Poppy Card

I made this card for an old school friend, using my new poppy stamp from the JS favourite flower stamps. Coloured with promarkers (of course). I scored around the white card and also edged it with gold. It was then mounted on red "corrugated" card.

For the card itself I used one of my rollergraph stamps, as I came across the box containing them, whilst tidying up and decided to give one an airing for this card! (Funnily enough Jak posted a card on her blog using a rollergraph image on the same day I found mine - so must have been some psychic crafting energy in the air!) Used a plain red ink pad for this.

I had intended to just stamp one "Happy Birthday" at the bottom right of the card, and although I lined up the writing on the stamp - it went askew! I discovered that the actual stamp doesn't line up with the wording on the top of the stamp. (Confess I had forgotten this since it is a long time since I used it last - think it will be taken off its wooden block for future use, as it is quite nice script - either that or will have to remember to stamp it on a blank piece of card, and cut it to fit!) However, the problem was overcome by randomly stamping the greeting over the card, so a "happy accident" twist to the finished card. Fortunately I hadn't stuck the topper on! (I bet the recipient of this card is laughing at my confession, as I know she reads my blog!)

The back of the card was finished with another line of the rollergraph image, and I also used it again on the envelope.

Card for great nephew

Boys cards are so difficult - particularly when their only interest seems to be football! Sorry the picture isn't brilliant!

Cut the shorts from navy card stock using the Booty and Boobs template, and mounted on cream cardstock which actually has lines scored on it (although they don't show that much). Had originally planned to do shorts (i.e. folded card) with a hidden message underneath, but changed my mind. Have made the shorts before just as a card, but it is a nightmare trying to do an insert for them - so much easier to mount them onto a card!

My granddaughter drew the numbers from a stencil and cut them out from red corrugated card, learning how turn the templates the wrong way round on the reverse so that the numbers weren't backwards (yes been, there done that, after producing a number for a card some time ago on cuttlebugged card - to find the number was the wrong way round! )

I also had the footballer boy decoupage in my stash, that I really needed to use up, before the boys in the family got too old! Used transparent 3D dots for the decoupage - they are brilliant, and if you have a narrow bit to adhere, you can roll them in your fingers to the shape you want!

Ginger Jar Card

I made this card for my sister-in-law's birthday next week, and also for the August challenge on the Joanna Sheen forum. The theme for August was: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

The something old was the blue cardstock, and some blue ribbon from my cake decorating stash, and the blue sentiment.

The something new was the use of Joanna's new CD Eastern Treasures, and my new Martha Stewart doily punch.

The something borrowed was the inspiration for the topper from my pal Sheila on the forum - based on an idea she did for her birthday card to me.

and of course the something blue is a bit obvious!

The backing paper came from Eastern Treasures, as did the ginger jar and the bird.

I resized the jar card in Publisher, and printed and cut it out. I then overlayed the same resized jar shape (on some different backing paper from the cd and positioned the words where I wanted them to appear. Deleted the jar shape and printed off the backing paper, with the wording on it.

Once printed off I carefully lined up the folded jar shape, traced the outline, and cut out the paper with the words on, and then another piece to match the pattern without words, these were used to "line" the topper. Ribbon was tied around the top of the jar, and then the topper glued to the card.

My husband asked how would the recipient know to open the topper - so I printed off the bird from the embellishment section of the cd and attached it to the top flap of the jar.

here is the inside of the topper.

I cut a strip of white card and cut out the doily edge, then made a faux "ribbon" to cover the join by cutting a thin strip of pearlised paper, and edging it with fancy thin peel-offs.

Birthday and Sympathy

Two very different cards - one for my Brother-in-law who is keen on sailing, and the second for the husband of a neighbour, whose wife died this week. using the Lily image I coloured recently, finished off with my new Martha Stewart punch that I got for my birthday.

Received Cards

Well I just had to share with you these beautiful hand-made cards received for my birthday:

The first three are from the family: Daughter Dawn, 7yr old grandaughter Ellie, and Dawn's MIL.

The next four are from members of the JS forum: Andrew, Adele, Janet and Sheila

another view of Sheila's showing secret message