Sonny's 1st Birthday

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I got a little busy towards the end of last year, and there were a few cards I didn't manage to post, so hopefully I'll get round to it soon!
I cannot believe that my cousin's going to be 1 in a week, last year flew by! So I've not been back from holiday long but I've been busy making this card, which I'm taking to the Playground with me!

I started by cutting the train shape from plain brown paper, and then the blue and white shape, which was glued on top. I then cut a small square for the window. I cut the top shape from plain orange paper, and then used my finger to add some browny-orange paint for effect. This was then stuck on with foam pads so it was raised. I did the steam by cutting some circles out of white paper and again painting it on with my finger. I stuck all of this onto some plain cream card and cut around it, with the fold being the left hand straight edge, and cut around the bit that sticks out at the top of the cab. I found some buttons and stuck them on with PVA glue, but I'm never sure how well the glue works, have any of you got any suggestions of ways to stick buttons on?!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas :)

Birthday Butterflies

I know, I should be revising now but I just couldn't help finishing this card to take a break from the Endo- and Exothermic reactions I'd been studying for the last hour!
It's my cousin's birthday next week and I know she loves everything from Cath Kidston to buttons, so I thought the beads and butterflies on this would be perfect :)

I used a rectangle card, 12.2 x 17.8 cm, and cut 6 circles out, which were all 4.6 cm in diameter. I then glued brown paper behind this and then plain card behind that, so from the inside it looked seamless! I then dug through my snippets and found some small pieces of card that were similar shade dotted. I cut out some butterfly shapes and glued only the body of the butterfly to the card. Finally I stuck beads along the body to give a 3D effect and folded up the wings.
Back to revision then... but I have a quick swing at The Playground on my way! :)

Sean's Birthday 2012

Among all the Christmas cards, there's also quite a few birthdays this time of year, which I find very hard to make once I'm in the Christmas mood!

I haven't got so much time this year, so it's not quite to the scale of the card I made last year  but there we go!
I used a blank card and coated it wit yellow paper, and then put a square of black card over the top. I cut the beer glass shape from plain white card, and stuck yellow rectangles on top of that. I then cut some different sized circles from the white card and coloured in the edges with felt tips, before gluing them on top to finish!

G'ma's Birthday 2012

Summer feels like such a long time ago now, but I haven't been organised enough to post for a while. I made this one in July for my Grandma's birthday, because she's always in the garden!

The background is plain green card, and I used cream paper to back the individual sections. I used 10mm fringed quilling paper for the orange flowers, and tightly curled 3mm yellow paper inside the heads. I stuck green quilling paper on its side for the stems and collected them neatly under the pot. For the seedlings I used 3mm brown paper made into a square, and two tear shaped green quills, surrounding a piece of green paper again on its side. The spade is a 2cm piece of paper rolled up with a 3mm stuck underneath, followed by a piece of silver card folded up at the sides for the head of the spade. The packet is just a piece of paper with seeds drawn on with pen.
Lots of quite simple parts that added up to make a card my Grandma loved :)

Sonny's Christening Present

As well as a card, I made some of Sonny's Christening present too, and I will tell you now, it was not painless!

I bought the frame and lots of blue buttons, though it could be in any colour really. I printed off an 'S' shape and arranged the buttons in a random order in that shape. We then realised that PVA glue may not hold the buttons to the card for very long, and the only other thing we had to hand was a hot glue gun... so that's what we used. I managed to burn my fingers several times, especially when the glue came through the holes in the buttons, and spent AGES getting all the stringy glue bits off, but it was worth it, and the frame looked lovely :)

Brioni's Birthday

My third 'catch-up' post for today!
I have to say, this could be one of my top cards this year :) It was my sister's birthday this June, and obviously she expects the best of my cards, so I put a lot of effort in, I think it paid off!

Hmm... Not sure how much good the photo gives it, but I'm sure you can believe me! So I used a cream card with the cake stand being gold paper. I used up loads of checked paper I had lying around, so I think this may qualify for The Playground (I know, it's been WAY too long!). I did the cakes with plain paper, so that it fits more-or-less with the cupcake case (ie not just a small dome, more of a dome with a bit sticking out the bottom! I then cut out the cases and stuck them on top, and then arranged them on the cake stand. I added a small dot of plain glitter-glue on the top of each... the cherry on the cake :)
So it seems quite simple writing it down now, but I assure you, it took TOO long!

