Only 44 days left....

Good evening again, and thank you for popping by to visit my blog.  I've had a nice day today - I felt like I've made a little progress - and I've managed to keep pretty quiet again!  My voice is a lot better now, still croaky, but getting there.  Okay, my ear has gone funny - but hey hoo :)

I decided to do something nice and easy today - still took me almost 2 hours somehow, but I did have a nice time.  I dug out one of my beautiful Graphic 45 pads:

Lush.  I decided to use some of the paper that had already been cut into, together with a square black card

I layered a piece of decorative paper on the bottom of the card, leaving a nice clean border

 

I cut a border from the stripe paper, and then another layer with the more ditsy print paper.  I then cut out some of the sunflowers from the paper again that had been cut into

I added a couple of toppers to my papers, and played around with the layout

Happy with the layout, I decided to add some stitching around the edge of the topper - I first popped holes around the 3 edges of the topper, and then threaded the string through.  As the string is quite firm, I didn't need to use a needle

Now, I checked my layout again, before gluing everything in place

When I glued everything in place, I shaped the sunflowers slightly, as I had cut up into some of the petals to allow more movements.  The sunflowers at the top I shaped so it hugged the top layer.  I made a treble bow ribbon, which I added on top of a ribbon/string knot.  Another little card ready to be given away - not sure when to do the draw actually, I do need to think about this!!  Anyway, for tonight, goodnight, sleeptight.

Only 57 days to go - the Crafty Countdown

Seeing as yesterday was an arty one, I thought today I'd do something nice and simple.  It's funny, as sometimes I feel doing a nice "easy" card is somehow cheating - but that isn't the case at all.  It's often nice to do something not as taxing - but put your own mark on it.  And just because something isn't "different" it certainly doesn't mean it isn't pretty or that work has gone into making it. So, after giving myself a talking too, I had a rummage, and found these:

These are from a CD which I printed off ages ago.  I think it was when I was doing a class for Crafters Companion.  I like working with CD's, just because everything is there at a click of a button.  I'm not generally a fan of doing decoupage, as I'm not really into cutting out - but I really like this image, so decided to have a little go.

I cut out the different decoupage elements to begin with.  I had printed these on card, so they are nice and substantial, and can be shaped if needed

I wanted to put my own spin on it, so I opened up the little window on the top layer

I then just took a bit of ink and coloured in the edges of the doors, so the white of the card wasn't really noticable

I then layered up the decoupage, using 3D foam

I then dug out some rub ons.  I really like these, they are a good size, and rub ons give that almost stamped look to your project.  And they go on a number of different surfaces...

....like vellum.  I popped the sentiment near the end of the piece of vellum.  I wanted a longer length at the left hand side, as I needed to hide the adhesive (with it being vellum, you can generally see any adhesive you use) - so pre-planned how I was going to attach it to the card

I cut the right end to form a tail

And the left side I cut into a point so it would fit through the window.  Now, I planned where I was going to fit my banner - but not how!  So when I came to feed it through the window, I hit the 3D foam.  I gently peeled the top layer of decoupage back up, and slotted the vellum under the 3D foam, which held it securely in place.  I curled the vellum a little, to give it a flowing movement.

You will see I popped the other message at the top of the card, and then got utterly carried away with my glitter.  It was in the sky, and on the top of the roof tops.

Finally I coloured the little hearts in the door red, so they stand out.  I'm really happy with this pretty little card :)