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.