A Halloween card

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog, not done a lot of cardmaking lately.

I did make this Halloween card though:-

The recipient really likes it, she adores Halloween (does nothing for me!).

We have some family and friends birthdays coming up, and I'm nearly out of the stack of cards I made for Mum, so really need to get stuck in again.

More finger painting

An anniversary card for our friends:-

Finger painted again......oh it's such fun!

Our favourite garden centre has a crafting section, it's been all yarn and sewing stuff up till recently but they now have a fairly large papercraft section - all products from one particular company, most of which are quite expensive and I know I could certainly get cheaper elsewhere.  However, they did have a small area of sale things, I picked up a pack of Halloween stickers for 64p, a quarter of the original price....why they were selling them off cheap in the run up to Halloween I have no idea, seems a bit odd to me.  No matter, my gain!

Halloween doesn't hold any interest for me, but someone we know is absolutely mad on it, so I thought of her when I saw these stickers and will make her a Halloween card.  Just an excuse to have a play around!

Finger painting!

I'm very pleased with my new craft room, it's working out well.  Betty comes in there with me while I'm working and lies on the bed....I'd like to say she watches me with great interest, but in reality she just goes to sleep.  I do have to make sure I don't drop anything on the floor, or at least pick it up straight away when I do....any stray bits of paper etc and she's straight off the bed and trying to eat whatever it is, she's such a scavenger.

Some large fun Christmas cards for friends and family:-

The last one I really enjoyed doing, it was such fun.  I'd been idly googling for card ideas, as you do, and saw some finger painted cards, figures of people, birds and reindeer done with fingers, then details drawn on.  Well, I'm not that artistic, but immediately thought of a wreath, I just used my ink pads as paint.  Not done finger painting since I was a small child, it was great!

Having a break from crafting now, not feeling up to doing it at the moment.

The elderly neighbour came round this morning for me to give her a crochet lesson.  Well, it was, erm, interesting.....she's never done crochet or knitting before and had no idea how to even hold the hook or yarn.  I think we both had a headache by the time she left!  But hopefully she's grasped the basics.....I just showed her how to do chains and then basic rows of doubles (single crochet for US readers).  I suggested she get some practise holding the yarn with enough tension in it, working short rows of doubles and turning her work before we move on to trebles, as she was having enough difficulty with just that.  She can do macramé and quilting, to be honest I think she might be better off sticking with those.  I can't do either of those!  Well, we all have talents in different areas.

My new craft area

My new crafting area in the small spare bedroom:-

You can just see the pine extension husband fixed to the side and back of my little desk, it's made a big difference.  He asked if I wanted it painted, but I'm fine with it as it is.  The two shelves he put up for me are a big help too.  I need to get some cup hooks to screw in underneath the front shelf, to hold my scissors, tweezers etc.

Some more Christmas cards:-

I've finished all the 'general' Christmas cards now, am just starting on large personalised ones for family and friends.

A craft room!

Thank you Tania and Angie for your comments on my stamped trees.  I am getting better at stamping, but still lots of practise needed.  Angie, the snowman came about to cover up a mistake!  When I first stamped the trees, part of that particular tree didn't come out, I didn't put enough pressure on that side, so there was a gap.  I couldn't stamp back over it, I'd never get it lined up correctly, but then I thought oh hang on, I've got a snowman stamp that's just the right size to cover that up!

I've quickly discovered that mistakes can be rectified or disguised by covering them up with stamps or stickers, or simply turning the paper over and using the other side, or even making a feature of the mistake!

Crafting is on hold for a few days.....which will suit my poorly back anyhow!  My work station up till now has been the landing, on a small desk....it has to be small to fit the space, but it's too small really, both the desk and the area.  As I've acquired more stuff, I need more storage space, and the desktop is too small when I'm in full crafting mode and have lots of card bits and equipment spread out, have to put some on the floor which Betty takes a great deal of interest in, sniffing and standing on it (perhaps I could put ink on her pads for authentic paw prints on cards!).

