Grandparents

Earlier this year, our friends announced that they were going to be grandparents.  Well, now they are grandparents and have a beautiful grandson!

Now you all know me, I can’t miss out on making a card for something as special as this.

Back to oriental

I rescued the backing paper from a birthday present that DS had.  In fact, it was a gift bag and I fell in love with it and had a feeling that I could use it to make a card.
I needed to make a card for my cousin (we share a love of all things oriental) and decided to base my design around the “gift bag” backing paper.

I punched lots of little flowers in pink & purple.  I then folded them into quarters and glued them to the backing paper.  Using my small embossing tool, I opened the flowers to give it a 3D effect.  I them glued the backing paper to some matt gold paper to make the whole thing stand out.  As you can see, this was then mounted on a black, linen textured card blank.

More dried flowers

Following on from my previous efforts with dried flowers, I decided to have another go.

This time I used a dried pansy.  The colours had remained quite strong after drying, so there was no need to recolour.  Working with the colours of the pansy, I chose a mauve card blank.

 

I carefully mounted the pansy on white card and then added a layer of acetate to protect the pansy.  I then mounted the whole lot onto gold card, finishing off with gold brads in the corners, to hold the acetate in place.

Wedding present – with a difference

This weekend my cousin’s son got married.  We were invited to the celebrations but unfortunately we were unable to go.  We didn’t know what to get them so I decided to make a wedding present with a difference.
 



Take salt & pepper mills, 6 tea towels, 4 napkin rings and a basket.

Make a bouquet, veil, collar, tie & jacket front and this is what you get.

A bride & groom!!

Cover in cellophane, add some ribbon & hearts and it’s ready to go.



Hope they had a wonderful day and fingers crossed that they liked their present.

A get well card – a bit of tutorial

Well, for my second post of today (yes, I know my posts are like buses – you don’t see one for ages then two come along together!) I thought I would show you all how I make a card from start to finish, hence the title, a bit of a tutorial.

I needed to make a get well card for a friend of ours.  Not really knowing her likes/dislikes other than dancing, I decided to play safe and make an unusual card.

1.  My card blank – pearly white, 250 gsm

2.  Using my standard template I printed my details on the back and the greeting on the front.


3. Ready to be embossed with one of my favourite Cuttlebug folders – Stylized Flowers.



4. Lining up the folder so it doesn’t emboss over the text

and into the Big Shot it goes

5. Now for the butterfly.

Using my butterfly die (from the Sizzix seasonal set – Butterfly #5) I cut 3 butterflies:  1 x pink; 1 x lilac and 1 x silver.


6.  Using on the body from the silver shape, which I stuck to the pink “base” shape.

7.  Taking the lilac shape, I cut the pieces that I wanted and stuck those to the pink shape.

8.  I added two crystal gems and the butterfly is complete.

I then glued the butterfly onto the embossed card.

9.  Done!!

Now hopefully you have been able to follow my instructions.

Please remember © – use this “tutorial” for inspiration only.  Don’t copy – it’s lazy!

paul said...

love the way you have given the info on how you made / put card together. from my point on view it's helpful to see other technics

7 October 2010 18:19

Especially for Paul . . .

With reference to Paul’s comments about my cat card, here is a bit more information:

I traced around the Whiskas cat treat lid to get my shape, which I then cut out.

I then cut strips of pink and cream paper which I stuck, alternating the colours, to my cat shape.  Once the shape was covered I embossed it using my Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug folder.  I then stuck my covered & embossed shape onto some gold card and trimmed it to give a border.  The nose is a heart shaped gem, the whiskers are gold peel-offs and the ears are cut from pink pearly paper.  I drew the eyes and mouth by hand.

Hope this answers your question Paul.


paul said...

a crafty crafter ..lol what a brilliant idea using the whiskers lid honestly I really love the card thank you for letting me know how you put it together.

The last of the September birthdays

 
The 30th is our friends birthday.  With all the celebrations in September it can be difficult to continue to come up with unusual cards.  This year I was lucky – I had been messing around with some flowers that I had dried and I decided to use these to make our friend’s card.

During the summer I had picked some hydrangea (hortensia) flowers and put them in my flower press.  When I finally remembered them they were certainly dried but also quite colourless.


I trawled the web to see if it was possible to hand colour dried flowers and came across an article that gave instructions on how to colour dried flowers with pastels.  Well, after a bit of trial and error I was beginning to have a bit of success.


I coloured some more, this time with blue pastels and used them to make this card.


Our friend loved it, especially when I told her that the flowers were from my garden.

