A Day Like No Otter Birthday Card

Until the last couple of years where my daughter has taken up pretty much all of my free time (in a good way!) I couldn't resist buying card making magazines when they have a set of rubber stamps on the cover that is something I haven’t got! This particular stamp was from a brilliant A4 sheet of clear stamps featuring different animals and puns relating to birthdays. This one is a picture of an otter that I stamped in black and a patch of grass that I also stamped in black and went over with a green Promarker pen.

The sentiment is two separate stamps, one saying ‘on your birthday’ and the other ‘have a day like no otter’, which I thought was cute!

Purple Peacock Card

Here’s a card I made for a friend’s birthday using a set of toppers from Hunkydory. They have a membership club that is free to sign up for, and every so often you get an offer for a ‘free club gift’, a set that normally retails at £9.99 where you only have to pay postage of £2.99. You get several A4 pieces of printed card and four sheets of die cuts to press out, all on a particular theme. This theme was peacocks and I decided to buy the set.

I do find using these a little difficult however as I’m never quite sure what to do with them. The toppers are usually a picture with several frames and I never know whether to use just one frame or all of them, and the printed cards aren’t that practical for cutting out the picture from as it feels like you are then wasting the design on the card. So what I did this time was fold the A4 card in half to make the birthday card itself but again that feels a bit of a waste as I don’t need a design on the back of the card!

The Hunkydory website does have design ideas for using the set if you are stuck, but no instructions for how to make them. Most are quite straightforward though!

For this card I used one of the large peacock toppers and all three of the accompanying frames which I raised up at different levels with adhesive pads (though you can’t really see that from the photo). It’s for a friend who likes deep purple colours so I hope she liked it!

40th Birthday Card Exploding Box Card

As my school friends (and I) were turning 40 all in the same year, I wanted to make them each a special birthday card for the occasion, using a different type of card design for each one. I had made an exploding boxcard before and used the same template for this one.

You can use a different design on each of the four sides but I decided the card  would look more professional with the same design on each so I used a diamond-patterned paper in what I thought was a nice range of colours – primarily reds, purples and pinks with some other shades too. The base of the card was a purple and white polka dot design, again from a patterned paper, which worked well with the diamond design.

My pop-up elements of this card were a ‘Happy birthday’ die cut, a glittery ‘40’ sticker and a small die cut sentiment saying ‘Life begins at 40!’ mounted onto a small piece of card cut with pinking scissors. I actually bought that in a small pack from Ebay but it’s quite easy to make your own – if you have the time!

 

Make your own motivational quote cards

I'm not sure what these cards are actually called - 'motivational quote cards' sounds a bit worthy and the sort of thing you might find at a company team-building day. What I mean is a postcard with a message that is in some way inspiring, uplifting or encouraging - something that we could all use every now and then!

During lockdown I was sending a birthday present to a friend, who I hadn't been able to see for a long time because of Covid. I didn't want to just wrap her present and put it in a jiffy bag so I found a box (from one of my many online purchases) and filled in the gaps around her present with a few other things - some mini bubbles (the kind you blow, not drink), a couple of camomile tea bags and a package of home-made chocolate brownies. I also popped in this card:

They are really easy to make - you just need a small piece of card, and some letters. You can buy alphabet letter stickers or rubber stamps very cheaply, or if you are good at calligraphy write your own - or type it on the computer and print something out. I used a piece of red card and multi-coloured letters so didn't add any other embellishments, but you can design the card however you want.

In The Pink Birthday Card

This birthday card was made for a very dear friend I haven’t seen for over a year due to coronavirus. She actually sent me most of the things I used on this card for my birthday so I thought it fitting to make a card for her!

The starting point was a sheet of clear stamps with some popular cute animals - alpaca, flamingo, meerkat and giraffe - and matching sentiments. The animal stamps were all from  the neck up at an angle where it would work best with the animals coming out from the side of the card, so I used a tall thin card blank. I put the flamingo near the top and stamped him in black ink then coloured in with a pink Promarker pen. The matching sentiment said ‘hope this finds you in the pink!’

I then added an alpaca, since I like alpacas and that’s a good enough reason, popping his head out from the other side of the card. One of the other sentiments was perfect to add next to him: ‘miss you!’. I added a couple of highlights with the same pink pen.

