An unproductive break....

I've had a break from blogging this past month... a mixture of being busy at home and work and a bit of a deflated mojo! I've only made two or three cards in the past month and those were only for my special customers. To try to get back in the swing of things I bought some downloads from the Pink Petticoat site with a wedding theme and have been busy manipulating the images and just having a good play with sizes and colours. However, sometimes simple is best and I'm pleased with the overall look of this next card...


The image been coloured with pro-markers and the flowers have been decoupaged. I then painted over the flowers and heart with some pearlescent glue to add some sparkle.

The next card I made is just plain odd - a King Charles cavalier spaniel theme for a 50 year old lady! Hmmm... I knew that paw paper I got free with Papercraft Essentials would come in handy one day! My favourite bit on this card is the paws up the side where I tried to echo the pattern on the paper - apart from that it's a bit naff!

Fathers Day...

Making cards for blokes always fills me with dread though the products now available is starting to make the task easier


I used a cup template that came free with Papercraft Inspirations and just enlarged it on the photocopier to make this. I'm pleased with the look that the peel-offs give to the trophy - I knew I would find a use for them one day!


I think 'tie' cards for men are the equivelant of handbag cards for women! This was made with lovely Dovecraft 'male' papers and I just added buttens to the 'shirt'. I've made this card on a number of occasions in different colourways and I'm always pleased with the result.



I got this grandad decoupage from my local craft shop in Sunderland - I think the range is 'Old Codgers'. The patterned paper is from a sports scrapbooking kit and I couldn't resist adding a little Sunderland badge to it.

More Shoes... and a cute Baby Boy

I had a bit more experimentation with colours on the shoe card...

I love making these - they are just so cute. The spotty papers are all freebies from various magazines and I got a huge pack of the textured paper from my local The Works. Like most crafters I have a hoard of ribbons which finishes off the tag. In fact, these would be great to use as gift tags for girly presents.

I think that with baby cards, less is more. I don't like them to be too fussy and patterned. I made the next two cards with just stickers and ribbon - most of my stickers come from pound/trashy shops but can look great when used with the right accessories.

Betty Boop and lots of Weddings

I've had loads of requests for Wedding cards and as my cake card is a bit old hat now I've been working with some new ideas.


I got this pink cake cut out with a recent issue of Creative Carmaking which is one of my favourite magazines at the moment. There were matching papers to go with it but I wanted to keep it simple so I just used some co-ordinating cerise plain paper and added some punched hearts and a greeting.
I got this felt wedding car embellishment on a market stall in Sunderland but before I used it I photocopied it so that I have a template to make more from card. The pink heart paper was from the same place - it's amazing what you can find in markets!


I had this song going through my head when I was making the other two cards and I thought it would make a cute greeting. The 'chapel' was a rub-on I had from a wedding scrapbook kit. I finished it off with one of my trademark ribbons and I'm pleased with the result.

I loved making this card! I got a picture of Betty from google images and I just traced and paper pieced it. I carefully drew in the face with a black fineliner pen. It was really simple to make but did require some careful cutting around the hair. After people see this I have a bad feeling I am going to get requests for all sorts of weird and wonderful cartoon characters!

Three Birthdays and a Retirement!

The first card today was a request for a card for a colleague who was retiring...but without the word retirement on it. Crazy eh? I was stumped for a while then just gave up and resorted to my favourite trick of just cutting out patterned letters and spelling the appropriate word. I was even able to cheat doing this as I had loads of random letters left over from a cheapo scrapbooking kit. Not the best card I have ever made but it serves a purpose.


I got the idea for the shoe card from a recent edition of Complete Cardmaking. In the mag, the 'Kick up your heels...' greeting was stamped but that's why we have computers isn't it! The template for the shoe was a free gift in a pack of designer templates that came with Simply Cards & Papercraft a couple of issues ago. The spotty paper was also a freebie so this card was dead cheap to make and I'm really pleased with the result.



Another number card. I love these Papermania papers - the colours just make me think of Raspberry Ruffle chocolate bars.


Finally another request for a 'Dress' card - this time in pink for a 50th birthday. These are so easy to make and people love them. I was so pleased to be able to match the spotty paper with the ribbon - both freebies with various magazines.