September – a busy month

September is a busy month around here: DS’ birthday, our anniversary, DH’s birthday and our friend’s birthday and they all fall within the space of two weeks.

We received  a lovely handmade anniversary card from our dear friends, Paul & Hazel.  Having just discovered the delights of owning a cuttlebug & big shot they are both coming up with some amazing creations (see previous post for DS’ birthday card).

   Isn’t this a stunning card – made by Hazel (Thank you!)

DH celebrated his birthday yesterday.  We got him up early so that he could open his presents and cards before he went to work.  In the evening we cooked him a lovely meal which was followed by drinks with the neighbours.

DH is a difficult so & so to make a card for let alone two!  As we are a cat mad house I decided to make him a cat themed card from me; and as DH is a Top Gear fan (like most men of a “certain age”) I decided to use a car theme for the card from DS.

The results:


I stuck strips of paper (alternating the colours) on a cat face shape that I had previously drawn & cut.  I then embossed it with my Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug folder.  The nose is a heart shaped gem, the whiskers are gold peel-offs and the ears are cut from pink pearly paper.  I drew the eyes and mouth (which was a bit of a challenge as the surface was uneven due to the embossing!!).  

paul said...

We love the cat card you did for Mark brilliant. Intrigued as to the components used, the cat face shape and the card used?

1 October 2010 10:51

Lesley @ Krafted Keepsakes said...

Glad you liked the card - so did Mark (lol).
Will get back to you on how I made it. Watch this space . . . . . .

2 October 2010 02:00

Birthday boy

Yesterday we celebrated DS’ birthday.  Regular readers will know that he is a bit of a logo lover, so it has become a bit of a tradition (and challenge!!) to make his birthday cards incorporating the Converse logo.
This year, things were made easier as DS has developed a musical interest – he is an amazing drummer (mainly self taught, with some help from his school’s music teacher) and he is teaching himself the acoustic guitar.


The guitar card is actually 3D, although the picture doesn’t really show this.  I made the strings using a needle & thread.

DS also had another handmade card.  This is from our dear friends, Paul & Hazel and is one of Hazel’s lovely creations (or maybe Paul made it??).   Hazel recently got some new “toys” to create with.  See here for more of her (their??) creations.  I’m not sure who has been card making and therefore, who the credit should go to – I know it is Hazel’s hobby but also know, from reading Paul’s blog, that he couldn’t resist having a go too!

Anonymous said...

 

So glad Sam liked the card ...just read his email to us. Had a little chuckle over the mystery who did it..lol well new toys can be boys toys as well (big clue). Now the cards have been recived I'll add photos to my blog over the weekend when all will be revealed.

24 September 2010 23:41

Fishy goings on . . . .

It seems that my two plecs have been getting down & dirty.  When I turned the tank light off tonight I saw something strange in the tank – further investigation revealed a cluster of eggs!

The eggs can be seen in the picture, just next to the plant pot and with “daddy” plec keeping a watchful eye over his babies to be.  Isn’t nature wonderful?

At last

For my regular readers, you will remember that back in February we had a chimney fire.  (For those of you that aren’t, the story is here)

Six months, one week and one day later, I am relieved and pleased to say that the chimney has finally been fixed.  Back in February we were issued with a prohibition notice – we were banned from using our fireplace.  Well, we were banned but that didn’t mean to say we couldn’t.  If we carried on using our fireplace and something else happened then a) we weren’t covered by the insurance and b) we would have to pay all the fire brigades costs.  Needless to say – we didn’t use the fireplace!  All we are waiting for now is a visit from the fire brigade’s safety officer to check that everything is in order and the ban is lifted.

 

The repair of the chimney took less than one day – the other six months and one week has been spent “communicating” with the insurance company, waiting for everyone and his mate to inspect the damage, make their reports and then decide whether to pay out or not.  We even had one “inspector” come to see if we actually had a chimney – he must have been one of the worst people we have ever had to deal with.  He spent just 10 minutes in the house, looked at a previous inspection report (which he then made his own) and barely spoke to us.  How nice!! We seem to have spent the last six months dealing with people who say one thing and then do the complete opposite (my favourite sort of person, preferably on toast!).

So at long last, the saga of the chimney, that reached nightmare proportions at times, is finally over.

Roll on the winter (well, not too quickly , as it would be nice to have a bit of summer) and cosy Sunday afternoons in front of the fire.