I toyed with the idea of adding a happy birthday sticker but decided it wouldn’t look right and I needed to stamp the message. I added a few strokes of pink pen around it to add a bit of colour.

A final touch was two sections of washi tape from a pack the same friend gave me for my birthday; one says ‘happy birthday’ on it and the other ‘lots of love’. Hopefully I will get to see my friend soon!

Handmade Eid Mubarak card

Eid Mubarak! Today is Eid-al-Fitr, a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims that marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting. During Ramadan, most Muslims (aside from those who are exempt for reasons including illness and old age) fast from dawn until sunset, then break their fast each night with a meal known as 'iftar'. Sharing iftar with others is an important practice for many Muslim families, and it must have been particularly difficult this year and last when Ramadan and Eid took place in lockdown. This year the restrictions aren't quite so strict but still prevent families and large groups of friends from getting together.

One of our neighbours is a Muslim family who have kindly shared iftar meals with us and with others in our street, bringing a tray of food to our door. We've had a delicious chicken biryani and a sweet rice dish called zarda, which I'd never tasted before, and can recommend! I thought I had taken a photo of it but unfortunately can't find it now.

Today on Eid, I gave them a card I had made, wishing the family Eid Mubarak which means 'Blessed Eid' - the traditional greeting you would offer. I have to admit this was a last minute card so was made very quickly, but I'm quite pleased with it, and I hope they were too!

The crescent moon is an important symbol of Eid and often found on greetings cards - Eid begins at the first sight of the new crescent moon. I have a paper pad of galaxy-themed pages from Hobbycraft and cut out a crescent moon from a piece of paper with a starry night sky design. I added some mini blue and silver gems and sequins and the words 'Eid Mubarak' in silver letters; I thought the glitter effect worked really well with the theme of the card.

Next year I think I might bake something for my neighbours at Eid!

Congratulations - It's a Girl! New baby handmade card

Sometimes I feel like a Womble (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write) – making good use of the things that I find, things that the everyday folk leave behind. (Is it strange that I remember those lyrics despite not having seen the television show for over 30 years?). When it comes to card making, I like to use every last scrap, as some things seem too good to waste.

Take the It’s a Girl paper pad by First Edition – I received this as a gift along with some other card making goodies from my husband not long after our daughter was born. The front cover had come detached from the pad but it was too nice to throw away – so even though I had plenty of paper left in the pack itself, I decided to use the cover to make this card.

 I liked how the cover had overlapping designs – intended to show the range of papers inside the pack. I used it to cover a small blank card but it didn’t quite cover the whole card, as I’d had to cut around the wording saying ‘12x12 paper pad’ or something along those lines. To cover the gap I stuck a line of paper flowers down the edge of the card, and added a couple of gem and leaf embellishments to give it a bit of a three-dimensional lift. Finally I added a nice pastel pink ‘congratulations’ banner from another sticker pack, as this is intended for a couple who are expecting their third child – a girl.

Let's go on an Adventure - Alpaca my bags! Handmade card

I'm a big fan of alpacas - and even had them at my wedding - so when I saw a card making magazine on sale where the cover gift was a set of animal stamps including alpacas, I had to have them! It also came with some fun sentiments to go with the different animals including this one: Let's go on an
adventure - alpaca my bags! Probably my favourite alpaca pun :-)

To make this card I started with a background paper of pink and blue hearts. I then stamped the alpaca onto a piece of pink card and mounted it onto a piece of blue card with scalloped edging (a die-cut) and stuck it at a jaunty angle on the card. I followed the pink and blue theme with two die-cut balloons and stamped the sentiment onto a piece of pink card. I used some little pink gems in the four corners of the sentiment box to make it look like it had been fixed onto the card.

I'm sharing this with the Library Challenge where the theme is 'Five weeks in a balloon' and
Penny Black - 'summer colours'.

Baby Hand Print Get Well Card - A little bird told me you're not feeling so chirpy

My mum has been in hospital for nearly four weeks after being suddenly struck by a serious illness but she is recovering really well and will hopefully be back home soon - a huge relief for all of us.

 

I live a couple of hours away so in between visits I’ve sent her a few things in the post, including a get well card that I made in haste and forgot to take a photo of.