After some deliberation, I decided I would use the small spare bedroom as a craft room.  It still needs to have a single bed in, for visitors, which meant some rearranging and a bit of construction work for husband.  He also had the bright idea of building a wooden surround for the back and side of my desk, to make the surface area bigger, there's just about enough space in that little room to do that.  It also means the 3-tier wooden paper rack husband made me a few months back can sit on my desk without taking up so much room, and I can have a large shelf to hold supplies as well.  Extending the surface area of my desk was a brilliant idea, saves the expense of buying a new bigger desk (he already had some nice wood) and I really like my little desk anyway.  Hopefully, the room should be completed today.

Decorating the trees

I've had a lovely morning crafting.  The Christmas trees I stamped the other day, I embellished and added to with more stamps and some colouring in with gel pens.  Really pleased with the results....even if it felt a bit like being back at school!

They'll become four card toppers.

I made another layered Christmas card, using a mixture of papers and stickers:-

Think I've made 10 Christmas cards so far.  They're interesting and fun to do because there's so much scope, only limited by imagination.

Christmas trees

Some Christmas tree cards....I drew a simple fir tree, cut out a template and used it to cut out lots more trees in assorted Christmassy paper and card, mostly what Angie sent me.

The first card I used 4 layers on, it's nice but I think the 4 layers are wasted really, the bottom 2 layers aren't really visible.  So I've stuck to just 2 layers in subsequent cards.  I've stuck them on with a single strip of double sided tape down the middle, then raised the sides of each tree shape to give a 3D effect.

The 4 layer card

They're fun to do, I really like them.

Starting on Christmas cards

The craft shop was very nice, run by a lovely lady.  However, there's quite a small cardcraft section, it's mostly yarn, quilting and sewing things.  I did get a couple of Christmas stamp sheets and some Xmas stickers though, so it wasn't a wasted journey, husband took me to The Range to get the ink pads I needed.

I've spent some time yesterday and today cutting out and stamping a lot of Christmas sentiments, and made my first ever Christmas card - a simple one but am quite pleased with it:-

do you recognise the topper, Angie?

The sentiments toppers and practising stamping Christmas trees:-

I have everything I need to make lots of nice Christmas cards - well, any sort of card, actually, thanks to several lovely bloggers sending me supplies, and stocking up on mostly very reasonable stuff in a variety of stores, including some charity shops.  I have some ideas for festive cards and will make a start on them tomorrow.

Lovely gift and thinking about Christmas cards

A parcel arrived in the post yesterday, a boxful of goodies from Angie (Pensive Pensioner).  It was beautifully packed and smelt gorgeous, owing to a pack of lavender flowerheads  she'd thoughtfully included.  It contained many lovely card toppers and papers, as well as a couple of beautifully designed completed card toppers that Angie had made, which have given me inspiration for my own cards.  Lots of Christmas papers, how thoughtful.  Thank you so much Angie, I'm delighted with everything and shall enjoy using it all.

I'm going to visit that new - well, new to me, I think it's been there a while - large craft shop tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get a sheet of Christmas silicone stamps and a couple more stamp pads, and maybe some cardstock suitable for Christmas cards.

I've had a rest from crafting for a couple of days, I was getting shoulder pains from bad posture leaning forward over my desk.  I suppose the thing to do is to get up and walk around every half hour or so, rather than sitting there engrossed for 3 hours at a time!

Layered card and a simple Get Well card

Thanks for the info Hazel, I'll have a look at that stamping gadget.  I'm definitely getting better with practise.  

This morning I made 2 cards, firstly a layered one using several different papers, patterned and plain:-

I really like the look of cards with layered mixed and matched tops, think I'll be doing lots of those in the future.

The second one was a very simple get well card, using pictures cut out of one of the cheap calendars I bought the other day:-

For a dog lover, obviously.

Seeing and buying the calendars at 2 for a pound (I bought 4) was a great idea, loads of potential card topper pictures at a really cheap price.  Obviously each calendar has 12 large pictures, each the size of a 6"x 6" card, plus another dozen small ones and 1 bigger (the ones I used on the card above) on the back cover, so excellent value.  They were from The Works, if anyone's interested, lots of different styles.

Stamping sentiments

I cut out a load of small squares in plain card this morning, and stamped them with sentiments:-

My stamping's getting better, I'm more confident now and improving all the time.  I just need to remember not to lean on the stamp pads!  And wipe my fingers so I don't put smudges on the cards.....

