FFF.....Fabric Flowers Fest

I am sure you've all seen how to curl up organza circles to make flowers. I decided to have an experiment with all types of oddments of fabrics I have. How satisfying to be able to almost burn something and end up with pretty flowers. Some did not work, wrong type of fabric, they just caught fire, they refused to melt. These fabrics will not be wasted though as there are plenty of other ways of making fabric flowers, sadly not involving flames!
The first lot I did were a bit large, so I scaled the next lot down a little.
Its quite a fussy operation cutting out all those circles, but worth it. For this experiment I used the same fabric on each flower, but now I know how they react, I will mix and match the various colours and fabrics.

Orange County Choppers Card

OCC or Orange County Choppers is a TV series about Custom Motorcycle builders. My friend Mart, watches it regularly so I used OCC as the theme. So just to prove a point, you CAN put loads of flowers on a mans card!

I spent alot of time on the flowers, curling up the petals as tight as I could, and have just discovered shimmer sprays. For the flowers on the envelope I've used Copper shimmer on patterned and stamped paper.
I wanted a Grunge feel to this card, hope I have pulled it off?

I have added loads of techniques that I haven't tried yet: Using a sewing machine, lace up which is not the main element of the design, and the ripped side showing something else underneath.

Went a bit mad with the eyelets too, being as I found an eyelet setter in the garage tool box, a lucky find.
This card does not need to go through the postal system, so I was able to go mad on the envelope too, which of course is made from wallpaper.

Just to deviate from OCC a little and to hint at our generation of bikers ,I placed a Photo of Dennis Hopper (R.I.P.) in the corner looking down at Paul Tuttle who is OCC's owner. Of course Dennis Hopper starred in the classic bikers film 'Easy Rider' from the 60's. That's also why I put a small picture of Peter Fonda in the opposite corner. Both pictures taken from the movie.

Please click on the photos to see them more clearly.

Above and below, the inside of the Card

I did alot of work in Photoshop, as above I used one of OCC's logo's and changed the wording.

Below, I had great fun creating my 'Made by Jan' label in photoshop on the back of the card. I put 'Green Department Cards' as a spoof on the 'Orange County Choppers'  picture (on the envelope), because here in France the 'counties' are called departments and here where I live it is exceptionally green and lush.

THE ENVELOPE: Not sure which I like best, the actual card or the envelope!

I found a use for those ancient old stamps I found all of which were letter 'M's
I have close up shots of various elements, which I will upload to the Mens Cards page as it will be too many for a post I think.

Dartboard Cabinet Card. Gatefold

I think this has to be the simplest card I have made to date, it certainly seemed easy to do.
My friend is big fan of Darts, won a few trophies himself. Therefore as it is his birthday this week I thought I'd make a Dartboard cabinet card.
The cabinet itself is covered, both sides, in wallpaper. The hinges are flourishes which I got cheap from Maya road (eBay), cut them down, inked them in gold and walnut stain. The 'handles' are metal buttons which I filed off the shanks at the backs with my handy Dremel tool. After that, just a case of sticking padded tape into the backs.

I made the dartboard in photoshop, changed all the wire numbers so it reads 'Happy Birthday Symon 44' (that's his age), added his birth-date at the top to match the 'Champion' lettering.
To get the angle of the darts, which happen to be: 1 in where 19 should be, and 2 in the number 6 = 1966...smart eh? I wonder if he will suss that?
So I took a photograph of an actual dartboard with the darts in those places, printed them off and cut them out onto chipboard. The flights have a bit of foam behind them to give some dimension, whilst the tips are glued straight onto the board..

Chalk boards made from matt black paper, written on with a white oil pastel crayon.
And that as they say is that.
By the way, the front of the envelope is a photo of Phil Taylor, THE top English Darts player in PDC, I know Symon is a huge fan of his. I distorted the banner he is holding in Photoshop, then glued it into Phils Hands.

Scrap-hat

Not a card, although I am in the middle of making a 'dartboard' card.
The sun has been so hot I wear this hat, but it was plain, it just had a ribbon on it, that was all. So, yes I decided to embellish it with my new found scrapbooking skills. My French neighbour says it looks very 'English Garden Party' which I guess it does.

Leather corset gatefold card

G'day Bloggerettes, thanks for popping in to see my latest card which is a sexy one! Ever since I started making cards back in Dec 09, I knew I wanted to make this card for my Male friend whose Birthday it is next week. He is one of those chaps who just loves dressing up, any excuse, fancy dress, whatever. I do know though that he likes clothes bordering on 'fetish' so what a great opportunity to create something like this Corset card, and it was such fun to make.

