Cardmaking-Companion-Blog

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!

It’s a sad fact that often our lives are so busy that we take our friendships for granted.

That is why I want to share this card with you. It was made by a lady called Linda (not the same Linda I have previously written about) who has recently joined our card making team and she is making some really lovely cards for us to sell at Church. This one particularly caught my eye because it is so bright and jolly and just immediately makes you want to smile.

I think it is a great card to send to a friend to just to let them know that you do not take them for granted and that you do value their friendship.

I like the way Linda has combined her use of rubber stamping with the torn hand made paper and the printed background paper.

It was really refreshing for me when Linda showed me some of her cards and asked to join our team because her style is very different to mine and she has jolted me into thinking how I can freshen up some of my card making.

So my suggestion to you all is to make some Friendship Cards and let your friends know how much you value them.

And if you don’t already have any friendship stamps in your collection here is a selection available for you to purchase. Simply click on the image to select the stamp of your choice:

At Church recently we had a Celebration Evening to celebrate what has been achieved in the last 6 months and to look forward to the next 6. As part of the evening our choir performed  a special song and I’m going to share it with you here because I think it fits in with this piece on friendship – I know many of my friends have been there for me in tough times ( you know who you are ladies!) and I was grateful for their support.

I hope you enjoy the video – all the singers are amateurs and rehearse together for just a couple of hours a week. I thnk they did a great job on a great song!

I just want to share with you this card I made for my friend Margaret who was 60 yesterday.

Margaret is a very special lady so I wanted to make her a very special card. What makes her so special is that she has recently donated one of her kidneys to another member of our Church who was in desperate need of a kidney transplant.

Margaret is not related to the other person but felt directed by God to put herself forward for kidney matching. Now if you are not religious you might say that this is a load of rubbish – I’m not here to argue the semantics or rights of this I’m just reporting to you what Margaret felt she had to do.

None of the recipient’s family were a match but Margaret was so the operation went swiftly ahead.

Margaret has saved the recipient’s life because she was failing to respond to dialysis.

What a selfless act – at 59 years of age Margaret knew the risks and was prepared to take them.

Could I be so selfless? The honest answer is I’m not sure – I would like to think I could be but until faced with the situation I do not know how I would react.

As you can see on the card I have made a little bouquet from the floral embellishments which I got at Port Sunlight and I’ve used lots of pink gemstones to add life to the brown and pink cardstock I’ve used for the Toppers.

The backing paper is a spare sheet I’ve had in my “stash” and I thought the brown and pink made a nice choice rather than standard floral, silver or gold based papers.

The words and numbers are cut from the Cricut George cartridge. The base card is cream and I added a punched pink insert.

Anyway I hope you like it and after telling her story you can see why I think Margaret is so special!

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

Take a look at this video it shows how to use your card making border punches to create corners with them. Although the punches shown are a specific brand and design I’m sure with a little practise you could apply these principles to your own border punches.

Technorati Tags: card making, card making border punches, cardmaking, Cardmaking Ideas

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching here is a rather cute Handmade Valentine Card.  The great thing about this card is that it is also suitable for other occasions when you want to tell someone how much they mean to you.

It could be sent to cheer someone up when they are feeling down. In fact one of my friends is going through a hard time at the moment so I might just send it to them.

I’ve used a 5″ by 7″ white card blank which has been partially covered with a red gingham background paper from the Raggedy-Anne collection at Cardmaking-Ideas.com

The heart border has been cut using the edger heart lace puch from Martha Stewart.

The sentiment is one I got awhile ago from Hero Arts  and it has been stamped in a burgundy Versa Color ink.

Finishing touches are the red chiffon bow and a rubber teddy bear card making embellishment. This is one of the embellishments I purchased on my recent trip to the Manchester card show.

I really enjoyed making this card and I have to say I am pleased with the result!

Susan from Cardmaking-Companion

Technorati Tags: card making, card making embellishment, Handmade Valentine Card

You may be looking at this Handmade Wedding Invitation and be wondering what is so unusual about it?

It looks like a fairly standard 6″ by 6″ square card which has been covered with a heart covered background paper.

The plain white feature heart is cut from a Nestability layered onto a pink scalloped heart. (The pink picks up the hint of pink which is in the background paper.)

The heart has been embellished with mini pink heart jewels and then, using 3D foam. has been mounted on top of a pale pink organza bow. The tails of the bow are actually pinned down by the heart which creates quite a nice effect.

So what is so unusual about this card? Well it has nothing to do with the actual make-up of the card, it’s to do with the reason why I made it…..

….Last weekend a young friend of ours came round to the house to give us an invitation to his wedding in August, later this year.

He knew I made handmade cards and he asked me to create an invitation for him to send to his fiancee, basically inviting her to her own wedding!

 Now I have to admit this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this, let alone be asked to make one. However our friend, Stewie thought it would be a romantic gesture and would make his fiancee feel special.

As I’ve said before I’m a hopeless romantic at heart  so no matter how unusual the request was I couldn’t say “no”!

For the inside of the card I made a pale lilac insert which toned nicely with the pink and brown on the card’s front.

At the outside edges of the insert I used a nice flourish punch which has a central heart. This is a very simple thing to do but I think it always adds a lot to the overall look and feel of the card.

I left the insert blank because I thought it would be nice for Stewie to write in his own words and feelings.

  On the front of the heart I just printed in a nice script “For Lisa With All My Love”.

I gave the card to Stewie today and he was already in trouble for being late going home to Lisa – I just hope that she liked the card as much as Stewie did!

Susan from Cardmaking-Companion

Technorati Tags: card making, Cardmaking-Companion, handmade cards, handmade wedding invitation