Made a card suitable for a bloke:-

It's a simple card, just a topper on toning background papers.  I did a bit of stamping on the inside lining paper:-

Mystery commenter unmasked

I found out who the mystery Unknown comments were from....one of my best friends!  So sorry D, I didn't realise it was you! xx

Anyway, she was telling me about a papercraft she'd learnt at W.I., it's called Iris Folding, I've never heard of it before but am sure you experienced crafters have.  It's a method of folding paper and affixing it around an aperture in a card front, giving an attractive design.  This site explains it quite clearly:  https://handcraftedgreetings.com/irisinst.php

It looks good, I'll give it a go sometime.

Stamping

I experimented with stamping yesterday, and this is the result:-

A very simple card but one I really like, think I'll do lots of playing around with stamps.  Oh I do love this cardmaking lark!

And another exciting thing....I was googling to see if there are any craft fairs or shops nearby, it turns out there's a big craft shop in the town that I never even knew about, it's in an area of town that we never go to for the simple reason that I thought it was all takeaways and nightclubs.  I've messaged them to ask if they do cardmaking supplies....they do, and will be getting more in next week.  So guess where I'll be going soon?

Oh, apparently they also do various craft workshops - how exciting!

Husband was going to get me some CDs and DVDs for my upcoming 60th birthday - I asked for them, he hasn't got a clue what to get me, even after all these years.  But he's just said that perhaps he ought to just give me the money for craft stuff instead.....

I don't know whether to be pleased or not 😂😕

It would be lovely to be able to buy lots more craft things.  But on the other hand, a bit of imagination for a surprise from him would be nice 😜

Who are you?

Somebody keeps leaving me comments suggesting I look at a card craft website, the comments are by Unknown and have no name attached, despite being sort of chatty and friendly (they called me their 'lovely friend' in one comment).  If you are somebody I know of, please leave your name - I don't publish comments from anonymous people.  If you're just publicising your website, then sorry but you're wasting your time.

Layering using patterned papers

Today's card for Mum, using some of the papers that came free with the magazine I bought yesterday, and a plain aqua background:-

The idea for the design came from one in the magazine, I adapted it to suit my own thoughts.  

I learn something new every day.....edging the topper shapes with a felt tip pen in a coordinating or contrasting colour really finishes things off.

The magazine had some designs for stamped cards, which have given me some ideas of my own to try out.

I learnt a new crafting term as well - 'fussy cutting'.  I had to google it, but it appears it just means cutting around designs!  (The peacock on the above card, e.g., which was on a big sheet of several peacocks).  Who knew!

Inspiration

Thanks Buttons and Dc for the helpful tips about ink pads, I'll have a look out for those.  Good idea about buttons for male cards, Joy.  

I bought a cardmaking magazine today.  I don't normally buy magazines, far too expensive (this one was £5.99 and it was the cheapest in the shop!), but thought I'd try one, if only to see some ideas.  It came with some free stuff (I should think so too!) - a lovely set of A4 papers, and an ink pad, and another mag about parchment craft (another completely new to me thing).  The best thing of all though was the wealth of ideas for cards in the magazine, some really fantastic makes and designs, it's given me loads of inspiration.

I know I keep saying this, but am so glad I made the decision to start cardmaking (even if it did come late to me), it gives me so much pleasure.

I can't show the birthday card I made this morning, as the recipient reads my blog.  I'm pleased with it though, I think she will be too.

I'm going to have to sort out my wool storage unit (it's an Ikea Kallax) and condense the yarn into fewer boxes, so that I have room to store some of my cardmaking supplies....they seem to be multiplying!

Simple drawing of shapes for cards

Welcome to Pensive Pensioner - I love seeing the cards that you and others make.  Yes we do have The Range in our town, I must be one of their best customers 😁  Admittedly, I do more browsing than buying, so perhaps not one of their best, hehe.  The one thing I do buy quite often in there is their sheets of gold, silver and bronze stick on letters, so useful.  They have good sale bits too, sometimes - the gold patterned organza I used to make the wedding card bag was just £1 for a roll in their sale bin.

