Two for the men.

Out here in Spain, we have recently lost reception of most of the British television that we used to watch. It's a long story, but some techno folk are looking for alternative methods to view it. In the meantime I can honestly say I am not missing it much, and it has given me more time to spend in my craft room. So this week I decided to replenish my box of 'spare' cards, so that I have some ready when I need one in a hurry, and I started with a couple for men.

This first one was made using images from Joanna Sheen's "Times gone by" CD. I have used this photo taken at a slight angle to show how it was made. The front of the card is cut away along the top of the corn field, and around the horse's body and head.  The complete head, and then the face, are decoupaged so I could feather the mane and forelock a little. The inside layer is the same image as the front, printed paler, and complete with the sky. There is an unprinted oval behind the horse's body for writing on. It was quite quick and easy to do, and made a nice card.

For the second card I revisited a technique that I haven't used for ages. I found an off-cut of card from the Chocolate Box ColorCore Cardstock block, where every sheet is a shade of brown with a different colour core - in this case, very pale green. I embossed it with a previously unused Cuttlebug embossing folder, and sanded it to reveal the owl and frame.

I hunted through my green snippets box for some patterned paper that would go with it, and covered a white base card with it. I salvaged a piece from the centre just big enough to make the tag which was cut with the inner and outer edges of a wonky square die. The centre of it is made from another tiny snippet of plain green paper, stamped with a Crafty Individuals sentiment, and some Tapestry Stamp leaves. I hung the tag from  a strip of green ribbon glued across the top of the card, and added a matching bow. I decided that there was no reason why the men shouldn't have a bit of bling too, so I added tiny green gems to the owl's eyes, and a larger one beneath the bow.

Seeing as I used so many snippets to make the second card, I shall link that to Pixie's Snippets Playground. I am trying so hard to use up snippets before cutting into a new sheet of paper or card, but all my boxes are still bursting with bits and pieces!

Dashing through the snow on Rudolph Day

My two cards this month are ideal for the Rudolph Day Challenge as they feature Rudolph himself, 'Dashing through the snow! I used a set of clear stamps by Woodware that I bought two Christmases ago, and then didn't use, so I thought it was time they saw some ink.

For both of them I stamped the Rudolph, sleigh and gifts, and masked them off while I used ink dusters to add some DI Tumbled glass, to the sky. I also cut two strips of snowflakes using a recently bought Memory box die, Frostyville border, and added some sparkle to them with Stickles silver ice.. I used a Momento Teal zeal ink pad to  stamp the sentiment in the top,  right corner, and the smallest snowflakes from the Woodware set, randomly over the backgrounds.

For the first card I coloured all the images with shades of blue felt pens, and added a white sparkle peel-off border. I also dotted a little stickles on the snowflakes.

I finished the other one  in the same way, but I used a wider range of coloured pens on the images, and added a blue sparkle peel-off border. I am not sure which version I prefer. 

I glued the Frostyville borders across the base of each card.

For a final touch I glued tiny blue gems to the curl of the antlers on the first card, and for the brown one, I used gold flat-backed pearls.

I told Sarn that I was ready for her challenge this month, which I was, several days ago, but I almost forgot to do the post today! But now I am off to link these at  Stamping for Pleasure.

Celebrating with the family

My blog is beginning to look like a Christmas only place, so it is time I posted something different! I have been absent for a few weeks now as I spent a fortnight in UK helping my son with his final preparations for emigrating to Denmark, and then attending a family funeral. I did return home (to Spain) bringing my sister with me for a week, but a few days after that I went back to UK for the wedding of my grand-daughter. We had a wonderful family day, and now all the excitement has died down, I feel I can share the card I made for them.

The colour scheme for the day was shades of purple and white so that 

is what I wanted to use for the card. I have very few wedding images in my stash so I was trawling through pinterest for some inspiration, and I came across this which I thought was just perfect for a modern young couple. I wanted to cut it using my Silhouette Cameo, but it is not a very clear picture and I was having difficulty in making a cutting file. I then saw it again on Facebook, so a big 'Thank You' to Belinda Savage from the All Things Silhouette Facebook page, who helped me to trace it. 

The next thing was to chose the paper to use. I knew it would cut well with vinyl, but all my vinyl is high gloss and I didn't think that would look right. So in the end I used my pearlised -all the way through - paper in white, as this is non-fibrous so works better for detailed cuts than ordinary paper does.

When I had cut it, I trimmed it down and edged the right hand side with a Marianne lace border die. I then matted this onto dark purple pearlised card and again used the die along the right hand edge. Next I mounted this onto a lilac pearlised base card, and added some purple pearls to the top left corner. 

There was space underneath for a greeting which I printed on the computer and framed with some dies from the Spellbinders resplendent rectangles set.

The lower left corner was filled with some tiny purple flowers rescued from a card I received a while ago. I was very pleased with the end result.

As it happens my sister also had a family wedding, the day before ours, so I shall follow her to enter this in a couple of challenges that are featuring weddings this week.

Crafting with Dragonflies Challenge 26:

Celebrations

Paperminutes Challenge 322: Weddings

While I was in the right frame of mind to work on fancy cutting files, I also made this for them. This time it is made from dark purple vinyl, adhered to a piece of lilac scrapbook paper and mounted into a narrow, silver frame. I made the image using a monogram font called Regal for the main letter 'B', and the font Black Chancery for the rest of the words. It does of course show both their names, their now-joint surname, and the date of their wedding.

I am hoping to make a similar one for Chris and I, (35 years late!) but it may not work. The initial 'P' will not split as naturally as the 'B' did, so I may have to change it a bit. That is a project for when I manage to find some spare time?...

Right it's back to Christmas cards now as it is Rudolph Day coming up on Sunday!