Tilda & bike

This is my first ever attempt at putting together a stamped card over my usual decoupage.  I’ve been busy practising for weeks now to try and get the colouring right but even in this it’s nowhere near as precise as I’d like.   However, everyone has to start somewhere and despite it not being close to what I want, perfection doesn’t come in a day, especially when your hands hurt like hell and every other bit as well some days.

The image is “Tilda with bike” and is coloured using Copics – afraid I’ve not yet got into the habit of taking note of which ones I’ve used, but that will come.  I also used a couple of watercolour pencils to blend in the pink & blues a bit better, which helped to soften down any shading lines. 

The inside has then been decorated to match the front.  I also used Copics to colour the normally white pearl strips placed in amongst the flowers which just add a bit of extra depth to the card overall and the yellow colour is quite striking, and a quick way to change the colour to match the card.   I really appreciate the huge versatility of these pens!  Since finishing this one I've also done a slightly different one with the same image but in pink - but that's going to be held for a close friend's birthday next year as she's a pink fanatic :)

Papers are from K&Co – Daffodil pad which is now well out of date and rarely available except on Ebay if you're lucky.  The sentiment is a diecut from my stash.  Flowers as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts, as is the lace, & the pink ribbon from my local craft shop.  I used a nice new Nellie's Multi-Frame Die Set - Incire Flower #2 die for the scallops (already had the white circles).  This was my very 1^st foray into die-cutting as well, and it proved hugely enjoyable.   It’ll be a while before I can afford to buy Nestabilities to any great degree so in the meantime these cheaper dies work perfectly well.   I still have quite a lot of bought diecut scallops left to play with anyway so no real rush to invest in yet more “pruck” as my late hubby would call my overflowing craft stash :)  

Enjoy

40th Wedding Anniversary card

This card was made for my sister-in-law’s 40^th Wedding Anniversary on the 17^th.  It proved a bit of a challenge as I had to increase the size of everything – didn’t feel the smaller 5” square card really worked .   So I moved up to the 8” square card size instead and once again used the beautiful Kinkade red roses image as a focal point.   The background was my 1^st foray into the Nitwits range with the LuvBugsToo set which was perfect for the purpose.

Once again, the lace & flowers are from Wild Orchid Flowers.  The stop is a computer generated sentiment and the name plate I got off Ebay in a set of white plus colours and overprinted it with their names.   I added a nice little heart charm bought locally for a ridiculously low £1 for 6.   Gems and gold heart diecuts from my stash.

This was a slow card for me to make as I wanted it to be perfect for the occasion, and hopefully they agree that it looks the part.   It cost a lot more to make than the others too as on top of the larger card size which I had to buy because I couldn’t create it myself, I also then had to buy a box to go with it, and they were another challenge to put together, but in the end it also looked lovely as I covered it in red pearlescent paper.

 Enjoy

Black & white birthday box

Finally getting around to updating this blog – you’d never think I wasn’t working would you given how little time I seem to ever have for the purpose of updating this part of my life online :(

Today’s card is one of the last of my general cards for this year and is another easel card but this time with the addition of a box underneath.   This particular card is for my prayer partner Norma’s birthday tomorrow and she’s already got it and loves it, so is quite happy for it to be unveiled online for all to enjoy.

I used papers from a wonderful set one of my daughters  got me (thanks Caro) a while ago.   Norma loves black cards so this filled the bill quite nicely.   I used another Thomas Kinkade image for the purpose too – this one is called “Hour of Prayer”  and goes perfectly with the overall colour concept as it just enhances it with the muted colours in it.

The box was a torture to make and I doubt I’d want to make a number of them until I managed to get measurements more down pat – needless to say I did my usual and did guestimates which inevitably ended up in the bin – and once I got it done, stupidly didn’t take a note of what measurements I had used or how I actually made it, as it wasn’t as simple as one might think.   But a success for all that.   And I suspect with Christmas fast approaching (Yikes!) I wouldn’t be surprised if I have another go in the not too distant future – if I do I’ll try and put up some info for those of you who might be interested in having a go for yourselves.

