Cardmaking-Companion-Blog

For those of you who are new to this blog , you may not realise that every month Cardmaking-Companion issues a FREE monthly newsletter called, “News and Views”. With the newsletter comes 7 FREE digital background papers.

It’s very easy to sign up for the newsletter – simply scroll down the right hand margin of this blog and you’ll see the sign up box, or alternatively sign up directly from the main website.

Each month I show a card I have made with one of the free papers, and I thought this month I would share this with you on the blog.

I love this striking grey, pink and black floral paper. It’s quite a busy design but lends itself well to either a plain card or a more elaborate design.

This 6″ x 6″ card blank has been covered with the paper. I have some pre-cut cream hammer finish circles and one of these has formed the centre piece of the card. Onto this I have mounted a scalloped edge circle, cut with a Nestability, from one of Cardmaking-Ideas’ dotty papers.

I made a small bouquet of 3 rose floral embellishments and hand tied them with a pink ribbon, fixing them to the card with some PVA glue.

Around the edge of the circle I punched some butterflies, alternating a plain pink one with a “dotty” one. Small pink pearl embellishments were added to the body of each butterfly.

I decided to leave the card sentiment free but a peel off sticker would have worked in the bottom right hand corner.

Inside the card I used a pink insert and, as usual,  punched a design into the bottom right hand corner.

I have already sent this card to a dear lady called Emma, who is 80 years old, and has just undergone a 7 hour back operation. Thankfully the operation has been a success and Emma is expected to make a full recovery.

Tomorrow is the turn of yet another young couple from our Church to get married (what are they putting in the coffee!) – Rachel and Phil.

Here is the card which I’ve just finished making for them.

I’ve covered a landscape base card with one of our own very pretty heart papers. This was given away with July’ edition of “News and Views” and will shortly be appearing for sale on Cardmaking-Ideas.  I think that it’s a really pretty paper which works so well on a wedding card.

The centre panel is made from a pale pink pearlescent card ( in the photogragh it has lost its pink sheen) and has been embossed using my Cuttlebug and a Sizzix embossing folder.

The cake and wedding bell decoupage embellishments are ones taken from a sheet of wedding day handmade embellishments. These were very reasonably priced and most stores stock similar ones. Two self adhesive pink faux pearls decorate the remaining 2 corners of the panel.

The card was very easy to make and looks better in real life than it does here in the photo.

Way back in January I wrote about an Unusual Wedding Invitation which I had made for Stewie to give to his bride to be, Lisa. Well the Wedding Day finally came last Sunday and we had a lovely day at their wedding.

However, as usual, my life has been really hectic so I had absolutely no time left to make them a Wedding Card myself. I frantically searched through all the card boxes of the cards we sell at Church. Luckily Anita had recently made this delightful card so I dutifully purchased it, but before writing it, decided it was so nice I had to share it with you.

The card is a landscape with scalloped edges. I hope you can just make out the pale white and grey backing paper which Anita has used as a base mat. Onto this she has rubber stamped a delightful wedding image from Lili of the Valley which she had bought from one of the craft shows we have been to, and a simple sentiment.

The stamped image has been mounted onto silver Mirri card and the finishing touch is a white chiffon ribbon.

I love the way Anita has been quite sparing with her use of colour on this card – the image could have been more heavily coloured but I think this would have distracted from the overall feel of the card.

A little glitter just gives the card the right amount of highlights.

There are so many lovely wedding stamps on the market at the moment that you can be spoilt for choice.  However here are just a few which you may like and they are available for sale:

And just in case you’re wondering what the happy couple looked like – here is their photo – taken just after they’d exited the Church through a whirl of confetti!

Carrying on from my last post, here are a couple of quick and easy friendship cards, made using Card Toppers.

This background paper is part of a stack I’ve had for ages and when I spotted this pretty floral topper it seemed as if they were meant to go together!

I simply mounted the topper and the sentiment (which came from the same sheet) onto silver Mirri card.

To add a bit of interest to the design I  punched the lower edge of the bacground paper with the Martha Stewart double loops punch.

