Card: with brooch embellishment

I bought this brooch ages ago and have been awaiting inspiration to use it, so here is what I did with it:
The sun has been shining today, but I got sunburn yesterday so today I stayed indoors and made this card instead.
The 3 purple-ish strips are glitter card, the centre cream paper is handmade. I added a few brads here and there, 2 of which are dragonflies which I think is the scene on the brooch. I just love the colours of the brooch which is why I bought it.
I have not made this card for anyone, so its the first of my 'stock' cards, hopefully I will sell it, I can always add a message on the front as required and of course make a matching envelope.

All white???

I never did make the mans 'hessian' card, I was out by a week on his birthday. An opportunity missed. However my Friend Val, its her birthday too next week and it was a perfect excuse to create a white card. I have been wanting to do a white card for a while and thought I'd have to wait until Xmas, or a wedding (too rare) so here it is my shabby chic white card.
Only problem was, was writing 'happy birthday' I did not want to use any colours. So I used some tiny bits of vellum I had left over, and blindly embossed on it by hand with a cuttlebug folder. I am not too happy with the result but I could'nt think of any other way. My one and only 'happy birthday' stamp was too large. Thats why I'm not keen on stamps. The vellum was then glued to clear acetate. I dont have any clear 'gems' unfortunately which I really would of liked to of added.

I wanted to add lots of textures and have a lavish amount of flowers bunched together. I've seen thhis done on other cards but mine, well, I dont think I have quite got the hang of it. Other than that I am happy with the result. I made a matching envelope out of white textured wallpaper which I'll photograph tomorrow.
 So here's the white card, all white?
                      

Another digi

I started a more complex one than the first one below, but I just could'nt do it, it was beyond me. Therefore I ended up finding this one, not as sophisticated as the 'Alice' below, but different. The tutorial for it made the face far more distorted than I have done it, I wanted to keep it more natural.

Hopefully Thursday I am going to get card making again, I shall have to day to myself, the weather is too bad to go gardening/riding my bikes and I have another mans birthday due next week. I am looking at using hessian fabric, weaving some rafia and other fibres. Well, thats the idea in my head, whether it turn out anything like that is another matter!

Not a card, digital art

I've been wanting to up my knowledge of photoshop for sometime so I bought a French photoshop magazine for advanced users. Yeah, dive in at the deep end eh? I had to spend 2 days in hospital recently and read it cover to cover and was itching to make a start when I got home.

This took me 11hrs to create, should of been about 2hrs!  I chose this particular tutorial first because not of the actual end result, but because of the steps involved taught me what I wanted to know.
Anyway, its supposed to be based on Alice in wonderland, hence the magic mirror in her hand. However, by the time I'd reached the bit for adding the white rabbit.....I opted to add a white cat instead, by then I had some idea of how it all worked.
The original had much less colour in it, rather gloomy I thought so the overall colours are much brighter.
I did enjoy this project even though it was hard going at first.
Layers???? easy peasy lol. not! There must be at least 40 layers in this project.

Thank you to Alina Silwinska who wrote the tutorial in the magazine. The magazine is in several languages, downloadable on www.psdmag.org
Any comments welcomed

 

Bits and pieces

Hi, hope you have all had a great weekend?
We went to a car boot sale yesterday (yard sale/vide grenier, quite a rare occurance in these parts) and I was really pleased to of picked up a few craft items for the grand sum of 10 euros. Theres a dozen or so ribbons, mainly halloween, some great narrow crocheted lace and some ric-rac plus a box of stamps. There are 3 alphabet stamps of various sizes all the letter 'M' I can only think of M-erry Christmas as a use so far. But there are 4 roller type stamps too, endless pattern! These I will definitely use as they are quite a universal pattern. I have not tried them out yet.

I also picked up a couple of balls of 'furry' wool, wool like all crafting products seems expensive to me here in France. One is brown, 1 is black so they are fairly neutral colours, great fibre embellishments.
I know this post is not very exciting, but for me this was a terrific find. Oh yes I picked up a very pretty flat oval enamel broach for next to nothing which if I wrench the fittings from it, it will make a fab embellishment.
As an added bonus there was a guy there who sharpened my all my craft scissors to perfection. I wish I'd taken my secateurs with me!

Another get well...book/album this time

Well, here we are, another first attempt at making an album or book, whichever it is classed as. Also my first attempt at stamping having purchased several used stamps, which in this case I used on the front of the envelope. Actually, this card is for the same neighbour, the man I made the 70th card for last week! So he's not doing bad, 2 cards in less than a week.
Anyway, he has just had some minor but important surgery, so an ideal opportunity to make another card! The theme as such is to encourage a very active man to sit still for a month, which he has to do, and which he is going to find very difficult! (Is he not Evelyne????) So it seems that  this card has ended up being rather humourous in content.
Really he is a 'Dog' lover hence the picture on the front. However no other animals have perfected relaxing like cats, thus pictures of cats in various relaxed positions. The overall message to him is:  "look at the pictures of how the grand masters of the art of relaxation do it and learn from them"

All the pages inside can be seen on the 'various' page plus the stamped envelope

                      

Am kicking myself

New thank you card made with a physically 'moving' decoupage image on the front.
I took a load of photos, but decided I did not like them. I was going to take some more, but forgot and went ahead and posted the card..........annoyed with myself for that!

New craft room!!!

You know how it is, clutter, clutter and more clutter. My craftroom (see photos on an earlier post) was just an area I squished everything into. Well, I decided to get rid of the settee that was never used and replace with odd pieces of furniture/ cupboards that we had in storage. So, I have what is in essence a new craftroom...Hoorah!

Everything now has its own place, even basic stuff like all my papers are now in one cabinet. It looks real tidy at the moment, you and I know exactly how long that is gonna last!

I've even got a space for the pazzles inspiration cutting machine, which I do not own, but I like to think maybe one day I can justify the cost.
At this very moment I am making labels for all the drawers and cupboards...well organised!  Seems a shame to have to wreck it when I come to make my next card.

 

70th French birthday card completed

Good afternoon/morning/evening depending upon your location. I hope you are having a great time???
Today I finished a card for a neighbours Husband for whom I do odd jobs for. Its his 70th on the 25th.
With this card I have aimed towards not just 70, but anything french to do with the year 1940.
Not wanting to do an ordinary straight shaped card, I opted for this style,  which I dont know what its called,  anyone know?
The 'backing' papers of burgundy and blue are wallpaper. The calender on the right is from 1940, I'm going to put a red circle round his birthday date, I must remember to do that!  I added chipboard shapes and letters, numbers, I love flourishes, they are so universal.


Of course, the stamps are 1940's french ones and the papers behind '1940', '70' and Bon Anniversaire are 1940's french franc notes. What was left over I used for the flowers.
The reciept in the middle, I found on the net, is from 1940 for goods bought in our nearest city. The 2 flowers are a mish mash of 2 styles that I found in a tutorial. I will add the links to the links column when I can find them again. I really like the spikey additions at the back of them. Takes a long time to make them though.


It may seem as if the envelope is on the rather large size, and indeed it is as this card when folded down is a very odd shape. In fact, the whole card will not stand up, I had to add flaps at the back of both the tall squares, I think they are called easels???


Many more photos now on cards for men page  Photos of things you cannot see in these few
Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Cheers for now.

 

      

Birthday Roses

Hello everyone. Today is my birthday 52 years old...nevermind. Today I received a bouquet of roses from my partner Bob. At the moment he is away fishing for a few days so these roses were a lovely surprise.

While he is away I was going to really crack on with some cards I need to make, mow, pot up seedlings, tidy up. Alas, I happen to have systematic Candida as well as experiencing the menopause, today I have not been well, no energy and my brain has come to a standstill. So mainly I have been playing with my PC and CS3 photoshop brushes as you can see in the photo of the bouquet I took. I thought in future I may do this with my card photos to make them more interesting to look at.

Thanks for visiting, I love reading your comments and knowing people have popped in to see if I have been up to anything.