 

This is the second get well card I made, or rather that my ten month old daughter made. We go to a class occasionally called ‘Baby Picasso’ that is basically hand and foot painting with some messy play as well. There is a theme each week and we have the opportunity to make one picture or card or other item (before Christmas for instance we did tree decorations) using hand prints and one using foot prints.

 

It gets quite messy - you have to put paint on your baby’s hand or foot and then stop them wiping it on themselves or you before you are able to get them to place it flat on a piece of paper! Then the other details and embellishments are added by the parent, as this particular class is for pre-walkers so the babies are too young to do it themselves.

 

The theme this week was birds, and my little girl made a picture of two robins sitting on branches with handprints in paint.

 

I decided to turn it into a card so when we got home I glued the picture onto a blank card and had a think about a suitable sentiment. The phrase ‘a little bird told me’ sprang to mind straight away then the rest followed and seemed perfect for a get well card - ‘you’re not feeling so chirpy’!  I wrote the sentiments on the computer and stuck them on the front of the card and inside printed ‘get well soon’.

 

I gave my mum the card when I went to visit a couple of days later addressed to granny from my daughter - she really liked it and hopefully it helped cheer her up a little bit!

 

I'm sharing this with the following craft blog challenges: The Male Room - nature (this card would work for a man easily!)

Paper Funday - anything goes

Everybody art challenge - anything goes

Unicorn challenge - things with wings

Heart 2 Heart challenges - creative cards

 

 

 

You're a Treasure Pirate Card for Kids

I have a confession to make about this card - I made it for a friend’s little boy who was turning three, and forgot to send it!

My husband and I were ill for nearly a whole week, luckily the days when we were most sick didn’t overlap so we were able to take it in turns to look after our baby with a bit of help from my mother-in-law as well (who then got sick after she had been to see us!). Luckily baby S didn’t get ill at all which was a huge relief!

That whole week passed in a blur and it was only some time later I realised I had missed the birthday and not sent the card. Sorry Alex!

I’ve decided to share it now as I think this is a really cute theme for children that works for both girls and boys. I bought a set of clear stamps from eBay (which didn’t have a brand - look up ‘pirate clear stamps’ on eBay and you will find them).

I had some sea themed backing paper that I hadn’t really used before as it was a tricky design - not a patterned paper as such but most of it was plain blue or similar with a detailed design in one corner. I found it hard to know what I could add to the card to complement it without covering up the design but also without the backing paper stealing the show - but these pirate stamps were perfect.

I stamped the boy pirate onto white card and coloured him in with Promarkers and did the same with the treasure chest and boat, and stamped the words ‘you’re a treasure’ directly onto the card, which I then went over with a black Promarker.

I'm sharing this with:

Outlawz Challenge Songs and Rhymes - Row, row, row your boat

Sheepski Designs - For the kidz

Cardz 4 Guyz - All at sea

Music and Drumkit Birthday Card

I made this card for a relative who is a musician; it can be hard to make cards for men that aren't just fairly generic so if a guy I know has a particular hobby (or in this case, it's his profession) I try to theme cards accordingly.

The main elements of this card come from a set of die cuts I bought that you press out from a sheet, I'm afraid I can't remember the brand! The musical notes and stave across the top come from a sheet of outline stickers (I think they are Anita's) and the backing paper is actually from a 6x6 paper pack with an Oriental theme - I thought this one would work with the reds in the drum kit and happy birthday square.

I'm sharing this with:
Allsorts challenge - music
Dream Factory (Die Traumfabrik) - Save the last dance
Jo's Scrap Shack - anything goes
Crazy 4 Challenges - masculine

Age is Irr-elephant Birthday Card

 

I couldn't resist buying a card making magazine recently when I saw the free cover gift was a sheet of zoo animal clear stamps, including an alpaca, as I love alpacas! The set included some great sentiments and phrases to go with the animals as well; here is a card I made using the elephant stamp, the 'tree in the savannah' stamp and a sentiment saying 'age is irr-elephant'.

I inked the background using a cotton wool ball and an ink pad which also came with the craft magazine, pressing more firmly on the bottom half of the card and lighter on the top half.

I'm sharing this with CCEE stampers where the theme is zoo animals for national zookeepers week and Moving along with the times where the theme is wild animal.

