A Miscellany of Card Creations

Firstly, let me thank you all for your lovely comments on the Right Now and Thankful Thursday posts. ^_^ I apologise profusely for not being as lovely as you and leaving comments on your blogs lately. No, I don't really have an excuse other than the fact that I've been trying to speed read through all the unread blog posts that have amassed to a huge scary number and I've been trying not to spend too much time on the computer. Trust me, I have been keeping up with all your activities and will try to comment more soon!

Now, onto today's post. It's been a while since I've shared anything creative with you, hasn't it? The lack of craft projects does make sharing them a bit difficult. LOL

However, loads of birthdays and a house-warming over the past two weeks have seen me sitting at my craft desk trying to get the card ideas out of my head. This wasn't as easy as it sounds as my mojo hasn't been seen for dust! Therefore the cards I'm sharing with you today are nothing fancy and were born more out of quick necessity rather than a creative outpouring! (As always, click on the photos for a closer look. :D)

First up is a card for a friend's house warming that I attended recently. My friend loves the red/white/black colour combination, so at least I didn't have to stress over choosing the colours! I took inspiration from this gorgeous card by Sarah J Moerman (who designs for Lily Pad cards amongst others):

Credits: Kaisercraft To Have And To Hold:Forever paper; I drew the house in Illustrator and hand cut it;
Carl butterfly punch; Kindyglitz on the butterflies; Nestabilities Labels Four; button from stash;
white pen for the faux stitches

The next two cards were for my SILs birthdays and they were inspired by the Week 19 One Layer & Frames challenge on the Less Is More card challenge site. Unfortunately, I didn't make them up in time to enter the challenge, but there you have it.

Credits: Sweet Bird, Flower & Leaf Branch and Enjoy Life's Moments stamps from Heroarts; Memento Black ink; messily coloured in with Copics :D; black Artliner for frame.

Credits: Flourish Flowers stamp from HeroArts; Quote from Miracles Blossom set by Verve Stamps;
Memento inks; black Artliner for frame.

The next three cards I made for the birthdays of two nephews and one niece.

Credits: Freebie monkey card kit from Dustin Pike, cut out and decoupaged.

Credits: Papers, chipboard robot and star from Lil' Robots by My Mind's Eye; Peel off birthday greeting;
Nestabilities Labels Small; Colorbox Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink Cat's Eye for edges.

Credits: Printable picture from Popcorn Bear Birthday edition CD; ribbon from BigW.

So there you have it - my crafting efforts for the past week or two. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to share with you soon as I do have a couple of digi layouts in production.

*hugs*

A Brief Soujourn into the Craft Room

I haven't ventured into my craft room for about six months (probably more), but a couple of weeks ago, necessity had me sitting at my craft desk assembling together a card for my FIL's birthday.

I saw this very simple and very cute card on a post about cardmaking on Write.Click.Scrapbook and knew I wanted to make something similar.

I printed out the hot air balloon and clouds from Crystal Wilkerson's digi version of Echo Park's Sweet Summertime (see blog header above!). It was perfect! For the background I used a Hero Arts shadow stamp with Memento Sky Blue dye ink. Some foam tape plus a Hero Arts sentiment stamped in black ink and voila!

I'll confess it's not the most creative card I've ever made, but under the circumstances, it was more than enough for my poor brain to handle! I wonder if this means the mojo is returning?!?

*hugs*

A Couple of Cards

I made a couple of cards this week - one for a work colleague and one for my little nephew.

A lady at work has been with the organisation for 25 years. 25 years!!! Good grief - that's staying power for you! Anyway, a few of us convinced The Boss that the organisation should pay for her ticket to the final Wicked show since a group of us are going anyway. He agreed and I said I'd do up a card and voucher thingy:

I didn't take a photo of the voucher (which I stuck inside), but it wasn't anything exciting! Just a Wicked Logo with the details of the show underneath. The card was more interesting!

So onto the card for my nephew. He turns 9. I can't believe how fast all my nephews and nieces are growing!

