Retirement Cakes

Apart from card making this week I have helped a long-time pal ice three retirement cakes.  Her daughter had asked her to do them for a colleagues retirement, but her hands are so bad at the moment, she asked if I could give her a hand, coating and decorating them.   We kept them fairly simple and used bought flowers, which we smartened up by adding ribbon.

The colour scheme was chosen to reflect the company colours.  theoretically all the cakes should have had the lettering in first picture, but as they took so long to make, and kept breaking the two larger cakes had the lettering as in the second picture.  Hopefully the staff eating the cakes won't really notice!

Inspired by Morwellham Quay?

The specification for this order was that the recipient was involved with Morwellham Quay in Devon, and dressed up in period costume.  I hope it fits the bill.  Image is from Joanna Sheen's cd The Cardmaker's Year.  Blue stardream card, gold mirri, with yellow paper, ribbon and embellishments from my last Docrafts goodybag.

My First Commission Card

Took me ages deciding exactly how I wanted this card to look.   A retirement card for a lady who apparently is looking forward to doing gardening on retirement. 

I had the sentiment and image organised, but couldn't get the placement of all the items right,  and knew I wanted to use some ribbon!  Then I won a card from Joanna from a C&C show.  Just the inspiration I needed.   To get the effect, I had to trim the image slightly.  My daughter has most of our cuttlebug folders - so improvised as I was doing a flowery theme by running the piece of card through 3 times with a slim folder.

The images are from JS Cottage Garden cd.  The sentiment is actually a bookmark, created using the interactive facility.  The backing paper is from JS Precious Petals cd.

                             

                                               Insert

The bookmark has been used again on the insert, but this time a verse from one of the other bookmarks has been added, as I loved the verse,  and the bookmark image adjusted to accommodate the verse.  Printed on my favourite Conqueror paper.

I delivered the card to my pal today - and can report back that she was thrilled with it!

Now to tackle the other two orders she has given me!

Card for Iris

Made this for my mum's cousin - who is nearly blind - tried to make it a bit "touchy feely"

JNM2 meets MCS Pro

Here are some cards I made playing with the new MCS programme - I am liking this!

Faux matting and layering of images and backing papers and "punched" greetings and corners, then mounted on mirri card. (green mirri for first card and gold for second.)

I also put a "cropped" topper and part of backing paper on insert, as well as creating a small image for back of card with "hand-made by etc" on the image.

                            

On this card I used the "punched" scalloped square to create an extra matting layer under the topper image,  and "punched" butterflies on corners of backing paper and in top left corner of the topper.  Butterflies, scalloped edge and the flowers in the topper highlighted with sakura clear stardust.  The words weren't "punched" on this one, but colour was created using the "dropper" tool and taking a colour from the image.  Mounted on silver mirri, and some ribbon and flower added.  As in previous examples, image and backing paper also cropped for insert and label on back of card.

Christening Day

Thought I would just share this photo.  Everybody in it was christened in the same family christening gown - including me!   My children, my niece and nephew, my great nephews and my eldest granddaughter as well as little Connie!

I don't know the full history of the christening gown but it is Victorian, and was possibly my grandmother's gown.  My brother was also christened in it (although he is no longer alive).  I am also not sure if my mum was christened in it as we have no photos of her before her marriage (her house was bombed the week before her wedding, and all the family photos were lost!)

I think it is a lovely photo (and I scrubbed up fairly well didn't I? lol!)

Playing with new MCS programme

My new MCS Professional cd arrived this morning.   I watched the DVD and then set to work on creating some gift tags for presents for tomorrow.    Not too bad for a first attempt.  Have used a few of the new features.  Seemed to take an age as programme seemed to work quite slowly (or am I too impatient!). 

If you are wondering how I managed to get the finished results into a jpeg .........  as I have pdf 995 on my computer I just selected that from the "printer" drop down, and saved project as a pdf.  Then used the snapshot tool and imported them into psp and converted them to jpegs.

I knew I wouldn't want the projects again, so no point in saving them as mcs file and this way saved space on my computer.  (and as I now have the jpegs - can delete the pdfs from the computer too).

Christening Card

I really struggled with what to do for Connie's Christening card.  So many ideas going round in my head. 

I eventually decided on a christening dress in parchment, and tried to keep it fairly simple.   Stamped and coloured with sakura stardust, and a few little hearts embossed along bottom and sleeves.  (my first real attempt at parchment work!)  Ribbon added and some peel-offs.  I "lined" the parchment dress with Conquerer metallic champagne paper.   (Stamp is from Joanna Sheen's favourite flower collection).

Card stock is white brocade effect card from Joanna Sheen. (Don't think she sells this anymore)

Lace, ribbon and peel-offs added to base, with the sentiment and a couple of peel-off crosses.  Easel is held up with two little pearls.

Card in "easel" mode

The front

insert done in Publisher on Conqueror paper again, and a primrose image from the JNM2 cd.

... arrangement on cake!

Here it is the revamped M&S cake!

Before

After - with addition of primroses, and lemon ribbon around cake and board!

Another sneak preview!

Have been playing today, and this is the result!  (DIL has ordered a sponge cake from M&S to go with the Christening Cake which is a rich fruit cake recipe, which she is dropping off to me tomorrow so will show the finished result then.)

Golden Wedding & a Birthday Card

Golden Wedding card created using an image from MCS and printed on Conquerer gold paper (although it doesn't show the sheen in photo).

                            

A card using image from the new Jane Netley Mayhew cd.  Mounted on a textured frame from Craftwork Cards.

I made an insert using the matching backing paper and importing it into publisher and added the topper image to it as well.