Sandcastle at the Beach

As summer slowly comes to an end, I thought I'd share a reminder of brighter days and holidays!  This card was made for my great niece's 3rd birthday - but in the photo I hadn't yet added the number; for which I used a peel-off.

  

Side stepper - Purple Peonies

I created the base of this card from scratch so it took me a couple of goes to get it exactly as I wanted it.   

I laid out a sheet of A4 purple card (297mm x 210 mm) in front of me in the portrait position and drew a line all the way down the right hand side;  6.5cm from the right hand edge of the card.  From the top, I then measured down 3.3cm, 6.6cm and 18cm, and drew 3 lines at right angles to my first line, across from the first line to the right hand side of the card. -  these were my scoring lines for the step on the right of the photo.  Next, using a steel ruler and a craft knife, I cut along the first line that I drew, from the 3.3cm mark down to the 18cm mark.  The 3 lines were scored as far as the cut line, and then the remaining side of the card was scored in half (14.8cm); again only up to the cut line.

Quick and Easy Hexagons

Just a quick card today.  Yet another masculine one - being the only female in the household means that I have to make a lot of these!

It just so happens that 7 of the smallest hexagon dies fit perfectly across an A5 landscape card (21cm).  My youngest son likes minimalist cards, so when I found the Happy Patterns stamp set by Hot of the Press on sale in my local craft shop, I knew that they would be perfect for his birthday card.  I already had the hexagon nesting dies by XCut, and when I put the two items together; perfection.

42 - The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything!

With apologies for stealing the quote from The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams; but it did seem the perfect starting point for my brother's birthday card - Happy Birthday to you in North America from across the pond!

Once I had the theme, everything seemed to fall into place very quickly.  The Elements Twinchy Stamps by Stamps Away make a great background.  I stamped them in Coffee Archival ink onto a white A5 landscape card blank, and set it to one side. 

Rememberance Poppies

Although I actually finished this card as a birthday card for a November birthday, I believe that it would also be suitable as a sympathy card.

The base card is A5 landscape, made from a piece of black A4 card.  I cut 3 panels of silver mirri card (13.8cm x 6cm) and embossed two of them using the Couture Creations Great Chain Wire embossing folder, and the 3rd using the Large Wire Barbs folder.  The panels were painted over with black acrylic paint and once nearly dry, rubbed back to let the silver show through.

WOYWW - back to school

Unfortunately there isn't much craftiness on my workbench today as the new term starts next week and I have to get everything ready.  WOYWW

My birthday flowers have lasted really well. I have my new goodies from the Craftathon on Sunday calling to me, but lesson plans are overruling everything.  Luckily as a reward for two days of solid work I have a crafty morning planned for tomorrow with a good friend before I have to get my nose back to the grindstone.

3 Wise Men Zentangle

I always seem to come back to zentangle as it is so relaxing.  Unfortunately the stamps that I used for this card are now unavailable - and I did look online to check.  However, I am sure anyone wanting to use the idea could find suitable substitutions.

As usual the card started with some zentangling, using a stencil this time (Creative Expressions - Sunrise Mask); but for a change I decided to experiment with black card, and used a silver pen to draw round each section of the stencil.  I repeated all of the patterns but distributed them randomly.  The finished piece was matted onto silver mirri, leaving a narrow border.