The Other Side Of Me

Hi there! Popping in today with a card for one of the residents, who is in his 90's. I still struggle with masculine cards, but mostly for younger men, and have to admit, this card came together very easily.  I am never going to go off this SU Sail Away stamp, it's just too beautiful.  The colour is Midnight Muse, cardstock and dsp.  A quick and simple card. Back soon y'all! Jane x

Here's a little something to show you: Sorry the picture quality's not all that great, and unfortunately I've given the card to the recipient so no chance of taking another pic now. I had such fun making this, but I'm going to be honest.  The SU tulip embossing folder is a very strange size (unless I'm doing it wrong!)  If you used it on a card it would be very small, and I'm really struggling with this.  In the end I embossed a piece of Pool Party cardstock and cut the whole thing out and mounted it on a white piece of card stock as the only good way of doing it. The stamp I recently bought from a woman on a facebook group (which I will never do again as long as I live - what a saga that turned out to be!) and it is truly lovely.  I'm going to be using it for my Christmas cards this year, which I'm very pleased with too, but can't show you yet. The stamps are from the old Fresh Vintage stamp set, which I still love. All the staff signed the ...

Evening everyone! I'm gradually working my way through my card list for November and December.  Here's the latest creation: I've managed to use up some Everyday Enchantment dsp for this card.  The stamp is one from the Simple Soft stamp set.  I still adore these. I do love my days off work, where I get lots of time to craft. It's a good job really, as I've recently got my eldest daughter into Project Life. We are both doing December Daily this year.  I've made some cards for my daughter to use in her album.  Hope she likes them. Back soon Jane x

Hello all, I seem to be spending every spare minute making something at the moment, whether it's cards or stuff  for my PL folder (or my daughter's!) or preparing my first ever December Daily, my desk is never clear. Don't you  think we have the best hobby ever?  It's perfect because it doesn't depend on the weather (speaking as someone who had a horse for years, being able to stay snug indoors and craft means a great deal to me).  It's a hobby that doesn't depend on anyone else for enjoyment.  When you have a horse, unless you have your own land, there is always someone telling you to bring your horse in, sweep up, tidy up, don't let your horse do that, you can't go in the school because so-and-so got there first etc.  I love being able to craft what I want, when I want, for as long as I want, that's what makes this hobby so special for me. I need to make loads of cards for residents in November and December.  Here is the latest one: I...

Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight, you really are seeing two identical cards! One is for a member of the card swap group, Alison Pilkington, who had her birthday last month.  Around the same time, one of the residents had a birthday, so as I had everything out, I decided to make two of the same card.  I was on a roll!  The pink cardstock and ribbon are in the beautiful Blushing Bride.  I have a top this colour and absolutely love it.  This made it the perfect opportunity to use up some of my Twitterpated dsp.  The grey is Basic Gray and these two colours go really well together.  The stamp was actually a free one with a magazine ages ago. I'm off for a hop round to see what you've all been up to. Back soon Jane xx

Well August has been a very busy month for card making.  I haven't been able to post as many as I'd like as I've been so busy in other ways as well.  Here's a card I made for one of the residents, though: I've had an image saved on Pinterest for some time that's very similar to this, so I've cased it.  The website seems to be called Betty's Stampin Stuff and here is the link to her blog  http://www.bettysstampnstuff.blogspot.co.uk/  although this is not a direct link to her version of the card, but I would like to credit her with the original.  The colour scheme is Calypso Coral, Crumb Cake and white.  The script stamp is from French Foliage, with a flourish stamp that isn't SU (I'm not sure who it's by to be honest!)  I was thrilled when I inked it up to see it already had butterflies on it, so it worked perfectly with the embossed ones.  Thanks for looking in today.  I'm off to practise some french and make a wedding card!...

I can't believe it's been a year since I made the first card for the residents at work, and now I'm back at the beginning again.  This is a card for a lady who is 91!  I was a bit stumped at first, but remembered her love for cats, and knew exactly where to go for what I was looking for.  Here's the card: This is a digi stamp from Little Claire's Designs, and it's very, very sweet.  I printed it out on paper, because of course, the beauty of digi stamps is that you can make it any size you like.  I just started playing and chose grey for the cats and it all came together from there.  The cardstock is basic grey and the paper is an old colour set from Papermania.  It took a while for me to twig that the sentiment is already on there, so I decided to keep it simple and left it at that. Oh yes, one more thing.  I decided to add a dash of another colour and plumped for red.  Then I coloured the fish in red and wondered what on earth I was ...

I've been dying to ink up my 'Feeling Sentimental' stamp set.  I knew this year I would only be able to afford one Sale-a-Bration item, and decided fairly quickly that this had to be it: I realised after I'd made this that I'd missed a perfect chance here, because Peter used to be a policeman, so I wondered if it would have been better with the phone box on it (I could have done it in blue, couldn't I?)  I saw a version of this card on Pinterest a while ago by Diana Gibbs and knew it would be one to make. I don't think I was concentrating fully when I made this as I didn't absorb that Diana hadn't embossed the whole white piece!  I decided to go with what I'd done and it made a nice variation on the original.  I was thrilled to have the linen thread and ribbon to make the little tag detail at the top.  The colours are Riding Hood Red and Early Espresso, so that's the last of my Riding Hood Red gone.  I only had two sheets of it s...

