Celtic Parchment Birthday Card

I treated myself (well I treated myself, my daughter and granddaughter) to the celtic groovi boards as we all dabble in parchment - they more than me!

Anyway I decided to have a play before they got their hands on them, and created this for my sister-in-law's birthday later this week.   It is a narrow DL shaped card.  I do love Celtic designs.

Nowhere near perfect, but I am getting there.   I do struggle a bit with the old eyes, but with the help of the light box and also my little daylight magnifying glass I think I did a reasonable job!

Grandchildren's Craft

Cat Transformer Superhero - Front

The youngest two granddaughters asked to come for sleepover over the weekend as their elder sister was at a friends overnight.  Mainly because the 8 year old had some homework that required her to raid my craft stash!

She had to design a superhero and make a model of the hero or one of his/her "tools/accessories.  She had chosen "Cat Transformer", whom we later named Annie.

Our first job was to find how much of my Cloud Clay was still useable as they hadn't used it for over a year and some of it had dried out.    Fortunately the Black was workable, which was the main colour she needed.   She used the smallest of my Wilton people molds to create the figure.   Using a toothpick to do the marking on her boots.  I showed her how to create hair, and she soon got the hang of that.  I gather her mum is making her an actual costume to wear - so she created the cat ear hairband, and painted the face.   We discovered a clay butterfly in my stash that we had made some time ago, so that was added to her back as obviously being a superhero - she should be able to fly!   A brad was pushed into her front as a motif on her jumper.

Originally she drew whiskers on the face, and then I had an inspiration and cut some stamens to create the whiskers - certainly was the finishing touch!

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Back

Obviously her younger sister wanted to work with the Cloud Clay too - She wanted to make an owl for her aunt for her birthday.

Inspiration struck me and I found a polystyrene egg in my stash - which at least meant she didn't need quite so much clay.  I think she did quite well, with a little guidance from me on how to create the shapes.  It was duly present to her aunt who said she would put it on her office window sill!

On Sunday they made a birthday card for their aunt in Craft Artist.  Also some masks, and some pictures of animals with their own faces superimposed on them, but I forgot to take some photos!  duh!   They are loving using Craft Artist and are gradually learning all the various effects they can get with it.   Obviously the 8 year old used computers quite a bit at school, and the 5 year old is catching her up.   I love to see them being so creative with it.

Parchment card

I confess I am not that proficient at parchment work - I need to practise more.  Not helped by the fact that my eyes aren't so good these days, even using the Groovi system. However, I wanted to create something in parchment for my daughter's card to go with the Groovi bits I have bought for her birthday.

We share a lot of our parchment bits, and we purchased the McIntosh inspired plates a few weeks ago, and before I gave them to her - I had a little play with one of them, and decided that I would incorporate the image into a card.

I know it is not perfect, and having watched some demos this week, I know where I went wrong!  However, the overall effect is not bad, and actually resembles what I was trying to achieve with the off-centre circles, and the die cut flowers.  (I can't remember which dies I used from my stash for the flowers, leaves and butterflies as they were various makes, and I just grabbed what I thought would work from my stash)!

The circle dies were he stitched circles by Sue Wilson from Creative Expressions.   I also used Nuvo Jewel Drops on the stitching of the dies, the centre of the flowers and in the corners of the card.

Even "professional" cake decorators can have a bad day .....

... and muck up a cake completely even using a cake mix!  (This is the worst cake I have ever produced!)

Fortunately this was only for my daughter!   

I made the cake in two sandwich tins - but unfortunately one managed to disintegrate as it was cooling (due to being very moist and the way I had stacked it!)  I didn't discover this until my granddaughter came round with the chocolate icing for it.  I was originally going to suggest she iced it for her mum until we discovered the disaster!     OK I thought I would have to make another cake (not good as I hate chocolate cake so wouldn't have eaten it myself).  However, granddaughter said "oh just stick it together Nanny and put that layer on the bottom - it won't notice when it is on the board!"

Erm hadn't planned on putting it on a board - was just going to put it on a plate!   So quick hunt and found a board albeit square!

As you can see it wasn't quite so easy to rectify the shambles.  I had lost enthusiasm for doing it by the time I had managed to get the icing on it - so it was just a case of use what was in the cupboard to decorate it.   

