Cards for Men...

With father's day looming I thought I'd better get in the mindset for making men's cards so I started off with something that needs no thinking about - a big number card.


Plain and simple but very effective. The striped paper is from an old set by Papermania called 'For Him' and I love the colours in it.

I've entered this card in the following challenges ...

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - One for the boys
The Paper Variety - Use a number

Name Cards

After the success of the Mother's Day cards, a few friends at work have asked for similar cards for little girls with their names on them...

This first one is for a child with a very unusual name - I've never come across this one before. The striped paper is an old one from Doodlebug and the big butterfly is made with my new favourite die from Marianne designs. I've also added some punched butterflies and flowers and a few diamante trails coming from the butterflies. I've entered this card in the following challenge:

Flutterby Wednesdays - OPEN (include butterfly, fairy or angel)



I'm not as pleased with this second card. I don't know whether I have made the letters too big or used the wrong patterned paper but I don't feel it is as pleasing on the eye as the first one is.

Still I now have orders for loads of name cards so I'm off to the shops this weekend to treat myself to some new scissors with very fine points!

Anniversary Quilling

I got a quilling set for Christmas a couple of years ago and as part of my quest to start using some of the stash packed into my spare bedroom, I decided I would have a go at using it. This coincided with a request from David, a work colleague, for a 'very special' card for his wife on their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. I trawled the internet for inspiration found some great ideas so this is my first attempt.


The greeting is made from large peel-off letters and the flowers are a mixture of punched, quilled and silk flowers. The leaves are also punched and I finished off with some random bling and peel-off hearts. The card itself is A5 size.

I am so pleased with this card and now Mother's day is out the way I'm going to have a bit more play with different quilled shapes.

And more importantly, David and his wife loved it!

I've entered this into the following challenge:

Charisma Cardz - Weddings and Anniversaries

Mother's Day #2

Wow - two posts in one day! Here's another card for Mother's Day. The image is a from the Digi Stamp Boutique, where I get most of my digi stamps. The image is coloured with promarkers and matted using scallopped nesties. The paper came with a scrapbooking set from Pound World!


I'm loving this butterfly punch from X-Cut - I've used it on loads of my Mother's Day cards and everybody thinks it's very cute.

I've entered this into the following challenges:

The Crafty Pad - For the Mums
Cupcake Craft Challenges - Flowers for Mum

Mother's Day

I'm back after a lovely break in Tenerife - a week of sun, gorgeous food and relaxing by the pool has done me the world of good!

Here's a couple of the Mother's Day cards I made before I went...


This first card is something I often do when I'm struggling for inspiration - take a word or number and enlarge it in WordArt or a similar programme then print it on patterned paper. I've found that striped paper usually produces the best results. Then I mount the letters on plain paper and carefully cut around, leaving a rim of colour around each letter. I've finished this card off with a punched butterfly (X-Cut) and some bling.

I've entered this card in the following challenges:

Less Is More - A Touch of Red
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Butterflies


This next card is also of the clean and simple variety. The gorgeous 3D flower sticker is from Anita's Dimensions range -they are so pretty and have a lovely sheen to them. The spotted paper is a from a pad that came free with a card mag.

I've entered this card in the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Bloomin' Blossoms
One Stop Craft Challenge - Spots and Dots

Mother's Day

I've been frantically making Mother's day cards all this week - I have a dozen or so ordered by various people and I want to get them finished before I jet off to foreign shores! I really enjoyed making this one - who would have thought that cerise and orange would go so well together.

I found the image somewhere on the internet - I wish that when you download stuff to your computer there would be something attached telling you where the image came from. May be there is and I'm just not computer savvy enough to know how!

The image is coloured with promarkers, the flowery backing paper is Doodlebug and the ribbon came from a box of Christmas chocs - recyling at it's best! If anyone is interested, the font used is Curlz - I often see cards and love the greetings on them but no one ever tells you the font they have used! It's one of life's little niggles.

