Project 33: Wedding place cards

I haven’t used this space to talk about weddings very much because I am not currently in the process of planning a wedding. Which is sad because I’m sort of obsessed. And by sort of I mean completely. Monstrously. 

Lucky for me our lovely friends are getting married this year and have asked me to help with some of the craft elements. We’re starting with place cards and then I’m going to thrust my services on the happy (but unlucky to have a pushy friend like me) couple for things like menus, orders of service, thank you notes, whatever.

My brief from the bride was very, well brief. “Flowers are yellow and white. Something simple/informal/pretty would be great” and the note concluded “I really appreciate your enthusiasm” which suggests she may be tired of my pestering already.

Hey ho, we’re only getting started!

So these are my ideas based on the brief of yellow and white and informal but pretty. The top option is one of my favourites, using a daisy corner punch with a knotted yellow ribbon. One could argue it’s symbolic of tying the knot but I just think knots are easier/nicer than bows. 

On the ribbon theme I did another one here with patterned paper and another knot, followed by one with a fully embossed card and an ivory bow.

Next up are the punch series – the first is a giant heart punch with three smaller flower punches that I’ve put on foam to pop out and glittered the centre for a blingy effect. The second one is a duplication of a spotty border punch that I’m obsessed with. Love to Martha and Michaels for providing this tool. I have the yellow card sticking up a bit but this isn’t essential.  Then the third is by far the easiest with a simple scallop punch featuring the table number. 

My embossed series are my favourites after the top option.  One used a border punch with a small punched flower with pearl bling and the other I embossed a larger section and used two layered flowers with a gem bling. I really think both of these meet the brief the best of simple/informal/pretty. 

Lastly (you thought I’d stopped ages ago right?) I did two tags. Tags are, like, all over wedding décor now. I tried, I don’t love them but I’ll see what the bride says.

Which option do you like? I’ll let you know which one gets chosen!  

ps Thank you to my friends who have unknowingly given their names to the cards.  I've chosen people that are invited to the wedding so I save myself of making that one card again. Lazy or clever, I'm not sure.

Project 32: More patterned papers

When we went back to the US, the primary purpose was Grandma’s birthday. Obviously. But we had another purpose, which was to fulfil the $20 challenge. 

Claire was also going to the US shortly after we were there and we agreed to do a challenge where we got craft supplies to the value of $20 for the other person. Weirdly we share a sense that people are more likely to be frugal with another person’s money than their own and therefore we knew that we’d get the best value.

Here is all of the great stuff Claire got me:

So much to play with! She knew I don’t buy much paper so I got some great coloured, patterned and glitter stock to try new punches. Some die-cut and chipboard shapes and birds and jubilee stamps and away we go!

She knew I’ve been getting into stamping recently and got me some really great quality ink pads in colours I don’t have. I had recently bought some larger, more complicated stamps that I decided to use to make big-patterned papers. My last foray into patterned papers was a good learning exercise in placement, spacing and color so hopefully the improvements are as clear to everyone else.

The headline shot is a mixture of a big text-filled bird and a tiny little bird stamp in the lime green. This is really sharp and I love it.

Some music paper I had previously was like gold dust I valued it so much so I got a big music-print stamp to reproduce using the turquoise ink from Claire. 

Next a mix of locks and keys (two stamps rather than one) in a pink I already had. 

Finally a mix of a scalloped shape bird stamp and the same tiny bird randomly overlapping in the maroon ink from Claire. I might have made it a bit busy but let me know what you think.

I know there will be more to come from these papers and collection from Claire, definitely keep in touch. Also – happy days – I’ve had over 1000 page visits! Thanks everyone! :) 

Project 31: 40s Fascinators

My friend Danu is getting married this year and for her Hen Night (Bachelorette Party for those of you back home) we decided to take her to a 1940s Blitz-themed club night in an old train tunnel that felt like an air-raid shelter. This sounds like it’s all rather bad taste but I assure you, it was very cool with a live swing band and everyone in war-time regalia. 

To help us all look the part my friend Han and I decided to make fascinators. First a trip to Primark to buy necklaces, brooches and hair ties with giant flowers that we could use as the feature for the headpieces. Next a trip to the fabric store to buy some netting in white, pink, purple and black. I wish I had taken photos at this stage but I was too excited to start playing with everything. 

We started with a piece for the bride that was a bit OTT and had a long veil. We wanted a looser, more open netting but this proved harder to find so we just got tutu style material. Some beaded cords and a little bit of bling and we had ourselves a bridal headdress.

The headline image on the ltop is the one that I wore – this flower actually came on a headband already so I left it on and added the silk rose as I had this on a brooch. The lace and beads hanging down were already attached to the rose. I’ve had this for years and never worn so I was stoked it finally had a purpose.

The rest were a bit more understated and I’m not sure how true-to-time they are. But I like them. Hannah and I worked out a few designs and then after she left I glued everything in place with a hot glue gun. I love my hot glue gun as it introduces a level of danger to my crafting. I redid all of the ones that had purple netting (which is why you don’t see any here) because I thought with the predominantly bright pink flowers they were looking very 80s and just a bit too modern. I replaced all of these with the black fabric which had tiny polka dots.

Finally just a few ones with the biggest flowers put on some netting in a bow fashion. I gave these to Danu’s home friends and I think they may have been the chicest ones in the lot. Maybe I’ll revisit this when the actual wedding comes round in August…

Project 30: Angry bird cards

Last post I promised some boy cards. I found this Angry Birds ribbon in Michael’s in America and used this as the inspiration for these cards. They could work for female fans as well, being a big believer that AB is one of the best waste-of-time activities out there, but I make so many female cards I’ll consider these very boy friendly. 

While this looks very simple, I tried to make it a bit more interesting by using multiple techniques. The one exception being the littlest blue birds which were cut out of cloud patterned paper and these were such a pain to cut out I did very little with them after that point. 

The big red birds were embossed with stripes on the thick card. I can’t use that embossing folder often because it’s really aggressive and tears the paper so it was nice to have a good stock to use it. When I ran out of that I switched to a reflective red paper. 

The yellow birds were cut out of plain paper and to add some texture I stamped “party” a few hundred times on the triangles in yellow ink. 

I tried an option adding little sequin eyes and some angry brows but decided against it for all the others – do you think it works?

Project 29: Border punch baby cards

 First, an apology for the lack of communication recently. We got back safely from the US and I’ve been busily crafting away to make up for lost times. I have two posts (including this one) from one day’s output which is exciting. 

I can tell you as well that even though it looks like I missed a week, I have another project that was completed in May that will make up the missing post but I didn’t have a chance to blog about it. Since I’m honest enough not to count that toward a June post, you’ll just have to come to the craft fair in Maidenhead this weekend to see what I did.

While in the US I picked up some Martha punches (hoping that Claire doesn’t have the same ones so we can share!) and put them to good use to make some baby cards for the craft fair.

The headline shot was probably my favourite neutral one – I made mostly gender-neutral cards as I’ve noticed a growing trend in people not finding out what gender their baby is until the birth. I guess it's a bit more towards the "boy" colour scheme but the small flower print balances this out.

A pretty pink one using pink and yellow spots .

A cute blue one with a button to play down the girliness of the flower. 

And two more neutral cards. I hope the flowers don't make them too girly, I was thinking they just added some interest more than anything. I love that kite pattern, I think it works for a baby card. I didn't put a ribbon down the middle like th others as I didn't want to lose any of the kites.

Some boy cards coming up next time..

Project 28: Birds for Mom

I know it's been ages since I've posted but I assure you it isn't because I'm not crafting away!

This post is coming from my parents' house as I did a massive production line of cards before I left for the States and then forgot* to blog about it.

Before I came home my mom said she was out of my cards so I decided to use this as an opportunity to play with the bird punch outs I created using Claire's punch. I did a few of the layout I posted previously for charity (birds on a line) but I wanted to try a few alternatives to see what else would work. Moms are great guinea pigs because even bad attempts are applauded.

The headline photo used the Jubilee papers I've referenced in the last few posts and is probably the most similar to the layout I've tried before.

Here are the other best outputs:

I rarely think in vertical cards, I always opt for landscape but I thought the border embossing folder would look good with these purple and green papers. I'm happy with this one, I think I'll try it with my other borders as well.

This one was probably my favourite use of papers as all three were from a set of scrapbooking papers I bought a year ago and haven't been using much recently. I like the wallpaper-looking paper in the background with the metallic-effect papers. 

This one uses papers I saved from a Victoria & Albert Museum guide - can't remember what the painting is but this is think it made some great bids. 

Finally some love birds. You can't see it very well in the photo but there is a lilac-coloured damask paper that the birds are sitting on and the ribbon has a nice sheen as well. Makes it seem a bit more grown-up as the floral blue papers here are a bit cutesy.

I have another post to go up from crafts I did on Sunday so hopefully I'll get that up before I come back from the States! 

*I didn't forget - I went out drinking with friends instead of blogging and then couldn't steal the time at work to draft the post. So here we are.

Project 27: Hypnotic toes

This post is about a project so simple, it took me less than 10 minutes.

I painted my toes today as I truly believe the London rain will eventually turn into a glorious summer. This could happen tomorrow or in 3 months time as we prepare for September. We all need to be honest about our expectations.

I painted a spiral on my big toes because I thought a flower was a bit twee and I don't think coloured or white tips looks that nice on my extraordinarily fat toes. I mean, look at them; they're huge.

Painting my toes is a HUGE deal as I had a ridiculously stupid accident in Paris last year that resulted in my big toenail completely coming off. I literally ran into my husband at speed wearing peeptoe shoes and the force caused it to come off. Dire and painful.

So after 8 and a half months I have something to paint! Bring on the sandals, come rain or shine!

I promise I'll do a real craft this week later to make up for the silliness of this one.

NB: My fingers are not the same shade of blue. Does this make me trampy?