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.

Friendship book page H & cover

Still not finished! The H page is done, which did ot photograph very well, but you get the idea.
For the cover I used some sumptuous raw silk beaded fabric. I think its bridal fabric. I love bridal fabrics, why dont they make them in different colours?  In order to move it away from the bridal look I drew on it with coloured fabric pens and coloured in some of the pearls. The closure I made from gold raw silk, its padded and I machined over the top and added some blue embroidery. That is not a button by the way, it is from a disassembled Christmas decoration lol.


And no it is not finished. I want to add some embellishments to the front, probably ribbons and another upcycled jewellery piece in the center. 
The weather has been fabulous today so I have been doing things outside instead of crafting indoors. Hopefully I shall get it completed tonight. I already have some ideas for wrapping it up in fabrics and 'stuff'


By the way the H page in particular and the closure was my very first attempt ever at embroidery.

'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

  

Baptism project/keepsake

I am really disappointed in these photos I took of this, they are very very grainy. That's what happens under low lighting conditions. I've spent weeks making it, and now I am unable to show it at it's best. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Shut up and move on eh?

Some of the graininess of the actual people photographs is because the lady who took them forgot to use zoom, so I had a real job on my hands trying to improve them when they were cropped down so small.

For some reason the text has ended up highlighted, and I cannot get rid of it.

I think I'll give up for tonight and go to bed  lol

The white lace butterfly top left, I took off of a vintage brooch. The top right and bottom left flowers and elements were donated to me by Malikas' parents from the table decorations at the party. (Except for the 2 round pink flowers which I made)

Malikas' parents, (on the right), have a nickname for her: 'Princess' so I added the 'crown' to her photo, and the background, as she was in someone's arms in the original photo. This 'page' is my favourite.

As you can see, I still have not learnt to stamp straight...grrr!

I zigzag stitched the heart shaped photos onto ........Yeah! Wallpaper! cut into hearts.

I do not know if you can see, but the flower centres under the Ladies photo are tiny tiny mother of pearl buttons only about 5mm across which I picked up in a job lot of buttons recently. I do not 'do' cute, as such, but these buttons are definitely 'Cute'

I am not all that good at arranging photos, but obviously these had to be in 'relative' order. Apologies again for the poor photo quality.

The Above is from the afternoon party, I copied some elements that were on the tables. The cake in the shape of a bed is a traditional design for French Baptism cakes. The peachy and cream background of the cake picture I made from paper decorations they had hanging round the walls. The picture frame, is a chipboard oval I made and I wrapped ribbon round it, put an acetate sheet over the photograph.

The Disney elements come from a box of almonds that I was given by them as a souvenir. Bob ate them as I am now allergic to nuts...nuts!  The pink garish 'rose'/flower I made from donated petals that they had spread over the tables.

This project just looks so much better in real life...honestly!

Dyeing, Blackberry way....

There has been a glut of blackberries in the garden. We have already made about 12 jars of jam and there must be about 5kgs of them in the freezer. And still they keep coming. Earlier this year I acquired some fabrics whose texture appealed to me so I had my first go at dyeing pieces of them.....with Blackberries.


They did not turn out as purple as I had hoped, and at first I felt quite disappointed. But having looked at them since I do rather like the colour. I'd describe it as a light fuchsia. I am now thinking of attempting to use Tumeric as a dye. However, I now know that Blackberries are good for creating various pinks and are good for staining saucepans!
In future, I'd like to make more fabric cards or fabric art. I have ordered some fabric manipulation books from Amazon to get me started, and I cannot wait for them to arrive. 
Today, at a car boot/yard sale, I bought 3 rolls of cotton/gauze like fabric in natural colours for a ridiculously cheap price, so I have plenty of fabrics to play around with now. 


More Angel and fairy images to come later today.

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.

Birthday card for a singer

Its been quite a few weeks since I made a card as I seem to of been busy doing DIY around the house and trying to pot up all the 100's of seedling coming through in my greenhouse.
 This particular card I made this week is for a real tomboy lady's birthday who as well as being an 'off roading' freak in her top of the range Land Rover, likes to sing with 'big band' musicians. So I thought I'd use this as the theme, something a bit glitzy and more 'girly' than land rovers and muddiness. .

I sprayed the chipboard letters with glue then dipped them into fine glitter. I only hope it stays stuck on as I do not know any other way of gluing glitter down.