A Load of Best Wishes.......

Today's card is a bit corny... it's for someone into pick up trucks and the message inside reads 'loads of best wishes on your birthday'. The back of the truck is loaded with lots of 'best wishes' slips of paper. Ah well - it made me snigger!


The papers came free many moons ago with Making Cards magazine and the digi image is a freebie I found here via the Free Digital Stamps website, a source of hundreds of freebies.

Pretty Pastels

I got some lovely Pink Petticoat papers free with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine this month and as I wanted to make a pastel coloured anniversary card they came in very handy. The image is one of my favourites from the Digi Stamp Boutique - it's ideal for all sorts of 'love' occasions. The photo does not really do justice to the paper - it's a lot prettier in real life!



I've entered this into the following challenges...

Happy Mondays Challenge - Pretty Pastels

Less is More - Pastel Colours

Spring Birthday Card

Another order from work - a birthday card for a friend's mam - the request was for something classical with Spring flowers on it...


I kept it simple - the flower image (gawd knows what it is - I don't do flowers) is a pre die cut decoupage from my local craft shop in Sunderland - I don't know who makes them but I love using them for last minute cards. The paper is from a scrapbook set I got from a pound shop and the 'frill' is made using a new X Cut border die I treated myself to earlier this week.

I've entered this card into the following challenges...

The Pixie Cottage - 'Spring'

Crafty Creations - 'feminine Birthday in blues and greens'

Creative Inspirations - 'In the garden'

One Stop Craft Challenge - 'Spring Flowers'

Happy Crafting

Sharon
x

Football for Girls..

A strange request today... a birthday card commissioned for a friend's sister with a Newcastle United football theme.

I checked the NUFC website to see if there were any images I could use (steal!) but to no avail. Nor could I find any images of girls in footy strips ( well I did find some but they weren't wearing anything else with the footabll shirt if you see what I mean! )

So I used the club crest as the main image and added 'girly' touches with the ribbon, the black diamantes and the scallopped nestie.


A strange card but it ticks all of the boxes... obviously as a life long Sunderland fan I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards!!!

Bizarrely enough this satisfies the requirements for the following challenge...

Charisma Cardz - Black and White with one other colour

Happy crafting!
Sharon x

First Birthdays...

Two first birthday cards today - both are bright and cheerful. When I looked around the card shops for some inspiration, a lot of the cards were in pastel colours just like new baby cards and personally I thought they were a bit insipid. At one, children are attracted to bright colours and shapes so I've tried to make these stand out.


The first one is made with some pink and purple spotty paper I downloaded from the internet - I think it's from Crafts Beautiful website. The number shape was created in Wordart then printed on to the back of the patterned paper to make it easy to cut out. I finished it off with a ribbon and a flower in coordinating colours.


The second one uses the same method for the number but I've added some balloon peel-offs pieced with the colours of the striped paper, which is from the sweet shop collection by American crafts.

Clean and Simple

Back in my comfort zone today - I discovered some new challenge blogs last night that I hadn't seen before so I had to have a go...


I found this cute digi stamp while I was blog hopping, my new favourite pastime! There's so much talent out there to inspire you as well as a ton of freebies. This cow image is from Janna's Papiersalat blog which is written in English and German but it's easy to find her gorgeous free digi images. The pink daisy paper has been in my stash for years - I got it from Hobbycraft when I first started making cards. I finished off with some googly eyes from the Early Learning Centre and a large X-cut punched daisy.

I've entered this card into the following Challenges:

Clean and Simple - Sketch

Totally Papercrafts - Clean and Simple

A Touch of Magic

There's some lovely free papers with this month's issue of Creative Cardmaking - gorgeous mythical figures in pastel watercoloured shades of green, purple and blue. Not usually my thing but they were so pretty I was inspired to have a go at a style of card that is way out of my comfort zone - look there's no white space!


