Some cards for my mother

For a couple of days I rather thought I would be making a dash back to Sydney because my mother developed pneumonia.  However my brother was visiting daily and he and my husband both assured me that they would let me know if I needed to return.  I also had daily bulletins on her progress, and she is recovering.  Fortunately they were able to care for her in the nursing home without sending her to hospital, though I left instructions that if she deteriorated at all they were to send her off immediately.

I made Mum a couple of cards.  The first one is a get well card, which I posted a few days ago.  Sorry the colours are a bit washed out in the photo - I took it in fairly bright sunlight through the window.

The second one is just to tell Mum I am thinking of her. I will post that today so that it arrives before I get home next week.  The stamps are part of a new set that arrived this week, and I love them.  They give a a little bit more variety to my cards.

Mum loves cards that I make for her - she still has the cards I have made since Christmas  pinned to the notice board in her room.

My first card class - what fun!

Kylie and I went to our first ever card class yesterday.  It was run by a really nice lady, Lorraine, who works for Kaiser Craft and designed the three cards we made.  It was supposed to be a two hour class but went over time - the first class took more than an hour by itself but she did all three anyway.

Here is the first card - it was specially designed to feature copic pens and to teach us blending techniques.  

Card #1

Card #1

It is the first time I have used the pens, and the reason I really wanted to do the class.  I need to expand my repertoire of techniques, as I've said before.  I bought the two sets of pens we used for the class, since they were on sale at a reduced price. And of course I also bought the transparent one, to erase any mistakes I make when going over into areas I shouldn't!  I also bought several stamps featuring the little girl in different poses with different things - flowers etc.   I didn't realise at the time that you also have to buy a specific kind of ink for the stamps and the special copic paper too.  Nothing is straightforward, is it?

The second card has parts of a zipper, and again uses several layers of paper and card on the cover. The paper used lends itself to making lots of cards, and after we went to all the trouble of cutting out the robot Lorraine told us that there was also a sheet of robot stickers available lol!

Card #2

Card #2

The inside of my card wasn't very successful - I messed up the 'happy birthday' stamp and overdid the smudging around the edges.  I loved the tool that Lorraine called 'the chopper', it punches the holes and puts the eyelets in beautifully - except that I pressed too hard for the first one and squished it somewhat.

The third card is simpler, and more practical if you are making a large number of cards because it doesn't involve so many layers.  It also used copic pens, but this time it was more straightforward, just colouring in the robot.  

Front card #3

Inside card #3

We both enjoyed the class immensely, though we felt rather rushed.  We didn't finish the cards, but brought them home to complete.  I took photos of each of them so that we knew what we had to do, and it didn't take long to finish them off at home.


We're looking forward to the next class!  And in the meantime there's lots of practise needed to improve our blending techniques.

Our Granddaughter's birthday card

Grace turns 9

Our oldest granddaughter Grace turned 9 on December 30th, and I made her birthday card. She liked it, although I think her mother liked it even more :) It still takes me a long time to make a card, when I am deciding how to do it. First I looked at CardPatterns (http://cardpatterns.blogspot.com) to see if I could get some inspiration. I chose this one, sketch #122 as a basis.

Gracie's favourite colour is purple, her second favourite is hot pink and she absolutely adores butterflies, so originally I planned a purple card with purple floral where the green is in the sketch, a lighter purple or mauve where the white is, white (embossed with dots) where the black is and a die-cut butterfly in the corner. Once I had the papers and card I would choose the ribbon to go with it.

Instead, since I have been ill and didn't get to the scrapbooking store, this is what I ended up with -

The white cardstock is embossed on my Cuttlebug, the pink border is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. The 3-D butterfly is done by cutting it out twice. The first time I kept all the pieces together and glued it all to the white cardstock, the second (pink) motif has the cut-outs on the wing removed and it is stuck to the purple butterfly just along the body. There are 3 rhinestone stuck along the right edge of the card.

The mauve ribbon is gauzy so I backed it with some purple cardstock before attching it to the white, then tied a bow in the ribbon and stuck that on top.

On the back I modified my usual 'made by' motif. The children call me Marnie, so I changed the 'Handmade by Sandra' to 'Handmade by Marnie' and since I hadn't printed it on the card before I made it - mainly because I didn't know how big the card would end up being - I cut it out with another die shape I have and stuck it on.

Inside I printed in purple ink. After I took this photo I also stamped a couple of butterflies, one on the top left and one on the lower right corner.

I'm really quite pleased with this design but most importantly, Gracie liked it and that's the main thing. Among the gifts for her birthday we gave her a scrapbooking album (with butterflies on the front of course), so I am looking forward to doing some scrapbooking with her - if we have a chance.

Bye till next time

New Year - New blog

Happy New Year!

What better way to start a new year than to start yet another blog :) As if two aren't enough already! I thought that this one would be for my scrapbooking and cardmaking, and will try it to see how things go (that's a favourite expression of mine, isn't it?)

I spent hours yesterday evening downloading the codes for various backgrounds and side tags from Plumrose Lane (you can find it here) and finally settled on 'Whispers of Spring' because it suggests scrapbooking to me. And because it is a change of colour- a lot of the designs I like are pink, like my other Snippets blog, or burgundy and I thought a change would be good.

I will order a banner for the top of the page after the new year's holiday. And once I am sure that I will settle for this background and/or keep the blog going.

I have been doing scrapbooking on and off for quite a few years now. While I was staying with Kylie, my oldest daughter, during September - November last year, we both bought Cuttlebug machines, with the idea of using them for our scrapbooking. And buying embossing folders and cutting dies on eBay led me into cardmaking. I showed my first attempts on my blog Snippets from my Studio and I also made all our Christmas cards. Here is one of them:

They were all very similar, but had variations. Some of them were done on cream card in the end, but I prefer the ones done on blue. The inside had blue writing, and a small stamp of the old Jerusalem in one corner, the star in the top right corner. Each card was printed with an individual message.

The envelopes were embossed, as you can see below:

When I handed out the cards that I delivered personally (mainly the 25 or so that I gave out at church on Christmas Eve), people were really intrigued with the embossed envelopes. Several said that they would keep the envelope as well as the card.

In the break between Christmas and New Year I have been browsing many scrapbooking and cardmaking sites and have really been inspired. Kylie is arriving tomorrow with her two darling boys, and Kirstie, our other daughter is arriving with her four maybe on Wednesday. Kylie and I hope to do some scrapbooking together, though it will probably be after Kirsten leaves for home because it will be too busy until then.

Kylie talked me into doing some scrapbooking of my miniatures while I was at her place. That is ready to extend into 3 albums now - so far! I will share the pages with you over time. And doing my family tree with my mother has led me into scrapbooking those photos and extra details about our ancestors. So I have plenty of pages waiting to be created.

So now I will wait and see whether it is practical to have a blog just for scrapping and cardmaking, or whether to combine it with the miniatures as I have been doing.

What do you think?