September Cardmaking - quilted background with a chalkboard greeting

I love this quilted background technique!!   To create this background I laid coloured card stock shapes onto a piece of white cardstock to create a quilt pattern until I was happy with the way it looked.  Next, I passed it through my Big Shot using an embossing folder with a very tight design (SU Lattice) which helps the pieces incorporate into the background and gives the whole layer a quilted look. I downloaded this set of chalkboard greetings for these cards.  I did digitally embellish a blank one I created using a chalkboard font to create a few more greeting options.  I laser printed the tag greetings and provided scissors for the participants to trim them as they wished.  I trimmed mine to leave an even border all the way around.  I used an 1/8" hole punch to punch out the holes on each side.  I threaded ribbon through the holes and added the greeting to my quilted layer gluing the ends to the back using double sided tape.  I tied a small piece of ribbon to the one on the front using a single knot to simulate a bow.  I glued this whole layer to the front of a coordinating card.  Thinking it still needed a bit of something I added an embossed star over the central square.  That was better!!  Here are a few more I created at class.

Again, these are very versatile because the cardstock pieces can be any shape - stars, balloons, flowers, etc and I did use punchies on several of the background I created for my kits but die cuts would work just as well. 
While I was out there cruising the internet I did find a few downloadable chalkboard backgrounds which I will play with later.  It was fun to finally create cards with chalkboard greetings!!
Therese

September Cardmaking - white embossed images with all over watercolour

I have been wanting to try this out for a while and decided to include a card into the class that included white embossed images on watercolour paper coloured in an overall manner with watercolour!!  It is always a bit of a surprise when you start adding watercolour because white embossing powder on white watercolour paper is very subtle!!  Fun!!  I included black cardstock in all the kits because it nicely highlights any colour and it was completely unpredictable what colour the participants were going to choose for their cards.  We watercoloured our focal images and used a hair dryer to encourage the drying process.  Next, we wrapped white fiber which would work with any colour of art around our dried artwork and threaded on our greeting before tying it off on the side.  We did choose to watercolour our greeting slightly before cleaning our brushes so they would coordinate with our focal element.  The greetings were stamped in black ink onto label die cuts (Spell binders).  I did add a bit of double sided tape to the back of my greeting to keep it exactly where I wanted it.  These large elements were then glued to our black card front.  Love the look!!    Here are a couple more with more of an all over embossed pattern. 
Therese

September Cardmaking - embossed backgrounds with laser printed digital images and font greetings

 It is that time of year again!!  We are back to our post summer routines and for me that means back to regularly cardmaking sessions with my group.  It was fun to have a few new people to join us this time around!!
We started with a fairly versatile sketch - a pieced embossed background, some ribbon/fiber and a layered focal element which featured digital images from Cre8tive Hands along with greetings created with interesting fonts. 
For this card I embossed four silver foil rectangles with the Swiss Dots (CB) embossing folder and glued them leaving an even margin all the way around onto a gray card front.  I added a length of red ribbon and tied on a short piece with a single knot to simulate a bow before adding my focal element with 3D foam tape.  My focal element features a cute little nativity image from Cre8tive Hands to which I added a font greeting before laser printing onto white cardstock. I watercoloured my image and layered it onto black before adding it to my card front.  Because I chose a smaller image size I have the ability to make these cards portrait or landscape regardless of the orientation of my image.  For some of the kits I embossed the rectangles with different embossing folders and varied the colours to provide a multicoloured background.  With a bit more work the rectangles could have been made different sizes which would have given the background a more abstract look. 
Really happy with how this card turned out!!  Love the image at Cre8tive Hands as well!!  You can see below a couple more cards I made up at class.  I have a couple Christmas ones so I can add them to my stash as I have been remiss in keeping my commitment of making them monthly.  I will have to recommit and catch up!!

Therese

A little birdie on a fun and funky fabric postcard

A fun fabric postcard for my partner in the birthday swap in my Trading Fabric Postcards group.  I started with a fabric collage I created a while back with colourful strips of fabric.  I have recently created several postcard using these fabric collage for the backgrounds.  I knew I needed a bold fabric for my little birdie so I kept looking until I found this fishy fabric.  It was perfect.  I applied fusible webbing to a small scrap, traced the birdie sticky note I used on these cards and trimmed it out.  I had enough to make two so I will have a spare birdie that will show up in a future creation.  I used a punchie of the wing (paisley) to trace two wings as well out of blue fabric which I had also backed with fusible webbing.  I defined the eye and the beak with a black sharpie marker and then fused it to my background.  I fused a strip of green fabric across the bottom to simulate grass.  I stitched all the way around the birdie several times using greenish yellow thread and stitch him legs and feet.  I adhered the wing and added stitching to it as well. Really happy with how it turned out!  I added a piece of batting and a white cotton backer, stitched all the way around the edge to secure all the layers to each other and then stitched around the bird in an all over pattern.  I added fusible webbing to several strips of greenish yellow fabric and used it to bind the postcard.  I cut a length for one long side, positioned it on the front overlapping the edge and used the iron to fuse it in place.  I turned the whole thing over and fused the rest of the strip to the back.  I did the other three sides to finish it off.  I used the greenish yellow thread to add two rows of stitching to the binding which finished the whole postcard off very nicely.  I used a small strip of white fusible fabric for my quote which I hand lettered using a black fine tipped Sharpie marker.  Very happy with how this one turned out!!  It is off to my partner to arrive in time for her birthday.     Therese