And wouldn't you know it? I've already used some of that stash goodness that I showed you yesterday! I thought the My Minds Eye Lil' Robots collection would be fantastic to make cards from and sure enough, it is!!

It's been quite a busy weekend and I'm pretty exhausted so today is going to be a do absolutely nothing day! This week will be busy too, but I'll have a 5 day weekend next weekend, so I hope to do some scrapping or cardmaking at least!!

*hugs*

"Computer Tricks for Cards" - a Jessica Sprague Class

Wrap-up of Week 1

Jessica Sprague is currently offering a free course to teach hybrid cardmaking called Computer Tricks for Cards. It runs for two weeks and we are currently in the second week of the course already.

As usual, I'm running really behind, so thank goodness that it's a self-paced course despite the classes being posted daily. Over the weekend I thought I'd better catch up, so amidst lots of procrastination, taking the dogs for walks and feeding us all, I managed to go through all the lessons up to last Friday. So without further ado, let me show you what I did:

The first class was to try printing on different papers to see what they all look like. The top photo was the original file and I printed it on matt photo paper. In the bottom photo, I used different digital papers (Shabby Princess Vintage Floral), but printed on normal 190gsm cardstock.

Still on the first class, but a different card. As above, the top photo was the original file and the bottom photo I used different digital papers (Gina Jane Butterfly Gold from Daisie Digitals. I printed the original file on gloss photo paper and matt photo paper.

The second class taught us how to "clip" papers to various digital elements. A simple card, but I did learn something as I didn't know how to use clipping masks. :D

The third class is where the card got a bit more interesting, and not so "flat". This one had dimension and I learnt how to use digital elements paired with real life supplies to create a great looking card. I used Fiskars Threading Water and Upper Crest punches, and I have no idea where the ribbon is from! I changed the greeting as the original was "Congratulations". I don't usually give congrats cards so thought HB was more useful. :D

I think this one is my favourite card so far. The making of it was a teeny bit more complex, but still very easy. The top photo shows the outside of the card, nothing special but quite cheerful and colourful. I love the pop up bit when you open the card (bottom photo) as I think it's really cute. I added the greeting and tree border in a moment of rare creativity. LOL

Finally, Friday's class. I learnt how to use Photoshop Brushes as stamps (the different camera images on the background kraft card are all from a Photoshop brush), which was pretty cool. The rest of the card was just basic assembly. The bottom photo shows the inside which is something different - not an element I'd think of to put inside a card, but there you have it!

Saturday's class was about making a card holder to hold all our cards, but I think I'll skip this one and make it another day. Sunday was a revision day - to go back over what we learnt throughout the week and see if we can apply it to our own cards.

So far I'm loving this course as I've learnt a few things about Photoshop that I didn't know before. The cards aren't really my style and I do kinda find them a little "flat", if you know what I mean. I still love the lumpy bumpy look!

Join me again at the end of the week for a wrap up of this week's classes. :D

*hugs*

Some Crafting at Last!

For about a year and a half, I have had a Kaisercraft wooden Funky Frames pack sitting in my craft stash waiting for me to make them pretty. I had the idea to give them as gifts to my sisters-in-law for their birthday. Well, last June came and went but I didn't get them done. This year I had a couple of days free so really didn't have any excuse!

Do you like them?

This is the first frame and matching card:

(Materials used: Christina Re Mia Collection papers, Kaisercraft rub-on, Kaisercraft pearls, Green Tara mini flowers and some metal butterfly embellishments that I coloured in with permanent markers)

 (close up of butterflies)

(Materials used: Christina Re Mia Collection papers, Martha Stewart Doily border punch, Green Tara Flowers, jewel brad, peel-off sticker)

The second frame and matching card:

(Materials used:  Kaisercraft Gypsy Sisters papers, Kaisercraft wooden flower, Green Tara flowers, Kaisercraft gems)

(Materials used:  Kaisercraft Gypsy Sisters papers, Fiskars Apron border punch, Green Tara flowers with Kaisercraft gem, Nestabilities small Circles and Labels Three, Zig pen for border)

Stay tuned for a possible layout later in the week.

Maybe.

If I find the motivation for it.  LOL

*hugs*