I seem to be making sets of cards lately.  You know me, once I get an idea in my head I love to play around with it.  Have a look at these: I was, of course, inspired by a card on Pinterest, this time by Erin Gonzales.  You can see her card here .  I really liked her card, but I wanted make one without the whole of the white panel being embossed so I could put a sentiment on it that could be read easily.  I loved the combination of backing paper, the little banner at the top, and of course, the butterflies.  The yellow panel at the back is Summer Starfruit, the pink is Primrose Petals and the blue is Island Indigo.  I used some of the images in Summer Silhouettes to stamp in white on the background panel. Note: It is entirely because of this card that I have bought the dsp for the In-Colours shown here.  So much for using up all my dsp! The next step was to find some stripy dsp, as I really liked this look in Erin's card....

I am slowly but surely falling in love with this years in-colours, after a bit of a slow start.  I've been looking around for stamp sets that really make the most of these colours.  I came across a fab card by a lovely lady who you may know as naturecoastcrafter on Splitcoast, and you can see her original card here .  It was only later, when I looked more closely, that I realised she hadn't even used the stamp set I thought, and the one I used to make my card, the lovely Summer Silhouettes.  Come and have a look: I have heard a lot of people saying they didn't like Summer Starfruit at first, but it is the colour from the new set that appealed to me instantly, I couldn't wait to start using it, but I wanted to really show it off, and this card seemed like an excellent way of doing it.  It works beautifully with its cousin Gumball Green, used here.  I have to say the quality of this ink is nothing short of awesome.  In real life the leaves here look...

I've had to make two cards for residents very close together, so, with a need for speed I turned to Pinterest for inspiration.  I decided to case a card by Judy May, which you can see here  .  I love to case cards because I like starting out with a lot of the same stuff on the original card, then getting to the bit where you don't have something they used, so you have to use your imagination to think of something to use that captures the spirit of that card, the bit that impressed you, and then the card becomes your version.  Here's what I made: Somewhere between Real Red and Cherry Cobbler lies Riding Hood Red, and this is the first time I've used this lovely colour, and the papers from the Twitterpated dsp that work with it.  The base card is the beautiful Baja Breeze.  I wanted to capture the oval shape in the centre from the original card, but don't have those particular embossing folders - yet!  (Don't worry, they are on my shopping list!)...

Oh my, two posts in one day, what is going on?!  This is how it began: I keep seeing cards using the triple time stamping technique.  Dawn Olchefske has a fabulous video here .  I plunged in with a card for one of the residents, have a look: The colours here are Early Espresso and Crumb Cake. BUT then I saw this week's Dynamic Duos blog challenge, which is to use Always Artichoke and Certainly Celery.  I was so struck by the cards made by the design team, as I have never used my Always Artichoke card stock.  I instantly knew what I wanted to do, and here it is: The overall card is only 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" but it fits in a C6 envelope.  You can see the technique for yourself on the video, it's very clever.  I have used a flourish background stamp in Certainly Celery, then the flower from the Fresh Vintage stamp set, and stacked the Whisper White cards one on top of the other and stamped away, first the sentiment, then the flourish, then the flo...

I've recently made another card for one of the residents.  She is 91 tomorrow.  This card caused me some problems.  The first problem is that the recipient is blind.  So my first instinct was to just go and buy a musical card.  Except that this lady is also deaf.  So that's no good. So then I thought: She needs a card that's interesting to touch.  So this is what I made: It's a 6x6" white card base.  The second layer is some Pretty In Pink cardstock, embossed using a flowery embossing folder.  Next is a layer of white textured card.  Then there is the top square which is glossy card.  I've embossed the flower (from Little Claire's Designs) in white (kraft) ink, then added white embossing powder and heated it.  Then I've gone over it with Pretty In Pink ink, straight from the little cube.  I am thrilled that it worked.  I added a little smudge of a darker pink in the centre with a sponge dauber. The shape of th...

I knew  it was Joan's birthday coming up so I decided to ask her about it.  She said she would be 80, which is fine, but later in the conversation she said she was born in 1922.  Now maths is not my strong point, but I lay in bed that night going over and over it and still coming up with 90!  So I went in the next day and my manager asked if I could make a 90th birthday card for Joan.  Phew, my maths isn't that bad then.  I'm already at the stage where I'm beginning to forget how old I am, so I totally understand! I knew straight away what I wanted to make, and here it is: This is the first time I've cut into this beautiful sheet of 12x12" dsp from the Everyday Enchantment set. Technically the red on the paper is Poppy Parade (goodbye sweet love, sob!) but I stamped the image (from Fresh Vintage)  in Real Red and it looks a complete match.  The 'white' is actually Very Vanilla, which is the background for the dsp, so I've carried that through...

I've been asked to make cards for the residents at work for all the staff to sign as various birthdays come up.  I'm a bit sad as I've missed an opportunity to make a card for a lady of 103!  I mean, how often are you going to be asked to do that?!  Unfortunately it was a bit too short notice, so I couldn't do it, which is a shame. BUT I have recently made a card for a lady who is 90.  Check out what I did: This card was inspired by one made by Vicky Hayes recently.  You all know how talented she is (and if you haven't been to her blog, what on earth are you waiting for, get over there now !) I really had to rummage around for some gold cardstock, as it's not something I often use these days, but I felt that a 90th birthday warranted something special.  I played about with silver as well, but plumped for the gold in the end. The base is a white 5x7" card, but I've used my new 5x7" embossing folder, trimmed it slightly, then stuck it on ...