Pink Unicorn card - Be a Unicorn in a Field of Horses

Unicorns are a really big thing at the moment - I can't really remember when it started but suddenly they are everywhere, from toys to children's clothing to cakes to stationery. Late one night in between feeding the baby I was browsing the internet and decided to look for a rubber unicorn stamp for card making. I thought there would be loads but couldn't find any I liked until I came across this unmounted one from China. It's quite large so just right for the main element of a card.

The backing paper is from a set called Glitter Girl which was from Hobbycraft only a couple of months ago but they don't seem to stock it any more unfortunately. The frames and banner are die cuts I bought pre cut from Ebay (getting out my die cutting machine seems like hard work at the moment!). I stamped the unicorn and coloured it in with Promarker and stamped the sentmiment from a separate set of unicorn-related sentiment stamps.

I'm sharing this with Penny Black where the theme is 'things with wings' as unicorns are usually depicted with wings; Crafting with Dragonflies where the theme is animals; Crafty Friends which is fairy/fantasy; Send a Smile 4 Kids which is anything goes for kids; and the Fairy and Unicorn challenge where the theme is mythical.

Handmade Peacock Anniversary Card

 

I recently signed up to the Hunkydory Craft club - Hunkydory is a craft brand that is particularly known for ready made toppers and die cut images and sentiments. Their club gives you a discount when you buy, but the reason I signed up was because you could get a set of toppers for only the £2.99 cost of postage as a new member.

The set I got included flamingos, birds - and peacocks. I decided to use one of the peacock images to make an anniversary card for my husband for our second anniversary as we'd had peacocks at our wedding.

You can read more about the venue and our day in my post from 2016 on our wedding at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

To make the card, I chose a larger than usual A5 card blank and covered it with a piece of the cardstock that came with the Hunkydory set. It had a strip of a different pattern across part of the card which I positioned along the bottom of my card and added a border from the same set. The peacock and frame are all different elements from the Hunkydory set too.

Finally I added a glittery thick card word saying 'anniversary' which I think I bought from Tesco (though I could be wrong!).

I'm sharing this with:

Daring Cardmakers where the theme is weddings or anniversaries

TGIF challenges has the theme 'all that glitters'

Alphabet Challenge - G is for great outdoors, and the peacock represents our outdoor wedding

and at Tuesday Taggers it's 'things with wings'.

Focus on the Journey, not the Destination handmade card

This card has an inspirational sentiment that would be suitable for a birthday or someone who is going travelling - though I actually gave it to my dad for Father's Day.

It's made from free gifts that came with a recent issue of Creative Stamping magazine. I stamped a white card blank with some of the clear stamps that came with this issue - one was a train ticket, one was a passport stamp, one was a postmark that you might get on a postcard and so on. I stamped them in different coloured inks randomly over the card, then cut a circle from a piece of paper that came with the magazine with a map design. I cut a border from the same paper and stuck it around the edge of the card.

I stamped the plane stamp onto brown paper and cut around it, and stamped the sentiment onto white card which I mounted onto brown card and added those to the card as well.

I'm sending this to My Time to Craft where the challenge is a stamped background, Simply Create Too where the theme is 'for a male' and Ellibelle's Craft Wednesday where the theme is 'make it masculine'; Always Fun Challenges - for a male/dad and Stamps and Fun where the theme is travel and holidays.                 

Don't Worry Bee Happy card

This card was made using a few stickers I was given by a friend; I don’t know where she got them from. The stickers were quite large, taking up most of the space on a blank card, so for a while I didn’t know what to do with them.

I decided to use one of the stickers as the background; it is a brown sticker with a few yellow and brown honeycomb shapes in the middle. I cut around the sentiment from another one of the stickers, and found some tiny bee stickers from another set and dotted them around the card.

With the colours I think this card is quite masculine so it would be suitable for a man or a woman.

I’m sharing it with Little Red Wagon where the theme is ‘to bee or not to bee’

 and Tuesday Taggers where the theme is ‘for the boys’

 

plus Unicorn Challenge where the theme is masculine.

Pink Flamingo and Balloons birthday card

 

Flamingos are a really popular motif at the moment and one night while feeding the baby I decided they would look really good on a birthday card, and bought a flamingo stamp from Dovecraft on Ebay.