Love is in the Air

Three cards on the theme of love... and all made with the same basic layout. The first is a Wedding card made from wallpaper (very expensive wallpaper) and ribbon. This card is just so easy to make - three oblongs of paper with ribbon along the bottom, a punched heart on the top and punched flowers with diamantes arranged around the cake. With the right papers this could also be made to look like a birthday cake.

The second is for an engagement. I found some Cuttlebug ring shapes in a bargain bucket at my local craft store and knew straight away I would end up making an engagement ring with them. The 'diamonds' are from the Pound Shop which is a great place for crafty bargains.


The third one took a bit of thinking about. It's for a 20th Wedding Anniversary and the traditional gift for this anniversary is china. I came across the tea-pot in some free papers I got with Making Cards magazine some time ago and with the addition of a small punched heart, this seemed the ideal embellishment for this occasion.

A Month full of Birthdays...

The first two cards are very girly - spotty frocks! I love making frock cards and they go down very well with ladies of all ages. For the first one, I got the template from an old Doodlebug sticker kit. Once I had used the original sticker, I traced the 'remains' for the outline of the frock. The spotty paper is gift wrap, the brads are paper fasteners painted with black nail varnish and the ribbon cut out of a black top.



The template for the second frock appeared a few months ago in Papercraft Inspirations and I love the shape - I would wear this myself!


Rachel is my work colleague's 11 year old daughter who is horse mad. I made her a similar card last year using JollyNation's other horse girl decoupage which she had framed so she can make a matching pair of pictures using this one.



I am absolutely useless at stamping - you'd think I had two left hands so I love the concept of downloads. Pink Petticoat is one of my fave places for downloads - they are so cute and sassy. The paper came free with a magazine and the turquoise flowers are from a local market haberdashery stall.

Easter Greetings

Easter, like Halloween, has become a popular time to send cards. I got a request from a work colleague to make half a dozen non-religious Easter cards and here's the results...


The first one is a cute little download from Pink Petticoat, coloured with brush markers and mounted on PaperMania spotty paper from the Spring Burst pack.

I love this stripy paper with the eggs on it. Another Papermania paper which perfectly matched the cute cake sticker.
Decoupaged daffodils... a sure sign of Easter when the gardens are full of yellow flowers. This card took the longest to make - about 40 minutes cos of all the cutting.


I love this quirky chicken. He was cut from the same paper that I used on the background. Cards like this only take minutes to make and I use this layout time and time again.
The only card with a slightly religious theme - there are tiny crosses on the checked backing paper! The Easter bunny came from a Papermania sticker pack.


Cute chick and paper from last year's PaperMania Easter pack of papers.

Belated Mother's Day cards...

It's taken a while to get these posted - I've just come back from a lovely week in Tenerife and everything has been upside down for the last few days. Here's a selection of the cards I made before I went away...

These first two were made with some stickers from Penny Black - Stickeroos I think they are called. Burgundy isn't a colour I often use and I thought I would struggle to get papers to match the stickers but I found loads. The top card was made using paper from a pack by the English Papar Company.I used some paper from a very old pack of Papermania papers (Rich Red) on this second Stickeroo card. The 'Mam' lettering is rubbed onto punched circles of card and highlighted with burgundy card - I often use this trick as a greeting.


These next two cards were made using La Pashe's Flippin' Women decoupage sheets. The card above is A4 size and the image is stuck onto acetate in a large aperture card. There is also a reverse to the image which can't be seen here.


I've used the same decoupage image here but just the front this time. The paper is from the Colossal flowery pack from PaperMania.


This card is for two little boys to send their beloved Nanna. I got the forever Friends sticker in a free pack from Papercraft Inspirations and the spotty paper is again PaperMania. I should have shares in that company! I stuck the hearts on the ends of the ribbon cos it wouldn't stop fraying and i rather like the effect it has made.

I got this tulip decoupage sheet with Making Cards magazine ages ago. It was quick to cut out even though it looks intricate and I love the colours.

These three are made with my favourite flower stamp. I hate stamping - I can never seem to stamp the image evenly - yet this stamp works every time for me. I'm really into doodling on cards at the minute and I've done faux stitching around the image and the greeting which can't be seen very well here!

