A Special Card For a Special Lady

It is Caths Birthday again and I always feel the pressure to step up a bit with my card making for her. She does such beautiful work herself.

I came up with this little creation for her using my Tim Holtz Bird Die and a gate fold card with a belly band.

I love this colour combination, it reminds me of wedgewood. The card stock is Stampin Ups Ballet blue, which is delete so that is a shame. It is teamed up with a cream metallic cardstock and they just seem to go well together. The belly band holds the whole thing closed.

The bird cage shape is cut out of both sides of the gate fold and then another is added just to one side so that we have a gate fold with a whole birdcage. It was a bit tricky to cut the gate fold like this but after a few false starts I finally made it work.

The bird itself is on the inside of the card, but you can see it peeking through on the front. This bird is done with the Stampin Up bird punch, whereas the bird on the belly band is the one that comes with the bird cage.

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Happy Valentines Day

Not a day we make a fuss about anymore, but still a day.

I decided to make an effort and so I made a card for the day. I had an idea of cutting out a heart and having a key in it, so that is what I wanted to do. It took some thinking but I did manage to get the heart cut out. I used Stampin Up”s concord crush cardstock as the card was for my husband so I didn”t want to use any pink. I also like the purple with the red.

The card needed some balance on the inside so I added a few little touches to ensure that it would stand up nicely. When I first started I couldn”t get a nice key so only had a great big heavy on that I was struggling with. When I stumbled on this smaller key I knew it was the answer to my balance problem.

To keep the whole thing closed I added a body band with yet more hearts. Now this may have been a bit of overkill but it was only on for a short amount of time and so served its purpose.

So there it is, my card for my valentine.

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Inspiration has Struck

The time between christmas and new years here is often a time to do little, eat a lot and recharge after the year. This year has been no exception to that.

While recharging I had every intention of getting out the sewing machine and continuing with some of those projects that have been pushed aside for other things.

That hasn””t happened, but instead I have been getting on to a few cards. Actually so far only 4 and two of those I haven””t even gotten around to taking photos of.

So this first one I copied this from Darlene Designs and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I used Stampin Up French Filigree stamp, clear embossing powder and Tim Holts inks to create the background. The butterfly is from the Beautiful Wings Embosslits. It has no greeting because I am not sure what it will be used for as yet.

The second came out of my head so no reference here.

So I teamed up Concord Crush and Real Red Inks for this one and believe it or not these are the only inks on it. I love this Tulip Frame Embossing folder it can go with so many things.

My head is swimming with card ideas, but alas nothing for a card for my Daughters Birthday at the end of January so I will have to put my thinking cap on a bit more.

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Christmas Card for 2011

This year I decided to make just one christmas card for everyone. I started early so that I would have time to trial a few designs if need be.

Sammie had wanted a stamp of santa in his sleigh with the reindeer last year, and I had managed to get one after christmas, so I tried out a card with it.

I began by stamping the image with black embossing powder which was coloured with a blender pen after all the background was coloured.

I used a mask to make the moon and inked the outside using Tim Holtz Weathered wood and Stormy Sky distress inks. This gave me just the right blend of blue grey for a night sky. The moon is inked in Stampin”””” Up Barely Banana which is a retired colour, but again just the right shade.

After all the inking I sprayed the top with Dazzling Diamonds glimmer mist for a bit of sparkle, before assembling the whole thing.

This was the first card that I tried out, and we liked it so much that it was the one we used. Made trialing very easy as there was only one. I ended up having to make 50 of them this year, the inking of the background took the most time, but I think the results were worth it.

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Babies and Birthdays

Richard and Kelley are expecting a baby soon. I am making Kelley a nappy bag as a gift, more about that later.

She did not want a baby shower so I am going to take her out for a girls day next weekend, while Richard and Bevan babysit and cook dinner for us.

Again my limited resources has effected what I do for a card, and my first attempt at this was too plain and boring. So this morning I pulled it all to bits and had another go.

The picture is not the best and I might have to replace it, but this version is so much better.

Richards birthday is the day before so I have made him a birthday card as well.

Yes there really is a line on the fishing pole, and I used my owl punch to make the fish as well. I also found a verse for the inside of the card.

I don not know if you can read it or not, and I cannot remember where I got it from. I have managed to find a list that gives you the ink colour setting for the Stampin Up inks so I managed to print it in the chocolate chip ink colour.

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Time to move house

Well not us, but my cousin moved and so I made her a card to go with her housewarming gift.

This was a tricky one as I didn””t have anything that implied a house or moving, so I had to stretch my imagination.

I used my birdcage die and started from there with the little bird holding a key for the new house.

I loved this colour combination of Ballet Blue and a metallic cream, it reminded me of the old fashioned wedgewood. I will be using this again sometime in the future.

I also made a card for my Dear Jane Secret Pal, and I used the new sew suite stamps from Stamping up.

This is the first time I have done patchwork on a card, so still needing some practice in it, but over all not to bad.

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Escaping Birthday

I had an idea for making the bird in the cage into an escaping bird so I had to give it a try.

I cut the cage so that it looked like the cage door is open, and I cut two sets of the wings so that the bird could be flying.

I turned it into a Birthday card, but now cannot remember who I gave it to, Luckily I took a picture before I sent it.

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Silver Anniversary Card

We have been invited to a Silver Wedding Anniversary this weekend, and so this required another card. The couple are not people we know well, but rather people in our homeschool group. They are lovely people and 25 years is well worth celebrating, which they are doing with a barn dance.

Anyway, using my limited supplies this is what I came up with.

I was pretty happy with how this turned out and I hunted online for a verse for the inside.

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Three Rows Done

Just to prove that I have been doing things other than card making, I thought I should update what has been happening with my Dear Hannah quilt.

Today I finished the last block of my third row of the quit. I decided after doing the first two rows, that I would then do the last two rows, followed by the middle two. That way if I had any problems with not enough fabric it would all be spread throughout the quilt. I also have a few random blocks done as well.

So here they are

I chopped the top of this picture off so you will just have to take my word that the duck is done.

So onwards and upwards. I am not sure if it will get finished this year or not, but at least progress has been made.

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Happy Anniversary

For our Anniversary last month Bevan gave me my very first Tim Holtz Die. The caged bird one, I couldn””””t wait to use it.

It has taken a little while for me to collect all the bits I wanted to put on it, but this morning I finally got the time to finish it.

So here it is.

1st caged bird card

It is not done in the usual grungy Tim Holtz style, but I am very happy with it.

Although you can””””t really tell in the picture I managed to make the bird cage rounded at the front so that the little bird inside would not get squashed. Because of this I made a little box for an envelope so that the whole thing can be posted without getting crushed in the mail.

I can see me making many more things with this die.

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