Charity Card - Cats Whiskers

This card is quite simple, but so sweet and cute!

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Bright pink cardstock for the base card
• Silver mirri card (is it mirri or mirror?????) matted and layered
• Pink gingham background paper matted and layered
• Three kittens (free download from somewhere!)
• Kittens coloured in with Twinkling H20's (thanks Di!!!)
• Stickles Crystal on the items the kittens are holding
• Rippled silver card (from the kids craft selection!)
• Handwritten sentiment "You're the cats whiskers!" matted and layered on top with some hand drawn doodles!

Voila, another cute card ready for the charity box.

Very Fairy!

I had some goodies free in a magazine, so decided to make a couple of fairy cards, not the new style princess fairy type ones, but old fashioned floaty fairies!

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make these cards:

• Backing paper free from a magazine
• White "Magic Mesh" centred down the card
• Add the chipboard "Flower Fairy" on top of a Cream cardstock "Nestie" (donated as usual!)
• Silver peel offs down the side to hightlight it (from a Wedding Peel off)
• Stardust Stickles on each 'scallop' of the Nestie
• Light blue satin ribbon through the top of the chipboard "Flower Fairy" to match the backing paper
• Yellow Prima Flowers
• White Pearl flowers used as centres in the Prima ones, these are from Craft Creatives from Tesco
• I used "Stardust" Stickles in the middle just to add a bit more "bling"!!!

With the second card it's pretty similar to the first one with the differences being:

• Same backing paper
• Darker blue ribbon
• Add a Cuttlebugged (Roses Embossing Folder) backing centrally placed
• Place the chipboard "Flower Fairy" at a 'jaunty angle'
• Holographic peel offs from a Forever Friends "At the Chapel" Wedding Set (from PaperMill)

More to add to the charity box!

New Job

The perfect card for a Doctor friend of mine who has just got a new job, including this new super long title to go with it!

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• I snaffled this image from the internet, sorry I don't know which site but it was perfect for what I needed!
• Add silver peel offs saying "Best Wishes" and "Good Luck" down the sides to 'bling it' a bit
• I had some stickers left over from the "Doctors Coat" card I made earlier from CraftWork and put the ambulance and the white coated Doctor on there and voila, a new card was finished!
• On the inside of the card, I criss crossed two sticking plasters just to finish it off

Easy peasy!

Charity Cards - Oriental Style

My lovely friend Di sent me some printed images of these gorgeous Chinese ladies in kimonos. I had a think about what I could do and came up withe the following ideas......

Each one is coloured slightly differently and with different embellishments. Once made I thought of making a box for them and putting six in each and they would make great "Notelet Sets" - what do you think?

I also had some fans on there so I used them in different ways too.

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make these cards:

• Backing papers were taken from a cardmaking magazine I'd had for ages - ideal for oriental cards I thought!
• Gold/red ribbon which was in my stash
• I used my paper crimper (bought from The Works many many moons ago for £2) to make the plain cardstock background
• All the images were coloured using Glitter Pens (Sainsburys) and then covered in Anita's Glossy Accent liquid and left to set - really shows the black hair up well
• Red tiny ribbons on the hair came from an old "Make Your Own Christmas Cards" set from Tesco I won in a raffle!
• Creative Craft Pearls - again from Tesco were used on the ribbon - I thought it made it look more oriental - what do you think?
• Silver mirri card was used on the sentiments to make them stand out more
• Silver crinkly ribbed card (Kids Craft Section!) just cut to size
• The tiny diamond gems on some of the fans came from, believe it or not, a bra!

It's amazing what ribbons and gems can be found on clothes before wearing! You'll be looking at everything in a new way now.....go on admit it...!

"Dogtors" Orders

Well what should follow a Doctors card, but a Get Well Soon Card!!! LOL!!

I made this from scraps in my stash box but I'll do my best to give you clues as to how it was put together.

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Blue Tartan background, printed from a magazine CDROM - edges rounded
• Swirly background which I previously used on an Exploding Box (more of that later!) - edges rounded
• Sizzix Dogs (donated to me)
• Red cardstock cut into squares
• Red cardstock used for the sentiment, which is hand written with faux stitiching around the edge
• Add the dogs to the red squares and use Stickles (Crystal) on two sides of the cardstock
• Add tiny multicolour shiny hearts randomly

That's it, another one done for the charity card box.

Thank you for looking :-)

Charity Cards - Baby Congratulations

I've made quite a few of these little cardigan cards after I was given a bag of them to use up - also I've since made quite a few of my own too, they are SOOOOO easy to do once you get the hang of it.

If you've still got some wool in your craft stash somewhere, give it a go, tiny needles are best then you can easily transfer them to the cocktail sticks.

I use plain beads on the ends and file the sharp points off mine. Health and safety, health and safety, got to be aware of that these days!!! LOL!!!