Oh well it is only a family cake, and it is the thought that counts, and the taste, rather than the look!  - knew I should have let my granddaughter do it - but she is up to her eyes in exam revision and really didn't have time to do it.   I shall also know if ever I use this gluten free cake mix that it is very, very moist and difficult to ice!    (Actually it was really a "bad cake day" as I also made some gluten free brownies - which I thought tasted foul and were very dry - the complete opposite to the cake, and were also a ready mix from same brand - a brand I have used before and never had problems - ah well that's life)!

At least I am brave enough to post my disasters!

Let your dreams fly

A bit of an experiment for me today with this card.   I had a bundle of odd Indigoblu stamps that I wanted to try out, and this was one of the first I came to - and thought it would make a good man's card for my nephew.

I created the background with distress oxide stamps, using an Tim Holtz stencil to start with.  I then stamped the image with a brown Artistry Ink, and using a damp paintbrush and the leftover blue oxide on my craft mat I coloured part of the balloon.   I then added a border with a brown micron pen, and few dots on the balloon.

A little bit different from my normal cards as I don't normally do the "grungy" look, but it's good to experiment, and let's face it men don't really appreciate "pretty" cards!

5 year old granddaughter learns to use Craft Artist

Front

Back 

Insert

I have already mentioned that I had the grandchildren over the weekend, and that the 5 year old created a picture for her Dad that I forgot to take a picture of.   Well on Sunday, having seen the card her sister made for a friend she wanted to have another go and make a card for her Mum and fiancé.    With the help of her 8 year old sister this is what she created in Craft Artist.  and I promised to put it on my blog.   (I should add here that they have three cats and a dog - thus the theme).

I love that they want to learn to use all these skills, and will always encourage them.  (Obviously the 5 (nearly 6 year old is just learning to work with computers at school now.

They all also enjoy colouring, so the colouring books, pencils and alcohol pens were all out on the table over the weekend.   All they were too young to do papercutting - we photocopied a couple of the designs, and the youngest two coloured them in instead!

I had intended to introduce them to the messy art of paint pouring - but we didn't get that far ...... so that is saved for another day!

Papercut Cockerel

How beautiful is this - no it's not mine, but I had to share it ........ It is my 11 year old granddaughter's second attempt at papercutting.    What can I say - but WOW.    I had the girls over the weekend and Miss B was well and truly hooked.   She has even started a third one, which will be continued the next time she comes to visit.  I think I shall have to invest in a craft knife of her own for her, particularly as we have discovered a lot of freebie pattern on the internet!

Granddaughter's card for a friend

Today I taught the 5 year old and the 8 year old how to use Craft Artist.   The 5 year old created a picture for her Dad (but I forgot to take a photo, before she gave it to him, and I didn't save it on the computer - bad Nanny!).   The 8 year old made a card for a friend who is going into hospital

The front

The back

The insert

Didn't she do well for a first attempt

More Papercutting .......

...... but this time from my 11 year old granddaughter.   This is her first attempt.   She seems to be hooked, and is now attempting a cockerel from my paper cutting book.  

Earlier Paper Cutting

Having posted the picture of some paper cutting yesterday, I realised that I hadn't shared my first attempts so now to put that right!

My first attempt with one of the practice sheets from the Katy Sue book (shown against craft card).

Second attempt from the beginners section - couple of boo boos, but pretty pleased with it, as my eyes these days are not perfect by any means! (shown against black cardstock)

Paper Cutting

I had another play with my paper cutting yesterday.   The flowers in the centre were speaking to me and telling me that they needed to be 3D !    Using a ball tool I cupped them slightly and also ran the ball tall along the underside of the leaves.   I then painted them with a clear overlay sparkle pen (the grey in the photo is where the sparkle has caught the flash).  

I decided that instead of mounting the cutout on black card, I would create a distressed background with Distress Oxides and glycerine, which I then mounted onto black card.

Finally I added a few gems to the centres of the flowers.    I wasn't sure whether the experiment worked, but friends who have seen it seem to think it worked ok, so who am I to argue.

Card for a 7 year old

Topper for a card for a great nephew - rarely see him so don't know what he is really "into".   I know he has been on a climbing wall recently, and know he likes football, so I have used those two as my theme.   Apart from that I have kept it simple - as am of the opinion that boys don't "Do" fussy.

A couple of Birthday Cards

I could have split these up to cover two days, but as they were both for today I thought I would post them together.

They are both for Facebook friends.  One is a crafty friend I have never met, but we play Scrabble everyday on FB.

The second is for a very old work colleague, with whom I have remained friends for too many years to count.  Now that we are on FB we keep in touch more regularly.   She used to breed Arab horses.

Both were created in Craft Artist.