in the sky

Paper Crafting Journey - anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - clean and simple