Blue card

I began by thinking about making a tag, maybe one that folds, perhaps including one with a bit of Vintage French lace and a bit of a vintage French postcard.........and so it went on. By then I'd got the bit between my teeth and ended up making a proper birthday card! 


Couldn't stop myself...........

1st Birthday Card

Pink and Girly. That was my friends instructions to me to make her Granddaughters 1st Birthday card. 


As anyone knows, I have great difficulty with 'baby' cards, this was no exception, but I did decide to let the inside be fairly plain this time.


I used a Vintage French postcard in the center, and basically anything Pink I could find. The envelope, I totally covered in crystal organza. Annabella was embossed onto vellum. What I did was printed out the name in the font, reversed it, embossed the vellum on a piece of firm sponge, using the print off as a direct template.


I used lots of fabrics on the front, made my own flowers as usual. Shame the whole thing is a bit 'blocky' all squares and straight lines, inspiration was lacking. 


The lady who ordered it has asked me to make another card, so she couldn't of been too disappointed with this rather uninspiring (I think) effort.

'Simple' Birthday card

Do you remember I made a 70th card for my French neighbour? I also made a Baptism card/keepsake box for his daughters baby. Well I was asked by the 'daughters' Mother if I would make a birthday card for her daughter this month. 'But more simple than the others' she said. I understood that French perfectly. 


It's my interpretation of simple that is the difficulty!  Simple does not seem to be in my vocabulary, this is about as simple as I could make it. It only took me an afternoon, which was fast for me, and in my eyes simple!


I have tried a couple of times to take it round her house, but her daughter has been there every time, so have been unable to show it to her. Just as well her birthday is not until the 20th ;o)


As usual the one and only stamp I used on the front is not stright, despite my best attempts. The main birds in the flowers were taken from a pre-cut glittery decoupage sheet. I made the flowers myself, they took the longest and are in holo, glitter and mirri papers to match the colours. 

Above: I found a rather pretty vintage button, irridesent dark fuchia/purple

  

4 way blue fabric card

I will confess straight away that I found this theme/design/layout 'somewhere' on the net, loved it so much I wanted to try it. I have no idea where it was or by whom. So if you know who, let me know because I'd like to add a link in recognition of the inspiration.
Of course it is not exactly the same, but pretty close, the 'back' is all my own work however. It's Bobs nieces birthday next week so I made this for her. She is having her 1st baby next month,she is in her mid-thirties, so I will be making my first 'baby' card, or fabric art, depending what inspires me at the time. No-one knows what sex it is so I cannot even start to think of a colour theme for that one.

Back to this card though:  I guess in reality it has 8 sides. I had my first go at fabric printing on my laser jet. I did cheat a bit as I used some heavy duty canvas sticky tape. I just stuck it down onto the printer paper, then cut it off.
Not a stick of wallpaper on this one! Because there is both paper and fabric covering both sides of each 'page' I decided not to put card on it, it makes it feel lovely and soft, but it is not floppy. Same for the envelope. Yes I realise the envelope is totally a different colour, but it was the only blue tissue paper I had. To see how I got the splattery effect on the tissue paper see the previous post to this one.

Every page is completely covered in fabric, except for the 2nd, which is vellum. Feathers from my garden, inked in turquoise.

This is the sort of back of the card, it folds up so that the happy birthday sentiment is the front, if that makes sense?
The blue heart is fabric too, on paper, and is padded. The 'Made for you' page paper is some horrid blue paper which I tea dyed, as I did with all the tulle used in the card.

This is the front of the envelope. If you can image really hard lol, its a scene with distant hills, fencing, grass and a lake. Maybe not? Too abstract? I tried to create a birds nest in the 'tree'. The word Fran, is the Ladies name....Francesca.

The rest of the photos, are just the page details:

Fabric art wallhanging & images (24)

This wallhanging has really satisfied my love for embellishing, textures and fabrics. For all that might look complex, it definitely took me far less time than making a card, it just seemed to come together without effort. I want to head in this direction more often. 
I was inspired by Ruth Rae, her book 'layered, tattered & stitched' plus several other blogs which pointed me in the right direction. Now that I have made my first one, I do not think I will need to refer to them again.


