Cardmaking Take Two

Friends and gentlefolk, welcome to the second edition of card making!

First of all we have a card to go with my "Your Father Smelt Of Elderberries" cross stitch from last week. It features the first half of the Monty Python quote in my favourite stampey stamps, a little pen hamster, and some elderberry foliage from my nature stash.

Next, an RSVP card. A good friend of mine decided she wanted an afternoon tea party for her birthday and sent out handmade invitations in the post. It was so lovely to get snail mail, so responding by email or facebook seemed too impersonal. I whipped up this little card with an open-able envelope and some shiny washi tape and popped it in the post right back to her.

This next one is a shameless rip-off of something I saw on Pinterest. Please don't judge me too much. The lava is made from some bubbly orange paper and the rest is just pen and coloured pencil.

I'm going to have to provide some back story now, so here goes. I started playing DnD recently, and my character is a massive ginger goliath with the mind of a child who thinks she's only 10 because she has ten fingers. Her name's Nini. Nini believes she was raised by rabbits, but they were actually just small Inuits wearing a lot of fur (but don't tell her that.) This card is for one of my favourite people; he runs the DnD group and is regularly vexed by Nini's antics as she tries to domesticate every animal we come across.

Making your cards is so easy and fun, that even I can do it. Until the next time I make cards good enough to show off,

L

You and Me Against the Zombies

I don't know if this was just my school but they had 'Pivot stickfigure animator' installed on all the computers. I had a bit of a nostalgia-fest and made a rubbish live action version of this card I'm about to show you:

Pfft, zombies are always interrupting.

I'm the sentimental type. I like to keep little notes and doodles that people have given me, and I like to give them out. It's nice to give and receive little reminders of love and appreciation.

I also know a good thing when I see it; my current relationship is very very good, and likely to be my last. I fully trust him to have my back in the impending zombie apocalypse, and that's not something to take lightly. Which brings me to this impromptu card. It's not a special occasion or anything, just another day when I'd been feeling low and he'd set me off giggling like a small child at fart jokes. This is a "thank-you for existing" card.

Little K and Big K, zombie bounty hunters.

This card isn't particularly exciting, I know, it's just stamps and felt-tip pen. But it's personal, and sentimental, and I like that.

Zombie apocalypse, are you prepared?
L

It's Mum Day!

Today I learned that Mother's Day isn't very consistent around the world. It can be in every month except January and September, which is pretty strange. In the UK at least, it is today. So happy mum day to the British, the Irish, the Nigerians, and the islanders of Jersey (Jerseyans?), Guernsey (Guernseys?), and the Isle of Man (Manx, I think.)

My mum doesn't like soppy generic poems, or rude jokes, or cards that follow the theme of 'Mum runs around after the kids all day and this is her one special day of rest but don't forget you've got to wash my sports kit and can I have chicken nuggets for dinner please'- she just isn't like that. I'm thankful that I started making all my own cards now, because it saves me from standing, staring blankly at the cards in the shop, trying to pick between two cards that will both be received with a polite smile. Yeah, I'll skip that if it's alright with you.

She is, on the other hand, a florist. So it's safe for me to assume that she likes flowers, and I especially know she has a fondness for the wild roses that grow all along the dog walking paths where she lives. I raided my battered nature guide stash to find some pretty dog roses (interestingly named as such because they were used to treat the bites of rabid dogs in the olden days.) You can also eat the fruits of them, or at least I was a fan of scoffing rose hips when I was younger and wilder.

Nice try, internet. But you shan't know my name!

This simple card and matching envelope involved cutting out the flowers with a craft knife (mine is actually a budget scalpel) and then gluing onto a card base with some fetching pinky-red background. I used my favourite alphabet stamps as usual, and it ended up looking rather elegant. I also love precision-cutting with craft knives, it's very relaxing. Probably also a mental throw-back to the good old school days of cutting and sticking.

The moral of this is that (assuming your mum is nice) you should probably be reasonably nice to your mum all year round, because it's most likely Mother's Day somewhere else in the world.

Have fun, go bake some cookies or something!
L

A Christmas Card in February

I went 'home-home' last week to visit my mum and brother, seeing as I had a bit of free time. I wouldn't say I regretted it, but it became apparent very quickly to me that I've outgrown the house of my parents. There was just something weird about it, I felt out of place. Maybe more on that in a later blog post, though.

Unbeknownst to me, we'd been booked in for dinner with the grandparents I haven't seen in a few years. My mum asked if I'd got them a Christmas card or present and said that she hadn't either so I'd have to make one. Oh and by the way we're leaving in an hour so I'll have to make it quick. Surely it reaches a point (like February) when you can just cut your losses and forget about Christmas cards, but she was quite insistent.

I made myself a mug of tea, grumbled to myself a bit, put on the tv, and sat down with all the craft supplies the house could offer. I miss my alphabet stamps already. *sad face*

Luckily for me, I found this pair of crimping scissors and set of rubber stamps in the cupboard that I never knew we had. I have no idea where they came from, and they needed a good wash beforehand.

