Last Card

This is my husband's card.

I made it from a design I printed off from a La Pashe CD. The card is from a series called Behind Closed Doors. I changed it slightly by decoupaging the image inside rather than leaving it flat. Quite fiddly to cut out, especially the decorations, candles and wine glasses.

The finishing touches were Anita's glossy accents on the turkey, fruit, bell and door handles. Then lots of crystal fine glitter on the tree, candles etc

Card for Mum

I always make a special card for both Mum and Rod.

A company called Craft Creations have a bargain area on their website, and a couple of weeks ago they were selling back issues of their magazine for 25p!! I bought all 59 issues for myself and some for my son's fiancée who has just got in to cardmaking. They are a fantastic resource, and it was there that I found the inspiration for Mum's card. (They also have decoupage sheets as low as 5p and card blanks at very low prices too. Well worth a look if you do cardmaking.)

I folded a piece of A4 card into four and folded it as a zigzag. I then cut a sloped piece out of 3 sides. I had some suitabloe peeloffs and placed them onto the card so that the top of the candle touched the top edge of the card. I filled in the gaps with smaller peeloffs like pieces of holly. Then, it was a matter of cutting around the peeloffs with a small, sharp pair of scissors, and the occasional use of a knife.

When you take a peeloff off the release sheet, you are left with all of the insides. These I coloured with spectrum noir pens and then took a sharp point to left them and fitted them into the approriate part of the peeloff. Much cursing at this point as some of the tiny, fiddly little pieces flew off all over the place!

Finally, the flame and candle drips were covered with crystal glitter glue, and the centre of the poisettias with a gold glue.

It was hours of work, but well worth it (I think). I know Mum will appreciate it and it will be stored away after Christmas...not thrown away

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Adipose the Bear

I finished another soft knitted toy yesterday...a pink bear I have named Adipose after a #lqw prompt and rembrance of a Doctor Who episode!! She is soft, squishy...just adorable.

I knitted her from a Patons Bear in the Bag kit. Definitely not for a beginner, and it was made more difficult from the number of mistakes in the pattern.

Her nose is knitted as an individual piece and sewn on afterwards and the eyes are oversewn from brown tapestry wool.

Here she is. Awww...

Surrender to the Wind

I wrote this poem on 09/12/13, inspired by the #orjay prompt "Surrendering the wind". It has been very well received so I thought I would write it here to save a copy of it.

After years at a steady state
Life needs to be rearranged
Accept the vagaries of fate
Surrender to the wind of change

AE

Felt decorations

When I made the mobile phone cases, I also made some 3D birds and owls. It was always my intention to add ribbon and hang them from a tree.

I wanted scented stuffing, but didn't want to pay exhorbitant costs for it. I read online that I could fill a plastic container with ordinary stuffing and then sprinkle 4 drops of essential oil on this, close the lid and leave for 4 days. I now have the most gorgeous freesia scented stuffing that I used to fill the decorations.

I finally completed 4 of them yesterday and here is the result.

More Christmas cards

Here is another selection of Christmas cards that I made over the last 2 days. Again, from my Kanban kits and again with the poinsettias I made.

This time, I made 5 poinsettias in one go. By batch making like this, I cut down the preparation time and they were all ready to be stuck on at the same time.

Birthday cards

This morning, I decided to make the 2 birthday cards I need for later in the month. Again, I went through my Kanban kits and chose some really lovely prints to work with. Then it was just a matter of sorting out backing cards and appropriate embellishments. I decided to make easel cards for both.

Christmas cards

Yesterday, I started to make some of the more "special" cards for family and friends. I had some Kanban kits that I bought a few years ago and decided to use just one of these. I made 3 lovely cards rather than the 2 that they showed, and the pictures are so detailed that they did not need much in the way of embellishment. All I did was make some poinsettias to balance the greeting in the opposite corner.

The flowers were made using one of the Tonic flower punch sets. They were quite fiddly to make, in fact taking longer than the cards did. I added glitter to finish them off.

This card was actually made from the bits left over from the second card!

This is a tunnel card. I made it differently to the suggestions, placing an accordian both sides and then mounting the whole thing onto a standard C5 card.

I made this card by putting the first decoupage layer onto navy card to represent night, and then building the layers up.