The background card is a standard 6″ x 6″ white card blank.

This took me so little time to make yet it will let someone know how much I care for them.

Using the same background paper and another topper and sentiment from the same sheet I made this other quick card.

Both ideas are simple enough for you to copy using what you already have in your own stash of papers and toppers.

The idea is not to produce an elaborate card but to let someone know how much they mean to you.

Technorati Tags: card toppers

Becuase it is known that I make cards for charity I am lucky enough to sometimes be given card making supplies from different people. Recently I was given a few boxes from an elderly lady who used to own a craft shop.

It was quite exciting rooting through everything – some of the stuff was very old and had discoloured but I found a few sheets of these cute toppers.

The paper they have been printed on is quite flimsy so I mounted them on silver Mirri card, and because the images, although cute, looked a bit flat I aded a sprinkling of glitter. In the photogragh the glitter looks a bit clumpy but on the actual card it adds a delicate highlight.

The landscape card blank has been covered with the blue multi dot paper from cardmaking-Ideas, which picks up the blue from the Topper.

I’ve used a corner punch on the bottom 2 corners to add interest to the card and added  tiny blue gemstones as an embellishment below the punches.

The sentiment is a peel off sticker mounted onto pale blue card, matt and layered onto the Mirri card.

The cream fabric flower tucked behind the Topper adds a finishing touch to the front of the card. This is one of a lot of fabric flowers which I bought at the Port Sunlight Show.  They come in bunches of about 9 flower heads on wire stems and I really like them. The down side is that they do make the card bulky so ideally you need to make a box, rather than an envelope to put the card in.

Finishing touch is the card insert which is in cream to co ordinate with the flower embellishment.

This ballerina topper was also part of my find. It is so sweet that it makes a great card for a young girl.  Again I have mounted it onto silver Mirri card and I’ve highlighted the flowers with a pinch of glitter. The card is covered with Dusky Pink Swirls, from Cardmaking-Ideas, which I think suits the Topper perfectly.

The sentiment has been matt and layered onto the Mirri card and the finishing touch is a dusky pink organza ribbon. Inside the card is a pink insert.

The card on the right has been made using the same Topper and paper but I’ve just altered the layout slightly by only partcovering the white card blank.  A silver peel off edges the paper.

These Ballerina cards were made prior to me going to the Port Sunlight show. Had I been making them now I would also have added some of the flower embellishments which I bought.

Here’s a little something for St Patrick’s Day!

Although the theme is St Patrick’s Day it would be easy to adapt this idea for any other special day. For a birthday you could substitute a more expenisve bar of chocolate and use some of the lovely papers from Cardmaking-Ideas!

Susan
Cardmaking-companion

Technorati Tags: card making, card making papers

Are you ever stuck for a Birthday Card and just want to make something quickly?

Well you can do this easily by crafting a card using a Card Topper, and with a couple of quick additions the card can look really special.

For this card I covered a 12cm x 12cm (approximately 4½” x 4½”) card blank with a mottled green paper. This was a piece of  loose paper I had floating around – remember never get rid of your off cuts – they will always come in handy!

I thought the paper complemented the card topper well.  The card topper is one from a sheet from E – Z Stick On Embellishments.

I tend to buy sheets of these card making embellishments when they are in a sale. I just choose ones I really like and then pop them in my embellishments drawer ready for when I need them.

This topper has a blank space on it for you to write a message but I opted instead to put a small clear “Happy Birthday” sticker onto it.

If I hadn’t bothered to do anything else the card would have looked a little plain so I added a rose pink chiffon bow to it. This complements the lilac on the topper. I experimented with some peel off corners and thought about punching the edge, but in the end decided this was fine.  On a small card I do think you can overdo the decoration sometimes.

For the inside of the card I decided to use a pink card making insert . I chose pink because it is a nice contrast to the green background paper and also matches the ribbon nicely.

To give some interest to the insert I used a small thumbnail punch to punch a butterfly in the bottom right hand corner. Obviously the white of the card blank shows through – a simple and effective way to make your card that bit special!