The image and the greeting are from the magazine. I've layered and embossed some lilac card to go behind the image and finished off with a handmade bow and some punched flowers and leaves. I'm so pleased with those flowers and leaves - I have loads of punches but never use them so they might get a bit more action after this.

I've entered this card into the following challenge:

Charisma Cardz - Mythical/Fantasy

Back to reality now - off to do the shopping!

Another Engagement

It must be 'cos St Valentine's Day is just round the corner but love is definately in the air! Another request for an Engagement card, this time for the daughter of my manager at work.


I wanted to make something delicate and pretty rather than cute and I hope I've managed to do this. The heart shape was lightly hand drawn on the front of the card and then covered in tiny punched flowers. I used tiny circles of lilac vellum for the middle of the flowers then carefully stuck them on with tweezers. My cards aren't complete without ribbon somewhere so I used a lilac white ribbon to finish down the side. The result - a very clean and simple card.

I've entered this card in two challenges:

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Have a Heart

Craft Cardmakers - Hearts

Amy's Birthday

My friend, Katherine, has a little girl who has just turned nine and she wanted a card with her name on that she could frame for her bedroom. I though pink was definitely the colour to use...




I was going to use a plain pink background but it looked too pink if that's possible. I finally settled on the white daisies on a pink background. I coloured the centre of the daisies with a pale green promarker to match the butterflies which are from Papermania.

My First Blog Award......

Wow! I've been sent a blog award by the wonderful Charlee - I'm amazed that anyone even reads my mumblings, never mind sending me blog awards. Thank you so much - I feel honoured to accept it.


This special award, is aimed at bringing unknown good blogs to light, and in accepting the award I have had to agree to the following conditions:

1) You have been tagged, do you want to accept? YES! then create a post on your blog and post the love blog photo.

2) Link back to the person who gave you the award and say if you accept.

3) Choose 3-5 of your favourite blogs to tag, link these in your post too and tell the lucky people they have been tagged.

As the aim of this award is to bring unknown good blogs to light, please don't tag somebody with 3000 followers.

So the bloggers I am awarding it to are:

CARRIE - makes great cards and does very funky stuff with bling and clothing!

SYLVIE - is a very talented lady who does the most wonderful digi images which you can get from her blog

SANDRA - who was my first blogging friend and makes lovely brightly coloured creations.

Hqappy crafting

Sharon
x

Cutesy Engagement Card

Today's offering features extremely cute Forever Friends decoupage - the lazy sort that is already die cut and just needs layering! Sometimes you only have time for the easy option. The backing paper is part of a baby girl scrapbooking kit and is actually just one sheet of paper so I didn't have a lot to do at all. I've finished it off with some pale pink and brown punched flowers - a cute card for very little effort.

Spotty Frocks

Two birthdays this weekend - my sister-in-law and her best friend. So I decided to make them matching cards and what better than glamourous spotty frocks. I found this fabulous freebie digi stamp on a marvelous blog called The Creative Mind of Sylvie - she is a very talented lady has has some wonderful freebie digi images, everything from golf bags to glamourous Goths! Have a look there - I've now added her to my fave sites.

I've paper-pieced the frock with spotty papers I got free with a magazine, added some rich brown ribbon and a brown coloured diamante (I always wondered how I would use them!).

Teenage Birthday

I've never been keen on making cards for men and teenage boys are even worse! For this card for a work colleague I used the easy option - numbers. The papers are very old - the Papermania For Him range that was out a few years ago. The numbers are from templates made in Wordart then traced onto patterned paper and mounted onto navy plain paper for definition.





I've entered this card into the following challenge:

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Colour Challenge - use Teal Blue and Brown

Anniversary Couple

I found some lovely vintage images some time ago on a great site called Create With TLC and I've been dying to use them. This image of the dancing couple has a lovely 50's glamour feel to it.


The image has been coloured as usual with promarkers (pastel green) and a tiny turquoise gem added as her earring. The polka dot paper is wrapping paper and I've continued the turquoise color scheme by adding some pale turquoise gossamer ribbon.