Baby Card

Another Lili of the valley image for this simple card.   I have purchased quite  a few digital images from LOTV.  Their images are so sweet and I love to colour them .

 My preferred markers are Copics.

  I am undecided on the sentiment for this one, I'll add when a suitable occasion arises.

Patchwork Challenge Card.

Well this one took me a little out of my comfort zone.  Not a great lover of patchwork at the best of times, but when I saw a challenge to do a patchwork card for any occasion, I remembered the hexagon punch sat in my craft room that  I had never used.  After a few minutes pondering I came up with the central part of the design the rest seemed to evolve as I went along.

I 'll post a list of products used but I don't think instructions are needed.

Products used on this project are all Stampin' up products.

Hexagon punch,

Circle Circus stamp set....( the centre of the ratttle)

Something Sweet stamp set (rattle handle and scalloped base)

Baby prints Stamp set  (sentiment)

Circle punch 

Bashful blue ink  pad

 Bashful blue DSP

 Versamark ink pad

 Silver embossing powder

Stampin ' up edge dies.

Glue and card stock and a small bow.

A quick update on the challenge....  I was notified yesterday that this card WON the challenge.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\As you can imagine I was delighted and  very surprised.

Rocking Baby Card.

  This card was made just as an example to show  my new crafting friend that cards don't have to be square or rectangular. They can be any shape you  like. I didn't put too much effort into the planning of this card, if I had I would have made a better job of it and got the plaid  background paper straight . Maybe one day I'll repeat this exercise and get it right.
 The how to....
I used the Martha Stewart circle cutter and cut three circles, ( in different colour card/paper) each circle slightly small than the preceding one.
I folded the largest circle in half and layered up the two smaller circles then cut them in half and glued them onto the folded circle.

I cut the rocking horse out using the Spellbinder die before taking the horse out of the die, I turned the die over and with an ink dauber  I sponged over the  areas of the horses harness and saddle that showed through the back of the die with red ink.  I then sponged over the horse and rocker  with a  a light beige/grey ink.  then removed the horse from the die.
This gave me a stencilled looking rocking horse which was okay, but I felt it needed more colour.
I sponged the horse and added some speckles to it's hind quarters and then drew over the reigns and saddle with marker pens, joining up all the gaps in the reigns left by  the stencil, then outlined  the red with the fine tipped black pen.
I scribbled in the mane, tail  and hooves with a black and a white pens, added  a few  hight lights here and there
.The rocker I cut out from S.U' s crumb cake card stock  and sponged over the  open areas on the back of the die with soft suede ink then removed it from the die and stamped over the whole thing with  new
" Hardwood " background stamp from S.U. glued the horse to the rocker, then the rocker to the card.
This card rocks but if you didn't want it to rock you could trim 1/4" off  the bottom of the back of the circle this will stop the card from rocking.

 I have to say I have owned this Spellbinder rocking horse die for many, many years and have only used it once or twice in all those years. It's one of those dies I call "novelty dies" this is because  there is not a huge amount of use for it other than  for baby/ children's cards.  If you don't have hoards of  young children or grandchildren to make cards for,....as lovely as it is,.... it's not worth buying.

I bought  this die before I had grandchildren and when  my own children were teenagers.
I bought it purely and simply because I loved it.
But I have had to wait many years for this die to become useful.

My advice to you would be don't buy  a die just because it's beautiful,..... unless you can think of several people in your life that  would love to receive a card with that particular die cut  on it,  also... I recommend you study the die before purchasing and ask yourself can the die cut shapes be utilized in other ways, can you see other useful objects within the die if you snipped away certain parts.
( Example can you turn that  gorgeous baby pram into a cat basket by snipping away the wheels and hood.)
 In my mind there is absolutely no point in buying a die if you don't have more than one use for it. No  matter how beautiful it is. (I  say this  because I have quite a few dies sat in drawer that are beautiful,  but to date I have never made anything with them.) So save yourself some money and resist the urges to spend money on things you don't really  need.

Two by Two Baby Card.

 You may remember  a few months ago I did a very similar  card for  a boy.