As with most of my cards there's ribbon used on these. I love the way ribbon adds texture to a card and makes you want to touch it.

This red flower card is my favourite. There's more faux stitching around the images and the ribbon tied perfectly first time.

Decoupage Birthdays

I'm getting really into decoupage at the moment - there's so many great designs now available and it doesn't have that old-fashioned feel about it any more. two of my favourite ranges are the Jolly Nation figures and the new Flippin' men/women ranges that have recently been issued.

These Flippin' Men images are great. like most people I find male cards a nightmare to make cos I'm basically pink and fluffy at heart. These make life so easy. They are mostly sport's based but I'm thinking of suggesting a new range to them called Flippin' Workmen covering various occupations. I think it'll work! The images are designed to have a front and a reverse view but so far i have only used the front views.


I love Jolly Nation - the company has really revolutionised decoupage and the images cover every circumstance imagionable! They have even made pre-cut images for those times when an emergency card is required. I cut the cocktail images from a sheet from one of the Trimcraft value packs

Three Weddings, A Baby and a Birthday!

A mixed bag of cards required for this week....

First up is a selection of Wedding acceptance cards - you know the sort of thing that costs a fortune in Clintons!


This one was so quick to make - 3 punched hearts with diamantes, a piece of ribbon and a printed greeting. It honestly took about 15 minutes tops to make and most of that time was waiting for glue to dry.


I love these cuttlebug hearts - they are the most versatile dies I have after my Nesties. At first I thought these designs were a bit TOO simplistic but after extensive research (popping into Clinton's) most acceptance cards are very similar.


More cuttlebug hearts - this time in silver. I got a bit carried away with the glitter but the customer loved it.


I would have loved this card when I was eight and loved all things pink. All the shop cards for this age group seemed a wee bit 'old' for my liking - loads of them had shoes and handbag images which I felt were really more suitable for teens. Therefore my big number templates were used again...
My mojo was flagging by the time I got to this one but I was still pleased that I had made all five cards in one night. There's a lot of white space on this card cos I didn't want any patterned paper clashing with the glittery stork sticker. There's something missing from it but I didn't really know what else to add.

More Strange Requests..

Two quite unusual requests for cards this week...

This first one is for the friend of a work colleague who is emigrating to Australia in the next couple of weeks. I was at a total loss initially, thinking along the lines of kangaroos and boomerangs, but after playing Geo Challenge on Facebook I came up with the flag idea (strange what inspires us cardmakers isn't it!). The actual card was huge - nearly A4 size - and was fastened together with tape and ribbons. The flag itself was surprisingly easy - I found a website where you can print off pictures of flags for kids to colour - and then used good old tracing paper (Smart price greaseproof paper!)

The second card was for an 18 year old lad who is into paint-balling. I made the splats bigger than I should have and they wouldn't all fit onto any conventional card sizes so I folded an A4 sheet of card in half length ways rather than to A5. This unusual size worked well but I did have to make an envelope to fit. If I could get readymade envelopes in this size I would use this size a lot because everyone commented on how unusual it was.

I do think that using different sizes of cards can make a great impact. I can't remember the last time I used the basic A6 size card blank - it just got so boring. Most of my cards nowadays are either 6x6 square or A5. I only wish I could get 8x8 envelopes cos the possibilities with that size of card are endless!

Cards For Men

My heart always sinks when I have to make cards for men.... unless I have a specific request such as a football shirt or something alcohol related, I tend to over girlify them.

My mam wanted me to do her a card for my step-dad Brian's 70th Birthday... and I tried to make this card more manly by using these wonderful Papermania For Him papers. I love doing age specific cards cos you can't go wrong using the numbers as the main embellishment. I often wander round Clinton's (for research purposes you understand) and once you get above a certain age the choice of cards available is atrocious. Hopefully this will stand out amongst the generic shop-bought efforts.



This card was for a work colleague who wanted a Valentine card for her fiance but didn't want slop and slushyness everywhere. I cut the hearts on my bug, inked them and joined them with a remnant of black ribbon. The paper along the bottom I got from a bumper pack of patterned papers - it's roses but with a lot of black in with gives a more gothic look. I thought it looked a bit too plain but she was over the moon with it so as long as the customer is happy then so am I.