The ink pad was all dried up and I didn't have my craft supplies with me so I experimented with using felt tip pens instead. I found one that took longer than the others to dry which was perfect. I had to work quickly to cover and stamp the thing before the ink dried and went patchy but the poinsettia stamp looked really pretty like that, so I decided to use that one on my card.

Using some shiny gold paper as the main background, I made a really simple Christmas card. Using the snowflake stamp multiple times on some blue paper, and the poinsettia stamp on a bit of crimped ivory card, I layered them at slightly jaunty angles. Unfortunately the poinsettia stamp didn't come out as nicely as I wanted in the final version because I'd practised on a different type of paper. I also used the snowflake stamp again with a blue felt tip to make a matching envelope.

Also, these matching bookmarks! Made with the same materials as the card with the addition of a hole punch and some ribbon. They were starting to curl up quite badly so I sandwiched them between some heavy books as they dried. I know that home-made paper bookmarks are something you usually get little children to make and give to people, but I don't see why they can't be refined a little for a more mature audience. I was really out of ideas and time, too.

And there we have it! A 30-minute(ish) solution to a family argument. (With my mum, not my grandparents. They wouldn't have minded either way. It's sometimes just easier to give in to what people want, though.) The visit itself went surprisingly well, it was nice to catch up. My grandma also makes amazing roast potatoes, and that made everything worth it.

Merry February!

L

You're Gorgeous

So, that day is coming around the corner again. Having not been much of a Valentine's person in the past, this year I finally get what the fuss was about. Other people can be pretty nice sometimes. Not most of them, of course, just a few. (If you're a people person then I envy you, but I've most likely got a touch of Asperger's or something else that makes me shy of talking to people.)

I adore my new alphabet stamps and, after having a few Valentine's card ideas, I settled on this design so I could use them. The main 'you're gorgeous' writing in the middle is just cut out of flowery paper. You could replicate this with any song lyrics that need a bit of emphasis for a personal touch.

Not heard the song? Here you go! Aside from some pretty questionable lyrics, it's a sweet sentiment.

The colours look a bit strange here, but you get the idea.

I like how it's quite simple, and also not too soppy. It's something that we say to each other a lot, the personal touch is especially nice for occasions like this. I'll also let you in on a little secret: the edge is cut so close to the words because I managed to smear ink everywhere. Top tip- wait before ink is dry before putting your hand on it.

My plan for this Sunday is just a really chilled day together. I'm going to make ginger biscuits, we'll make a pillow fort on the floor and play on the game cube in our underwear all day. We will also be seeing Deadpool at the cinema if the crowds don't scare us away.

I hope you have a good weekend. And you're gorgeous, too!

L 

Eggy Bread & Cards for Grannies

Crack an egg on a plate, scraggle it with a fork, soak it all up with some bread, season, and then fry it. You now have eggy bread, one of the best dishes ever invented (in my humble opinion.) I treated myself this morning by topping it with honey and blueberries, and what a glorious morning it was.

And now onto the card of the week:

Hilda is a tiny, softly-spoken, lovely old lady that we took out for a birthday lunch at the weekend. She's not technically my grandma, but she's like one. She's rather old-fashioned and always wears purple so this is a card for her birthday that reflects that. The flowers were cut out of a ragged Reader's Digest guide and the lettering is outlined in purple Sharpie. The trim is decorative sticky lace tape that can be found for pennies on eBay.

I don't know about you, but when I go into a shop to buy a card I end up staring at the selection for ages. The cards are either too clichéd or too pink or trying too hard to be funny. Don't get me started on finding cards for men either. I love giving home-made cards to people. They really don't take much time to make and make the other person feel that much more special, and save money too! 

Blueberries and birthdays,

L

Cardmaking Take One

(If you're stuck on the mobile version of this page (thanks Pinterest!) please click here for the web-friendly page.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you today a few homemade cards that have made the cut recently. I had a little stock-up of crafty things just after christmas. Such things I have never owned before, like stamps and various pretty papers.

Firstly something that's not technically a card but an envelope. When you undo the bow and pull the two heart halves apart, it opens out like a box! It doesn't have to be a heart of course, you could cut the flaps into any shape you like. Inside is a list for the mister: "52 reasons why (insert name here) is actually quite good." Because, you know, if you've just given someone a heart envelope then you can't make the title too soppy.

Here is the YouTube tutorial that I used to make this. 

Just add extra frontal card pieces, trim down the flaps, and add the ribbon at the end!

My uni friends and I don't usually exchange cards, but my favourite couple gave me and the mister one so I had to fix the slight awkwardness. I'm very proud of this little card and I got to use my stamps for the first time. There's a Sharpie dinosaur because what's more Christmas-y than that? Also we used to doodle them all over each other's paper.

Next we have a card I sent to my mum in the hope of receiving some post back to make me feel all special. She'd sent me a flip calendar with pictures from my childhood on that was very sweet. It also doubled as a "thanks for feeding me so much free food over christmas" card.

And finally a couple of birthday cards:

A cute collage panda, googly eyes, what more could you ask for?

I'm sure hippos would eat cake.

Well that's all for now!

Scissors and snippets,

L