A few more Easter cards!!

I am still making Easter cards!!  These two combine decorative paper, ribbon and a focal element!!

For the first one, I used a hand decorated piece of paper which features wax resist, watercolour and for green flourish stamping.  I trimmed it and sponged the edges,  dded a length of lilac ribbon and punched a hole (SU) for my greeting before adhering it to a green card front.  I tied on another short piece to simulate a bow!!  I watercoloured the laser printed image which I trimmed to help the cross feel like it is more upright.  I layered it onto green and then onto purple to create my focal element.  I used 3D foam tape to adhere it to my card front over the ribbon.  I added a laser printed greeting from my stash in the hole I created in the background paper which allows the green from the card to nicely highlight the greeting.
For my second card I used a laser printed digital greeting/image (Pixabay) which I trimmed to size, layered onto dark pink and then distressed the edges using my distress tool.  I found this background paper in my stash which nicely reflects the pink I used and the colours in the greeting.  I added a length of ribbon to it before adhering it to a green card front.  I mounted my focal element to the card using 3D foam tape and tied a short piece of the same ribbon to the one on the front to simulate a bow.  I like this cute little bunny image and it makes a cute Easter card!!
Pretty much the same sketch and technique which yields to very different cards because of the supplies I used!!

Therese

March Cardmaking - bunnies and bears for some very special wishes

For my last card I wanted a fairly quick card so I created these great cards with fun greetings!!  For anyone wanting Easter cards I had a few "hopping" greetings!!  I checked the internet for bunny greetings and found quite a few fun ones which I incorporated into my kits.  The teddy bear also provided the opportunity for some fun greetings which are "beary" special.  I have owned both of these dies for quite a long time and had only ever cut them once to provide a white cardstock sample which I store with the die.  I cut the bunnies mostly from brown cardstock and inserted a pink nose which I die cut from scraps.  I adhered a scrap of black cardstock behind the face to give it black eyes and highlighted the whiskers with a fine tip black permanent marker.  I gave all the bunnies an egg to hold which I created with an oval punchie embellished with washi tape. They look pretty cute!  The die comes with a flower for it to hold.  It will be fun to see how many other items I can find to put in its hands.  For the bear I cut the first one from black cardstock and cut the other little pieces from white cardstock, fussy cut them and glued them in place.  I watercoloured the muzzle and the paws.  Black would not work for eyes on this one so I put a piece of white in behind and added a dot with a black marker to create his eyes.  For all the others I cut them from different colours and used black on the back to create the eyes and watercolour to embellish their noses, tummies and paws.  I added coordinating hearts to all of their bellies!!  I created the coordinating ribbon embellishments as well.  I punched the cardstock strips with a border punch (SU), trimmed out every third set of holes with an exacto knife and then threaded through 1/4" ribbon securing the ends to the back using double sided tape.  I made all of these ahead of time!! 

Assembly was fairly easy.  Glued the backgrounds to the coordinating card fronts - scrapbook paper for the bear and hand decorated watercolour paper for the bunny, added the trimmed and embellished laser printed greetings and then positioned the ribbon embellishments above and over them.  The final step was to add the bears/bunnies with 3D foam tape to give them some dimension. Great cards!!  So glad I finally pulled these dies out and used them!!  They will make fun cards with special greetings!!!

Therese

March Cardmaking - a fun folding technique with ribbon and a layered focal element

For the second card I decided to try out this fun fold which I have seen quite a bit on Splitcoast Stampers.  

I cut my scrapbook paper backgrounds to 4" x 5.25" and then cut a 1 3/4" slit from the right hand side at the center (2 5/8").  I scored from the end of the cut to each of the corners and then folded the flaps back.  This works best with double sided paper which makes the flap interesting!  Digging into my stash I did find several pieces of double sided paper to make up my kits.  Both of the above are gift wrap.  I added a ribbon from the bottom of the cut to the opposite side securing the ends with double sided tape and then mounted this element to my embossed card front.  I added a tiny bit of double sided tape right near the fold on both flaps to encourage them to stay open but still allowed the tips to lift from the main area which creates a bit of dimension.  The focal elements were all layered scalloped circles - some with greetings and others as above without.  The flower (CLKER) is laser printed, punched and layered with green then onto a blue scallop punchie (SU).  The button was laser printed, fussy cut and mounted to a circle punchie and then to the scalloped circle punchie.  I pierced the scallops with a push pin to add some texture.  One of the girls at class mentioned that it looks like a blouse if you rotate it to the left!!  So it does!! This would certainly work well in the portrait orientation to create a shirt with a tie for a Father's Day card.   You can check out another of these cards here and here.  So a fun fold for a fairly quick card once you have your focal element worked out!!

Therese

March Cardmaking - a handmade card featuring a little birdie in a cage

 

Little birdie cards are so versatile because they can be used for so many occasions!!

For our first card for cardmaking this time I decided we would make some!!  I choose decorative paper which had a decorative element on the left hand side and we positioned our little birds with their cages to the right of them.  This used some scrapbook paper which has been languishing in my stash because some of the papers were made for specialty layouts and had decorative elements that were not uniform.  A few more pages cut up and out of the bin!! 

Started by adhering the decorative paper to the coordinating card fronts.  Next, I cut the cages (TH SX) out of coordinating cardstock, trimmed off the finial and manually embossed the top with a round element from a gear embossing folder.  I die cut the birds and then the wings a different colour.  I started with the bird - created a beak with a marker and added a tiny black brad to create its eye.  I did not want mine behind the cage so I positioned it so it had its head sticking between the bars of the cage and glued the lower branch to the back of the cage.  I added the wing next using a little double sided tape.  Next, I added the hanging ribbon through the hole at the top, secured it with tape and slid on the little birdie tag before mounting this large element to my card front using white glue applied with a fine tip applicator.  The little tags were cut with a tag die (SX), stamped with a little stamp from a birdie set (SU) using a stamping jig and then had a little string tied on.  Next, I wrapped the ribbon to the inside of the card and secured it with double sided tape and tied the off cut to the front with a single knot to simulate a bow.  To finish off my card I glued rhinestones inside the holes at the bottom of the cage with white glue and secured my tag with 3D foam tape.  In the end, I added a bit of chalk to the tag to soften its edges.  Some of the girls did not secure the bird cage to the card which left it swinging which was also a nice effect.  It could then easily be removed and hung in a window or reused.  

Therese