I also bought some die cut balloon shapes - it would be cheaper to buy the die in the long run and cut my own shapes but time is something I don't have a lot of at the moment (I'm writing this while the baby takes a nap but can already hear signs she is waking up!) so I just bought the shapes pre-cut.

I was playing around with shapes and thought the card would look nice with several layered embellishments in different shades of pink - there's quite a lot going on on this card but I really like how it turned out.

To start I covered most of a white square card blank with a piece of pink patterned paper, leaving a small white border clear around the edge. I stamped the flamingo onto a piece of cream card and coloured it pink with a Promarker pen.

I cut a scalloped shape around the edge of a slightly larger rectangle of purple paper (which was actually a recycled birthday card envelope I'd received) and mounted the flamingo card on that. I found a wide glittery pink ribbon in my stash that I'd bought and never used - it is quite wide and very pink and glittery so a bit OTT for most cards but I decided it worked for this one! I stuck that across the middle of the card using double sided sticky tape and mounted the flamingo topper on that.

The final touches were two die cut balloons, one in pink and one in purple, and a stamped 'happy birthday' sentiment from the 'Say it with stamps' set from All Night Media on a piece of the same purple paper as the topper which I cut out with a wavy line. The perfect card for someone who likes a bit of glitz and glamour!

Here are some of the products I used:



I'm sharing this with Stamplorations where the theme is 'things with wings'; Crafty Ribbons challenge, As You Like It where the theme is pink or blue, and Creatalicious Challenges where anything goes with the option of 'all that glitters'. As I re-used an old envelope I'm also sharing it with Use Your Stuff where the theme is upcycle/recycle, plus Addicted to Stamps challenge where the theme is 'ribbons galore'.

Stork Delivering Baby Card

I have quite a lot of silver and gold outline stickers, and the sentiments and borders are great but I never really got on with using the shapes, as the fine gold outline often doesn't show up that well and looks a bit bare. That is, until I realised I could colour them in! I used Promarkers pens which are really good for this sort of thing (see link below to purchase on Amazon).

To make the card I matted a square of white paper onto a piece of blue card and coloured in the outline sticker, and used a 'congratulations' outline sticker at the bottom.




I'm sending this to Craftaholics R Us where the theme is baby cards and I Love Promarkers which has an optional theme of clean and simple (CAS).

Oriental Dress Birthday Card

 

I loved Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha which I read many years ago, so it was a nice throwback when I saw it had been chosen as the theme for the Library Challenge, which is for crafters who love books.

I had a pack of both outline stickers and die cuts I bought years ago that I never really knew what to do with, in the shape of Oriental dresses and fans. They are quite detailed and large so take up most of a typical card and I was never really sure how to make the most of them.

They seemed just right for this particular card challenge so I decided to make a very quick and simple card using one of the colourful cardboard die cuts. I used a pre-printed card blank which creates quite a busy pattern with the die cut, but the colours and flower shapes are complementary at the same time.

I finished the card with a pink 'special day' sticker.

Car, Map and Signpost Birthday Card





 

I treated myself to the latest issue of Creative Stamping and indulged myself in making a few cards one day while the baby was asleep. There was a large A4 sheet of clear stamps as the free cover gift that had a travel and transport theme - handy to make cards for men.

 

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I decided to make a version of the card featured on the front cover of the magazine with a few differences. First I stamped the road map rubber stamp multiple times over a white square card blank - you can only tell the pattern repeats if you look closely!

 

Then I cut a border to go around three sides from an old envelope I'd received in the post and kept. Next I used the car stamp and the signpost stamp on red card and cut around them and stuck them onto the card. I stamped the top part of the signpost again so I could cut out two of the arms and use a small adhesive pad to raise them from the card.

 

I used the 'enjoy your birthday' sentiment stamps as on the card on the magazine cover, and mounted them on red card so the colours brought the whole card together. I like this card but unfortunately after making it I can't find the car stamp anywhere - that's the problem with clear stamps!

I'm sharing this with Cardz 4 Guyz where the theme is travel or transport and Craft Stamper where anything goes as long as you use a stamp, Moo Mania where the theme is masculine and Challenge Up Your Life where the theme is vehicles.