Fabulous

I have a super fabulous best friend Caroline - who is the most supportive friend  anyone could ever ask for. Over the past few months she has been an absolute rock for me - despite going through a difficult time herself.

To say thanks I made her this card.  Although I've never really been into shoes (scacrilege I know!) - Caroline is definitely a shoe girl so this shoe image from Better Together seemed appropriate.  I flood filled the shoes with the funky stripes and took the word Fabulous from Gypsy Wanderings -- flood filled again with Better Together patterns.

I embossed some blue whitewash coredinations card with the 'plaid' embossing forlder for the background and sanded away. The only other thing it needed was a bit of glitter!  I used Diamond Sparkles on 'fabulous' and added a few thin lines of gold glitter on the shoes.

Bee-utiful Spring is Here

Here in London summer has come early and we enjoyed the most AMAZING weather for the Easter weekend. I would say that the lovely weather was the inspiration for this card but I'd be lying.  It was really just that I recently bought a Cuttlebug (don't even begin to add up the paper related stuff I've bought since that fateful day I first saw the Imagine) -  anyway - I had just bought the Cuttlebug and fell in love with the bees folder and that was my inspiration.

The Cuttlebug is great fun and has of course led to a whole other stream of 'things I must buy' like vellum paper and Distress Inks for 'aging' the embossings.

The bees were embossed on to plain card stock which I then distressed with some Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink.

The bee-utiful letters were cut using Simply Sweet, and 'spring' was from Gypsy Wanderings (why yes, I did buy a Gypsy.  I wouldn't recommend it for the Imagine though - it doesn't add much in the way of features. It's nice to plot out what you want to print/cut away from the machine - but not worth the UK price.  As far as I can tell it is MUCH more useful with the other Cricut models) .  All were coloured with patterns/colours on Better Together.

I didn't take a picture of the inside - it was plain apart from a small bee in the bottom right hand corner which I print and cut out from the Imagine More cartridge.

With hindsight I'd consider matting and layering some card behind the bees - but it was a cute enough card and is buzzing to its recipient now!

A Sweet Card

I am lucky enough to count The Caked Crusader  (CC) amongst my friends.  If you haven't ever seen her blog - do check it out - the recipes are great and she's very funny.  She's also a special guest star in Jenny Colgan's latest novel Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe providing advice for the first time cupcake maker.

I wanted to make CC a card to thank her for being a particularly good friend over the past few months - and of course I knew it had to be cake related.

I remembered a cupcake image on the Better Together cartridge and I was off.

I cut the cupcake image in layers at a whopping 8 inches.  I wanted to personalise the card so I flood filled the shape that said 'heh cupcake' with one of the patterns on the cart and then cut out 'the caked crusader' using a font from Plantin Schoolbook filled with a pink pattern from Better Together cartridge.

I wanted no white space on the card so I cut 3 more cupcake shapes (2 of them flipped horizontally to make backing pages), flood filling each with a different pattern (again from Better Together). 

I added a little glitter on the cupcake case and the frosting - because I seem to love glitter!

If I were to make it again I'd shadow the letters to help them pop out a bit more - but overall I'm happy with this card.  I love these colours and think the final card is a happy thing.

Another Card for Dad

My Dad isn't very well and is in the hospital at the moment - even worse it's a hospital back in Canada so I can't visit, and due to his Parkinsons he can't speak on the phone very easily.  To help make sure he knows that I'm thinking of him I've been busily making and sending cards every few days.

This first one is my least favourite of the bunch!   But I did learn a few things making it - and it's not horrific or anything. 

I used the base shapes on the Imagine and a pattern from Imagine More Cards to make the shaped rectangle (is that what those are called?)(does anyone know?) and then cut the same shape a wee bit bigger out of  navy blue for the shadow.

The 'just a little hello' is also from Imagine More Cards and the flowers are from Better Together.

The first thing I learned was how effective a small border could make to helping a shape pop out.  Adding the dark blue around the flower paper and the 'just a little hello' circle made a real difference to the card - and I don't think it would have worked at all without it.

My second lesson was in the power of decoupage layering.  My first version of the 'just a little hello' circle was print flat -- and it wasn't very interesting.  I went back to my trusty Imagine and recut the image using the 'layering' option, opened up the bag of foam pads I'd recently bought and I was reallly impressed at the improvement.  I also ditched the bird and replaced it with a small flwoer in similar colours to the large flowers.

I added a bit of glitter to the flower stems and added a flower to the inside of the card to finish it off.