Tuesday 31 July 2012

Card-lympics Day 5

My apologies for the lateness of today's card. I hadn't forgotten, I was busy with various things which included AutoCAD and, of course, the Olympics. And what a day it has been! My favourite moment, however, had to be when that South African swimmer got the gold. But bring on tomorrow with the two British lads in the final!!


Anyway, got 10 minutes before I reach tomorrow so I had better get on with it! Today's card-lympics event was weightlifting and, like boxing, I know very little about it. I wasn't as happy with this card as I have been with others but now that I have seen the finished thing I am quite please with it, although I could have improved the weights. 
I used grey card on a blue card 'floor', lifting the weights up with foam pads. The sentiment fitted so well with the card and I copied the font from Word (as per usual!) and again finished it all off with a Union Flag. Black pen was used to add shading to the weights.








And before I go, I want to wish Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome a great race tomorrow and bring home the gold and silver!! Also good luck to our judo players!

Monday 30 July 2012

Card-lympics Day 4

It's that time again and I would have posted a bit earlier but I stopped to watch the diving (gutted for Team GB). 

Today's theme is gymnastics and, like yesterday's card, I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. I have always loved watching the gymnastics and especially the floor work but the image I had for my card fits into the rhythmic gymnastics, another one which I will be watching. 
Like my fencing card, I created a silhouette figure but added more movement to it by added ribbon, attached at only the ends, and attaching the figure to the card using foam pads. Pink seemed the obvious colour to chose (maybe because rhythmic gymnastics is a women's sport or because of the venue colours, I don't know) but the only ribbon I had was too close a shade to the card for my liking so I added some darker pink handmade paper and finished my card with stars (for all the glitz and glitter of the event) and my Union Flag tag.

I considered added a coloured leotard to the figure but I had difficulty choosing the right colour: Team GB colours would probably clash with the pink and if I chose another colour, it could show support for another team (and we can't have that! =P) and may be a bit too much pink. So I left it black.



On a related topic - Good luck to the Team GB Gymnastics lads tonight!!  

Sunday 29 July 2012

Card-lympics Day 3

Today's theme was a sport which I have had a go at and really enjoyed: Fencing. I felt there was only one design for this card and that was a silhouette. In a way, its almost a negative of the colours of the actual sport: the white suit swapped for black and, after watching it yesterday and today in the Olympics, a black background changing to a white.


When I first thought about today's card, as well as knowing it was going to be a silhouette card, I knew it had to have one of the players lunging and scoring with the foil (the weapon I leant).


The making of the card, once I had drawn out my design was so simple it hardly needs an explanation: black card silhouette glued onto the card blank and finished with my ProMarker Union Jack.





Saturday 28 July 2012

Card-lympics Day 2

Renamed Olympic Saturday, today is the second day of my crafting games. The theme was boxing. I don't really know much about boxing, as I have never really taken an interest in it so my design was pretty simple and obvious as to the theme (which can't be a bad thing).

I used red card to make the gloves, adding outline and shading with a black pen. I wanted to make it 3D and use matching materials (if that is the right word) for each of the parts, so I used ribbon for the laces and hung them over a brown brad. I then attached the gloves to the card using foam pads.

As I will for all of this range of cards, I finished it off with another little Union Flag attached to the ribbon. 




I hope we have more success with the boxing than we had with the cycling and judo today!

Friday 27 July 2012

Card-lympics Day 1

As I am sure everyone is aware, today is the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games and also the first day of my Card Making Olympics. For the next 17 days (including today) I am going to create one sports themed card a day. I have limited my selection to Summer Olympic sports only but even then there are more than 17 so I have had to cut some out unfortunately. 


Today's event is the Triathlon. To begin with I wasn't sure how I wanted to make this card, except that it was going to have three on it. 





