My Goddaughter’s daughter recently celebrated her 21st birthday and I was asked to make a special card for her mum and dad to send her. We were also invited to the party so I needed to make a card to send from us too. I love quirky card designs and kinetic cards and am an avid fan of Sam Calcott, who, if you’re a crafter, you will be very familiar with by now. I was really happy with both of these cards and have to thank Sam for her wonderful inspiration.

A friend asked me to make a card that would cover three important events for one couple, namely their wedding, new home and news that they were expecting a baby. The first thing that came to mind was that ‘Congratulations’ would be the most appropriate sentiment to cover all three events. I decided to make a collage on the front sticking to a neutral but elegant colour scheme of white, silver and pearlescent grey. I’m happy to report that it was very well received.

As a crafter, I’m always on the look out for resources and ideas for upcoming crafting projects. I think every crafter is thinking about Christmas cards for much of the year. Last summer I spotted a beading kit to make little angels and thought they would be lovely to include in my Christmas cards for my family members and close friends. As Christmas approached I was struggling to think of a card design which would accommodate the Angels as they were quite bulky for a card. I also realised that they would need to hand delivered if I was going to avoid a hefty postage bill. I remembered that I had a tonic lantern die set in my stash which proved to be the perfect size to fit the angels. I cut a large window in one side of the lantern and framed that with a silver mirror card die cut frame. I used the dies in the set to cut the verso design on the remaining sides which I then lined with patterned vellum. I made an insert for the top of the lantern box to suspend the completed angel from and hold a battery powered tea light upside down so that just the flame protruded through above the angel. As there wasn’t anywhere to write my message on the lantern, I made a mini card and attached that to an Angel die cut made using a custom made wooden die in my stash. I made 10 lanterns in total and managed to hand deliver 9 of them, the tenth I posted partially completed with tape applied so the recipient just had to fix the last panel in place to complete.

My friend often asks me to make her special Christmas cards for family members. She has her own ideas about designs and we join our heads together to come up with something that suits what she’s after. This time she was inspired by a card she saw on pinterest. I didn’t have exactly the same dies but managed to come up with a design that was pretty close and she was really happy, as, I’m pleased to say, were the recipients. I used best quality 300gsm linen card which, I think, really makes these cards that little bit more special.

This card was requested by my friend to send to her in laws. I made something similar for her family cards the previous year and she really liked it. I love the colour combination in this card which I think really complements the contemporary design.

I started batch making all of my own Christmas cards a few years back now. This is no mean feat, as we send over 100 cards every year. Apart from those for close friends and family, it’s crucial for my sanity to come up with designs that are relatively easy to make and easy to reproduce in quantity. Nowadays, with increasing postage costs, it’s also important to create cards that are neither too bulky, large or too heavy. I have lots of Christmas stamps and dies in my stash and am constantly buying new ones too, so choosing what to use is always hard. This year, apart from 1 stamp set, I used items already in my stash. When I say already in my stash, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve actually used them yet. As, like most crafters, a good part of my stash is waiting patiently for me get round to using it. To keep things interesting I decided on a three different designs using stamps, stencils and dies. Hope you like what I came up with.

Design One – Using Woodware Clear Singles Bubble Mini Baubles stamp set. I stamped onto silver pearlescent card stock and heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I then die cut the baubles. Using different shades of silver mirror, glitter, and gun metal card stock and Tattered Lace tuck in dies I die cut lots of circles to fill in the baubles with and used gem stones for the smallest size thereby reducing the depth of the finished cards for posting. On the card base I applied Cosmic Shimmer Graphite coloured gilding polish through a home made stencil and Cosmic shimmer Silver Chrome Glitter kiss through a Memory Box stencil. I finished off with a thin strip of mirror card for the string and die cut sentiment sentiment and bow.

Design Two – This design used a Julie Hickey stamp and matching die set. I did this in two different colourways, Kraft card stamped and embossed in white and white card stamped and embossed in brown. Both versions were coloured with various shades of brown distress inks used as watercolours. Once dried I applied glossy accents to highlight the flowers and other elements in the design.

Design Three – For this design I used the Elegant Deer thinlits die from Sizzix which I embellished with spare silver circles left over from making design One. I cut some in Kraft card mounted onto white and other in white card mounted onto Kraft card. I stencilled the background using various shades of brown distress in and Cosmic Shimmer Golden Sand Glitter kiss for extra sparkle. I used the same sentiment as for design One cut from silver mirror card.

I have been enjoying stamping of late having taken out a subscription to Creative stamping as they have had some really nice cover gifts recently. In Issue 99 there were wonderful floral stamps and some absolutely gorgeous bees too. I’d also had a go at making some background papers by mopping up smooshed distress oxide inks onto photographic paper. The following cards are the fruits of my labours combining the stamps with my arty backgrounds. They are not made for anyone in particular for a change, but just for the fun of creating.

I was lucky enough to win a bundle of Card Making Magic dies and stamps in a Craftworld give away. One of the die sets was the Tapis set, very similar to the Crealies patchwork die sets. I had bought some cute 6″ square paper pads from The Works which I thought would be great for this die set. I was really happy with the final results, in each case I added coordinating plain card stock from my stash for matting and embellishments using dies from my stash (if you want the details of the dies used just click on the individual images.

Just sharing some fun cards I made recently using the stamps that came with issue 98 of Creative Stamping Magazine. I added some pun sentiments and a few emoticons for some extra fun. I stamped the images with versafine ink then clear embossed. I coloured the images with Watercolour brush markers (Hunkydory Prism) and finished off with glossy accents. The backgrounds were papers that came with the magazine which have been inked around the edges with distress ink and faux stitched with a black fine liner pen..