Confessions.

Sometimes it's nice to make a kit card. Shhhh. Don't tell! I really like the twilight kingdom collection from Hunkydory, and finally managed to get the cat topper set to make for a friend who likes cats. It's not super inventive but it was so nice to have decisions made by someone else of what to put on! :)

Apart from the bling, card stock base and matting/layering card, all the other elements are in the topper kit. Just did cutting and sticking, hurrah for an easy make!!

Cat cards!

Recently read someone's blog where they mentioned that they made a prototype of their card before making the final version, phew! I am glad I am not the only one to do this!  Because I am very new to the Eclips I was experimenting with free svg files and used one of a cat for a commissioned card order.

This is the prototype! I decided not to waste the cut and used it to make a card. The background and rainbow strips are using up a background I made on a previous "having a mess" day. I'm pretty sure it was using liquid distress ink refills on glossy cardstock.

So after making that card I edited the cutting file and made the cat a bit more streamlined. I also popped on some text to make it relevant to the customer's order.

This was another "having a mess" background. I used sequins from the stash, stickles on the text and some glossy accents in the eyes.

More Christmas Cards.

Some of these I made to send myself and some were commissions.

It's getting super hard on line to track down whether images are copyrighted or not. I suppose I should say if I am claiming the artwork as my own, because I would happily credit an original artist if I could find out who it was....and as I only make one card with it, the lack of mass production and making money from it would probably influence how an original artist would feel about it perhaps?
I don't know though, I'd be pretty cross if my artwork was on line with no watermark and anyone could use it. Hopeful I have found images safe to use - I'm saying this because I couldn't track down where the Scrooge Silhouette was from, anywhere!

Die cut window and snowflakes. Hero Arts stamp background behind window. Fussy cut dog silhouettes. Blue pearls.

Hunkydory frames and papers. Die cut icicles. Hand drawn Church scanned and put into grey scale. Green pearls. The church is Trinity Methodist Church in Shifnal.

This was a special card for one of my bezzie's Mum's to give her daughter. They've just had a baby and the wall paper in the picture is the same as the paper in their nursery. Die cut window. Hero Arts stamped scene behind window. Greeting from Hunkydory. Bottle, chair, bear and box all stickers from the Royal Doll's House Sticker Book by Usbourne 2013.

These ginger bread/cookie toppers and papers were all freebies in a magazine and I've been saving them forever. The main ginger bread men were stamped and coloured with copics.

I've been loving the kraft card this Christmas. This was a combo of two stamp sets for the bunnies and the base of the snow globe. I used two circle die cutters to make the right size snow globe outline. Stamped bunnies coloured in with  polychromo pencils.

I promise this was appropriate wording for the sender/recipient! :) I printed out the Scrooge silhouette and masked off the writing, then cosmic shimmered the background and added some bling. I like the effect.

Sheena Douglass Stamps painted with watered-down distress inks. Snowy night sky made by flicking water onto a dark distress ink background.

Final card for the post. Just made me chuckle :)

One layer black silhouette cards!

Bonjour! (Cross posted to Crafty Magic)

I've been really inspired by the "Keep-it-simple" and "One Layer Only" trends in card making at the moment. It's been very evident on Pinterest in the last few months. I wanted to have a go at a masked distress ink background directly onto the card and then black silhouette stamping on top of it. This is my first effort using distress inks blended in the background square (using a 12cm x 12cm mask) and then stamping on top with Versafine Onyx Black.

Stamps: Woodware JGS300 Going to Seed and Crafty Individuals Cl - 231 (Butterflies)

So as I was finishing off this set I remembered I had a rather nice unused set of Sheena Douglass " A Little Bit Scenic - Underwater Angels" I could use, and wouldn't this be ace with some water droplets or splashes on the distress ink background?? So... I carried on to this set.

I'm really happy with these, especially the two guppies on the left. ( The other fish on white are the envelopes for the cards.)

You might have spotted that the one fish card is not on one layer, but two. I found it super hard to keep the card clean! No blodges, marks, scuffs or... mess! To save a couple of the cards I remounted them onto a new card blank. And since they were no longer "One Layer" it meant I could justify adding some sequins -  I find it really hard to not use any embellishments. Although the seed head cards were more successful (at being one layer) I added some sequins to them too. I know... I think I have an addiction. lol!