The Card Maker's Birthday

Yes, that's right. Today I enter my third decade (feel old not being a teen any more) . But, I have now booked my craft fair so all that is left to do is to make sure I have plenty of stock ready but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I did a recent count and I have about 150 cards just lying around although, I haven't done much crafting since I last posted. With this one exception . . . 

Yesterday saw my room mate's birthday and as I am still experimenting with my paper-pieced pictures, I decided to make one for her. 

If you can't tell by the photo, she is a BIG fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, with Jack Skellington being her Halloween costume this year as well. I used the same sized frame as my Doctor Who one but was able to get it in black (which looks so much better!). I got a bit carried away with my rough sketch and ended up shading it properly but it gave me a template to work with.

To make his pinstriped suit, I used black card and drew the stripes on with a sharp white pencil. I sketched on his mouth and skeletal hand details with black pen but to add a bit of depth, I cut the eyes and nose out and glued some black card behind them. I did a similar thing with his bat bowtie although next time I make him, I don't think I will make it stand out so much as it did get a little bit damaged in transit.

I couldn't give her a present without a card so I made one to match. Originally, I was going to do a similar design on an orange card blank but I couldn't resist the black and purple combo. I am really pleased with the card and as a finishing touch, I had to add a Tim Burton-esque flourish on the envelope.

Craft Fairs and Other Excursions

Well, it is about time I wrote, seeing as it has been over a week since my last post! And speaking of my last post, I mentioned that I had a craft fair lined up. My FIRST craft fair. 

After searching all summer for one near me, I came across one not only near me, but literally down the road. I couldn't justify not doing it so I sent an e-mail . . . 

To cut a long story shorter, I am now sharing a table with another crafter, one of blankets and jewellery. This means that we only have to pay half the price for the table and I can't see myself filling a whole table anyway.

Once we have booked our place, I just have to make sure that I have plenty of cards (I already have a sizeable stock of Christmas cards - be very impressed!).

And then of course there is that small matter of designing my stall. You would think, being an architecture student I would have no problems with that! Quite the opposite. I have no ideas what-so-ever as to what to do. I really want to make it stand out but I also have that annoying niggle at the back of my mind called a budget. Damn. 

And so the quest continues but with many distractions, more commonly known as university and social life (kinda). 


On a slightly different note, I came up with a plan the other day. A fund raising plan (unfortunately , I have realised that my back pocket is not a charity) which will give me a great excuse to spend time making cards. I am going to do a sponsored card make. I am going to ask people to sponsor me to spend 24 hours making cards. Straight. Not only the sponsor money, but the money raised by selling the cards will go to a charity of my choice. I am still working out the logistics as to when and possibly where (may not do it in my room but somewhere in my halls so I can get some company!) but I have already decided the who. Kanzi Kibera is the charity for whom I sold cards for at my last fair. They are a charity supporting schools in Nairobi and I have family friends who do a lot to support them as well as getting involved myself. Hopefully it will be a success and I will be able to raise a fair bit of money for them. And, if all goes well, I would love to do it again (although I might not be saying that after 24 straight hours of crafting!).

I will get the details of my first 'craft-a-thon' up here as soon as I know them myself!

Paper-pieced Pictures

What a day! Finally stopped working long enough to write this entry. Currently waiting for tomorrow's presentation sheets to publish to PDF. They certainly throw you right back into it in second year!

Anyway. Last night, I finally got to try something I had been meaning to try for a while now. Back in the summer, I made a paper pieced card following the theme of The Joker from Batman. This was - at the time - probably the most complex paper-pieced/decoupages I had ever done and I felt it was wasted on a greetings card. Plus there was that danger of being to fat to fit in the envelope!

So I thought, what if I created decoupaged images to frame. Never actually got around to it until this weekend when I actually went out and bought a wooden picture frame from Wilkinson. That was Saturday. Apart from group project work to be done, I was out Saturday night. Slept in Sunday morning. Was rowing Sunday afternoon. Went to church Sunday evening. Watched Downton Abbey Sunday evening. FINALLY, I got the chance to make my prototype. . . .