Thanks for the lovely comments, it's wonderful to get nice comments on my cards from seasoned experienced crafters.  I do think I have an aptitude for cardmaking and design, one which came as a complete surprise to me, I honestly had no idea I could do it as I've never thought of myself as being artistic.  I didn't do any crafty type courses at school - needlework I gave up as soon as possible as I both hated and was useless at it.  Never even tried art, didn't interest me at all.  I did take Technical Drawing for a year....but that was because the male teacher had long wavy blonde hair and looked like a rock star!  Oh, and the class was all boys, other than 1 more girl 😁😂

Anyway, here's my three latest cards:-

The vase and stalks/leaves on the middle one I drew and cut out, I like the look of them and will do them often, I think.  I know you can buy sheets of vases/pots/ewers etc, but when they're so easy to do yourself there's not much point in spending the money.  

I learn something every time I make a card.  The first card with the stamped butterflies on it is sort of shiny cardstock, the aqua card stuck on the front is heavy textured card.  Ink stamps take forever to dry on the shiny card!  I think you can get fixing spray, can't you?  I just blot them with tissue, but they still take ages to dry and smudge very easily.

The cards I've made so far have nearly all been feminine ones, I must start thinking up a few male ones.

Making good use of cheap cardstock

Here's the latest couple of cards I've made:-

They're quite simple ones, but I choose toppers and backing card and stickers that are bright and colourful, so Mum can see them better.

I'm getting on better with the cheap (and thus lightweight) cardstock I bought now, having found better ways of sticking things on the front.  I was mainly using glue before, which just made the cards warp and bend, now I use double sided tape for large toppers.  I do use large toppers and coloured card on all the fronts now, it gives stability to the cheap cardstock.  Inside, I use inserts or patterned paperstock, to make the back of the card firmer.  Having bought 2 packs of cheap cardstock, I'm not going to throw it away!  I'm learning all the time, and it's such fun!

Husband bought me a set of stamps yesterday, a wooden handle with a magnetic base, along with about 20 small magnet-backed square tile stamps with various pictures and symbols on them.  The pack came with 2 small ink pads, one black and one red....the black one is fine but the red one was dry!  Never mind, I guess that's why it was such a good price, and I do have several other ink pads anyway.  I've been practising my stamping techniques, getting better all the time.

I'm so glad I started this hobby, I love it.

Cards for Mum, and Flowersoft

Welcome to my first followers on this new blog, and thank you for the encouraging comments and suggestions.  All helpful suggestions welcome!

I've decided to make and send my Mum a couple of cards a week....the few I've sent so far she really likes, and I can give her a little bit of our news each time.

Here's the one I sent yesterday:-

and two I've made this morning:-

Mum can't see very well, she's almost blind in one eye and has limited sight in the other, so sis or bro will have to read the cards out to her.  She's able to see the front of the cards with her magnifying glass though.   I get such a lot of pleasure out of making them.

A few weeks back I found a video about floral cardmaking in a charity shop, it only cost £1.  Well, it turned out to be a promotional and instructional video for a product called FlowerSoft, I expect lots of you crafters have heard of it.  I was intrigued by it, I love the look of the little sprays of flowers you can make, and you can also use it for sprinkling onto cards to make snow or add definition to flowers and trees, e.g.  

I sent off for a couple of packets of the powder - they weren't the real deal, but a cheaper alternative found online, just to try it out, as it's a bit expensive.  I also got some florists wire and a bottle of extra-strong PVA clear-drying glue, and had a go at making some little sprays of flowers.  It didn't turn out exactly like the video, but is ok for a first attempt and with practise I'm sure will be fine.  It's another card skill and design to add to my ever-growing repertoire.  When I've had some more practise, I'll put some photos on.

Things I have learnt

Thank you all very much for the lovely comments.  I seem to have discovered a talent I didn't know I had - I would never previously have said I was at all artistic - I can cook and crochet, but that was about it.  My mother used to paint, my sister is incredibly good at sewing and making or repurposing things for the home, I've always said they're the ones with the artistic talents.