I rather liked the finished look of that  so when a friends daughter gave birth to a baby girl last I was inspired to make it again in girly colours.
 I have also changed the shape of the topper. 
 Last time, I used the Top Note die , this time I thought I would try the oval and scalloped oval. ( from Spell Binder.)

 The  stamp I used is called Two by Two which is now retired.
I used SU 's markers to colour most of the animals and boat,  but I confess to using my Copic Markers to colour the  elephants.



 I hot foiled the Grandparent Greeting on this card and added  some  Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the waves and the rim of the boat.

The DSP I use was pretty in pink and has unfortunately been retired now.

Baby Card Instructions.

Add caption

 Okay, I have been asked for the instructions for this card so many times I thought I would  make it again. This time I would  photograph each step  so that I can share the instructions with you.
 The original card was sent  to  the happy parents before I had even thought of writing down  the instructions.
 This has taken several attempts to get it right and to make sure the instructions are as clear and concise as I can make them.

So here goes....
You 'll need a cutting mat and knife,
Scoreboard  useful
a metal rule, 
a pencil,
adhesive of your choice,
1 sheet of A4 card.

 Score the A4 sheet  exactly in half.   (land scape)

Turn card to portrait  and measure 3 cms from the top of  the card  and mark the 3 cms Do this twice about 7 cms in from the sides,  this will enable you to mark the ends of the cuttings line more accurately.  
Repeat this at the bottom edge of the card.

Join up the markings length ways down the card and cut  the whole length of the lines. 
(See photo 2.)
In photo 4 you will see I have  numbered the strips 1, 2  & 3 
Strip one is left as is... no work required on this yet.

Strip two is the centre panel that folds in on its self.

Working on the centre strip only.
Measure 3 cms  up from the bottom edge of the card score a line between the cutting lines only.
Measure 3 cms up from the last score line or 6 cms up from the bottom edge of the card score another line.



Repeat this process at the top end of the card.
 Both ends should match.
(See photos  3 & 4)








Clicking on any of the photos  should bring up a larger picture, which can also be enlarged if you want to inspect my photos closer.

On Photo 4
Red lines equal score lines.
Green lines equal cutting lines.

On photo 5 

Strip three not terribly difficult to do  but measuring has to be accurate or it can go horribly wrong and it won't fold flat.

Measure 12 cms from the top & the bottom of the card  ( in portrait position) and score a line across  at 12 cm mark on one side  and a cutting line on the other.

 NB. My  template has both lines marked as score lines  But one is a cutting line.

See Photo 6

you can see I have concentrated  purely on this section and have deliberately missed out some of the other score lines so  that they will not confuse.


On photo 6   

From one end of the card  only  measure 13 cms and  mark it at each side join the the markings. 
This is a cutting line.
In my photo this is the broken 
line in dark blue. 
This will be the adhesive tab.

OR you could just  Measure 1cm on  from one of the red score lines in this picture.






Cut away the section marked 
and lightly fold  all the score lines.


Don't crease them in firmly yet
you may need to make minor adjustments which is easier to
 do before using the bone folder.











When you are sure everything  folds flat and lines up add adhesive to the upper surface of the tab  and stick the front & the back of strip 3 together so the tab is inside the card.












Now you can use the bone folder to make all those score lines sharp. 
This is important as it will help the finished card stand up.

The base card is now  ready for you to decorated any way you choose.

If you find this useful  please leave a comment.  
I have spent many hours working this one out and I'd like to know how you get on with it better still I'd love to see what you do with it.
If you need further advice  please contact me through the hotmail address on the side bar.
Thank you

 A couple of additional photos from different angles.

It's nicer if you decorate the inside too.
I suggest you decorate each panel in a different ways .  Trying to  do all the panels in the same paper may result in it looking like you didn't have enough paper or skill to cover it all in one. So vary the papers even if                                                                                     you stick to the same colour paper.  



The unfinished inside of this card 

I stamped greetings and flourishes on to one panel a verse on another,  the baby s birth details on another,  I left one panel  plain for the sender to write his greeting and added  pretty papers to other panels.