It only takes small scraps of wool and they look so effective don't you think?

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Small scraps of pastel coloured wool - unless you know whether it's a boy or girl!
• Create the small cardigan and use some extra wool to make a small ball of wool for the card
• Use any cardstock you have in the appropriate colour (pink, blue, lemon, white, cream etc)
• I printed this background off a freebie from the internet - plain A4 paper can make four a6 card backgrounds so very economical for charity cards!
• Various embellishments to add to the card, epoxy stickers (from a company called Scrapperware), Nesties, mini envelopes containing cards saying "It's a Boy/Girl" peel offs and flowers on the front
• Bits and bobs from the stash box - anything can be used so nothing is wasted!

Have fun!

Cupcakes .... and more cupcakes!

If you know my Brother, you know he likes, no loves, cupcakes, in any shape or form!!!! So I just had to make a cupcake themed card for him from Mum!

Again, this is an easel card, once you get the basic measurements, they are SOOOOO easy to make, believe me!

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Cream cardstock, made into an easel shape ready for decoration!
• Dovecraft punch to round the corners on all corners of the cardstock
• Cupcake background paper printed from the "Popcorn Bear CDROM" from http://www.crafterscompanion.co.uk/ - I think this is where it's from! Rounded corners again!
• Gold mirri card guillotined down to approximately half the size of the card landscape style
• Dovecraft punch to round all the corners
• DST to add this on top of the background paper
• Cupcake glittery stickers were from the TU range at Sainsburys and randomly placed in a straight line along the middle of the mirri card
• The name/parcel came from an old sheet of Anita's stickers - again this is from memory and my memory is bad now! Randomly placed so don't have to be exact on this! Phew!
• For the flat piece of the cardstock, again use cupcake backing paper
• Add a Nestie shape (donated as usual!)
• Add pink card candy to the middle
• Silver peel off wording around the Nestie

There you go, another one done.....

Daisy and Dandelion Decoupage

Oh aren't these characters just so cute!!! This was a freebie download from http://www.docrafts.com/ - I'm not sure if it's still on their site, but well worth a download as it can be used for so many cards as it's so versatile, the backing paper comes in handy too!

UPDATE: Just checked and the download is still available at http://www.docrafts.com/download so go and give it a go!


SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• White cardstock 6" x 6"
• Dovecraft Corner Rounder
• Print out your free download for the backing paper
• Print out your free download for the embellishments on to white cardstock
• Print out the sentiments on the same cardstock
• Complete the decoupage elements and also cut out the sentiment
• Dovecraft Corner Rounder to take the corners off the backing paper to match the white cardstock
• Two strips of brown graduated ribbon add this to the left hand side of the card
• Place your decoupage embellishments central in the remaining space
• Add felt flowers (I chose beige and brown to match the paper) down the middle of the two strips of graduated ribbon
• Add foam pads to the sentiment and add it to the lower right hand side of the card
• I put Stickles (Stardust) on the paws of the bears to 'bling' it up a bit! You know me and glitter!

Hope you enjoy making this one, the basic template can be used for many cards so have fun!

Charity Card - With Love

Another charity card, most of them are made from existing stash so I can only give you guidance on how they were done and if I have details of the items and where from I'll tell you.

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Pink cardstock folded in half to make an A6 card
• White cardstock which has been Cuttlebugged with "Daisies" embossing folder
• Round the corners with Dovecraft corner rounder
• Pink cardstock Cuttlebugged with "Roses" embossing folder
• Again round the corners with Dovecraft corner rounder
• Add three Prima flowers in different colours with DST
• Add Card Candy to make the flower centres in a cream pearlised colour
• Add Mulberry "With Love" sentiment to the bottom of the card (landscape card style)
• Add "Bling" gemstones to the sentiment and either side of it too

Another simple card, but looks quite stunning when seen in real life!

Charity Card - Footie

This is one of many charity cards I've made and I'll share them with you along with the cards I make for special people.

INGREDIENTS

• Pale green pre-scored card (from Craft Addicts)
• Green grass image snaffled from the internet and printed onto photographic paper
• Round the bottom two edges with Dovecraft corner rounder punch
• Cut top of grass into mountains and valleys to look like blades of coarse grass!
• Football Dufex decoupage which was then matted and layered with...
• Gold mirri card and mounted in the centre of the card
• Gold football peel off's of footballs randomly placed at the top of the image
• Gold Happy Birthday peel off added onthe grass so it can be seen easily

That's it - good card for men....and ladies who like football too of course!

Another Easel Card

You'd never guess, but the theme on this card was purple and silver - LOL!!

With some plain purple cardstock (a freebie I got from the internet!) here is how I made this card...

