Birthday card featuring a paper pieced background, a digital sailboat image, a small greeting and ribbon flags

Another family birthday card!!

This one started with a deep blue green card and I added a paper pieced background to loosely simulate a horizon line between sea and sky.  I watercoloured the laser printed image (digital from CLKER), mounted it to a yellow layer and added a little birthday greeting (stamped and trimmed) and three little ribbon flags - red, green and yellow.  I mounted this large focal element to my card using 3D foam tape.  I am really enjoying my paper piecing from the scraps of my crafting.  So much more interesting than one single colour!!

Therese

All Occasion cards for my exchange partners featuring collage paper backgrounds, punchies and stitching

I wanted to try something new when I was creating my Card Exchange cards so I decided to try a new way of making collage backgrounds - a hybrid between serendipity and the ones I have been making by adhering pieces together with tape on the back.  I started with a sheet of printed bond paper and started gluing paper scraps to it.  After filling the sheet I felt the collage needed more texture and interest so I glued on torn strips and pieces here and there at angles.  That was better!!  The cards I was using as inspiration had stitched punchies on them so that is what I added next.  I trimmed my backgrounds to fit on the ivory cards I cut to fit into my large envelopes.  

For my first card I chose 1 3/8" circles from my stash and arranged them on my background.  I played with all sorts and finally settled on red and white.  I embossed them with two different embossing folders, added a bit of glue in behind so they would stay in place and then used my sewing machine to  stitch across the lines.  That worked quite well.  I added a yellow handmade paper circle and a little green star to one of the circles to create a focal element.  Liked that!! 

For my second card, I trimmed my background to fit on my large ivory card.  I added green lace to the back of a green strip with torn edges and placed it across my background.  Next, I added three embossed heart punchies (SU) and stitched them in place with my sewing machine.  I die cut some smaller hearts from some green/gold paper and glued those in place over the larger hearts.  That was good!!

For my third card (below) I created my collaged background directly on my card front.  It is a little harder to get the pieces to be exactly the right size but in the end you only see the edges so whether they line up in the middle does not really matter.  I cut a piece of yellow cardstock just the right size to fit 12 1 3/8" circle punchies.  I chose white, red and warm red punchies and embossed them with three different embossing folders.  I used a bit of glue on the back to keep them in position and used my sewing machine to stitch them into place.  Liked that!  I adhered it to my card front over my background and decided to do something different to fill in the extra area on the right.  I punched little V's using my chevron punch (SU) from red cardstock and adhered them in place.  Liked that!!  I added an embossed 1.25" yellow circle punchie onto one of the red circles and added a tiny red star to the middle.  Really happy with this card too!!  The circles are very bold in solid colours.  My inspiration cards had been the opposite - decorative paper punchies on solid cardstock - and therefore more subtle.   Will try that next time!!  These are off in next week's mail!!

Therese

 

A birthday card featuring layers, a cute little digital greeting and beautiful fabric ribbon

For this birthday card I started with the pink card and then found the flourished decorative paper.  While digging in my stash for my last card I found this beautiful fabric ribbon which I auditioned in quite a few ways on this paper until I came upon this arrangement.  After trimming to both to size I adhered the ends to the decorative paper over the blue which just peeks out from the top and bottom.  Really like how that worked out.  I did a custom edging on the greeting using a Cuttlebug tag die.  I trimmed my greeting to the width of the tag and then I laid my cutting plate to just cut 1/8" on the left hand edge and then did the same on the right hand side to give me two slots and the nice rounded corners of the tag.  Fun!!  I watercoloured the butterfly kisses greeting (Melonheadz) and added clear glitter with a gel pen. I gave it an interesting background using a  pink decorative label punchie in pink and adding vellum half circles (1") to each end to create some contrast and texture.   I strung this embellished greeting on white ribbon and added that to the top fabric ribbon and then tied on a short piece using a single knot to simulate a bow.  After adjusting the greeting on the ribbon I secured it in place with two small pieces of 3D foam tape.  I really like how this one turned out!!!    Therese
 

All occasion cards featuring reused images from stationery

I found a set of older stationery in my stash that worked perfectly for creating slimline cards in #8 envelopes.  Love it when a plan comes together so well.  I cut my card fronts and then trimmed the images to suit the card.  Mostly, I had to just trim the images to fit the card and adhere it to the fronts. For the one that needed a bit more I used a border punch and some ribbon and on a few I used my score tool to add some embossed lines on the sides.  These are off  to a volunteer organization that supports the vulnerable. Therese