I didn't really want to make it too specific, I mean, how many people say that their sport is the triathlon? But I guess this card could be sent to any person who enjoys lots of sports.
I chose to make little images to represent the three parts of the event. Originally, I was going to make the card landscape but thought it looked good in portrait, and a bit different to how I would usually do it. For the images, I outlined them in black pen and finished them off with ProMarkers. 
Green was the first colour that came to mind for the card blank and I backed my images onto a strip of darker green to provide some contrast. Finally, I added a little ProMarker Union Flag to the top - after all, I am backing Team GB!

CAS-ual Fridays



This will be my first post of two today as I am starting my card making Olympics - one sport themed card a day for the duration of the Olympic games.

Anyway. Today's challenge was to use navy, aqua and green on my card. To begin with I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do but after looking through my chipboard box, I found the perfect embellishments. 


I used some transparent shapes and navy paper to finish. The butterflies are raised on foam pads. I also decided to decorate the envelope to match by adding a strip of the same paper to one side.
Considering that before I sat at my desk, I had no idea what to do for this card, I am really pleased with the results. I hope you like it too!

Thursday 26 July 2012

Too much stash, too many cards

Time for this weeks entry. I feel that I need to do some proper posts as well as every week's CAS-ual Friday challenge. This of course means more cards, which can never be a bad thing!  However, I think I have reached that level of stash that any cards I make barely scratch the surface and my stock of cards is over 100 now (due to the not-as-successful-as-I-hoped charity gig). So until I can get rid of some of my stock . . . .
I am, however, taking part in my first craft fair. An on-line craft fair. If anyone is interested, the link is on my Facebook page.


I have made a card today though, a thank you card for my sister to send to her work experience employers.

She did experience with a housing/construction company and so wanted a card following that theme. I used mainly scrap paper (again) for the letters, hard hat and tape measure. I finished off the hard hat with black ink detail and the tape measure with some patterned tape.

Friday 20 July 2012

CAS-ual Fridays

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This weeks challenge was to create a card using a black card blank. This proved slightly difficult as I didn't have any but I decided to improvise. As I was (still) sorting out my room this morning, I came across some black tissue paper. I used a purple card blank but use the black tissue to cover the majority of the front, leaving a strip of purple on one edge.


I added a length of silver ribbon to hide the joint and some felt flowers finished with stickers as an embellishment. I finished the card off with a silver 'best wishes' sticker. Hope you like it!  

Thursday 19 July 2012

Scraps

Last night, after a day of clearing and sorting through all my craft stash, I decided to reduce the amount of scrap paper I had in my box.
I hate throwing away paper which could still be used so I keep it in one of my shoe boxes (these are perfect for storing anything and everything!). I wasn't until I had this sort out of stuff, that I realised that I couldn't actually get the box closed. So I set myself a challenge which was to make a series of cards only using paper from my scrap box. I allowed myself to used toppers and stickers etc (I found I had an excess of those as well)
I ended up making five cards and unfortunately barely seemed to scrape the surface of my scrap supplies.


My first card was my first Christmas card of the year. I used the left over of a silhouette I used on a Christmas card a couple of years back. I created the card in a very similar way and finished it with some stars and a Christmas message.



As well as scrap pieces of paper, I had gift tags and patterned paper from my magazines in my box. I used some of these gift tags for my next three cards. For the pink flower card, I just used strips of patterned paper and card and finished it off with a 'best wishes' sticker. The cat topper was a label of some pj's, I think, and so had a hole in the top corner. I tied a little piece of ribbon around it and added a strip of paper and some butterfly stickers to finish.
My fourth card used the backing card from some bath smellies. I added the plastic 'bubbles' and a peel-off message to finish.


My last card used some patterned paper from my magazine. I backed the letters onto some gold card and added a piece of beaded thread as a final touch. I was hoping to used a heart shaped bead or charm but I didn't have anything like that.




I think, in order to keep up with keeping my scraps low, this is going to have to be a regular occurance. Otherwise, at this rate, I'll have more scraps than actual sheets of paper!



