Joys of the Season

(As ever, apologies for the minimal attendance this blog is getting from me of late, but I’ve had a tough year health wise, so like some others in the blogosphere, just haven’t been up to doing too much until recently.)

I love, Love, LOVE this time of year - I love the dark nights, colder weather (you can always warm up but SO much tougher to cool down!!), & especially the colours of Autumn, running into Winter, & all the glitz & glamour of beautiful Christmas cards.  What's not to love!!!

Because of my horrendous health decline this year I figured when I finally escaped from hospital (after 3 months in), that I might be safer to start into making my C. cards a little earlier than usual, so began them at the start of July (I’d normally have held off until August).  And just as well I did as I managed to end up spending most of September in as well ultimately :(. 

Unfortunately because of all the time constraints & my continuing poor health, I felt I really didn’t have the time luxury to make my boxed “specials”, plus few people really want them at Christmas unless they can hand them over, as the postage is just so prohibitive on them, esp for the elderly in my family.  So, I’ve concentrated on the quick & cheap for the most part, yet somehow seem to have managed to still spend an utter fortune on new stuff (utterly unnecessary but heck, it’s so nice to treat myself now & again, well ok, monthly!!)

So this is just a couple – I’ll put more up as & when I’m able.

The first one is using a downloaded vector graphic (can't find this particular one again, but many others are freely available online) which you literally just print and use. This design was very easily decoupaged by printing off a couple of extra copies.  There were quite a few of this style of design, some of which work wonderfully for decoupage, with others only suitable to use as single flat images or pyramage etc.  When I’ve more time I’ll probably add to this design by putting on some thin 3 mm ribbon around the baubles which would really work wonderfully I think.

This second one has rapidly become a favourite of mine for this season – so quick & simple, yet, to me, really effective & beautiful.  Easily made, you just print off a verse or quote onto A6 card, then cut that smaller than your A6 base card and border cut the bottom, before matting it on (same would apply if you want to make other sizes). I’ve just stuck the card mat at the top so that it has some movement, but you can obviously stick the entire card on if you prefer.  Then, put whatever you want in the space at the top or the side (depending whether you’re making portrait or landscape designs).  I’ve used the wonderful K&Co Glad Tidings Poinsettia & Holly Layered Accents for most of mine, although I’ve also used some smaller decoupage designs on some too.  But the poinsettias go so wonderfully with the red card & ribbon etc.  I then finished them off with some gold holographic peeloff borders & small snowflakes or stars etc.

These cards will all just get simple inserts rather than anything requiring more work, just so I can ensure I get as many made as possible.

I invested (LOL!!) in the wonderful Heartfelt Creations superb Christmas 12 x 12 pad which has lots (!) of readymade card fronts available just for the sticking on, so will show you some of those next time around, hopefully in a few days.

Enjoy!

 

Another TK card :)

I had put this card up months ago under a different title but for some reason it attracted TONS of spam comments, so I deleted it & am now reposting with a new title in the hope it doesn't have the same problem.  If anyone knows a good way to blocking such spam, I'm open to ideas!!
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Another in the range of TK designs as I’ve just SO many of these to play with at the moment – hard to make my mind up which one to use – it’s just such a privilege to be able to access his awesome work in this manner and to create pretty neat cards from them.  I chose to make this in the horizontal fold style rather than an easel just for a change.

This one features a design called "Mountain Retreat" which depicts a wonderful bright woodland scene complete with pheasants & deer alongside a lovely waterfall and stream.   The topper image is matted onto brown & gold mirri paper to reflect the autumnal colours of the painting.  The background paper of the card comes from another K&Co pad - this time Brianna - & is also matted onto copper backing card. And again I've used my trusty Martha Stewart punch to provide a little strip to sit on top of a lace line underneath the topper, which adds a little more depth.

Flowers as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts & are a mixture of roses (25 mm, 15 mm,  & 10 mm) that again accentuate the colours setting off the card beautifully.  Finished off with beautiful gold "gypsophila" sprigs and punched leaves.  As usual I've highlighted the rosese with some Stickles glitter.

The inside is similarly decorated to complement the outside and features a cream rectangle panel for the greeting to be placed on.  

 

This card will be up on my Ebay Shop shortly.