Raveena's Birthday

Card number 2 for today then!
OK, I'm sensing that I could get in trouble a little for this one, as the dress obviously wasn't my creation, but Lucy Cromwell's Papermania range. But the problem was that I didn't have very much time for this one, and nor did I have very much cash, especially as I'm saving up for a sneaky little trip to Rome this summer with my sister, brother and cousin! So, instead I made something that looked a lot like Lucy's creation!

So I used a plain, light pink card, with a darker pink piece on top, I did the border with 0.5cm width strips of silver card, with a little jewel at each corner. To make the dress, I got myself a wallpaper sample and photocopied it so it wasn't so hard to fold, and used the sections with pattern on them. I cut out the pleats slightly bigger, so I could fold over the edges to make it look more like one piece of paper folded up, and just stuck a small, light pink ribbon around the waist! 

Mum's Birthday 2012

Grr.. I've done it again, and not posted in over a month! I apologise, and therefore I am going to post twice today!
My first card is one that I did a little while ago, for my Mum's Birthday.

I used a plain white 7 x 14 cm card for this one. I found two pieces of 6.5 x 6.5 acetate and sponged orange and pink watercolour paints in the flower shape on to them. I stuck the middle of the orange one straight on to the card, then stuck the pink one on top with a foam pad. I then found a 'pearl' cabochon and stuck that on top. I used watercolours to paint the stem and leaves.
It was quite a simple card really, but my mum loved it :) I found he acetate just lying around, and my G'ma had the Cabochon, so it was easy to find the 'ingredients' too :)

Henna's Birthday - February 2012

I had a brainstorming session to help me come up with the idea, with thoughts from good looking men to chocolate to food in general. I decided to go with food and thought the appropriate food would be cake, soGoogled around a bit to try and find myself an idea or two, and I came up with this:

I just used a plain, cream, 13.5x13.5 card, and used plain white card for the actual cake, with two pieces for the fancy bits around the top. The hearts on the bottom layer are just coloured in using a mixture of red pencils, and then I did the outline to them in gold pen. I didn't have any nice red hearts amongst my bits and bobs, so I had to settle with some random purple hearts, and I used PVA glue to coat them with glitter. The candles are done with a dark red paint, with thin lines of red glitter to give them some shape, and the candle flames are done with one of my favourite crafty things of all time, my glitter glue pens! I don't think they're even called that, I think they are called 3D paints or something, and I got my first set AGES ago for Christmas probably when I was about 8 or 9! Unfortunately, my set dried up, remember I was only young when I got them, and I've been searching for some more for ages, and the only ones you can find are aimed at young children, but they are amazing and really bring the cards to life!

Sonny - January 2012

So my last upload was of Sean's birthday card. This January my cousin and him had a baby boy called Sonny and this is the card I made to 'welcome him to the world'!

I decided to make him a card similar to the one I'd made for his Dad's Birthday, I used a baby grow and I little T-Shirt instead of the jumper and trousers, And then I did some toys that a young child would have too. I also did a large teddy instead of the golf clubs. The baby grow, T-Shirt and teddy were all raised again and yes, those are mini coat hangers that the clothes are on just as some extra detail!! 

There's a close up of the teddy bear, and you can see I just used normal coloured pencils and did the outlines in a darker brown.
 I loved making this card because of all the little parts, so cute! But, again, it took so long! It got quite tedious towards the end but I was so proud of it when I'd finished, and the little boys parents loved it too! The hard work paid off again then!

Sean's Birthday - December 2011

I made this one towards the end of last year, but I have to say I am unbelievably proud of it! I made it for my cousin, Sean who turned 41, and he loves lots of sports.

It's all done with coloured pencils, and, other than the books, all the little bits are done on other card and stuck on. The jumper, trousers, tennis ball, golf clubs and cricket bat are stuck on with some VERY useful foam pads, which are about 0.5cm x 0.5cm, and are sticky on both sides to give a raised look. The doors folded shut to reveal a HAPPY BIRTHDAY on the doors. But, by far my favourite part of this card, were the little coat hangers! I got some ordinary electricians wire (From my Dad!) and stripped it back, or you could use soldering wire or if there is actually crafting wire?! But any way! And I made a small triangle, with the two ends continued on quite far, bent one of the ends straight upwards, and twisted the other one around it. I then bent the top round and cut off the extra bits!

I think this card took me a solid 4 hours, and it got quite tedious towards the end but the end product was SO lovely that it was utterly worth while! The next post is another one I'm incredibly proud of, and it's very very similar too!