Another baby card

Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you have a nice day planned. I have a day at my desk , some of it making samples for an upcoming demo in February and some of it work! Never mind! Yesterday I had a day of indulgence as I went to the Creative Stitch and Craft Show at Sandon Park with a friend. Topped up with some essentials like double sided tape and card for matting and a few treats too, some new stamps I didn't know I needed but I did (you know the feeling) and a couple of Memory Box dies I had been hankering after. Too much temptation and not enough money as always, but I suppose learning some restraint is good for the soul!

Anyway here is my card for today! Another baby card which couldn't be more different from my last! This one much simpler and I was so pleased with it I made two! The first one a blue version was made to celebrate the arrival of my lovely crafty friend Lesley's grandson Charlie. I haven't met her daughter Jenna and her husband, but we all like to celebrate the joys of our lives with each other so I wanted to send them a card.

I stamped this Sugar Nellie Little Cotton Rabbit image onto watercolour paper. Now I know I often mention my love of rabbits and it was while I was surfing for rabbit related blogs I came across the blog of Julie Williams, the most talented knitter you can imagine. Julie knits these most perfect cotton rabbits and I can only dream of getting my mitts on one, because they are in such incredible demand she has to set up a lottery to choose the people who can buy them. So I have to satisfy my yearnings with a peek at Julie's lovely blog from time to time which you can find here! Julie knits as a way to unwind a little (if you will pardon the pun) from the pressures of being mum to a little boy with autism. She also supplies hand knitted gorgeousness to a number of shops. So I was delighted to find Sugar Nellie had made some of Julie's little rabbits into rubber stamps. Sadly I think these may now have been retired.

Anyway back to the card. I coloured the image with Coloursoft pencils and then cut it out and mounted it onto a kraft card blank. I added a sentiment from an unknown stamp, which I bought unmounted from E Bay. However, I think I have since see a Hero Arts version which is very similar. It is an image of a vintage pram and these are just the words from it. Obviously, the version I made for Charlie's arrival was in blue, while this was shades of pink.

Elaine x

Christmas cards!

I must confess to having a serious aversion to making Christmas cards early in the year. What I had perhaps underestimated was that having made most of the birthday cards for my family and friends this year, there would be more people expecting a handmade card. When I worked it out I thought I needed well over 20 - and I am not a fast card maker - oh dear!!! I needed to get my ideas in order!

Anyway, in the last 10 days or so I have got my act together and made a reasonable number. I never enjoy making a batch of the same design, so I have done a bit of a mix and match. Here are three of the design types I worked out.

First of all I used the lovely Sugar Nellie limited edition Cherub stamp. One version uses the hearts in the original design in a rather pink, girly version.

The blue design uses a little Elusive Images snowflake to adapt the design slightly, with a computer generated sentiment. 

Both versions have been coloured with Coloursoft pencils and highlighted with very fine glitter.

The next designs used some warm coloured backing papers from Websters Pages, K & Co and Bo Bunny. I used various Nestie shapes and stamped a Hero Arts sentiment and edged with stamps from an Artifacts set of fir branches. I finished off with this lovely green and cream gingham ribbon - my favourite of the year and a couple of Prima hydrangeas.

Finally, I used a snowy cottage stamp from Sleek Designs. Again, I used a Nestie shape to mount it and added a computer generated sentiment, backed onto Websters Pages and Basic Grey Wassail papers. This is a simple uncluttered design, but I felt it worked nicely. 

At least I have made a good start now. I need to make some more, but hope I can reach my target and get them in the post very soon, so as not to disgrace myself completely!!!!