I have no problem at all thinking up ideas for cards - an idea just seems to pop into my head....quite often in the middle of the night!  I've always had a good eye for colour and just sort of know what designs, patterns and colours would look good together on a card.  I've, very fortunately as it turns out, saved all the cards we've been given over the last few years, so have a couple of shoe boxes and a large carrier bag full of them.  I use bits of these received cards a lot when making my own cards, as I'm sure lots of other cardmakers do.  I also have several pads of topper papers, plenty of embellishments such as coloured stones, paper flowers, butterflies, felt shapes etc, and lots of sheets of gold, silver or bronze coloured letters.  And of course several packs of different sized card stock and envelopes.

So what have I learnt in the few months I've been doing this hobby?

Well, for a start, don't rush out and buy up everything the craft shop sells.  Not that I did or spent loads, but I've certainly bought things in the craft shops that turned out to be not strictly necessary or even that useful for the type of cards I'm making.  I was given a lot of stuff, as mentioned in my last post, and I know I have stuff that I won't need and will pay it forward in due course and offer my surplus or unwanted things to whoever wants them.  I've found it's easy to pick up various craft bits very cheaply from charity shops and car boots - even the major craft shops sell off bits cheap in sales.  And places like Wilkos and The Works have cheap craft things....eg, I got a pack of 80 sheets of tissue paper and a pack of 20 coloured pipe cleaners (for making flowers) for a pound each in The Works.

For sticking things on cards I use several different things - PVA glue, Pritt sticks, glue dots, a glue pen, little sticky pads, a glue stripe dispenser that looks like a Sellotape dispenser and, just recently, narrow double sided tape.  I've found I am very messy with glue and the glue dots are next to useless as they tend to roll themselves up into balls and stick stubbornly to the tweezers.  Glue and the Pritt sticks tend to make the cards warp if I use too much or on a large area - but that's partly because the card stock may be too thin.

So that's another thing learnt - it's not worth buying cheap card stock, it's generally cheap because it's thin.  And if it's thin, then it warps and things (toppers, writing etc) show through to the other side.

Ink stamping - I have loads of stamps, Hazel and Ann both sent me a lot, and I've bought quite a few when I saw them at amazingly cheap prices.  I have ink pads in several different colours, I also bought a set of acrylic blocks to mount the stamps on.  I love the idea (and look) of stamping, but oh boy do I need LOTS of practise at it!  I'm so messy with it!  I've dropped an ink pad which (of course) landed upside down on the card I was making, I'm always managing to rest my hand or arm on an open ink pad and then smearing it everywhere.  When I'm stamping, I do of course test it out on scrap paper first.....I'm either too heavy-handed with the pressing, meaning the image comes out as a big blob, or too scared of being heavy-handed and do it so lightly the image is barely visible.  As I said, lots more practise needed.  But it's fun, I love it!

Cardmaking by an enthusiastic amateur

Welcome to my new cardmaking blog....now I've finally had the time to set it up, and after some initial troubles trying to get the header picture to load.  I tried a few and they were all too big or not positioned right, and I couldn't remember or work out how to resize or crop them.  Typical blonde stuff....doesn't bode well for a blog that should ideally contain lots of pictures! 😂😒

The engagement card pictured above is one of the first cards I made, it was well received, thankfully.

I'd first of all like to say thank you to Hazel, Cherie, Marlene J and Ann for being so kind as to send me lots of cardmaking supplies, so thoughtful of you all.  And to the rest of you lovely cardmaking ladies, for all the advice, tips and encouragement, thanks to all of you.

I haven't remembered to take photos of every card I've made, although will endeavour to do it from now on.  Here's a few photos that I have taken, though:-

This was the card I made for my nephew's wedding, it's my favourite card so far.  I made the tissue paper flowers on the front, tied them with a gold bow (I changed the bow for a different ribbon eventually) and stuck them on the front of the card.  Which then meant that the card wouldn't fit in an envelope, so I made a little bag out of gold organza material:-

The little present I wrapped in the same organza and made a gift tag from the same design paper I'd used on the card front.

I also decorated the back and the inside of the card:-

I made this next card for our friends to say thanks for looking after Betty last week:-

I spent an afternoon recently making some quick basic birthday, thanks and get well cards, to be personalised as and when they're needed.  Here's 3 of them, I made 6 altogether:-

I think that's enough for now!