Annoying

Isn’t it absolutely annoying when you receive an invite and although you’d love to go – you can’t?
We have been invited to my cousin’s son’s wedding but unfortunately we can’t go as DS will be in the middle of his exams.  We are so disappointed!  Although it was only expected that we should reply to the bride-to-be’s parents, I decided to make reply cards for my cousin and her son & intended as well.
It wasn’t a card that I really wanted to make as I had been hoping that I would be making the opposite (yes, we’d love to, sort of card!).
This is what I came up with:

World cup update

My nails needed doing, so this time I went for England & Nederland!

Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day! (Sorry it’s a day late!!)

DH had the Father’s Day he wanted – nice & quiet, doing what he pleased with a healthy dose of football watching thrown in for good measure!

 

As usual, I made cards for DH and my FIL.  I didn’t get around to photographing the card I made for DH but I did manage to get a picture of the other one.

Well, best get on . . .lots to do today before the football starts!

Retirement

A friend (and colleague of DH) is retiring.  DH asked me to make a retirement card and I was stunned when he told me who it was for as I didn’t believe that he was anywhere near retiring!

 

  I used some pretty butterfly paper as a background and used the dictionary definitions for “happy” and “retirement” as the basis for the design.

Summer anniversary

I find that I make a lot of anniversary cards between May and September.  It becomes increasingly difficult to come up with ideas, especially as I like to make the cards unique.

For this one, I made a woven raffia heart, added some white paper daisies with button centres.  Only using nice, fresh summer colours made the design stand out (and I did hear that the recipients like it too!)

World cup time

Are you world cup ready? I am - the garden is decorated and the flags are in the window and of course I had to have some portable world cup stuff . . . . .

What do you think??

End of the dancing season

Two weeks ago we finished our dancing lessons for year 1.  We have had a fantastic time learning all the dances and we can't wait for the season to begin again in September.  All in all we had 30 lessons and learnt the: waltz, quickstep, swing fox, tango, cha,cha,cha, rumba, salsa, jive and the Viennese Waltz.

We’ve also been to the black & white ball and the Christmas ball along with a number of dance cafés throughout the year.

On Saturday we took our bronze dance exam.  We had to dance four ballroom and four Latin dances (every dance we had learnt except the Viennese Waltz).  I am very pleased to be able to say . . . . . WE PASSED!!  We were marked independently and we each scored 8.5 for all the dances, with DH getting 8.5 for his cha,cha,cha (I got an 8+) and we both got an 8+ for the jive.  (NB marks were out of 10).  Not bad eh? 

Thank you DH for being a wonderful dancing partner and I can’t wait for year 2 to begin – can you?

Anniversary time again

Last year, our dear friends celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and of course I made them a very special card (see here)

Well, it’s another year on and another card was required (where does the time go?).

Deciding on a cat theme (what a surprise!!), I came up with this – 2 cats side by side with their tails entwined.

50 + 50

Friends of ours celebrated their 50th birthdays this weekend.

I decided to use the 1960’s as a starting point for their cards.

I found pictures of the two of them and using a nifty little program that I found on the net, gave then the “Warhol” treatment.  I then cut the numbers from white card, mounted them on 3d foam stickers and their cards were done.  On the inside I added a heart decorated pocket (colours to suit the individual card) for the gift.

 

I hope they like them and that they enjoyed their birthday celebrations.

And for the parents-to-be

It wouldn’t have been right to have made a card for the grandparents-to-be and not for the parents-to-be would it?  And of course, I couldn’t miss out on making another card, could I?

I’ve always wanted to make a card with the “baby on board” sign, so I did.

Using my lovely Swiss Dots folder for the embossing and some pale yellow gingham ribbon, it all seemed to come together rather well.

Good News

Friends of ours have just told us that they are going to be grandparents this year (not that they are old enough yet!).  Naturally, I had to make a card to celebrate this fantastic news.

I used the theme of time (as in countdown to the happy event)and my grandfather clock Sizzix die and marking the clock face 3, 6 and 9 (for the months).

While the cats sleep . . . . .

I actually managed to get some work done whilst the cats were sleeping – miracles do happen!

To ease my self back into “creativity” mode I trawled the internet for inspiration.  I saw this and decided to give it a go. 

I made two (as you can see), one for a birthday and one for a thinking of you/get well soon

New blog

In response to the lovely comments and e-mails we have received about our new additions we decided to give them their own blog.  You can have a read about their antics and see their latest photo’s. Feel free to leave a comment – we love reading what you have to say.

Both moggies are currently asleep, so I guess I’d better head off and actually get some work done.

Until the next time . . . . . .