Finishing Christmas off for 2012

Despite the post title I’ll actually be working on Christmas cards right through until at least mid February if not later in a (vain) attempt to get well ahead for this year’s crop as it really does take me almost 6 months to produce what my family/friends request of me every year plus enough for myself & some to hold over to the following year (somewhere in the region of 600 odd)!!   Not many if you’re young , fit & healthy – sadly I’m none of those – not one L!  SO I have to spend longer than most to get making as many as required.

But every year I continue to be captivated by the current crop of new designs to play with, and am forever amazed at how there’s always some new concept or twist on the previous year’s crop.   And this year was no different.  Last year I spent far too long working on my newly adored “Specials” – the easels with flowers, and got rather far behind with “ordinary” cards, so this year I turned things around and barely made any special style cards other than some really quick & easy ones that didn’t take anywhere near so long to produce.   Having given up on stamping (not by choice), it was much easier to produce easel cards using pyramage or decoupaged toppers and easier again were the diecut texts with a bow (below). 

I also invested again in CUP designs as there were some truly wonderful ones going cheap (when the site offered a 20% discount), and also started reusing the Squeezee designs but in a different way having had feedback that some weren’t overly struck on them as they were meant to be made.  So rather than making them freestanding, I decoupaged them up in layers which worked really well and again, produced quick and easy cards that went down a ton better.

Finally I made the usual batch of Dufex cards as these are a constant useful type being completely flat so highly popular given our hugely inflated postage costs, and with some of my family being pensioners, these are the ones they want most of.

SO here are a few of the designs for you to enjoy – I’d have put up more if I could find an easier method to do so, & where I would once have sent you to my website gallery to view them, I’m having to consider dumping the website because nobody buys from it anyway, & it’s costing me more than I can afford to maintain, so once the domain name runs out that’ll be the end of it.

To save me time, I've not put up any details on these, but if one should take your fancy & you'd like more info on it for any reason, please do just fire me a note - I'll be more than happy to provide it to you :).

In the meantime, blessings for the rest of this wonderful season, & trust you have a wonderful Saviour's Day and beyond.

Enjoy

Spring Cards

Been a good while since my last post as, as ever, I’ve not been well again & battling all sorts of issues.  BUT I still try and push out at least 1 card daily or every other day for distraction therapy, so finally getting a moment to show a couple up here.

These are ones I made for my mum-in-law and in truth, I was grateful to have a reason to push myself to make some as I was just in such a low spot physically it was really hard to make the effort to be bothered to do anything :(.

The first one is a nice Thinking Of You card in her favourite colour – green and with an image from her favourite painter - Thomas Kinkade.  Papers are K & Co and the flowers as always are from Wild Orchid Crafts.  Greenery are MS punchies – I’ve never been able to afford or even find sometimes, the particular Branch punch that makes them, so instead I buy them ready punched from a wonderful girl in the US.

Then the 2^nd one is a total change using a wonderful kit from Crafts You Print.  Can’t remember the exact kit details offhand, but if you’re interested in it, just email me & I’ll have a closer hunt for them.  It’s a lovely see through easel with floating butterflies, & I did it in both A4 & A5 sizes.  The larger one is going to be for my prayer partner’s birthday later in the year.  The kit comprises 3 sections which you just glue together to give it stability, and I used some additional heavyweight card too to ensure it would hold. 

 

 

I think it's a truly beautiful card but while the designer has other designs available, none were quite as pretty as this particular one.

 Enjoy

Arch Sympathy card

Apologies for so few cards going up on this blog of late but I wasn’t very well through the past couple of months for various reasons, and on top of that really struggled to get back into the mood for making general cards after such a hectic few months prior to Christmas feverishly pushing out cards to fulfil demand.

But I’m back with this card – one of a number of Sympathy cards I got stuck into making for my mum-in-law.  I was just grateful to have a reason to make cards as it was proving really hard to get bothered to make anything at the time, so knowing she wanted these helped get me kick started.  This card's rather simpler than my more extravagant easel style from last year but a lot more my usual style.

The card itself is a tri-fold arch style with a beautiful decoupaged floral image on one section with a cut out window at the front which you could cover with acetate if desired, but this way allows the decoupage to poke through which I think adds to the overall effect.    It makes for a very unusual and unique sympathy card that I think would encourage anyone getting it.

Hopefully from here on, I can upload more designs over the coming weeks, but with my health issues so variable, I'll just have to play it by ear.

Enjoy