Matting and Layering

Using one of my new acrylic stamps, my cuttlebug and my nestie, along with some ribbon, brads and a sentiment tag I pulled this together as a first attempt, and was really please with the result.

What do you think?

Jo Anne

A Little Doolicraft

Whilst visiting Trago a little while ago, I bought a card making set from Doolicraft.  It contained various decoupage sheets, 8 card blank, envelopes and miscellaneous cards and papers.  All in all a really good bargain.

I opened the box on about 4 different occasions before I got the inspiration to do anything with them, and then suddenly, I got it together and came up with these

There are some Get Well,

   

Birthday,

Men's,

and moving house.

Then there are some generic that can have labels attached as I am asked for them.

All in all, not a bad set to buy, and so far everyone seems to love the cute look.

I don’t really think they are my style, and probably won’t make them again, but I think that they were a good buy at the time.

Jo Anne

 

Piggy In The Middle

It was Duncan’s birthday a short while ago and  I decided to use a little cute piggy on the centre of his card, mainly because of an in joke related to work!

I used a CD-ROM where you create you entire card on your computer screen and then print it off and glue to the front of a card blank.

I printed the picture twice, and cut the centre image out and decoupaged it onto the top of the original, therefore adding some dimension to the card.

Hope you had a good one ‘dwarling’.  mwah, mwah!

Simons Birthday

Simon's birthday was causing me a problem...... I'm not good with men's cards!

When I spotted this cyclist on a die cut sheet I wash chuffed to bits. He loves his bike, and it's because of him that Paul upgraded his bike 18 months ago.

I used a black card blank, and green textured card matt to give the effect of the countryside the imaged chap is cycling over.

Very simple, but as I said, I'm not good with mens cards!

Happy Birthday Simon.

Mikes Birthday

Another year Mike! Happy Birthday!

I put together this Thomas Kincaide card for him, from my CD-ROM. It is a slight variation on what it should have been, as I thought it would work better.

The only thing I am not happy about is the white from the cut edge of the decoupage, but I've told Mike that I want to edge it in gold for him, and he can have it back!

I chose this image, as I wanted to get something that resembled lighthouse hill, where they live.

Only the best for my friends LOL x

Steam Engine Dreams

My friend asked me to make a card for her. It was her husbands birthday and she wanted something unique for him.

I was originally going to use my Popcorn Bear discs, however I remembered that he loves steam trains, and found a copyright free image that I was able to use.

I used a black card blank, to co-ordinate with the back and white image, and mounted some black and white papers onto some silver mirri card.

The final touch was to add the peels off sentiments.

Footballer Forte!

I know that Dave loves his football, and whilst making Leanne's card earlier today, I spotted this little footie chap, and thought that Dave might like him.

The backing paper is the football pitch and on top of this I placed a topper.

the insert is a toned down version of the footie pitch.

Not bad for someone who hasn't a clue about sports..... that's me, in case you were wondering LOL!

Mike

Mike goes in for his eye operations this coming week, and finally, after over 12 months, he should be able to enjoy his little MX-5 with the lid down and the sun shining.

He has had to pretty much live permanently in sunglasses, both indoors and outdoors, as the light hurts his eyes too much.

When I saw this image, I realised it was perfect for the occasion. I particularly love the art deco feel of it, and therefore chose a font for the type written notes that fell into this theme

Good Luck for Tuesday Mike, we'll be thinking about you. xx

A Fishy Dilemma

There are only so many cards for fishermen that you can come up with, and this is my latest attempt.

I gave the person who asked for the card, a few other standard birthday cards to choose from along with this one, and happily, she chose this to give as the birthday card from her.

I used watercolour pencils to get the pale colours needed to finish the image off.

Lazy Day Fishing

I made this for my boss. His birthday is very imminent, and as he loves fishing, I thought I'd do this for him, once again from my Popcorn The Bear CD-ROM.

