Thursday 27 August 2009

Making Cards Winner!

More good news: Keep it coming!!!
Got my September edition to Making Cards magazine and not only was this card featured in it (p54) but I've won £50 of Hobby craft vouchers: Doing my happy dance !!!
I don't usually send in cards but as this one was based on an idea in the June mag I emailed a pic and they asked for the card to be sent in so it being featured wasn't so much of a shock but the prize was a total surprise! Wonder when I'll get the vouchers? Another reason for visiting the UK soon... :) More happy dance...
J'ai envoyé cette carte au magazine 'Making Cards' et j'ai gagné £50! C'est dans la revue de Septembre. Trop contente :)

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Baby Boy - A Nappy Card

Good news! My husband's 2nd grandchild has arrived safely although 2+ weeks early. Overnight I had the idea of a wrap card being nappy style but wanted it to be able to stand up independently so that morphed in to a nappy holding a personalised tag on the front of a card:I like playing Nanny Karen but still argue I'm far too young LOL! Guess a trip to the UK to see the little fella will be coming soon...
Une carte pour la naissance de notre petit-fils: Une etiquette avec son premier photo dans une couche de bébé! J'ai tamponnée le papier sur la carte et fait la couche à la main.
Backing card stamped with SeeDs 'Cute & Cuddly' set, PaperMania mulberry paper used for the nappy, PM brad and wired cord shaped to resemble the nappy pin, inked edges and stamping using ColorBox 'Misty Meadow' chalk inks.

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Births, deaths and marriages

A strange day of mixed emotions! A friend announced the safe arrival of their baby boy and our neighbour died. He was 90, a war hero, still sharp and lovely as ever but 3 operations in as many months was too much and he slipped away. He was wonderfully welcoming when we bought our house here and really helped us settle in: I'm sad and we shall miss him but the birth reminds us life goes on...
The marriage: I do seem to get some strange card requests and I have to explain that, here in France guests do not take cards to a party: They are usually something to post, not to hand over as they are in the UK (which makes me wonder about other countries?). So, mother of the bride had the lovely idea to put a card on each table which the guests can write messages in and she will send one each month after the wedding so the couple will receive the good wishes over the next few months. She asked me if I could make them in the wedding colours of chocolate and cream, each a little different and with the animal each table is themed with: That's the strange part - Rhino, Elephant, Hippo, Tortoise and Giraffe! Never had those in mind for wedding stationery, and trying to colour nicely when 3 of them are just grey! LOL
I did one to get approval of colour, style and my French and she was delighted: Here's how they turned out...





































Used Nestabilities Labels 3; Curved Rectangles and Classic circles, Cuttlebug Floral Borders and stamps from Lidl (yes really!) with water-colour pencils and added texture of ColorBox Queue fluid chalk on the tortoise and giraffe. Printed text from the computer.

Monday 17 August 2009

Ready Steady Stamp Challenge

First time I have taken part in this challenge since it morphed from what used to be Ismaki at the start of the summer: Ready Steady Stamp gives a recipe of ingredients to use. The 5 ingredients this time are: Monument; blue; metal embellishment; wax resist technique & cork. The technique is explained here and basically consists of embossing wax paper and then ironing it between card to transfer the wax that then acts as a resist to ink. I received a batch of the new Cuttlebug designs on Friday so I'm slowly loading them in to my eBay shop and used the new Fleur de Lis Cuttlebug folder here (love it!) and used damp foam with Broken China Distress Ink to colour the card, stamped my monuments (eiffel tower & arc de triomphe from Royal Langnikel set) on to it, then trimmed, tore and inked the edges. I mounted my metal embellishments on to a cork that I had sliced up (very carefully). It's a very simple card : Just feel I need a sentiment to go bottom left when I have decided what it should be...

Cette semaine chez "Ready Steady, Stamp" (bilingue), il fallait réaliser une carte/autre avec la recette : monument ; bleu ; embellissement métallique; technique paraffine résiste; liège.

J'ai utilisé pour faire ma carte un nouveau classeur cuttlebug ‘Fleur de Lis’ avec tampons de Royal Langnickel et encre Distress ‘Broken China’. (J’ai plusieurs nouveaux dessins de Cuttlebug, et également des encres Distress, dans ma boutique eBay.)

Tuesday 11 August 2009

An A4 Card

Here's another recent make: An A4 card requested for a couple's joint 50th birthday where the guests were going to sign the card and include the money to see them off somewhere exotic - Wish I was going!Background : Inkadinkado 'Coastal' stamp set stamped with 'Mediterranean Blue' Brilliance ink, masked and sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer in Gold, Lagoon and Midnight Blue. Couple is from a Stampin' Up! set and watercoloured, Cuttlebug 'Harmony' alphabet glittered myself (never again!), Prima flowers and rest from forgotten sources!

Thursday 6 August 2009

Runner's birthday decoupage

Ooops, where did the time go?! Again! Apart from 5 days in the UK I haven't been away either: Just busy here. Well amongst everything else, I do have some cards to share so hopefully I'll keep blogging again now and also try to visit other blogs more:This card uses a decoupage I made myself of my husband's son winning a race that I made for his birthday in July: After digitally cutting out and layering him, I used a strong "gaussian blur" on the background to get rid of the distractions then layered up the parts to get the 3D: Mounted on a blue card blank, sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer, and layered with offcuts of Claire Curd's 'the big one' papers.