Saturday 14 July 2012

CAS-ual Fridays

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Yes, it's that time of the week again. Already. My summer is  flying by far to quickly; the first CAS-ual Fridays challenge I did was the day before I left Manchester for the summer!

Anyway, this week's challenge was to create a card using strips of colour or pattern. 
I took my inspiration from the great British weather we are having at the moment(!) I kid you not, it had been raining constantly today. It's JULY. Probably doesn't help that we are currently watching le Tour and seeing all that sunny sunny weather. Rant over.

I had hoped that it would turn out slightly better than it has, now that it's completely finished it looks alright. I used strips of blue(ish) paper and card to create the rain on a grey card blank (if only the rain over here was that colourful *sigh*). I then wanted a really bold colour for the umbrella and details so I chose to used various shades of pink and red. I finished off with pen detail, a peel-off message, and a strip of ribbon.

The butterfly (probably as confused as the rest of us about the rain) was a bit of an after thought. I had recently gotten my hands on some shrink plastic shapes (thank you Papercraft Inspirations!) and I was giving them a go today. I used ProMarkers to colour in the butterfly and watched fascinated as it shrunk before my eyes in the oven. I may be using more of these in the future, if only to watch them shrink!

It seemed to fit well with the whole British Summer theme anyway. Hope you like it!

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Kanzi Kibera

I guess it's about time that I wrote about last weekend's festivities. The evening overall was a great success and lots of money was raised for the charity although we didn't seem to sell many cards (despite the 100 I had made and the however many that Carole made)
I want to share some of the cards that I made for the gig. Not all of them, mind you, we'd be here all night!
 I began designing after I came across Some Odd Girl, a company that make stamps and digi stamps. If you have the chance, take a look; they are so cute! I've always enjoyed drawing manga and after looking at these stamps, I started doing my own. This one was one of my first designs (Wimbledon was on at the time) and after I was happy with my sketch, I scanned it into the computer and painted it using Photoshop. I was then able to print out multiple images to put on cards. I also wrote the message on the computer. I made six in total, on different colour card blanks.


As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I had a go at making some more cards with tea-bag folded embellishments. This one is my favourite of the ten I made. I like the colour and using the square that are too small to fold (believe me I tried!) are so effective and they make sure I don't waste any of my stash. I finished off the card with a peel-off message and a length of ribbon.


This next card was made with gifts from my Japanese friend from university. As a leaving present (she was only spending one year in the UK), she gave me so beautiful origami papers especially to make cards with. She also gave me a brush tipped pen, which is what I used to write the message. The papers were perfect to make kimonos out of and I made four of these by mixing and matching.
I decided to make some more of my silhouette cards for the fundraiser mainly because they are simple to make and replicate and the design is really striking. So striking in fact that I sold both of the guitar cards to one person who was after a card for a teenage birthday (and so I found my niche, but more on that later). I also made some camera silhouettes, a couple of them on coloured card blanks. 
















Finally, I want to show you my second set of my manga cards (I should probably come up with a name for them or something). These were inspired by the gig: being a musical event, what better design to have than a musician? I did these the same was as the tennis ones: sketch, scan, paint, print. I finished this set of six by backing them with red rose patterned vellum and a stamped message. I am going to stick with these characters and I have already started on my next batch of characters with a new theme . . . . watch this space!

Saturday 7 July 2012

CAS-ual Fridays

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Another quick post for this week's CAS-ual Friday challenge. I promise to do a proper proper entry next time, I will have a hell of a lot to talk about - it's the charity gig tonight and hopefully there will  be lots of cards being sold (Excited much?)


So, this week's challenge was to use text in our design. I decided to multi task for this one and make my design easy to replicate so that I could make more to sell tonight. I based my design on one that I had seen in my magazine but added my own character to really make it mine.