I am a big fan of Doctor Who, especially David Tennant's Doctor. I decided to make this the theme of my picture. I had already jotted down a design so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just had to sketch it out properly. It was easiest to start with the smallest piece, the shirt and tie and from there I worked up to the suit jacket, bottom part of the suit, trousers, bottom part of the coat, coat sleeves (and lapels) and finishing with his Converse - kinda like dressing an actually person . . . . . concentrate Emma! I added pen details such as pockets, buttons and shadows as I went along. After I had finished, it was not-so-simply a case of choosing the right backing paper and then assembling it all in the frame. I am so happy with the results but have decided that it is not good enough to be sold, it being my first one and so, I have been resigned to having to put up with it sat on my bookshelf. Such a hardship and I suffer greatly because of it!

The finished and framed picture

I hope to make more of these and already have plenty of other designs lined up to try. I may even have a go at making some to sell at my soon-to-be first craft fair (that's a story for next time!).

Would love to hear what you all think about it/them!

Tutorial-ish

Today, I decided I was going to make my first tutorial. But with a bit of a difference. Instead of hanging my camera above me and filming looking down, I decided to create it stop start animation. This is a technique that I use a lot in university when making videos and can look really good.
I chose to start with something relatively easy: my kimono embellishments. I wrote a post about these back in April/May and as I use them a lot, I decided it would be a good start. I would love to know what you think!

I did mess up slightly (ooops!) and I wonder if you can see the deliberate mistake.*

*and for those who are really eagle eyed, there is a second one, but I will be impressed if you can find that one!

Autumnal Owls

I realise that this is my second post today but this will be my entry for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

It is, of course, the autumn equinox and starting to get colder and darker. But autumn is probably my favourite time of year, and not just because that's when my birthday falls! I love the colours and bonfire night: wrapping up warm and going out to watch all the fireworks.

My first owl card

This week's challenge, to be inspired by autumn clicked immediately with me. I have recently been going through an 'owl phase'. I love absolutely anything to do with owls at the moment: cushions, accessories, t-shirts and jumpers, I've even spotted a purse I want to get! So, I decided to make some owl inspired cards. 

I began this by creating my own style of owl and made several sketches in my design book. After that, I made myself a template and had a go at making my first owl card.









I made six of these owl cards in total, all of them different, with different colour combinations but all sticking with the autumnal reds, browns and oranges that I looking to see in the next few weeks. Using the same template was useful and made it so easy to get them fairly uniform, although cutting out 12 eyes, wings and feet got old very quickly!
I added the branches straight to the card blank, having cut them from the same paper I had used for the owls. Foam pads were used to perch the owls on the branches, to make them stand out. 
I don't normally make cards with as plain a background as these are but I think it really works well this time and if needed, there is enough room to add a sentiment without ruining it.

National Cupcake Week

If anyone has visited my Facebook page or Tumblr blog, you will see that I have been celebrating National Cupcake Week. I have been watching and have become addicted to The Great British Bake-off. This gave me lots of inspiration for making some baking themed cards. 
I began making some simple paper pieced cards. I found some corrugated cards which worked perfectly for the cupcake case. I finished these cards off with ribbon and patterned tape and topped the paper cupcakes with paper icing and floral embellishments. 

An evening of baking without even turning the oven on!

For my third card, I found some cupcake embellishments from my German craft stash that were just what I needed. I sketched out a cake stand and outlined it with black pen. After adding the cupcakes, I finished the card with some pink dotty paper and topped the cake stand with a paper heart. Despite papercraft being my thing, I am also having a go at the baking and had the excuse to bake (with help from a roommate) a birthday cake for a friend. So proud of it! (Not sure what Mary Berry or Paul Hollywood would make of it though!)

On a different note, I have some very exciting news to share. I have signed up to start an on-line shop. 4 days and counting. As of Tuesday, I will be selling my cards (hopefully). Of course, I have this dream that I will have hundreds and hundreds of orders although I doubt that is going to happen. I'd like to get a few though, to keep me busy. Once I am up and running, I will add a link to my Facebook page and on here. So excited!!

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.