Welcome back to Manchester!

I am now unpacked and back in my digs in Manchester. This summer has flown by! Whilst packing, I desperately tried to reduce the amount of craft stash to bring but it just couldn't be done. I still ended up with my caddy, several boxes and folders of stuff. *Sighs. 

However, on arrival, when I went to collect my keys, I was greeted with a parcel. Something that had been sent to me over the summer. Completely confused as to what it was, I left it until I had everything in my room before opening it. An unusual surprise turned into a very pleasant one when I opened the large envelope and found more craft stash!

It was only when I opened it that I realise it was from a prize draw I had entered in my magazine.  The goodies included GB themed papers, stickers, banners, chipboard pieces and some sequiny, really glitzy stickers all from Vintedge. Just imagine if I had won something bigger!
And the moral of that story is, you gotta be in it to win it. And it would be a better idea to send things to your home address, not university digs!

Before I left home, I had time to make a couple more cards, one as a commission and the other for a friend who was leaving for his first year at uni.
The first card had quite a specific requirement, albeit an unusual one (but I expected no less from my friend and next door neighbour). The card was for her sister's 21st birthday. She likes sheep.

I chose to make it a shaped card, and based my design on clip-art images of sheep. I loved the round body, creating a very cartoon sheep, and also making it easy to cut out but I felt it needed something a bit more than just white card. This was a sheep for goodness sake! And then it hit me . . . .

FLOCKING

No pun intended! I'm talking about the fluffy powder version of glitter. Simply cover the surface in something sticky and sprinkle. 
Like all the cards I make for landmark birthdays, I hand-wrote '21' onto the pink balloon and attached this to the sheep using white thread - it was already attached to the card at the fold. It's face and paws were simply black card with paper pieced detail. 

As well as creating it to my friend's specifications, I also added one of my own in order to fit into this weeks CAS-ual Friday challenge - Black and white plus one.

I learnt a bit from doing this card. I guess they were things that I should have known about before but never really thought about.
The first one is shaped cards: make sure it is a single shape, otherwise the card won't open fully. I should have made sure that the balloon was connected to the sheep in more ways than just the thread.
The second one is about flocking. Sticky pads DO NOT stick to flocking. Or rather, the flocking sticks to the pads alright but the the flocking comes of the card. I found this out the hard way and so had to scrape off some of the flocking from the sheep and get new pads to stick his face down. I was more careful with the feet and made sure it was attached to the paper, not the flocking. 


















My second card, as I said was for a friend leaving for university. This card needs little explanation. Students. Drink. Simple. So I covered the front of my blue card blank with grey circles decorated to look like cans. I didn't want any sort of order to them and to add to this effect, I raised some on sticky pads. I finished it off with an acetate label finished with a hand written sentiment and blue ribbon. I'm really please with the sketchy look of the cans and may do this one again for a birthday.

Crafty Challenge

This is a super quick entry for a crafty challenge with the theme of the sea. To begin with, I could only think of the cards I had already made, which were actually more than I had thought.

 I decided to make sea turtle the main feature of my card. For these, I used pale green paper and highlighted the edges with green pencil. After laying it out, I felt it needed something more than just the sequin bubbles and the green ribbon so I added an acetate strip, finishing it with dark blue sequins and overlaying the turtle, making them stand out by using foam pads.

CAS-ual Fridays

CAS-ual Fridays

My first entry into this crafting challenge. I've only recently found this myself. I have been reading it on another crafter's blog but only this morning found out what it stands for: Clean And Simple.

So, this week's challenge is Clear as Day: create a Clean and Simple project using vellum or acetate.

This card was made for my animal-loving Great Aunt's 80th birthday a few years back. I used acetate at the bottom of the card to make my hand written message stand out. I used My Mind's Eye Spring papers for the elephants and finished it with some pink organza ribbon to hide the join between card and acetate. The beads were a final finishing touch and kind of give it a Moroccan/African flavour.




While on the subject of acetate, after this project was a success, I had a go at creating cards for male friends using acetate. The first, I made this week for a friend at university but this inspiration came from the other one I made a last year. They were so simple to make. Using black card and papers and ribbons of different shades of blue (although any other colour would work as well) creates a bold design. Especially, as is the case with the second card, when a white card blank was used. The white shows through the acetate to give a bold contrast. 

The one thing I had to keep in mind, however, was where I wrote on the inside!