Leather, Lace, studs, net and ribbon, all the cliché bits and pieces. The back of the card is glossy card stock, a bit difficult to photograph. I made an envelope with a collage of cut out pictures stuck on the outside and the inside. Anyway, I hope you like it too.


When he gets this card he is going to have to undo the lace at the front to get to the inside, just like for real really :o)

I have designed the envelope so that his address will be inserted into the leather clad Gloved hand as if the hand is holding an address card.

There's loads of photos of this card, so if you want to see the others, I have uploaded them onto the 'Mens' card page.

Above is the inside of the envelope, and yes he is into snakes too (take all sorts eh?), theres another snake on the back of the envelope too.

Decoupage cut out Clematis card

How crazy is this? I had to finish this card today (as I said yesterday) to be ready for Friday. The lady who it is for asked if she and her Husband could pop round so he could check his online banking. Sure, no problem, except I was in the throes of making the envelope and my PC is located in my craft room.. So I hid everything, and when they arrived he told me that it was her birthday today!!!! So what should of been an leisurely well thought out envelope front ended up being a mega rush job...and it shows. I am not happy with it. 
I'd already done the embossing and cut out and was planning how to write her name in photoshop and print a greeting and message on the inside of the card. All that went out of the window, and as you can see her name on the envelope is a hash job. Plus I could'nt print the message on the inside of the card because my printer refused to accept the thick cardstock  I'd used which in fact is watercolour practise paper, which is nice and thick, textured and not pure white.
Of course not having the time to prepare an alternative method, I just wrote all by hand. Shame because I spent so much time and consideration on the front of the card and the rest of it is literally thrown together. I would'nt mind but her Husband told me it was her birthday on friday...Grrrrr! I wont mention anything about 'Men' eh?

Butterfly quick card

Hello! I just found out yesterday that it is my neighbours Birthday this Friday, and that it is also my English friends birthday on the same day. She lives in the same village as I do, a newly installed UK escapee. We have people coming to stay Friday, so I have to make 2 cards pretty quick as well as have a real clean and tidy up of the house and garden before Friday.

I managed to make the 1st one yesterday that has butterflies on it, which is not my preferred type of picture. However I had a sheet of these pretty stickers, I liked the colours more than the content. The stickers are lightly glittery, so the grey card I placed behind each one is lightly glittered too, in case you are wondering why on earth I used grey!  The whole card is pearly and I made a sort of matching envelope for it from wallpaper. This card is for my French neighbour.

As I have said before the French do not 'do' cards really, so I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I did put some flowers on it, but it did not look right somehow, it sort of over-complicated it. So the flowers went on the envelope instead.
The birthday card I am going to make next for my English friend, will be a bit more elaborate as she has given me an order to make a 25th wedding anniversary card later in the year. I have a load of ideas that I want to test out!
Thanks for looking,  watch this space,  hopefully I'll have the next card finished by Thursday...fingers crossed.

3D Rainbow, easel type card

Always use a tripod eh? Especially when you wobble about like I do when trying not to!
So, the photos of the Rainbow card have turned out reasonably good for posting.

I made this for a lady who has always loved bright colours, especially rainbows. She now works for 'Rainbows' which is an organisation in UK which is something to do with children.
Originally I was going to do a basic rainbow easel card, but you know how it is, these things take on a life of their own.
For a change I made my own flowers this time, very thick ones too. The pots of gold I printed on my PC and I added some 'coins' spread out on the ground in front of each pot. The back of the card is clear acetate with a clear 'roof' like section from which I hung a double sided Sun and 2 silver lined clouds, so they twizzle round behind the rainbow.
Getting the lot to stand upright was tricky, in the end I placed a small pull out flap at the back to balance it all. I wont be making an envelope for this one as it would become crushed in the post so its going into a thin box, which I will decorate the inside at least.

Quick blue thank you card

I've spent the last week making a rainbow themed easel card, which I finished today, took a load of photos without use of the tripod and they are all blurry, tut! So I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile the ones I took of this blue thank you card turned out fine.

I made this card from some odd bits of paper and raided my 'flower' box. After every card I make, if I have bits of paper left over I punch out flowers for 'later use' as in this card. I added the pearly border because this 'thank you' is in relation to the recipients forthcoming marriage.
I have watched and read loads of tutorials on making various flowers, but I keep using the same old punch...how boring. There again, I just wanted something simple and quick for this particular card as I wanted to get it posted out pretty sharpish.
I hope you like it.

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.