50th Birthday Card in the making…

It was my colleague’s 50th birthday recently and I have a special card that I make for major birthdays as a keepsake which is made up of some of my watercolour sketches of my favourite flowers and this poem…

‘Your Birthday is a day of Promise’ by Emily Matthews

This is a day of promise
Of the beauty and warmth life can hold,
And of new dreams to dream
and more love to share
Through a year that’s about to unfold.

 Firstly I print each individual watercolour that has one line of the poem running aross it on some off white A6 (postcard sized) card from Paperchase.

 

  I then lightly score them and neatly fold them almost in half leaving a little tab at the end to join one card with another with narrow double sided tape…

 

  like this…

  I then print the outside cover which is another piece of A6 card that I score twice near the middle and fold to form a book spine.  I stick the body of the card to the outer leaf enclosing a length of ribbon between them…

 

after writing a greeting on the back leaf I then fold the concertina neatly into the outer leaves and wrap the ribbon round to hold.  The finished size is 10.5cm x 7cm or half A6 size.

 

She had a great time…

 

Have a good weekend x

Craft it Forward – anyone want to play?…

One morning a few weeks ago I picked up a surprise package from our local sorting office.  It was from Alys over at Gardening Nirvana – she took part in Crafting it Forward read here  and I was one of the lucky people to receive a handmade gift from her and as you will see she is one talented gardener and crafter.  Apologies to Alys that it has taken me this long to write this post, but you will agree it has been well worth the wait.

 

 

The package was beautifully wrapped in tissue and ribbon – almost too nice to unwrap and this is what I found inside.

 

Ten beautiful handmade cards with pretty matching envelopes

 

 

My photos do not do them justice

They are absolutely stunning I feel very honoured to have them

 

So now it is my turn to make something for 5 people and send it to them by snail mail during 2014.  When those 5 people receive my crafted item they must then agree to do the same deal for 5 more on their blog, Facebook or Google+.  I have never taken part in anything like this before and at the moment I can’t say what I will be making but it will probably be a handmade Artists Book. 

So if you are interested in taking part get ready steady go…I will make something handcrafted for the first five people to leave a comment on this post.

Happy Valentines Day…

Hubby has been away for a few days but he hadn’t forgotten it was Valentines Day – I had a call at 9am this morning telling me to look under the settee and there it was… a card together with a large box of Milk Tray…ahhhhh. 

It was lucky for me that he was a few hours away as it gave me chance to first organise a card for him (homemade)…

and then a cardboard tray…

decorated…

whilst making a slab of chocolate on a lined baking tray.

Before it sets throw in nuts, fruit and crystallised ginger at one end and toffee pieces, honeycomb and chocolate chips at the other.  Melt some white chocolate and with a spoon flick across the tray haphazardly…

Just before the chocolate sets hard cut out heart shapes with a metal cutter and lay them on baking parchment, then use up the left over white chocolate by pouring into the heart cutter.  Cool in the fridge for a while.  When set remove from the mould and warm the back of a spoon to run over the heart then coat with sprinkles…

Lay the chocolates on the decorated tray and cover with cellophane…

Then just time to hide them away and rush to put a bit of lippy on before he turns into the driveway…

Happy Valentines Day

Christmas Robin…comes bob bob bobbing…

I made it at last.  Everytime I have had the intention of sitting down to write I had an interruption from one person or another and I include myself here.

What have I been doing you might well ask.  I have been quite a busy little bee – or multi tasking as some would say.  After making those birthday cards a couple of weeks ago I made up my mind to do more crafting and on Saturday morning I settled down in my craft room and began to think about creating some Christmas cards for my daughters shop (as I had promised).

It is a long time since I attempted any lino prints and I felt eager to have another go as I like the quality of the prints and the fact that once you have carved the original design you can print an unlimited amount of cards.  It is also appealing because unlike rubber stamps the design belongs to you and it is exclusive.

I had no particular idea in mind for the card design other than it should be slightly vintage in feel and perhaps a Christmas Robin would be appropriate for a shop called Birdhouse Interiors.  So I flicked through my sketch book and settled on a drawing I had done some time ago of a Robin.  Not the best drawing in the world but the shape isn’t too bad and it seemed quite promising.

I converted this into a more simplistic black and white shape transferred it onto the lino then set about carving out a picture remembering that the bits I remove would come out as white.

I did a few test sheets before printing on the actual cards.

Then the production line began…first with the black ink…

then I applied the red ink for the breast and berries by hand.  Finally the Christmas greeting was done with a rubber stamp.

And voila here is my line of Christmas Robins.

I can’t say it turned out just as I had in mind I think that will take much more practise but at least I have made a start and my daughter is delighted.

All packaged up and ready to go.  I can’t believe that only this morning these cards were just an idea in my mind and didn’t exist.

Now I just need some inspiration for my next one.

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Christmas Card 2011