Flowers and lace as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts and all the rest from my stash.   Thanks to Bev & Dena for showing how to create perfect bows – something I’ve long wanted to be able to do and marvelled at how others had – now I know :)).

Enjoy

Woweee - a winner for once :)

First time for everything, & this is my first win on anything craft related online.  I won one of the awesome candy's from Wild Orchid Crafts & LOTV's Christmas in July promotion.  SO chuffed as this was the best prize I was after - a selection of WOC's awesome produce which will get put to good use for future cards no doubt.

I'm on the slow side somewhat in not being on card blogs regularly nor making a card (or more) a day as many others appear to do, so I don't always manage to abide by some of the rules around promoting such events but am doing so now in retrospect by way of thanks to all involved and to highlight the awesome work undertaken by the Design Teams involved & other card makers.

If you want to check them out - head to firstly Wild Orchid Crafts Blog and then Bev's site again, and also LOTV's awesome site.   All are superb for stampers in particular!!

Thanks again to Bev's hubby for choosing my number for the win :))

Another Kinkade Church

I’ve been quite busy of late trying to make as many of these Specials as possible before I hit my end point for making general cards (usually sometime around mid August) when I then switch to those cards everyone needs to have maybe 40+ of – not even going to say the word LOL!

One of the nicest ones I’ve made of late though is for my prayer partner Norma who just adores black/white cards for all sorts of occasions, so I figured I’d make her one  of these just to bless her as she’s going through a bit of a tough time of late.

 

This one again features a Thomas Kinkade image  - another lovely church image which I’ve used on other cards but this is the lilac form.  The image is called Forest Chapel and I have matted it onto magenta mirri paper to highlight some of the colours within the image.

Background paper on the top is from a magazine so a one-off, bottom one from my stash, & lace and paper roses as always from Wild Orchid Crafts, with green leaf punchies.

The Stop is a Hunkydory one from one of their topper sets.  And as usual I've provided a coordinating tag.  All finished off with a silver border peeloff and purple gems.

This card is available on my Ebay Shop now.

Thomas Kinkade Personalised Easel Card

This card is another one featuring a wonderful Thomas Kinkade print – have SO many now to choose from it will take me months if not years working through them all.   So grateful to him & Joanna Sheen for coming together to allow us crafters the ability to present his work in our own right without having to pay huge copyright fees.   And I’m doubly grateful to my wonderful stepdaughters who bought me the triple CD set for my Christmas pressie last year as they were on a time-limited offer and I was running out of time to save up enough money to invest in them. 

This particular image is called “The Broadwater Bridge” and is a beautiful image with those glorious red flowers and the lamps on the bridge again confirming his ability to draw light into the painting from multiple sources.

Background papers come once again from the lovely clearance sets of 6 x 6 papers from Cutting Edge Crafts,  and have been edged with very narrow gold peeloff borders.  The pearl gems from my own stock.  The greeting on the stop actually came off of a diecut Hunkydory topper sheet, and as ever the tag is homemade and can be personalised if requested.

 

Flowers as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts and have been well glittered up to add a bit of interest to them.   Used 1 x 25 mm red rose,  then 20 mm red & light green roses along with some smaller 10 mm duo coloured roses with beautiful little white rosebuds & of course the punchie leaves.

 

This one has just gone up on Ebay so grab it quick as once they’re gone they’re gone – many are one-off designs for one reason or another and while similar ones can be produced I can’t always make exact copies.

Tough day :(

Apologies for the lack of new cards on the site of late, but my beautiful boy Tikvah had had a rather up and down month with his ongoing cancer & chemotherapy.  Unfortunately all culminated this morning with me having to have him put to sleep as he'd got to a point I knew he couldn't really recover easily from sadly.   It was a hugely tough yet right decision to make but made a lot easier by my awesome vets (Cedarmount in Bangor), especially Craig, who have supported us both so well through the past 12 years but esp the last 6 months.

However, you will probably appreciate it's left me in little mood for card making just now, but I'll have new cards up shortly.

 Tikvah - May 5 1999 to June 5 2011