INGREDIENTS

• Rounded the edges of the cardstock with a Dovecraft corner rounder punch (purchased from eBay for £2.75 - Dovecraft make it so easy on the fingers/thumbs to punch!)
• Swirly paper as background (I think this came from a freebie on the internet)
• Silver mirri card as the backing for the top of the easel card
• The little bear embellishment came as a set of four from Hobbycraft (in their sale!)
• I used circles of various purple coloured paper to put beneath the bear embellishment
• Add small silver flowers
• Put "Bling" gems in the middle of the flowers to 'lift' the card
• Sentiment from Di (again!) which came from www.craftworkcards.com
• Purple card candy (again from Di and www.craftworkcards.com!) in the bigger silver flower

On the flat side of the easel card I used the following:

• Purple swirly paper for the background
• Purple card cut with Nestabilities (not mine sadly!)
• Silver flowers either side of the big Nesties
• Purple card candy used as a 'stopper' for the card to stand up

This was for a birthday, I hope they liked it, as I never heard from them whether they did or not. Fingers crossed huh!

Split Card with Flutterbys!

This card was quite simple to make but looks very effective. Give it a go and see how you get on.

SHOPPING LIST

Here's what you need to make this card:

• Pre-scored cardstock blank in a light green colour (I think they're Craft Addicts but don't quote me on that!)
• Divide the card mentally into three and cut off one third from the right hand edge, don't throw this away as you'll need it later on!
• Add mirri card to the connected side of the card and the separated side
• Add swirly background paper slightly smaller than the mirri card onto each section
• Add in a sentiment (in this case, it says "Thanks") to both sides of the card section - I used two flutterbys and one sentiment to make it stronger - I also added a ribbon in the tag to give it an element of specialness (is that a word?!?!?!)
• Add flutterby embellishments (these are Papermania ones) with one wing on each side of the card and there you have it, the card is back in one piece but looks quite spectacular!

As these cards have already been made I can't upload any 'make it as you go' images to show you, but this will come when my 'current charity stash photos' have been uploaded so you can see how I do things.

Have fun!

A Motor Racing Fanatic's Card

This is the card I made for my brother the other year, along with the card below I made from Mum for him.

A few bits from my stash, and some downloads from the internet and I was all ready at the starting post for this one!

INGREDIENTS

• Star backing paper from a freebie in a card making magazine (sorry this was a long time ago so I can't remember which one!)


• Dufex decoupage of the racing car


• Small star peel off's added randomly


• Downloaded the flags from the internet and printed onto photographic paper


• Downloaded the tyre prints from the internet and printed onto photographic paper


• Assemble!

Bob's your Uncle - this card was a quick make once I had to basic idea of what I wanted on it. It's all down to your imagination, give it a go with some stash and see what you come up with!

A Simple But Effective Make from Bits and Pieces

This was a quick make really. It was my Brothers Birthday, and my Mum suddenly sprung it on me that she'd like a handmade card for him!


INGREDIENTS

• Image of a country lane taken when on holiday in the UK somewhere (can't remember where sorry!)


• Old style car which I decoupaged


• Green cardstock with peel offs added and also some Anita's graduated ribbon down the sides of the green cardstock

Pretty simple, but effective....

A Blurred Bunny

Sorry this photo is a bit blurred but it was taken late at night the evening before Easter Sunday. I know this is not a card, but it is a crafty make!

I used a tag that was donated to me for my charity card making and I now know it's from a Nestie set made using the Cuttlebug machine.

INGREDIENTS

• Using a cellobag which you normally put your cards in to put the chocolate raisins or peanuts in and I used DST to seal it
• I folded one of the tags made using a Nestie die cutting shape in half
• Using a White Gel Pen I added the words "Hoppy Easter" and made faux stitching around the outside edge, again with the White Gel Pen
• Add an embellishment (this is Warren, a freebie which I printed off from the PC) kinda cute isn't he!

That's it - all you need. Of course this can be made into Christmas Treats, Birthday Treats, Get Well Treats, just change the contents and the wording and it's a quick easy way of making a special little treat for someone you love who deserves some TLC!

Enjoy.

For the Doctors you know....

This card was made for a special friend of mine who is a Doctor and this time I wanted to make something totally different so went for the Doctors coat which they wear all the time. It even had a stethoscope and syringe in the pocket!

I made the shirt from blue cardstock and made a snazzy tie to match. Not bad for a 'design it yourself' type card huh.

I'd found some "medical" 3D stickers and they were perfect for this! The details will follow in the ingredients if you find they could be useful for someone you know.

INGREDIENTS

• White cardstock for the Doctors coat using a gatefold style folding (I think that's what it's called anyway!)


• Blue cardstock for the shirt (from my stash)


• The tie was made from a small piece of embossed white card with gold diamonds on it - perfect!


• Stickers (x-ray, syringe, stethoscope etc) called Craft Work Craft Stickers and are from a company in Hertfordshire. That's the only information on the packaging, sorry.