You must be finding all these bear cards very boring, but I have to try all of the images out, as I have them LOL!

Fishing Bear

My friend placed an order for a few cards and this is the outcome of her first brief.

She wanted a card for her Dad.

When I asked what he liked, she said fishing.

Great I thought, I knew I'd seen something on the Men's CD-ROM that I could make work for her.

Inside, I used the deep edge daisy cutter and printer an insert from the disc to finish it off.

It seemed to be a success with my friend, lets just hope her Dad liked it too!

Green Bear

Another little card that I achieved by using the CD-ROM for Men from Popcorn Bear

This looks great in real life, the green pearlescent card stock sets off the colours in the topper beautifully.

Blue Bear

I was lucky enough to get hold of the Crafters Companion, Popcorn Bear Trilogy CD-ROM and used the 'Mens' CD to be able to achieve this simple little pyrimage card.

Although I am still trying to get my head around the correct sizes to use for the inserts I think adding them is a very worthwhile task. It give such a nice finish to the card.

Boats and Bubbles

I fell back on a favourite decoupage for Paul's Dad, as it is his birthday on Bank Holiday Monday.

It is quite appropriate as he owns a little boat called Gizmo, and although it's not a sail boat like this, hopefully he will get the reasoning behind it.

I used an A4 black card base, and embossed it through my cuttlebug along the one side, with my spots and dots folder, to give the effect of bubbling water beneath the boat,then folded it to create an A5 card.

I then then mounted the decoupage onto another piece of black card that had also gone through the same spots and dots folder. All of this was mounted onto a piece of matt gold card stock.

The wording was made from some of my clear stamps, and just finished it off I think.

Birthday Boats

For Mike's birthday I used a pearl cream card blank and matted onto it some gold card stock that I had run through the cuttlebug with my spots and dots embossing folder. This was to represent the bubbles of water beneath the boat (clever huh!)

I then carefully cut out the boat decoupage and assembled it with 3d foam squares.

The wording was from a peel off sheet that I had in my craft box.

I added the usual blank insert in the middle and used a Happy Birthday rubber stamp for the sentiment.

I think he liked it..... Happy birthday Mike x

Jamie and Phill get Engaged

My gorgeous friends Jamie and Phill got engaged on February 14th. They are sooooo romantic! Aaaahhh!

Anyway - my question is ........ "Why is it impossible to buy a same sex Engagement or Wedding card?" after all it is not as if it is not considered the norm nowadays - for goodness sake it's the 21st century! Good job I can make my own cards!

Back to my story - sorry!

I used a tall white blank card from stock and chose some purple heart papers which I used down one side of the card.

I then used some stripy purple and lilac downloaded paper to mat the champagne glasses onto. I used the centres of some peel off flowers to create the sparkle coming out of the glasses!

I had some Congratulations toppers which I had bought at The Works a couple of weeks ago and then I matted the words Groom & Groom onto some silver card blank and stripe paper.

The swarkowski flowers finished the card off, however the more I looked at it the more like a wedding card it seemed to be, so I placed the word Engagement above the Congrats topper - et voila!

I am really pleased with the result, and apparently the guys loved the Groom and Groom touch Ha Ha!

Now, all that is left to do is think up another wonderful design for their Wedding card!

Speedboats

It's Adrian's birthday on Tuesday, and I wanted to make him a card with a Harley Davison on it, as he loves his motor bikes..... needless to say, I had not got a motor bike decoupage kit, so he will be getting a speed boat instead LOL

I've not used these decoupage papers before, and was quite pleased with the result, even if it was a little uninspired background wise from me, but I really need to get out and buy some more background papers etc.

Having cut each of the 4 decoupage elements out, I layered them with 3D foam, and matted them onto some silver card stock, before adding it to the dark blue pearled card blank. I then added the metal Happy Birthday embellishment as a finishing touch.

It will be posted today, and hopefully arrive in time for his birthday.