New Arrival–Part 1

Today, I met my friend’s grandson for the first time.  He is absolutely adorable and I was thrilled to be able to have a cuddle.

I made the card & gift before his arrival, so I kept to neutral colours.  Today I will show you the card and tomorrow I will post pictures of the gift.

I wanted to try making a 3d crib.  I mapped it all out first and then transferred my pattern to the white card.  I drew and cut the crib by hand.  I could have used my Craft Robo but never having made anything like this before, I wanted to get a “feel” for it.

Having constructed the crib, I lined the inside with some yellow and white stripey paper, made a pillow from a small piece of white card and a blanket from yellow gingham ribbon.

 

 

I then decided to make a box.  Again, I could have used the robo to design & cut it but I decided to do it by hand.

Having cut my desired shape I then stamped the card with “precious baby”.

To protect the crib, I added acetate to the apertures.

I then made a tag so that I had somewhere to write my message.

 

A pair of knitted bootees (another of my makes!) and a yellow gingham bow either side to hold the box together and it’s done.

60th

Last week our friend celebrated his 60th birthday.  He had already had his best present – becoming a grandfather a few days before his birthday!

 

I used a white (5” x 7”) card blank.  I covered the front in bronze metallic paper.  I then embossed the front using one of my new Sizzix Texturz embossing plates (Happy Birthday Phrases).  I cut a “60” from white card using my Sizzix Decorative Strip, Frosting Numbers.  I used foam pads to mount the “60".

Now for the present.

Components:

4 wine glasses

1 terracotta wine cooler

1 nice bottle of red

gift wrap

purple foam sheets

long craft pipe cleaners

cellophane wrap

gift ribbon

4 “60”s cut from silver paper using the Sizzix Frosted Numbers die

Method

I covered the cut down wine glasses box with gift wrap.  I then stuck the wine cooler box inside the wrapped gift box.  I returned the cooler to its box and put the wine in the cooler.  I cut the foam into 4 long lengths, which I then wrapped around the wine glasses.  I used the “60”s and some double sided tape to secure the foam to the glasses.  I then (carefully) wrapped the pipe cleaners around the stems of the glasses and used them to secure the glasses to the top of the wine bottle.  The whole lot was then wrapped in cellophane and tied at the top with the gift ribbon.

Thank you’s

I needed two thank you cards – one for my MIL to thank her for having us during our recent stay and the second for a kind lady who helped make a wish come true.



This is the one I made for my MIL.  I embossed a piece of black linen card using my Cuttlebug Folder – Thanks.  To make the embossing stand out a little more, I wiped the top part of the folder with a white ink pad.  To finish off I added various coloured punched flowers with gem centres.

Now the second card has a story behind it.  As you know, DH and I are having ballroom and Latin American dance lessons and we have just started our 2nd year of lessons.  My MIL had wanted to see us dance so DH contacted a dance school close to where my in-laws live to see if it would be possible for us to join one of their classes so that his parents could see us dance.  Well, the lady said yes.  During his communications with the lady who runs the classes, DH discovered that a) she was Dutch and b) she had danced at our dance school here in NL.

We decided to take the dancing teacher back a little “taste of home” – kruidnoten, Sint & Piet speculaars, stroopwafels and a chocolate letter A.  All meaningless items to the average Brit!!  I also made her a Dutch themed thank you card (bedankt meaning thank you).


Once again I used my Cuttlebug Folders – this time D’vine swirls, the letters were cut using the Night & Day alphabet and the pictures are from some Dutch gift wrap, mounted on blue circles of card.

paul said...

We love what you have achived with the ink and embossing folder Lesley, stunning effect.

7 November 2010 19:22

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: