18th Birthday card for my Niece

 I can't believe that my niece has reached her 18th birthday.  It doesn't seem that long that I got the news that she had been born whilst I was living in Australia.  I won't forget that day as I had just got back from taking my Father to hospital and was pleased to get some good news - and my Father made a full recovery.

I decided to make her a double easel card and wanted it to be large so used an A3 Sheet of card that I cut down.  I used two rubber stamps images from the Crafters Companion Frou Frou range and coloured them using Spectrum Noir Pens.  I stamped and coloured the tray to stand out more. 

The background was Core'dinations cardstock which was embossed with Spellbinders M-Bossabilities Garden Garden Lattice and the sentiment was made using Britannia dies.

Billy's Card

It seem to be the time of the year when I need to make quite a few male cards and this is the one that I made for my cousin. 

I always like to make him something special and this year decided on using some of the Stampscapes stamps that I had bought at Alexandra Palace in April.

I used Ranger Adirondack ink to stamp the sea, lighthouse, rocks and boat.  I used a mixture of 3 colours to get the variation (denim, eggplant and black) and then went over lightly with sailboat blue.

I then brayered the sky with lemonade and citrus ink using a mask over the lighthouse and boat and added the branches and birds to give depth.  The clouds were stamped with Sunset Orange, Cloudy Blue and Watermelon

I then added a sentiment from Making Cards for Men 2013 magazine which I mounted onto gunmetal mirri card and attached with a large brad and added the ribbon.  

I then mounted the card onto gunmetal mirri card and then onto a blue card to finish.

Jayne's Workshop

It has certainly been a busy last few weeks for me.  I had a 15 night holiday in Califonia staying in Anaheim and travelling to LA and San Diego for day trips.  What with standing in lines at Disney and stuck in traffic jams on the way to LA and San Diego, the holiday seemed to take it out of me.  I did managed to get to some craft shops though and found a great place in Tustin called Wooten's Scrapbooking that was recommended by Sue Wilson and it was fantastic.  I certainly did some damaged to my purse there as they had some lovely papers.  It was a good job I took an empty case with me so that I was able to fill it up with all my craft purchases.



Helene showing her techniques



I hardly recovered from the holiday and jet lag when I was getting back in the car to go to Jayne Nestorenko's workshop - and it just happened to be the day of the British Grand Prix - not a good day to be on the M1 - I got stuck in more traffic jams - it made me wonder if I was back in California!  What was even worse was it was such a nice day as well and I hoped I was not missing out on Summer!



Jayne explaining



It was well worth the time stuck in traffic though as the workshop was superb, as usual. 

Jayne had a new format for this on - we were split into two groups.  One group spent the morning with Jayne and the other group the morning with Helene.  In the afternoon we swopped over so each group did both projects.  It was good to catch up with everyone as it is really a great crowd that go on Jayne's workshops and new people are always made to feel welcome.

We were using one of Jayne's new Stamp sets which was based on Venetian Masks.  Although the same stamp set was used for both projects - they were both completely different and it definately felt crazy making a Christmas Card on a nice hot day. 

 

I was in the grioup that made  Jayne's project first and there was more choice with variation on this one.  We got to choose the colours that we wanted for the mask and for the background paper which we made.   

 

I also made mine slighty larger than most by leaving space at the edge that I could put my butterflies on rather than on the background paper.  I did not quite finish this at the workshop as I knew that I wanted to put the tears on and did not have them with me.  Although I did not think that I would like this card at first, I very quickly got to love it.

 

My next card was the Christmas one and I thought that Helene came up with a great idea for this and that it is really stunnig and different for a Christmas card.  I felt that it really captured the Snow Queen look and it is so much better than it looks on the photo.

 

Even though I was tired, this was a workshop that I was glad that I did not miss and it was nice to catch up with Pat.  You can see here the cards that she made at this workshop http://patscardmakingpassion.blogspot.com/2013/07/still-waiting-for-summer.html.