This one is probably my favourite (mainly due to the purple) but I created three others. I tried to make each one slightly different. Obviously, the character is the same but I made each one unique with different hair and eye colour (ProMarkers) and dresses, colour schemes and accessories (made with patterned paper, peel-offs and embellishments). The text part of my design is at the base of my card where I used strips of newspaper (unfortunately it was the sports pages, and mainly golf - I hope no one notices!). I then finished off each card with various bits and pieces. I hope you like :)






Wednesday 4 July 2012

Crafty Challenge

This is a super quick entry for a crafty challenge with the theme of the sea. To begin with, I could only think of the cards I had already made, which were actually more than I had thought.

 I decided to make sea turtle the main feature of my card. For these, I used pale green paper and highlighted the edges with green pencil. After laying it out, I felt it needed something more than just the sequin bubbles and the green ribbon so I added an acetate strip, finishing it with dark blue sequins and overlaying the turtle, making them stand out by using foam pads.

And an Even Busier Week

Yep, that's right. I have my work cut out for my this week - although, I'll be the one doing all the cutting! Some friends are in a band and every year they put on a charity gig to raise money for Kanzi Kibera, a schools project in africa. Anyway, we are very much involved with the band and the church who is raising the money and so, me and my friend, Carole, are selling cards. Which means we've got to make cards. Lots of them.


On Monday, I got started by doing some tea-bag folding whilst working through my 'Films I need to watch' list. If you haven't tried tea-bag folding, it's very fiddly but quick enjoyable to do. After folding for most of the day, I started to make some more top hats to put onto Mad Hatter cards (I was very organised and looked through my photos to decide which cards I could make lots of). Yesterday was all about the embellishments, as my supply of card blanks was running dangerously low after all the crafting I did at uni. I finished off by making some kimonos out of the origami paper one of my Japanese friends gave me as a present before she left.


Yesterday, I was able to get into town and buy those much needed card blanks (The Works is amazing for them!) and I was able to start  making the cards. 


I have just finished those (10 in total) and am about to start with my Alice in Wonderland cards and then move onto my silhouettes.


Busy day ahead! I will post photos later on when I have finished them all and I am admiring my handywork! ;D

Monday 2 July 2012

Busy Weekend

This weekend saw me making plenty of cards for various occasions, including my first proper order - my brother was talking about my cards to one of his friends who needed one for her mum's birthday later this week. The theme for this card was The Cat in the Hat.
I began by looking at the character on-line and sketching out some ideas. I decided to make (yet another) silhouette card but highlight his famous hat and bow-tie.
To make it, I drew out my cat onto black card and finished it off by adding a red and white paper hat (and tie) with pen detail. 
I finished the card with silver stars and a happy birthday foam sticker.

After I had shown it to mum, she wanted one for her boss' birthday, her boss who happens to like cats. This one was more or less the same, with small changes in the details.





My third card of the weekend was a new baby card for our brand new family member (a distant relation). This one required a bit of inspiration. I finally came across the perfect template.

I used some pink and cream spotted paper for the rabbit, finishing it off with a little pink ribbon and pen features. The card itself was decorated with a strip of cream ribbon and some pink gingham tape with a 'congratulations' foam sticker (there is a lack of 'new baby' or 'baby girl/boy' stickers in my stash).


My other creation was for a family friend who was starting a new job. This was a new theme for me, having never made a 'good luck on your new job' card before. So I hit my magazines once more. Unfortunately, they were limited and all included stationary or shirts and ties which wasn't what I was looking for. I did have one idea though and that was shoes. My friend, Jan, absolutely adores shoes, so I decided to make them the focus of the design.
Again, I chose to do a silhouette card but used brightly coloured paper from the Retro Rose range for the shoes and detail on the card. I am so happy with the design and love the colours. I think it definitely ranks up there with my favourite makes. I used Word to help me write the message, but typing it out, finding the right font and copying it onto the card. I didn't just want to write good luck but I was able to come up with this sentiment, which I thought matched my card perfectly.