More than one blast from the past.

My brother in law has been sorting out  his mum's personal effects after she  sadly passed away in February. She kept a box she called her treasure box. In her treasure box she kept all the things she valued. The contents of her treasure box would be considered rubbish by anyone else. 
Among her treasures were pretty much all the cards I made her over the years. A lot of the cards I made her were made long before I found Stampin' Up or before I had a blog.
  Dave asked if I would like my cards back,  Of course  I said yes. I thought it would be interesting to see how my cards have changed over the years and some may even be a source of inspiration for new cards.
 So I thought I might share a few of them with you.

You have to remember when some of these cards were made there  was  not the vast array of tools and  materials  available as there are today.  I didn't do much stamping in those days as I struggled with colouring the images and I didn't understand the different types of ink. I hated the fact I always got embossing powder stuck where I didn't want it. I didn't have Google,  YouTube , the craft channels or  a crafty friend to ask where I was going wrong.  So all my stamping stuff got packed away for years. Then I found Stampin' Up and my whole crafting world changed. So there is little or no stamping on the cards in this post.

I remember making this one. The flower was punched out using a huge petal punch that was so hard to use.  

The sentiment was printed using a my pc and printer.
The heart border is a Martha Stewart punch and it's one of my favourite punches along with the fern punch I used on this card. I made the box and decorated it to coordinate with the card.
It seemed I liked making boxed cards then.

The next card was created in Alan's mums favourite colour "green". This card has three layers to it, an acetate wrap on which an oval panel was glued. Then all those flowers were stuck to the panel.  The edges of the acetate were trimmed with gold peel off borders. I am thinking this was the first birthday card I made for her after Hubby and I got married because it contains some of the wired sparkles from our wedding. the next layer is a white base card with a  broad strip of green paper on one side. The last layer is the insert. This insert was probably the most involved and fancy insert I have ever done.  it's funny but if you had asked me what the insert of this card was like last week before seeing it again , I would have sworn the image was in colour. I do remember printing it off in colour, but obviously  changed my mind and used a black and white version.  Again I made a box for it.

  

This Christmas card  I think may have been a kit I bought from a craft show.  as I recall it was a bit of a fiddly, fussy card to make. I didn't enjoy making this one and I was quite pleased when it was finished.



She also had our wedding invitations and order of service in her treasure box along with the tags I had made to go on her presents on her birthday , Christmas and Mother's day.











                                                                                        


We kept our wedding invitations very simple as we only had 12 weeks to plan and get our wedding organized, so we didn't have time for complex  invitations. 

This is the stack of cards Dave gave me back. I won't bore you will sharing all of them. The later cards are probably already on here .

Hearts and Flowers Card in a box

 I am not really one for this type of card  Sharon another S.U Demo sent me a photo of one she had made and it looked great.
I thought I would like to have a go at making one.

Then I found Victoria McLafferty's  video on constructing the card in a box.
I went straight to my craft room and made one. 
(NOT this ONE I can't feature the one I made just yet but Next week I will be able to.)

Today I made this floral  version.  
I used the flower from the morning meadow stamp set a selection of ink pads and the corresponding punch to create the flowers.
I then stuck each flower to a narrow strip of 
stiff ish  acetate and added leaves.
The leaves were punched using the three petal punch and Gumball green card stock.

The Mini heart punch  and a small amount of glimmer paper  both from S.U.  were used to make the little hearts,  again each heart was stuck to the end of a narrow strip of acetate.





After making the box following Victoria's instructions.

  https://www.facebook.com/VeryVictoriaCrafts 


I began sticking the flowers to the bridges inside the box then added the hearts. 
This can be  a little bit fiddly but worth the effort.


I almost forgot to say this card fold flat so it will fit in an envelope. 

You do have to be careful not to have too much sticking out the sides of the box when it's folded. or it won't fit into a standard size envelope.  
This won't be a problem if you own the envelope punch board though as you can make the envelope to fit the card.

Mother's day card and box.

Don't you just love this new stippled blossom two step stamp set. ( try saying that after a couple of glasses of your favourite tipple). 

I found a card very similar to this on another blog and fell in love with it so I just had to CASE it. Well,  almost, my card does differ a little.

After completing the card I still had the urge to play with this stamp set so then I made a box and decorated it with a panel created with the same set.

I  just couldn't put this stamp set down so here I tried  it in different colours, Giving some the vintage feel and leaving others  crisp and clean. They kind of remind me of vintage seed packets. I think it has something to do with the Style of the font on Perfectly Penned stamp set. The two sets compliment each other perfectly. I am really looking forward to the Easter holidays perhaps I will get to spend a day in my craft room and really go to town with these two sets.

These have to be my all time favourite stamp sets.

Well  Done  SU.

Pink and Navy Floral card.

This one is a bit more involved. It might make a nice Mother's Day card.

The boho blossom punch used again here this time it hasn't been cut down to make hands or feet.

The Christmas ornament punch has had the point chopped off and the hanging bit snipped out with a small circle punch to form a vase. I used white craft ink and a stamp from an SU stamp set that is longer available, (so it doesn't really matter that I can't remember the name of it) to stamp the pattern on the vase and the background. The leaves are the branch from the bird punch.

The pink paper is SU's designer paper.