The Yearly Challenge

As you know, DS is a bit of a brand slave and each year the challenge is to come up with two Christmas cards featuring the logo of his favourite brand.

Here are this year’s efforts:

A Christmas Project with a helpful cat

DH decided that this year, for the first time, that he wanted something to hang on the front door.  Having made his decision, he scoured the shops for something suitable but drew a blank.  He then had a bit of a brainwave – I could make one.  He was “kind” enough to buy the supplies and then left me to get on with it.

Result:  One happy husband, one fake snow covered cat!

Christmas is coming

I love making Christmas cards, I just don’t like making them in the summer.

Here are some of this year’s family cards:

50

My cousin is 50 today.  I wanted to make him an extra special card.

I dug out a photo of him when he was a baby, scanned it and used it as the base of my design.

 

Wasn’t he a cutie?

DH is 50 next year and he is slightly worried as to what I am going to come up with for him.  Suggestions most welcome!!

Lest We Forget

Yet another birthday

And for another dear friend.

As always, I find designing cards for men more challenging.  I don’t know why as the process is the same.

I decided on a “wine” themed card.

I started with a bronze coloured card blank

It was then embossed using my Sizzix Textured Impressions Embossing Folder – Plaid (657064)

       

I cut a piece of corrugated card to size and cut the scalloped piece using my trusty craft robo

I glued the scalloped piece to the card

I added a piece of green ribbon around the corrugated card, then glued this in place.

Adding half a cork, the card is done.

My glamourpuss assistant

As you can see, Poppy is my ever present assistant.

1st Birthday

How time flies!  It was our friend’s son’s first birthday this week.

As he was a Halloween baby I decided to use this as a starting point for the design.

       

Using my craft robo I designed and cut the components required.

       

The lattice frame was glued onto a dark blue pearlised card blank.

I made this cheeky fella using my Sizzix Sizzlits die “Kid in Pumpkin Costume” (655275).  I used my Copic markers to give the pumpkin a bit of shading.

The finished card.

Back to Oriental

Once again it is time to make my cousin’s birthday card.  Over the years, I have made her many things with an Oriental theme so each year it becomes a little more difficult to come up with something different.

This card was based on the symbol “double happiness” which I designed and cut using my craft robo.

I cut a circle from a red pearlised card blank.  The cut symbol was first put on tissue paper (and trimmed), then mounted onto the card, over the aperture.  Finished with a gold circle frame, here is the finished card.

 

To better show why I used tissue, I put a battery tea light inside and took a photo.

and another

I enjoyed making the typewriter card so much that I had to make another (see here for the other one) 

I decided to make this one for my Aunt – quite appropriate as she bought herself one this summer.

First Anniversary

My cousin’s son & his wife recently celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary.
I used one of their wedding pics, made it black & white and printed it onto printable canvas.


This was mounted onto silver paper and then a pinkish coloured card mount. I then added paper leaves & handmade paper roses.




Grace said...

fantastic as usual hope you got a good comment from Ben and Leanne, my Birthday card was great too and Sue was just as thrilled as well, make it all more pesonal when it is done for you alone thankyou
28 October 2011 11:25

Fish Update

The pleco babies have continued to grow and Snorlax managed to raise 20+ in total.  We have given away about 15 and have kept some for ourselves.
We only intended to keep 3 but as usual, events in our house made us revise our decision.  Snorlax decided to go exploring;  he managed to squeeze out of the back of the tank, where the lid goes over the glass.  Sadly he didn’t survive the fall from the tank.
I was lucky enough to get a picture of a baby plec emerging from an egg.

Dear Friend’s Birthday

Our dear friend celebrates her birthday the day after DH.

The typewriter was a “print & cut” using the Craft Robo. The image was coloured with my Copics (of course) and the greeting was printed on the computer, using a quirky typewriter font.

Birthdays

On the tail of our anniversary it is DH’s birthday and our dear friend’s birthday.
Here’s what I came up with for DH’s birthday:



DH is an avid TV fan so DS wanted me to base his card on a TV.  We get a lot of error messages on our TV so I decided to use this as a starting point – and added DH’s age to give the error code and the reason being “Birthday Service Only” .

Missing In Action

Where has October disappeared to – seems to be a common complaint this year that the time is simply whipping by.  Of course, I haven’t been idle (probably why the days have slipped by without me noticing!)

We seem to have a lot of celebrations in September/October – so over the next few days I will try to play catch up.

As you know, we celebrated DS’ 18th.  This was followed by our wedding anniversary – guess what?  DH didn’t get me an anniversary card!  But of course, I made one for him.

Basing the card on a cupcake theme this is how it developed:

1. Stamped image onto card.

2.  Coloured required images using my beloved Copic Markers.

3. Carefully cut out my stamped & coloured images.

4.  Mounted the 3D elements with foam pads

Fishy news

It hasn’t taken Amy (the Albino pleco) long to make herself at home.

Within a week of getting her, we discovered, to our delight, that she had taken quite a liking to our existing male pleco, Snorlax.

Such was their liking for one another that we soon found a load of eggs.

You can see the eggs – just above the gravel.

Within a few weeks we had tiny plecos.

 

Thank you

DS had a lovely lot of presents and we thought it only right that he should send a lovely thank you note.

He asked me to make him some thank you notes and I used it as a golden opportunity to use one of my new stamps.

I stamped the image onto some nice bright white card, coloured it with my Copics, then cut it out.

The words were printed using the computer and then I mounted the image onto the card using foam blocks – sweet eh?

Busy Time

It has been ages since I last posted – though if I had been asked, I wouldn’t have said it was so long.

As usual, it has been a busy time.  I have been preparing for DS’ 18th birthday and also trying to get ahead with the family birthdays.

We celebrated DS’ 18th birthday just over a week ago.  He had a wonderful birthday weekend, starting with a home cooked Chinese meal on the Saturday, setting him up nicely for his actual birthday on the Sunday.

 

DH saw a card in a local shop (“mock horror!”) that he liked and wanted me to adapt it.  This is what I came up with:

I had no choice (and I wouldn’t have it any other way) but to make my card:

The card & numbers were cut using my Craft Robo and the footballer was stamped and then coloured with Copics.

I also made an 18th key and a gift box:

 

Both the key and the gift box were cut using the Robo.  The gift box I designed and the key was from a template from one of the fantastic ladies over at UKScrappers.