It is not quite complete as I want to add a couple of fabric tabs with a personal messages for my friend. I have hidden a 'Happy Birthday' message, which I hope she will find if she explores it, so she can hang it up without as a piece of Art without a glaring birthday sentiment.


It measures about 24cms wide by 45cms, 9.5" x 18"....ish


Anyway, I don't know what you think of it, any comments or suggestions very much welcomed :o)

I tea dyed the lace and fabrics

Centre embellishment was a necklace. All buttons are vintage.

Brass top bit, half a sawn off key

Navy blue base, is a hardback book cover

2 organza 'pockets ' containing 'things'

Holgraphic card

I tend to buy up on eBay, other peoples craft clear-outs. One batch I received ages ago contained a load of holographic card. Personally I find it a bit gaudy, but also way too interesting to cover it up either. So for several months now its just been sitting in my card collection. I really have no idea what inspired me to use it for my brothers birthday card. It just popped into my head. 


In fact I enjoyed using the holo card so much, I am thinking of using it in other ways. Whether the photos show it or not it actually looks quite awesome under electric light. I am hoping that if he displays it, when he is walking past it, it will catch his eye because it really does shimmer and move.


For the back, I ended up using dies and punches. I also made an envelope...and I did not use wallpaper this time! lol.


I actually finished this card before I went into hospital, but did not have time to photograph it. I photographed it under my daylight craft lamp to try and bring out the colours and give a true-er impression of the actual holographic effect.

This is the front of the card:

The back;

Flower detail:

Front of the envelope:

Fabric card for a young Goth lady

Hello again, 2 postings in one day and changed the look of my Blog! Busy busy busy.
 I've just completed and sent this card for my Brothers Girlfriend who is a Goth with leanings towards Steampunk. I wanted to make a shabby chic fabric card but it had to be in dark colours. I made all the flowers, the back and front of the card is based on black velvet. 

I followed the colours on the centre image which I felt was appropriate for this card.

The image is actually covered over with acetate. I did try printing it onto fabric but my laser-jet printer did not want to know. I'd like to do fabric printing so I need to get the correct transfer papers to do this.
The frame surrounding the actual image was my first use of the new 'ruffler' foot I bought for my sewing machine. It worked a treat. There's going to be ruffles everywhere now! They are 'sew' easy to do! 
My machine is about 20 years old, and I now find myself drooling over new or used ones on eBay that do lots of fancy stitching.


Envelope made from wallpaper.....as usual.

Tea cup mini pig easel card

My friend wants to own one of those tea cup pigs. I've never heard of them until now.  It looks to me like an animal you could easily lose in your house!


For her birthday I made this pig themed card. I experimented in making a box style envelope for it....out of wallpaper.... of course, as I always do. It turned out OK, however I did have to reinforce the sides with some chipboard strips.


I treated myself to some circle scalloped  Nestability dies so decided to make the circular 'tag' .  I also put a vellum 'window' on the front of the envelope, but you cannot see through it at all. If I do this again I'll use a bit of clear acetate. 


Thank you to 'The Graphics fairy' for the free sentiments, which I actually copied then modified a little in photoshop. 


The 'tag' that props up the front of the card 'make a wish' was meant to be loose. I'd ordered a couple of fimo pig heads and intended to use them to prop the card up, but they never arrived in time. The whole of France is on holiday in August, and it severely affects postal deliveries. What is the betting they turn up tomorrow!


The scalloped edges on the back of the envelope were done with shaped scissors. That was fun trying to line them up exactly!  I made all the fabric flowers myself, and I particularly like the pink button, as it looks just like a pigs snout. 
Instead of adding leaves to the flowers I wound through some gauze I found in our first aid box. I've been looking for some everywhere, and I had some here all the time, and I have been dying to use it. 
Talking of dying, the next card I am planning will involve having a go at dyeing some of the gauze with my over abundant crop of blackberries.


2 things I wish I could change on this card is to get rid of the brown fibre edging, I don't like it. Secondly, I really must try harder in lining up things straight. I can see it in the photos now that some elements are decidedly on the skew. Well, I am only an amateur I suppose, it looks so unprofessional.


One thing I did learn whilst making this is to tie bows so they sit straight. But I couldn't do this on the back of the envelope because the ribbon was too short and I did not have any-more in that colour. Learnt to do this by following this tutorial at Sharons blogspot:  Created By You Thank you for that Sharon.