This card only took a few minutes to make once I had decided what I was going to use but I hope you’ll agree with me that the end result is a pretty Handmade Birthday card!

Susan from Cardmaking-Companion.

Technorati Tags: card making embellishments, Card Making Insert, Card Topper, Hnadmade Birthday Card

I cannot believe how the time has flown since I last made a post here – I’ve been busy getting the March edition of “News and Views” out – this is the free monthly e-mag from Cardmaking-Companion which comes with a set of free background papers or card toppers every month.

If you don’t already get it, and want to sign up for the newsletter then just look down in the right hand sidebar of this blog for the coffe cup and newspaper and fill in your details there (don’t worry – we never share these details with anyone else!).

This month’s freebies focused around Mother’s Day which is on the 14th of March in the UK but differs in the rest of the world, for example in the USA it is the 2nd Sunday in May.

Here is one of the cards which I made from the set – the free printables can be printed in different sizes on your printer but I have kept this one full size and I have used a cream card blank 21cm x 15cm

I layered the large topper onto silver mirror card and fixed it to the card blank. I then decoupaged a single layer over the vase of tulips and added glitter highlights.

The ribbon sentiment was also matt and layered onto silver mirror card and fixed below the topper.

Inside the card I fixed a pale pink insert and punched a row of tulips along the bottom edge. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the insert and the card sold as soon as it went on display this morning!

My own Mother died from cancer over 22 years ago but this does not take away the joy I still get from making Mother’s Day cards. If you are lucky enough to have your Mother still with you then please don’t forget to make her day special and make that special handmade card just for her.

Susan

Cardmaking-Companion.com

Technorati Tags: card making, card toppers, Handmade Card, Mother's Day

In an earlier post this month I spoke about the cards I make to support the children’s village. Well it’s coming into the season when our card making is in full swing – Mother’s Day, a Baptism service and Easter are all big sellers.

Now this type of card making is different from making cards for personal use or as a business proposition.

It costs £1 GBP to feed and school one child in Uganda for one day so when we first started this venture that is what we priced the cards at. The dilemma we face is that although we want to make the cards as attractive as possible we cannot make them too elaborate as they would cost more to make than what we sell them for.

The above two Mother’s Day cards are perfect examples of what people get for their £1.

The blank cards are plain white 6″x6″. The front of the card has been covered with embossed wrapping paper. The blue card has been matt and layered onto silver mirror card and the lilac card has been matt and layered onto purple pearlescent card and silver mirror card.

The Mother’s Day sentiments are silver peel-offs stuck to a pearlescent tag mounted onto the silver mirror card. These are fixed to the cards using 3D double sided sticky pads to give some diemnsion to the card.

Finishing card making embellishments are a blue chiffon bow and a lovely lilac spotted fabric butterfly on the respective cards.

I think they are really good value for £1 but would love to hear what you think!

Susan from Cardmaking-Companion

Technorati Tags: card making, card making embellishments, Mothers Day Cards

Maybe I’m showing my age her but when I made this card the word “funky” just sprang to mind! Is that a word that’s even in use today? Pprobably not, but it does me fine!

 This Home Made Birthday Card would make a great card for  a young teenage girl.

The card developed around the rubber embellishment which was another of the ones I got from the Manchester Show.

I decided to glue the embellishment to the inside back of the card – obviously in normal circumstances this wouldn’t be seen but I used a Zig Zag Circle Nestability to cut an aperture in the front of the card.

 The front of the card has been covered with a Red and Pink Small Checks paper from Cardmaking Ideas.

I’ve had a sheet of pale pink peel offs for absolutely ages and never seem to have found the right card for them but I thought they might be just right for this one.

I used the Happy Birthday sentiment and then decided that the card looked a little bare so I stuck stars from the same peel off sheet around the embellishment on the inside of the card.

In the photgraph on the right you can see what the card looks like when opened up.

Anyway I hope you like this one – it’s easy to make and just that bit different.

Susan

Technorati Tags: card making, card making embellishments, home made birthday card, peel offs