• Inside the shirt I added an x-ray sticker to the left hand side and on the right side made a sentiment using scalloped circles matted and layered and used peel offs for the actual sentiment

Perfect for any Doctor or Lab Worker that you may know. Or even could be used as a Congratulations card for a medical graduate.

Have fun!

My First Easel Card!

This is my first attempt at an Easel Card. I like to try different card techniques and styles to keep my little old grey cell going.

There is a (or rather was!) a craft shop fairly near us, but sadly it's closed down now and is an 'Internet Shop' only. I got a few things from there in their "Moving Sale" which then changed to a "Closing Down Sale!".

INGREDIENTS

• Blue cardstock from my stash (got at a Papercraft Show pre-illness!), corners rounded using the Dovecrafts Punch
• Backing paper obtained from Carole's Crafts - in their sale for 30p sheet but I was charged 50p instead but didn't notice until I got home....now the Garden Centre has burnt down so no chance of any refund there then!
• "Happy Birthday" background vellum type paper - in the sale at the Craft Shop only 10p!
• Car Decoupage I won in a "Lucky Dip Draw" so sorry no details of it on there
• Matted and layered the backgrounds with the image
• Scalloped cardstock from a Lucky Dip Draw (again!) and I used a dark blue Card Candy (from Diane via http://craftworkcards.co.uk/ I think!)
• Silver Peel Offs (a good staple and I have now collected a few for different occasions)

Not bad for a first attempt huh!

80th Birthday Word Book

A special card for my Aunt who was 80 - you'd never have guessed would you?!?!?!?!

It's my first attempt at a Word Book so I wanted to keep it fairly simple and think (hope!) it achieved it's aim. I love making cards for special people and put a lot of effort into them, I usually make them in advance rather than last minute as fatigue often slows me down.

INGREDIENTS

• Pearlised ruby coloured card, with the corners rounded with a small Woodware Punch.
• Pink starry and flower paper, downloaded from a Crafters Companion CDROM
• Cuttlebug both items, the ruby card with embossed roses and embossed stars on the stars (if you see what I mean!)
• I made the numbers and letters using my PC printed straight onto white cardstock
• The flowers are Prima and were given to me
• Sentiment was from my good friend Diane, I think they're from http://www.craftworkcards.co.uk
• Butterflies came from my stash and I 'blinged' them up with Stickles glitter glue (Stardust)
• Holes were punched at the side and I used pastel ribbon to keep them together
• Gemstones (from Diane again!) are called "Bling" and come in various colours and sizes

If you'd like some help in creating a Word Book, let me know!

Thank Ewe!

I made this card for a lovely little man called George, he's the son of my friends Nick and Jo and he loves receiving envelopes with his name on through the post! Mind you, so do I....! Still a kid at heart I suppose.

Ingredients

• 6" x 6" Corrugated paper styleee (from Tesco's Make Your Own Christmas Card Set!)


• Gold Magic Mesh


• Gold Card Candy (from my very good friend Di...thanks Di...!)


• Silver holographic card shaped with a "Rounder Punch" for the background of the sheep


• White card flower tag shape (used for his body and the ribbon hole can be hidden!)


• White card scraps for his head and ears


• Black card scraps for his legs


• Black Fineliner Pen to add the "fur" on his body and head


• Black card scraps for the "Thank You" tag (I would normally add Thank Ewe but as this was for a little boy I didn't want to confuse his spelling!)


• White Gel Pen to add his "feet" and the handwritten "Thank You" sentiment

Hope you like him!

My Plans For My Blog

As this is a new venture for me, I'll be posting a few of the cards I've already made for friends/relatives so that you can see what I've been up to! Of course, this will be followed up by new cards when I make them too.

Just to let you know, I don't just make cards of course, I love all things "craft" related and will be adding them in as I go so you won't be bored just reading about cards only.

I hope to hear your comments about my handiwork soon and don't forget to let me know your blog url so that I can add it to my faves list!

New Knees!

This is a card I made for my Mum when she was in hospital having a total knee replacement operation! It's my humour that comes out where hospitals are concerned! I already had the legs from a previous card I made for a Nurse and on the insert I used two plasters criss crossed and used MS Word to add the wording which read "Take your pick.....and choose your new knees!" - perfect! Even the other ladies in the ward liked it!


INGREDIENTS

• Background - this was made using MS Word and handrawn images of a little pair of socks and then cut and pasted into the document
• Backing for sentiments - this was an image of a plaster and then used to mat and layer with the sentiment saying "These...?" on the top
• The images I already had in my stash and then just used foam pads to lift them up on holographic silver cardstock
• Then it was an 'assembly' job!

On the inside of the card I printed the words "Take your pick....and choose your new knees...!" and on the upper side of the insert I used two plasters and criss crossed them. All the ladies in the ward loved the card which was a sign that my humour is not as black as some people think it is!