To do this one well takes a good deal of time... Don't rush it and
Have fun.

New Grand Parent Card

 Yesterday I heard a touching  story of couples struggle to have a baby. 
Yesterday their dreams were realized and those too of the Grandparents.
 It will be there first and maybe even their last grandchild.
The story with it's beautiful ending inspired me to create this card for the lovely grandparents. I 'd like to wish them all the joy and happiness in the world, but  I think it has just arrived with their new grandson.


To create this card I use a piece of blue white core card and ran it 



through the Bigshot using the swiss dots embossing folder from cuttlebug. Then  with a  fine grade foam sanding block from  a DIY store I lightly sanded over the embossed dots to reveal the white core of the card. 
(See the close up on the right ) 
I embossed some whisper white card stock using the same embossing folder.  These two pieces of card formed the background of my card.
Using the Top notes die from SU I cut out one white and one blue label and trimmed  the white layer back to the perforated line, I stamped the gorgeous image  from Stampin up ( now retired) and coloured it in  with  SU markers.
I added some Baja breeze seam binding, a bow and A greeting I created on my PC then foiled in blue.
The Inside greeting and poem inside was hot foiled in blue too.

New Baby. A card for a boy called Ioan

First I must apologize for the dreadful photography on this one but I was in a rush to get this one in the post this morning. So cardboard box had to do for the background.

I said I had had a busy morning, this is the second project I had to complete before lunch today.

This card is far easier and quicker to make than you may think. I was  a little disappointed at how quick it was and felt like I hadn't actually worked at this one at all. So I decided to decorated the inside and the back too.

The inking around the edges is not as obvious on the  actual card but  some reason in these photos it does stand out more. I used the baby tees wheel stamp and cut out the romper suit leaving  a good half inch of paper  above the sleeves , I then scored along the  shoulder/ sleeve line and folded the  excess paper over the coat hanger and stuck it down over the hanger with a foam pad.
The coat hanger I made from a paper clip using jewelers round nose pliers. I  rubbed the hanger over  a Versamark pad and dipped it in white embossing powder and heated with a heat gun. The  brads / paper fasteners for the drawer and door handles  were treated the same way.

Baby blossoms card

As promised here is another little card using  the small oval embossing folder and from S.U and the baby blossom stamp set. I am so impressed with my  free hand  positioning of the  leaves.  You may think I used the  stamp-a-majig,  ha ha .

But I promise you I didn't.

 I used pretty in pink, ruby red and old olive inks for this double stamping technique.Below I used Marina Mist and Pacific point.

Jacks Watery Birthday Card.

This card was made for little Jack , who was 2 years old this week.
This was a fun card to make,
but dear old hubby couldn't believe I was going to put water into a card and was even more baffled as to why and how the water didn't leak out.
I do love to getting him guessing, Hee hee.
I used bashful blue card stock and designer paper.  The stampin' up sweet treat cups the splashes stamp from the French Foliage stamp set.
The tag was printed  and hot foiled.

All at Sea

Here's one for a little man.
I cut a white circle and a red scalloped circle
Then cut four strips of bashful blue card and snipped away at one edge to create the waves then daubed the waves with bashful blue ink.
The boat is just a circle cut in half and three triangles of different sizes.
The clouds were daubed on using a scallop circle as a mask.
Once all the pieces were assembled I mount the scene onto a square of stampin' up designer paper added a strip of red then mounted the whole thing onto my real red base card.

Dress Card

This little dress card was time consuming but fun to do. I cut the dress in lilac card stamped it with the polka dot background stamp using white craft ink then daubed the edges with perfect plum ink bringing the ink further up the dress to give the impression of folds in the fabric. I then cut out the dress again but this time much shorter cut away the sleeves, stamped flowers along the bottom, daubed the edges and ran it through my spellbinder wizard in the swiss dots cuttlebug embossing folder.

I then punched a lace trim ran it through my crimper to give the impression of pleats. Then I stuck it to the back of the apron, added lilac ribbon and stuck the apron onto the front of the dress.

The collar was made using the large scallop circle punch and the 1" circle punch.