You're Leaving

It's been a bit of a mad week and I had pretty much forgotten about a leaving card that I was to make for my daughter to give to one of her colleagues that is moving onto pastures new.  So at 5am this morning I decided I better get it done since my daughter was leaving for work at 8am and today was the persons last day.  My daughter is mad on owls so I thought that the Joy owl die would be ideal and the pop up cards are quite a bit of fun to make, it made with buff and dark brown cardstock from papermill direct and some patterned papers from my stash, the little branch die cuts are from tattered lace.  Because up to 30 people are going to signing the card I made a tri fold card that attaches to the back for signatures.  

Hope you like it x

Invitations

I never seem to do anything the easy way but then again when you have two weeks off work and 40 invitations to put together, the only thing you can do is try all the techniques and new stash that's been begging to be played with.  So this was the result using the champagne bottle, alphabet and panel dies from Tattered Lace and the butterfly border die from Joy Crafts.  The cardstock is an Ivory heavyweight paper (no idea where from) and the purple is from papermill direct.

The best thing was being able to make these while sitting in the garden enjoying the sunshine, I'm maybe now a little roasted and I've had to chase the occasional sheet of card stock that got caught in the odd breeze, but it's been a few days of sheer heaven.

Fan Card Tutorial

A while back I created my Sassy Showgirl Fan Card for a Sassy Studio Designs challenge.  I was thrilled when the card won and promised that I would have a bash at writing up a tutorial for it.  Well since I have a day to myself and the weather outside is awful (West Coast of Scotland summers are very hit and miss!) I managed to get round to having a go at my very first tutorial.

To start with your going to need your chosen image, in the case I've used the sassy studio designs showgirl and the Tonic fan die pictured.

1. you need to cut 17 fans, this will form the 5 arms of the large fan. 

2. Remove the stem of the fan from 10 die cuts, as pictured below

3. Each of the five arms consist of one full die cut and two cut pieces, which should be glued together as shown. 

4. The center arm has two additional pieces added to the top, do not cut these two pieces just as much as you have done previously when constructing the 5 arms.  

5. On the middle arm, of what will form the large fan, add to scraps of card, this is where you will add foam pads later to secure your image.

6. Layer all 5 completed arms on top of each other with the largest arm on the top and place a brad through the hole at the bottom, ensuring you catch each arm of the fan and that it is easily opened out.

7. Attached foam pads onto the card anchors and center your image onto the fan 

8.  If you want to create an easel for your topper the take a length of A4 card and score it creating 4 equal sections.  the topper will attach to the second section of the scored card with the first section creating a base and place for a sentiment.  Attach the topper to the card at the bottom of the arms using a foam pad and some strong glue.  Keep the foam pad narrow so as not to stop the arms of the fan folding out.

10. Alternatively you may wish to just pop the fully fanned creation onto a base card of your choosing, this allows for more adhesion points to be added as you probably wont need the fan to fold back up.

I hope you've managed to follow this tutorial OK, as I said this is my first one so I decided to go a bit over board with the pictures as I think they explain all you need to know.  I loved creating this card and I'm sure the idea can be adapted to suit different toppers and dies.  I would love to see your interpretations.

Day off tomorrow

All I seem to be doing right now is 'working' but not at what I'd love to be doing, but I suppose we all need to pay the bills and buy the stash that is desperately needed and so the day job is a necessity.

So tomorrow is my neighbours wedding anniversary and I was asked to do something a bit sassy for him, shock, horror and everything else, not a mans card! We all know how difficult they can be but I ended up with this creation using a digi stamp by Bugaboo Digi Stamps, coloured using promarkers and matted onto card and papers I had in my stash, the origins of which have long been forgotten. I actually really enjoyed making it, although I'm pretty sure the layout is something I've seen before, but I still like it.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Artistic Inspirations Challenge #100 - Anything Goes (http://artisticinspirationschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/)
2. Bugaboo Stamps, Catch a The Bug Blog - Anything Goes
(http://catchthebugblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/anything-goes-challenge.html)