Favourite leaf

I felt this little leaf deserved a picture of its own as it is definitely my favourite. It was stamped on acetate with black Stazon and gilded flakes were added on the reverse side.

Leaf samples

I am running a papercraft workshop on Thursday and thought I would make up a page with a variety of ways of using the same stamp to get different effects. I'm sure there are many more but think this will suffice for the moment!

Pam's birthday card

This is an encaustic piece that I made a few months ago. My friend Pam admired it and so I earmarked it for her birthday card. Happy Birthday, Pam!

Joyeux Anniversaire, Violette

Here's a card that I made for a dear French neighbour whose birthday is today. The beautiful little vintage girl image was a free download from somewhere. The frame is a Clarity corner stamp embossed in gold and I added some punched flowers and jewels in the corner. Just off now to present it to her together with a large tin of Celebration chocolates!

Chic chick

This is a card that I made this afternoon for a French friend of mine. She is always so beautifully dressed with matching jewellery, bag, shoes etc. and lived and worked for many years in Paris. The lady stamp is a Clarity stamp which I stamped with black Archival ink, cut out then stamped on various papers and cut out to "dress" her. The signpost and the souvenir de Paris are part of a sheet of Aladine stamps that I found here in a local garden centre.

Art card

Here is a card that I made for a dear professional artist friend who recently stayed with us. It looks like a simple card but in fact comprises many different techniques. The A R T letters were made with alcohol inks on Bondaweb, stencilled over with TH mask letters and cut out. The easel was a Clarity stamp, as was the paint brush which was stamped and then cut out and painted with Inktense pencils. The palette was stamped onto opaque shrink plastic, coloured (though you can't see it!)and cut out. I am quite pleased with the finished card and I hope she will be too!

Sue's birthday card

Here is a card that I made for my friend Sue who is in a clinic having intensive physio on her new knee at the moment and that is where she will be spending her birthday! The card was done by swiping alcohol inks onto glossy card, then dropping blender solution onto it. I then passed it through the Cuttlebug with a musical notes embossing folder. The greeting was done on the computer. Sue sings in a choir so I thought this would fit the bill!

Karen's birthday card

This was quite a challenge for me as Karen, my niece, is definitely not a hearts and flowers person card-wise. You may know from a previous post that she recently suffered a severe stroke which has left her paralysed down her left side. She is in a stroke rehab unit now undergoing intensive physio to try to help her regain the use of the left side including her eye. So creating a birthday card for her at this difficult time was never going to be easy - nothing too sombre, nothing too frivolous. Despite the fact that she will be 45 next Monday, Karen is still a Goth at heart and although forum friends kindly sent me appropriate images, I just couldn't get my head around that kind of genre enough to create a card using the designs in the time available. In the end, I decided on this encaustic art card which I had recently made. I thought it might help her in some small way to glance at it occasionally and try to figure out what it means. Could it be a cave in the middle of a forest? How was the texture created? For people who haven't seen encaustic art before, I think half the fun is having them think "now just how did they do that?!" Anyway, I do hope she likes it. Time enough for Goth-type cards when she is fully recovered. Sadly, it seems I will have plenty of time to practise those type of cards but I aim to have one ready for her next birthday!

Seeing double!

This week I have made two cards for Golden Wedding anniversaries - one for our lovely French neighbours who are foster parents to Teddy and the other for our good friends, Chris and Keith. It was fortunate for me that I could copy my original design to make the second card and I hope that both recipients like them. I was so pleased to be able to use my new Cuttlebug to die cut the hearts and emboss one of the layers on these cards.

For Karen

Here is a card that I made this week for my niece, Karen who has suffered a stroke at the age of 44 years. She is paralysed on her left side and has been in intensive care for the past 10 days but is showing signs of recovering. I wanted to make a card that would make her smile and hope this one fits the bill!